Rostra

Terms of Use

Last updated: 31 July 2026

These terms cover the Rostra application and this website. By downloading or using Rostra you agree to them. They are written to be read — if anything is unclear, email us and we will explain it plainly.

1. Who you are dealing with

Rostra is published by Splendid Edge Systems, a registered sole proprietorship based in Ghana ("we", "us"). Rostra is a brand and product of Splendid Edge Systems.

Support: support@userostra.com
Phone: +233 55 997 0100 (Ghana) · +1 251 901 4675 (US)
We aim to answer support email within two business days.

2. These terms, and the other two documents

Three documents govern your relationship with us, and each has one job:

  • These Terms of Use — your purchase, our website, and everything that is not the software licence itself.
  • The End User Licence Agreement — what you may and may not do with the Rostra software.
  • The Privacy Policy — what we do and do not collect.

Together they form the entire agreement between us. Where these terms and the End User Licence Agreement conflict on the scope of your software licence, the licence agreement controls; on all other matters, these terms control.

3. Definitions

  • Software — the Rostra application for macOS and Windows, including the bundled speech model, voice packs, pronunciation data, engine and user interface.
  • Free version — the Software used without a valid licence key: a limited set of voices and unlimited offline reading, at no cost and for an unlimited time.
  • Pro — the features unlocked by a valid licence key, as described on the Pro page at the time of your purchase.
  • Licence key — the credential we issue on purchase that activates Pro.
  • Major version — a release whose first version number differs. All 1.x releases are one major version; 2.0 begins the next.
  • Device — a single computer that you own or control.

4. Your licence

Rostra is licensed, not sold. When you buy Rostra Pro you receive a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licence to use the software for your own personal or business purposes.

  • A Pro licence may be activated on up to three computers that you own or control.
  • You may not resell, sublicense, rent or redistribute Rostra or your licence key.
  • The free version may be used indefinitely at no cost, subject to these terms.
  • Your content is yours. We claim no rights in the text you convert or the audio you produce, and you may use that audio for any lawful purpose, personal or commercial.

The full scope of the licence — including the restrictions in section 6 — is set out in the End User Licence Agreement, which accompanies the software and which you accept when you install it.

5. Intellectual property and ownership

The Software is owned by Splendid Edge Systems and is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. We retain all right, title and interest in and to it, including its code, engine, user interface, design, text-normalisation and prosody work, voice naming, icons, documentation, and the content of this website — except for the third-party and upstream components identified in section 11, which carry their own licences.

"Rostra" and "Splendid Edge Systems" are our trademarks. These terms grant you no right to use our names, logos or trademarks.

Nothing here transfers ownership. Any rights not expressly granted are reserved.

6. Restrictions

Except as we expressly permit, you may not:

  • copy, publish, redistribute, resell, rent, lease, lend, sublicense or otherwise transfer the Software or any part of it;
  • share, publish, resell or transfer your licence key, or use it on more computers than section 4 permits;
  • reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, decrypt, extract, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code, algorithms, model weights or internal structure of the Software;
  • modify, adapt, translate or create derivative works of the Software;
  • circumvent, disable or interfere with any licensing, activation or protection mechanism;
  • remove, obscure or alter any copyright, trademark, attribution or other proprietary notice; or
  • use the Software to build a competing product, or to train a machine learning model on its outputs for that purpose.

What this section does not take away. Nothing here limits any right you have that cannot be limited by agreement under the law that applies to you. In particular, if you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, nothing here restricts your rights to observe, study, test or decompile the Software to the extent permitted by Articles 5 and 6 of Directive 2009/24/EC or its national implementations. Nothing here applies to the components listed in section 11 — where their licences grant you rights, you have them.

7. What you get, and what we may change

The free version includes a limited set of voices and unlimited offline reading. Rostra Pro unlocks the full voice library and additional features described on the Pro page at the time of your purchase.

All updates within your major version (for example, all 1.x releases) are included at no extra cost. A future major version may be an optional paid upgrade. We will not remove features you have already paid for.

8. Refund policy

We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. If Rostra Pro is not right for you for any reason, email support@userostra.com within 30 days of your purchase and we will refund you in full. You do not need to justify the request.

