Terms of Service

Version 1.0 · as of 7 September 2026

1. Scope and provider

(a) These terms and conditions govern the use of patchletter.com: the publicly accessible catalog, the plans of the notification service — the free plan and patchletter Pro — and the vendor presence.

(b) The provider is patchletter UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Meisterweg 16, 45896 Gelsenkirchen, Germany (“we”). Contact: hello@patchletter.com, for legal matters legal@patchletter.com.

(c) Your own terms and conditions do not become part of the contract, even if we do not expressly object to them. Individual agreements in text form take precedence over these terms.

(d) The free plan is open to everyone, private individuals included. The paid offerings are aimed exclusively at businesses, public authorities and other public bodies (section 4).

2. The service and its plans

(a) Plans. The notification service is offered in a free plan and in the paid plan patchletter Pro (section 5). The free plan covers notifications about new versions. Alert emails about vulnerabilities and about end-of-life dates, as well as the flagging of security-relevant releases — both in the notification and as a filter in the account — are part of patchletter Pro.

(b) Free plan. The free plan comprises an account, the selection of products from the catalog and notifications about new versions of the selected products — immediately, as a daily digest or as a weekly digest. The catalog and the product pages are accessible without an account, including the security and end-of-life information shown there.

(c) Data basis. In both plans the version, security and end-of-life information is compiled automatically from the vendors' public sources and reproduced on a best-effort basis — without warranty for completeness, accuracy or timeliness. The service replaces neither the customer's own patch and vulnerability management nor checking the vendor's statements in the individual case. This paragraph describes the nature of the data; liability is governed by section 10.

(d) Development. In the free plan there is no claim to the inclusion of particular products, to individual features or to uninterrupted operation, unless we have expressly promised otherwise to individual accounts. We may develop it further, limit it or discontinue it. Section 12 (c) applies to changes.

3. Account and sign-in

(a) Notifications require an account. The only mandatory detail is your email address; sign-in takes place without a password, via a login link.

(b) Your details must be accurate. The account is intended for you or for the organisation letting you use it; access must not be passed on to third parties outside your organisation.

(c) In the event of abuse — in particular attempts to disrupt the service, to circumvent protective measures or to inject malicious code — we may suspend the account, after notice or, for severe violations, immediately.

(d) You can delete your account yourself at any time in the dashboard; notifications end with the deletion. If a paid contract is running, the deletion counts as a cancellation effective at the end of the current billing period, and we confirm it in accordance with section 5 (c). If the organisation has other active members, ownership passes to one of them.

4. Paid offerings: contract formation, prices, payment

(a) Businesses only. Our paid offerings are aimed exclusively at entrepreneurs within the meaning of § 14 of the German Civil Code (BGB), at public authorities and other public bodies. By ordering you confirm that you are acting in that capacity. There is therefore no consumer right of withdrawal.

(b) Contract formation. Presenting our offerings on the website is not a binding offer. The contract is formed when we confirm your order in text form or activate the service — whichever happens first. For the vendor presence, an exchange of order and order confirmation or invoice by email is sufficient.

(c) Prices. The prices shown at the time of ordering or stated in the offer apply. All prices are net of statutory VAT. For services to businesses in other EU member states with a valid VAT ID, the reverse-charge procedure applies.

(d) Payment. Payment is made through our payment provider using the methods offered at checkout. Payment by invoice (bank transfer, due within 14 days) is available only where it is offered at checkout. Invoices are issued as PDF.

(e) Payment default. If a payment fails or an invoice remains unpaid, we send several reminders. After that we may suspend the paid service or downgrade the account to the free plan; the selection of products, the team and the settings are retained. Statutory rights arising from payment default remain unaffected.

(f) Invoices. Invoices remain available in your account; we retain them for as long as § 147 of the German Fiscal Code (AO) requires.

5. patchletter Pro: term and cancellation

(a) Service. patchletter Pro comprises the scope of the free plan (section 2 (b)) and, in addition, in particular the alert emails on vulnerabilities and on end-of-life dates, immediate delivery of those alerts, the flagging of security-relevant releases in the notification and as a filter in the account, additional channels, team seats and distribution addresses. The service description shown at the time of ordering sets out the scope in detail; it forms part of the contract. What is paid for is delivery; access to the information on the catalog and product pages does not require a paid plan (section 2 (b)).

(b) Term. The monthly subscription renews by one month at a time and can be cancelled at any time effective at the end of the current billing period. The annual subscription runs for twelve months at first; after that it continues indefinitely and can be cancelled monthly.

