Rewards Site Terms of Service: What to Include

What should a rewards site’s terms of service include?

A rewards site’s terms of service should cover who can join (age and location), one account per person, how points are earned and what they are worth, when rewards can be pending, held or reversed, the role of third-party offer providers and how to report a missing reward, banned behavior such as VPNs, bots and multi-accounting, what happens to a balance when an account closes, how you change the terms, your privacy policy, taxes, and how disputes are handled. Each should match what your site actually does.

This is a checklist of what to cover and why, not a template and not legal advice. Consumer law differs by country, and your users are often in many of them, so have a lawyer review the final text.

Why template terms fail on rewards sites

Most free templates are written for a shop or a SaaS app. They never mention a balance that looks like money but is not, rewards a third party can take back weeks later, or users farming the system with extra accounts. Without those sections, you have no clear basis for a hold or a reversal.

The opposite mistake is terms that give the site every right and the user none. Under the EU’s Unfair Contract Terms Directive (93/13/EEC), a standard term is unfair if, “contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer” (Article 3), and EU countries must make unfair terms not binding on the consumer (Article 6). The UK’s Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 62, says it directly: “An unfair term of a consumer contract is not binding on the consumer.”

US law works differently, but the FTC’s staff report Bringing Dark Patterns to Light (September 2022) lists “burying key limitations of the product or service in dense Terms of Service documents that consumers don’t see before purchase” as a dark pattern. On a rewards site, those limitations are holds, reversals, minimums and forfeiture.

Rewards site terms of service checklist

Each row is one section of your terms.

Eligibility, accounts and points

Eligibility and age

Set a minimum age at least as high as the strictest offer source on your site. Sharklio, for example, requires end users to be at least 16, with parental permission under 18. If your audience includes children under 13, offerwalls are usually the wrong tool; Offerwalls in kids’ apps and COPPA explains why.

One account per person

Write the rule you will enforce. A household or device limit catches more farms but also families and shared computers. The Microsoft Rewards section of the Microsoft Services Agreement (effective September 30, 2026) says: “You may open and use only one Rewards Account, even if you have multiple email addresses. Each household is limited to six Rewards Accounts.” For detection, Stop multi-accounting and VPN abuse covers the signals.

How points are earned and what they are worth

Explain that points are a promotional balance, not money, a deposit or the user’s property. Microsoft’s points cannot be cashed out at all: “Points are and remain at all times the property of Microsoft, and do not constitute your personal property; they have no cash value, and you may not obtain any cash or money in exchange for them.” A GPT site that pays cash cannot copy that, because it would contradict your cashout page. Say instead that points have no cash value until redeemed under your rules, and show the exchange rate where users earn.

Also say how existing balances are treated if the rate changes; How to set your virtual currency exchange rate explains why it rarely should.

Pending, holds, reversals and missing rewards

Users read this section most, usually after something went wrong. Separate the three states the way your balance screen does:

• Pending: the offer partner is still checking the result and may reject it.
• On hold: the reward is credited, and your hold period is running.
• Available: the reward can be redeemed.

Say plainly that an offer partner can reverse a reward after it is credited, for example after fraud, and that a reversed reward is removed from the balance even after it became available. Give the general hold lengths (“usually 2 to 7 days, longer for new accounts and large rewards”) rather than a fixed promise. Reward hold periods shows how to choose those lengths from your own reversal data.

Third-party offer providers

Say that offers come from third parties who decide completion under their own rules, and that you credit rewards only when the partner confirms them. Then describe the missing reward process: where to report, what to include, and how long a reply takes. Handling missing reward tickets covers the support side, and Offer not credited is a page for users.

Prohibited behavior: say it before you enforce it

List what leads to cancelled rewards or a closed account. “Any abuse” tells users nothing and is harder to defend. A typical list:

• Using a VPN, proxy, Tor or any tool that hides the user’s real location or device while earning.
• Bots, scripts, emulators or automation to complete offers, surveys or tasks.
• More than one account per person, using someone else’s details, or false survey answers.
• Referral abuse, such as referring your own accounts or spamming links. How to prevent referral fraud covers what to watch for.
• Charging back a purchase made for an offer, or selling accounts or balances.

Microsoft’s location rule is a specific example: “Use of a virtual private network (VPN) or other technology or service that can be used to mask or obfuscate your geographic location may result in cancellation of your Rewards Account and forfeiture of your accrued Points.” If users promote referral links, require them to disclose that they earn from sign-ups; Affiliate disclosure rules explains what the FTC expects.

Account closure and forfeiture rules that are fair

The EU directive’s Annex is an “indicative and non-exhaustive list” of terms that may be regarded as unfair. Three items map onto rewards sites: terms letting the business “dissolve the contract on a discretionary basis where the same facility is not granted to the consumer” (item f), terms letting it “terminate a contract of indeterminate duration without reasonable notice except where there are serious grounds for doing so” (item g), and terms letting it “alter the terms of the contract unilaterally without a valid reason which is specified in the contract” (item j).

Treat each closure case separately:

Microsoft states its inactivity rule up front: “Unredeemed Points associated with your Rewards Account expire if you do not earn or redeem any Points in your Rewards Account for 12 consecutive months.” And if the program itself ends, Microsoft says it will “make reasonable efforts to notify you by email and on the Rewards Dashboard and to provide you with at least 90 days to redeem your accrued Points, unless we determine that such cancellation must take effect immediately for legal or security reasons.” Quotes checked on October 22, 2026.

Changes, privacy, taxes and disputes

Changes to the terms

Say how you notify users (email and a dashboard notice), how much notice you give, and the valid reasons you may have, such as new laws or fraud patterns. For changes that hurt existing balances, either apply them only to points earned afterward or give users time to redeem first. Keep dated old versions and record which version each user accepted.

Privacy policy and data processors

Link a separate privacy policy that says what you collect, why, and which kinds of partners receive data: offerwall and survey partners, fraud prevention, payout providers, email and analytics. Offerwalls and GDPR lists what the policy needs when you add an offerwall, including using a pseudonymous user ID.

Taxes and identity checks

State that users are responsible for taxes on what they receive, and that you may ask for identity or tax details before a cashout. Never call rewards tax-free. If you pay US users, the IRS page About Form 1099-MISC lists prizes and awards among the payments that may have to be reported above a dollar threshold, so ask your accountant how your rewards are classified. KYC for rewards sites covers when identity checks make sense.

Disputes and governing law

Start with a support path and a stated reply time, then name the governing law and courts. Know the limits: Article 6(2) of the EU directive says consumers do not lose its protection just because the contract chooses the law of a non-EU country, if the contract has a close connection with EU territory. If your terms still link to the EU Online Dispute Resolution platform, remove the link: the European Commission’s consumer redress page says the platform “is discontinued as of 20 July 2025” (checked on October 22, 2026).

Plain-language summaries and where users see the rules

The EU directive requires written consumer terms to be “drafted in plain, intelligible language”, and adds: “Where there is doubt about the meaning of a term, the interpretation most favourable to the consumer shall prevail.” The UK’s Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 68, requires terms to be transparent: plain, intelligible and legible.

1. Put a short summary at the top of each section, in everyday words, above the full text. Keep both saying the same thing, because a gap between them is the kind of doubt read in the user’s favor.
2. Repeat the key rules where they matter. Show age and account rules at sign-up, a hold line on the earn page, minimums on the cashout page, and balance rules on the delete account screen. How to build an earn page that converts shows where a short rules line fits without hurting completions.

How to start a rewards website shows where terms fit in a launch, and Rewards site payout methods helps you write the cashout section.

Frequently asked questions