What you agree to when you run a business on EMPIRE — in plain language, before you check out.
This page explains, in plain language, the responsibilities you take on when you use EMPIRE to build and run a business online. It's a summary of terms you agree to when you sign up — please read it before you check out.
You must be at least 18 years old (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction, if higher) to purchase a plan, register a domain, or operate a site through EMPIRE. By checking out, you're confirming you meet this requirement.
EMPIRE (operated by CryptCode LLC) provides website, storefront, and domain tooling. It does not form a business on your behalf, and it is not a law firm, accountant, or business formation service. You are solely responsible for determining what licenses, registrations, permits, tax filings, or legal business structure (such as an LLC, sole proprietorship, or corporation) your business needs in your city, state, and country — and for actually obtaining them before you begin selling or operating.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, CryptCode LLC and EMPIRE are not liable for any claim, dispute, lawsuit, fine, tax liability, or other legal issue that arises from the business you operate on the platform, including but not limited to claims related to unlicensed business activity, product liability, consumer protection, employment, intellectual property, or tax compliance. You agree to indemnify and hold CryptCode LLC harmless from any such claims arising out of your use of the platform.
Checkout, subscriptions, and any customer payments processed through your store are handled by Stripe. CryptCode LLC does not hold or take custody of your funds; Stripe pays out directly to your connected bank account, subject to Stripe's own terms.
You're responsible for the content, products, and services you list on your site. Don't publish anything illegal, infringing, or that you don't have the rights to use.
Some things get a site removed immediately, without warning. Sites hosted on EMPIRE may not:
How removal works. Anyone can report a site to us at empiresitebuilder.com/abuse.html or on 402-206-4827. A person reviews every report. Reports of phishing and malware are prioritised over everything else and acted on the same day wherever we can.
A site removed for abuse is taken offline immediately and returns a removal notice to visitors. It cannot be restored by its owner, and no refund is due for the remainder of a billing period ended this way. If you believe your site was removed in error, call or text 402-206-4827 — a human will look at it again, and we will restore it if we got it wrong.
Why we are strict about this. Sites on the free and trial tiers are served from subdomains of our own domain. One phishing page there gets every EMPIRE customer's site flagged by spam filters and browser blocklists, because those systems see a single domain. Abuse here damages people who did nothing wrong, which is why there is no warning step for it.
For a security vulnerability in the platform itself, rather than a site hosted on it, see our security contact. We will not pursue legal action against anyone who reports a security problem in good faith.
This section applies if you enable dropshipping or connect a print-on-demand or supplier account to your store. You accept it in your dashboard before dropshipping can be switched on, and that acceptance is recorded with the date.
You pay the supplier. Every supplier invoice, product cost, shipping charge, customs duty, and import tax arising from your store is yours. CryptCode LLC does not front these costs and does not become liable for them at any point, including where a supplier bills us and we pass the cost on.
You are the seller of record. Your customer's contract is with you, not with CryptCode LLC and not with the supplier. Refunds, returns, chargebacks, late or failed deliveries, and customer service are your responsibility to resolve.
You are responsible for what you sell. This includes product safety, labelling, age restrictions, licensing, intellectual property, and consumer protection law in every country you ship to. Listing counterfeit or infringing goods is grounds for suspension of your store.
You handle tax. Sales tax, VAT, GST, and any registration thresholds in the jurisdictions you sell into are yours to determine, collect, and remit.
EMPIRE is the platform, not the merchant. CryptCode LLC hosts your store and transmits orders to the supplier you selected. We do not inspect, stock, endorse, or guarantee any product, and we are not liable for a supplier's acts or omissions — including stock failures, quality defects, shipping delays, incorrect fulfilment, or a supplier ceasing trading.
Suppliers can and do fail. Stock runs out, APIs break, couriers lose parcels. You should account for this in your pricing and in the promises you make to your customers.
Nothing in this section limits any right you have that cannot lawfully be excluded.
The trial is 14 days, once per person. A new site is live and fully usable for 14 days without a card. To keep it online after that, you subscribe to a plan. The free period is available once per email address — including aliases of the same mailbox — and taking a second one by signing up again is not possible. If you believe you have been blocked in error, call or text 402-206-4827 and we will sort it out.
