Terms of Service

You must be 18 or older and able to enter a binding contract. One account per person. Accounts are not transferable — a verified porch is verified for the person who stood on it, not for whoever holds the login.

Every listing is offered by the neighbor who published it. That producer, not Plut, is the seller of the food, and the sales contract is between the buyer and the producer. Plut provides the marketplace, the verification checks, the payment handling and the dispute process described below.

If you list food, you are responsible for complying with the cottage food, food safety and labeling laws that apply where you live, including any registration, permitting, allergen disclosure and annual sales limits. Plut tracks your annual sales against a configurable statutory cap and will surface advisories, require labeling disclaimers, and pause new orders at the cap — but the legal obligation is yours, and the tracker is a convenience rather than a compliance guarantee.

Perishable listings must carry an accurate expiry. Listings must describe what is actually being sold, at the quantity and price stated.

Plut is not responsible for ensuring seller compliance with state, local and federal laws. Sellers agree to obtain and maintain all necessary compliance requirements.

Producers can clear one of several checks to publish and receive orders — a GPS reading taken at the listed address, a match against carrier or utility records, or a government ID with a selfie. Any one is enough. The badge means a check cleared. It is not a food safety inspection, a license, an endorsement, or a guarantee about any particular listing.

Until an order is placed and a hold is on the buyer's card, a producer appears only as a generalized neighborhood sector. The exact address, driveway notes and porch instructions are revealed to the buyer in the order chat once that hold is in place, and only for that order. Passing a revealed address on to anyone else, or using it for anything other than that pickup, is a breach of these terms.

Pickup happens at the producer's porch inside the agreed window. Plut does not deliver, courier or transport anything.

When a buyer places an order, our payment provider places a hold on the buyer's card for the full order total: the item price, any sales tax and the Community Service Fee. A hold is an authorization, not a charge. No money moves when the order is placed, and Plut never holds a buyer's funds; the hold sits with the payment provider and the buyer's card issuer. The card is charged only when both sides confirm the pickup with the order's pickup code, or when the dispute process resolves in a way that calls for a charge. If the pickup code has been entered but one side never confirms, the order is closed and the card charged once 7 days have passed since the order was set out, unless a dispute is open.

Once the card is charged, the payment provider pays the producer. Plut retains a commission from producers on the Community plan — 5% at the time of writing, and adjustable by the operator — and none from producers with an active Elite subscription. The separately itemized Community Service Fee covers card processing cost.

If an order isn't picked up within 7 days of being set out — or within 7 days of the order if it's never set out — the hold is released and the buyer pays nothing. A card hold lasts about 7 days, so when the pickup window runs past it, the hold is renewed automatically; if a renewal fails, the buyer is asked to authorize the card again in the app.

Where the law treats Plut as a marketplace provider or marketplace facilitator, Plut calculates, collects and remits sales tax on taxable items sold through Plut on the producer's behalf — beginning with Texas, as Texas law requires. The tax is shown as its own line at checkout and added to the buyer's total. Plut sends it to the taxing authority; it is never part of a producer's sales, payout or commission, and it is never charged when a hold is released, and it is returned to the buyer with the rest of the payment when a charged order is refunded in full. Whether an item is taxed, and at what rate, depends on the item and on where the sale takes place. Producers tell Plut whether each listing is a food item and are responsible for that answer being accurate.

Producers link a payout account through the payment provider's own onboarding. Plut never sees or stores bank details, identity documents or tax forms submitted there.

A buyer may cancel an order any time before picking it up. The hold on the card is released and the buyer pays nothing, whether or not the producer has already set the order out. The same applies when the producer cancels. Where a card has already been charged, the order is refunded instead.

After pickup, raise a dispute in the order and an operator reviews the evidence and the full chat log. The operator may side with the buyer, in which case the hold is released or the charge is refunded; side with the producer, in which case the card is charged and the producer is paid; or split the outcome, in which case the card is charged and part of the charge is refunded.

No returns: it is food, and returned food is unsafe. An order that has been picked up cannot be returned or exchanged, and a producer is not required to take anything back. This applies to everything sold on Plut, food or not.

A buyer pays nothing, or is refunded, only where an order is cancelled before pickup as described above — including an order that is never collected — or where a dispute is decided in the buyer's favor. Nothing in this section limits a right you have under applicable law that cannot be waived.

Only the two parties to a completed order may review it. Each review stays hidden until the other side submits or 48 hours pass, then both publish together. Reviews must be your own honest account of that order.

Do not arrange payment outside Plut for an order found on Plut; a card that is charged only once the pickup is confirmed is the protection, and messages containing phone numbers, email addresses or off-platform payment prompts are blocked. Do not harass or abuse anyone. Do not list alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, live animals, prescription items, or anything you are not lawfully permitted to sell. Do not misrepresent your identity, your address, or what you are selling. Do not scrape, resell or republish other people's listings, posts or addresses.

Photos, listings, posts and comments stay yours. You grant Plut a non-exclusive license to host and display them for the purpose of operating the marketplace. Flagged content is masked immediately and reviewed by an operator, who may restore it or remove it.

You can delete your account at any time from the app's settings. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, fails verification, or puts other members at risk. Open orders, including any with a hold on the buyer's card, are settled through the dispute process rather than stranded.

Plut is provided as-is. We do not inspect food, kitchens or porches, and we make no warranty about the safety, quality, legality or fitness of anything listed. To the fullest extent the law allows, Plut LLC is not liable for indirect or consequential damages, and our total liability for any claim relating to an order is limited to the amount paid for that order.

Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.

We will post any material change to these terms here with a new effective date. Questions go to support@theplut.com.