Refunds are returned via the original payment method through Paddle, our payment provider. Once a purchase is refunded, the associated licence stops being valid and the Pro features return to the free tier.

9. Licence keys and revocation

We may deactivate or revoke a licence key where:

  • the purchase was refunded, reversed or charged back;
  • the key is being shared, resold or used beyond the permitted number of computers; or
  • the purchase was fraudulent.

Outside those cases, a licence you have paid for is yours to keep. We will not revoke a licence to force an upgrade.

10. Payments and taxes

Purchases are processed by Paddle acting as merchant of record. Paddle handles billing, invoicing and applicable sales tax or VAT, and their buyer terms apply to the transaction. We never see or store your card details. Price changes do not affect purchases already completed.

11. Third-party and upstream components

Rostra includes components owned by others, under their own licences. Those licences are not restricted by these terms, and where they grant you rights, you have them. They include portions derived from Orator (MIT, © 2024 Niranjan Akella), the Kokoro speech model and voice packs (Apache 2.0), misaki pronunciation lexicons (Apache 2.0), eSpeak NG (GPL-3.0, used as a separate command-line program, with a written offer of its source), and ONNX Runtime and other bundled runtime dependencies.

The complete attributions and licence texts ship with the application — on macOS in Rostra.app/Contents/Resources/Legal/, on Windows in the Licenses folder of the install directory.

12. Availability and warranty

Rostra is provided "as is" and "as available". We work hard to make it reliable, but to the extent permitted by law we do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted or error-free, that defects will be corrected, that it will be secure, or that the synthesised speech will be accurate, correctly pronounced, or suitable for any particular purpose. You are responsible for making your own backups of any audio you export. If you are a consumer, this does not affect your statutory rights.

13. Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, our total liability arising from your use of Rostra is limited to the amount you actually paid for it. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for lost profits, lost revenue, or lost or corrupted data. Nothing here excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded — including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud — and if you are a consumer, your statutory rights are unaffected.

14. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Splendid Edge Systems and its proprietor against any claim, loss, liability and reasonable legal cost arising out of your use of Rostra in breach of these terms or in breach of any law, or arising out of the text you convert or the audio you produce. This does not apply to the extent the claim arises from our own breach, negligence or wrongdoing, and if you are a consumer it applies only to the extent permitted by the law that applies to you.

15. Acceptable use

You are responsible for the text you convert to speech and for how you use the audio, and you confirm you hold the rights necessary for the text you select. Do not use Rostra to infringe copyright, to impersonate a real person or create audio presented as a real person's genuine speech, or for anything unlawful.

16. Termination and perpetual fallback

Your licence terminates automatically if you materially breach section 6. On termination for breach, you must stop using the Software and delete all copies of it.

Perpetual fallback. Termination for any reason other than your breach — and any change to our products, pricing, terms, or availability — does not revoke your right to keep using the major version you lawfully purchased, on the terms under which you purchased it.

Sections 3, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18 and 19 survive termination.

17. Export and sanctions

You confirm that you are not located in, and are not a national of or ordinarily resident in, a country subject to a comprehensive trade embargo, and that you are not on any restricted or denied-parties list. You agree not to use or transfer Rostra in breach of any applicable export control or sanctions law.

18. Governing law and venue

These terms are governed by the laws of Ghana, without regard to their conflict-of-laws rules, and the courts of Ghana have jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of them.

If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory laws of your country of residence, and it does not remove any right you have to bring proceedings in the courts of that country.

19. General

  • Capacity. You must be at least 18, or the age of majority where you live, to agree to these terms. If you accept on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you have authority to bind it.
  • Entire agreement. These terms, the licence agreement and the Privacy Policy supersede any prior agreement or understanding on their subject matter.
  • Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is limited or severed to the minimum extent necessary and the rest remains in force.
  • No waiver. A failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it.
  • Assignment. You may not assign these terms without our consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets.
  • Notices. We may communicate with you electronically, including by email to the address associated with your purchase.

20. Changes

We may update these terms; the date at the top shows when they last changed. Changes are not retroactive — the terms you agreed to when you bought a licence continue to govern that purchase.

Contact

Splendid Edge Systems
support@userostra.com
+233 55 997 0100 (Ghana) · +1 251 901 4675 (US)