If you don't subscribe, the site stops serving. It is not deleted at that moment. Your content — design, pages, products, posts, orders and uploads — is retained for a further 30 days, during which you can subscribe to bring it straight back, or export the whole site from your dashboard and take it elsewhere. The export is a file you keep, and it is available for the entire 30 days.
After that 30-day window the site and its content are deleted permanently. We cannot recover a site once this has happened. Your dashboard shows the exact date throughout, and we email you before the trial ends and again after it lapses.
Subscribing at any point stops the clock. Paying during the trial does not shorten it — you keep the remainder of the free period as well. Paying during the 30-day window restores the site and clears the deletion date.
If you cancel a paid plan, your site stays online for the period you have already paid for. When that period ends, the same 30-day retention window applies before anything is deleted.
Your domain is separate. A domain registered in your name remains yours regardless of what happens to the site, and is not affected by any of the above. See domain ownership.
Deletion for cause. We may suspend or remove a site that breaks section 5 or section 6 above without waiting for these periods. Where we reasonably can, we will tell you first and give you a chance to export.
This one costs you money if you ignore it, so it is stated plainly rather than buried.
Some CryptCode LLC services — custom build work, managed setups, and anything quoted and agreed individually rather than bought off a plan page — need you to answer questions as the work goes on. We cannot finish a website without decisions from the person whose website it is.
If we cannot reach you for 45 consecutive days, the engagement is treated as abandoned and closed. That means the agreement ends, any work already paid for is not refunded, and we stop holding time for the project. Starting again later means starting a new agreement.
What counts as reaching you. A reply to an email, a returned call or text on 402-206-4827, or a message through your dashboard. One reply resets the 45 days. You do not have to make a decision — you only have to answer.
What we do before that happens. We contact you at least three times, on at least two different channels, and the final message says explicitly that the project will be closed and states the date. If you tell us you need longer — illness, travel, waiting on your own supplier, anything — say so in writing and we will agree a new date. We have never refused one.
What this does not apply to. Ordinary subscription plans, which are governed by section 7 above: if you stop paying, your site stops serving and your content is kept for 30 days. Nothing about your monthly plan is affected by this clause, and your domain remains yours in every case.
If you are ever unsure whether this applies to something you have bought, call 402-206-4827 and ask. We would rather tell you for free than enforce a clause you did not know about.
Ultimate ($65/month) includes everything on Dynasty plus two things we do by hand. Because they are work rather than software, this section says exactly what they are, so neither of us has to remember.
One written post per calendar month. While you are subscribed, we write and publish one post about your business on empiresitebuilder.com each calendar month. We write it; you see it and approve it before it goes live; nothing is published about your business without your say-so. It stays up while you are subscribed, and we will not quietly take it down if you cancel — but we may unpublish posts for businesses that are no longer trading, on request or on our own judgement.
Your banner in rotation. Your ad runs in the rotation on the main EMPIRE site for as long as you are on the plan. Rotation means shared placement, not a permanent slot on every page, and we do not promise any particular number of views or clicks — anyone who does is guessing.
If we miss a month, you do not pay for it. If a calendar month ends and we have not published your post, that month is credited back to you automatically. You do not have to ask, and you do not have to notice. If we miss two consecutive months you may cancel Ultimate and receive both months back in full.
What could delay it. If we ask you for information or approval and do not hear back, that month's post is paused rather than missed, and the credit above does not apply until you reply. This is the same principle as section 8: we cannot write about your business without you.
What we will not write. We will not publish claims we cannot verify, comparisons naming other companies, or anything unlawful or misleading. If we think something you have asked for would harm your business or ours, we will say so and offer an alternative rather than publish it.
We may update these terms from time to time. Material changes will be reflected here with an updated date. Where a change materially affects the dropshipping terms above, you will be asked to accept the new version in your dashboard before continuing.
Contact us: Call/Text 402-206-4827.
This page is a plain-language summary provided for convenience and does not constitute legal advice. If you need a legally binding Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, or liability waiver tailored to your jurisdiction, consult a licensed attorney.