Effective date: September 30, 2026
Last updated: October 13, 2026
Company: SauceApproved enterprise LLC
SauceApproved Studio Founding Pilot Access — Terms
Contracting entity: SauceApproved enterprise LLC
Product: SauceApproved Studio — Founding Pilot Access
Commercial model: one-time early-access purchase
1. Product
SauceApproved Studio Founding Pilot Access provides private early access to the hosted SauceApproved Studio experience and the Hercules-powered creative workflows enabled for the customer's entitlement.
The founding-pilot entitlement may include:
- Hercules Director project planning and production workflow;
- storyboard and scene-building workflows;
- reference and continuity planning;
- timeline and assembly workflows;
- benchmark Hercules Video rendering where available;
- artifact, evidence, and render-fingerprint features;
- founding-pilot product updates that SauceApproved expressly designates as included.
The Founding Pilot is pre-production early access. It is not a promise that every planned feature, production renderer, provider, output format, performance target, or future paid add-on is available on the purchase date.
2. One-time price
The purchase price is US $99 one time.
This purchase does not automatically renew and does not create a monthly subscription.
The separate SauceApproved Studio Starter, Pro, and Business subscription catalog is a different commercial offer and is not included or automatically activated by this purchase.
Taxes may be added where required by law.
3. Delivery and activation
Access is delivered through a protected SauceApproved entitlement after a successful verified Shopify payment.
The customer must use the same email address used at Shopify checkout when activating Founding Pilot access.
Delivery commitment: automated access should become claimable after confirmed payment. If automated provisioning does not complete, SauceApproved will provide or restore access within one business day after the customer contacts smallzshon@gmail.com and the purchase is verified.
A receipt, screenshot, or customer-supplied order number by itself is not sufficient entitlement evidence. Hercules uses verified Shopify order facts and the protected entitlement ledger.
4. Founding-pilot limitations
The current Hercules benchmark renderer is a benchmark path, not a representation that production-grade 1080p/4K capacity, long-form rendering, advanced editing, performance capture, native audio, or every roadmap feature is already certified for production use.
Provider-dependent features remain unavailable when the required provider is not connected or authorized. SauceApproved does not represent a blocked provider action as completed.
5. SoundWorld launch gift
If this purchase occurs during the separately defined first-14-calendar-day Hercules paid-launch gift window and otherwise qualifies under the SoundWorld launch-gift rules, the customer may reserve one $0 SoundWorld gift from the available choices: SoundWorld Pods, SoundWorld Max, or a SoundWorld Portable Speaker.
SoundWorld hardware is pre-production. A qualifying purchase creates a gift reservation, not an immediate shipment guarantee. Physical fulfillment occurs only after production and fulfillment availability.
Internal verification purchases, test charges, refunded verification transactions, fraudulent transactions, and non-qualifying purchases do not create gift eligibility.
The promotional gift has no separate cash redemption right unless required by applicable law. Any shipping information later needed for physical fulfillment must be collected through an approved fulfillment flow.
6. Refunds and cancellation
Because the Founding Pilot is a one-time purchase, there is no recurring subscription to cancel.
A customer may request a refund within 7 calendar days of purchase.
SauceApproved may deny a discretionary refund where there is evidence of fraud, abusive use, chargeback abuse, or material misuse, except where applicable law requires another result.
A duplicate charge, a confirmed unauthorized charge, or SauceApproved's failure to provide access within the delivery commitment remains eligible for correction or refund as required by applicable law and the payment-provider process.
After the 7-day window, fees are non-refundable except where required by law, expressly promised in writing, or needed to correct a verified billing or delivery error.
A refunded or reversed purchase may terminate the associated Founding Pilot entitlement and any unfulfilled promotional-gift eligibility, except where applicable law requires another result.
7. Customer use
Customers may use Studio for lawful creator, business, development, research, production-planning, and internal work.
Customers are responsible for the legality, permissions, licenses, consents, and rights associated with content, data, prompts, products, trademarks, likenesses, voices, media, or other material they provide.
Studio must not be used for unlawful, deceptive, infringing, abusive, fraudulent, unauthorized, or security-bypassing activity.
8. AI-assisted output
Studio may use automated or AI-assisted systems to generate, transform, route, analyze, assemble, or summarize content.
Output may be incomplete, inaccurate, unsuitable, or similar to output generated for others. Customers must review output before publication, financial action, legal action, safety-critical use, or other consequential use.
SauceApproved does not guarantee sales, revenue, audience response, platform acceptance, creative performance, or other business outcomes.
9. Customer content and intellectual property
Customers retain their rights in material they provide.
Customers grant SauceApproved enterprise LLC the limited rights necessary to host, process, transform, transmit, secure, back up, and otherwise handle customer content to provide and protect Studio, subject to the Privacy Policy and applicable law.
This purchase provides access to the hosted pilot. It does not transfer SauceApproved/Hercules source code, model weights, trademarks, trade dress, proprietary workflows, or other SauceApproved intellectual property.
10. Third-party services
Studio may use approved infrastructure, AI, payment, hosting, storage, analytics, fulfillment, or processing providers.
Third-party services remain subject to their own terms, technical limits, availability, and data practices. SauceApproved does not represent a third-party action as successful until required verification evidence exists.
11. Security and availability
SauceApproved uses technical and operational controls intended to reduce risk, including authentication, authorization, release controls, audit evidence, monitoring, fail-closed execution, and recovery systems.
No online service can guarantee absolute security or uninterrupted availability. No uptime or service-level guarantee applies unless stated in a separate signed agreement.
12. Suspension and termination
SauceApproved may suspend or terminate access for material breach, unlawful use, security risk, fraud, nonpayment, infringement risk, or conduct that threatens the service or third parties, subject to applicable law and any signed agreement.
13. Disclaimers
To the extent permitted by law, the Founding Pilot is provided on an "as available" and pre-production basis without warranties not expressly stated in a signed agreement.
SauceApproved does not warrant uninterrupted operation, error-free output, accuracy of every AI-assisted result, business outcomes, or uninterrupted availability of third-party providers.
14. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, SauceApproved enterprise LLC will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or lost profits, revenues, goodwill, business opportunity, or data, arising from the Founding Pilot.
Except for liabilities that cannot lawfully be limited, SauceApproved enterprise LLC's aggregate liability arising from the Founding Pilot will not exceed the amount paid by the affected customer for the Founding Pilot, with a fallback cap of US $100 where no fee was paid.
15. Governing law and disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Connecticut, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except where applicable law requires otherwise.
Unless a signed agreement or applicable law requires another venue, disputes relating to the Founding Pilot will be brought in a state or federal court with jurisdiction in Connecticut.
These Terms do not require mandatory arbitration or a class-action waiver.
16. Changes and contact
The effective date appears above. Material changes will be posted on this page with an updated date and communicated through the customer contact information available to SauceApproved where required by applicable law.
For support, billing, privacy, or legal requests, contact smallzshon@gmail.com or use our contact form.