(c) Cancellation. Cancellation is made in the account or in text form by email to kuendigung@patchletter.com. We confirm it in text form, stating the end date. Until the end of the period already paid for, the scope of the service remains unchanged.

(d) After the end. The account continues on the free plan: update notifications yes; alerts on vulnerabilities and on end-of-life dates no, and the notification no longer flags whether a release closes vulnerabilities. The selection of products, the team and the settings are retained.

(e) Both parties' right to terminate for cause remains unaffected.

6. Vendor presence

(a) Subject matter. The vendor presence comprises marking the vendor as verified and displaying its logo, official links and its own announcements (for instance on major version jumps and end-of-life dates) on a specific product page. The contract is concluded per product page; price and scope follow from the vendors page or the individual offer.

(b) Labelling. The presence is labelled as a paid presence.

(c) Editorial independence. The presence has no influence on sorting, search results, categories, the recorded version and security data, or on which products we include or keep. There is no claim to such influence.

(d) Your content. You warrant that you hold the necessary rights to the logos, texts and link targets you provide, and you indemnify us against third-party claims based on that content. Announcements must relate to the product and must not mislead; we may reject or remove content that violates this or is unlawful.

(e) Switching off. We may switch the presence off at any time. If the reason is not a violation of these terms on your part, we refund the fee pro rata from the day of the switch-off; section 10 applies in all other respects.

(f) Term. The contract runs monthly, without a minimum term, and either party may cancel at any time effective at the end of the billing month.

7. Customer references

(a) We may name your company, with name and logo, as a reference — on our website including the homepage, and in our own materials presenting patchletter. This applies while your company purchases a paid offering (patchletter Pro or the vendor presence).

(b) The mention is made with name and unaltered logo, in a presentation that does not express a partnership or endorsement going beyond the customer relationship. Quotes, case studies and press releases require a separate agreement.

(c) You may object to the mention at any time, without giving reasons, in text form (hello@patchletter.com or legal@patchletter.com). We remove the mention from the website within 14 days and from other materials with the next revision.

(d) Where your company only uses patchletter free of charge, we name it only with prior consent in text form; the consent can be revoked at any time with effect for the future.

8. Content, rights, trademarks

(a) You may use and share our content — the compilation, texts and design — for your own purposes, business purposes included. For automated access, the API and the published notes for crawlers are available. Interfering with the operation of the service and adopting our content essentially unchanged into a competing offering of your own are not permitted.

(b) All product names, logos and trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners; they are named solely for identification. Rights holders can reach us at legal@patchletter.com; affected logos are removed within 48 hours.

9. Availability

The operational state of patchletter can be viewed at any time at status.patchletter.com. We do not owe a particular level of availability; maintenance, updates and incidents can lead to interruptions. Statutory rights in the event of faults in paid services remain unaffected.

10. Liability

(a) We are liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for damage arising from injury to life, body or health, under the German Product Liability Act, in the case of fraudulent intent, and to the extent of any guarantee we have given.

(b) For paid services, in cases of simple negligence we are liable only for the breach of an obligation whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance you may regularly rely — and then limited to the damage typical for the contract and foreseeable at its conclusion.

(d) patchletter reproduces automatically compiled vendor information (section 2 (c)). The decision on the selection, timing and execution of updates lies with the customer. For a missed, delayed or incorrect notification, paragraphs (a) to (c) of this section apply.

11. Data protection and data processing

The handling of personal data is set out in the privacy policy; the email address is the only mandatory piece of personal data. For patchletter Pro, our data processing agreement forms part of the contract; it is concluded without a separate order and at no additional charge.

12. Changes to these terms

(a) We may adapt these terms with effect for the future if there is a valid reason — such as a change in the law, new case law or new features — and the adaptation does not unreasonably disadvantage you.

(b) For ongoing paid contracts we announce changes in text form at least six weeks before they take effect. If you do not object by the time they take effect, the new version applies; we point this consequence out expressly in the announcement. Changes to the core of the service or to the ratio of price and service are made only with your express consent. If you object, the contract continues on the previous terms, and either party may terminate at the next possible date.

(c) For the free plan, publishing the new version on this page with its date is sufficient; we inform registered users about material changes by email. The same applies to a change to the scope of the free plan and to its discontinuation under section 2 (d); we inform registered users about that by email before it takes effect.

13. Final provisions

(a) German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

(b) If you are a merchant, a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law, the exclusive place of jurisdiction is our registered office.

(d) We are neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

(e) Should a provision be invalid, these terms otherwise remain in force.