Terms of Service

By creating an account on, or otherwise using, Pageant Post (the "Service"), you agree to these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree, do not use the Service. The Service is operated by Pageant Post, based in Tennessee, United States.

You must be at least 18 years old and a U.S. resident to create an account, whether you direct a pageant, enter one, judge, or list as a vendor, or to purchase votes. The Service is available only in the United States at this time.

A Director who creates an account agrees to:

• Accurately represent the pageant they are hosting.
• Obtain written parental or guardian consent for any contestant who is a minor, prior to listing the contestant's name or photograph.
• Provide tax identification (SSN or EIN) and address information before receiving any payout. Earnings may be subject to 1099-K reporting.
• Refrain from uploading any content that is sexually explicit, exploitative, harassing, hateful, infringes intellectual property, or violates any law.

A Director may invite other people to help run their pageants, for one pageant or for all of them. The Director chooses what each person may do, which can include running the pageant, building pageants for the Director, using the Director's contact book, and seeing the pageant's money: registrations, amounts owed, payouts and payment disputes.

• Only the Director can issue refunds, respond to payment disputes, or change where payouts are sent. No one the Director invites can do these things.
• The Director is responsible for the people they invite and for what those people do with the access they were given.
• A Director may remove anyone's access at any time, and it ends immediately. A person who is invited may decline.
• A person who helps a Director does not own that Director's pageants, contacts or money, and gains no rights in them.

A Director may offer a pageant to another Director. The transfer happens only when the receiving Director accepts it while signed in with the email address it was sent to.

• A transfer may include the pageant's payouts, in which case the receiving Director must connect a payout account first, and money from that point on is paid to them. Without payouts, money continues to go to the Director who sent it.
• A pageant that has never had a registration or payment may be handed to a Director who asked a helper to build it for them. It still moves only when that Director accepts.
• After a transfer that includes payouts, the receiving Director handles the pageant's refunds and payment disputes, including those on payments made before the transfer. Payouts already sent before the transfer are not moved.

An organization on the Service, such as a pageant system, may list pageants that are affiliated with it. A pageant joins an organization only when its Director asks or agrees.

• Affiliation is not ownership. An organization cannot take, edit or close an affiliated pageant, and cannot see its registrations, contact book or money because of the affiliation.
• An organization may end or suspend an affiliation under its own rules. Either side may end it at any time.
• Rules an organization sets for its pageants are between the organization and its Directors. Pageant Post does not enforce them.

A Director may invite judges to score a pageant on the Service. Judges agree to score honestly and to keep contestants' information private. Scores and comments are seen by the pageant's Director and the people the Director has given access, and results are published only when the Director chooses. The Director, not Pageant Post, decides a pageant's rules and results.

Pageant Post operates a "People's Choice" voting service:

• $1 = 1 vote, always. Each $1 of vote value purchased credits one vote to the chosen contestant.
• A card processing fee (currently 2.9% + 37¢ per transaction) is added at checkout to cover payment processing and fraud screening.
• Pageant Post retains a platform fee of 12.5% of the vote value (gross). The remaining 87.5% is owed to the Director's pageant, subject to the payout schedule below.
• Votes are final and not refundable except in cases of duplicate charges or verified payment error. If a chargeback is filed and won by the cardholder, the corresponding vote count is deducted from the contestant's total.
• Chargebacks reduce Director payouts. Amounts owed to a Director are always calculated on confirmed votes only: refunded or disputed votes are excluded from pending payouts, and where a Director has already been paid for votes that are later charged back, the Director's share of those votes may be recovered from their Stripe balance or offset against future payouts, as also authorized by the Stripe Connected Account Agreement accepted during payout onboarding. Directors bear Stripe's dispute fees on chargebacks of payments to their pageants, recovered the same way: a fee on every chargeback, kept by Stripe whatever the outcome, and an added fee when the Director contests one, which Stripe returns if the Director wins.
• Pageant Post is not responsible for disputes between voters, contestants, parents, or directors regarding contest outcomes.

Payout schedule. Payouts are released within three business days after a division's voting closes, including the first payout from a new pageant, and often land sooner. Banks, weekends and holidays can add time. Pageant Post may hold any payout longer when it needs a closer look, for example to review payment disputes, before funds are released.

Pageant Post may, at its sole discretion, apply a longer payout hold to specific Director accounts where risk indicators warrant (for example, elevated dispute activity or account irregularities), or a shorter one as an accommodation. Any adjusted schedule is shown on the Director's payout settings page and may be changed at any time, including if a chargeback dispute is initiated or fraud is suspected.

Chargeback rate threshold. If the ratio of a Director's disputed votes to confirmed votes reaches 5%, Pageant Post may automatically pause payouts for that Director pending review.

Suspicious activity. If Pageant Post detects fraudulent or suspicious charges in a contest, it may withhold some or all of the associated payouts for up to 90 days after voting closes while the activity is reviewed. Withheld amounts not consumed by refunds or chargebacks are then released.

Entry fees and registration refunds. Directors may collect entry fees and optional purchases through the Service. A service fee of 5% plus $0.50 is added at checkout, which covers card processing; it is never refunded. A Director may instead choose to absorb that fee, in which case it comes out of their payout and the family pays the listed price. Entry fees are not refundable unless the Director's pageant sets a refund policy, which is shown at checkout. When a Director issues a refund, the family gets the entry money back and the service fee is not returned. Pageant Post keeps its platform fee from the original payment. The whole refund comes from the Director, so any part above the Director's share may be taken from their Stripe balance or out of their future payouts.

Credits. Money a Director chooses to return other than by refund is recorded as a credit with that Director, for use on that Director's future pageants only. A credit is a promise by the Director, not by Pageant Post. It cannot be used with another Director, it has no cash value, and Pageant Post does not refund credits, even if the Director never hosts another pageant. Questions about a credit go to the Director who issued it.

Voting window changes. Once People's Choice voting has opened, the end date may be extended but may not be cut short, and once voting has closed the result is final and may not be reversed.

Voters do not need to create an account. By completing a vote purchase, the voter acknowledges that:

• The vote purchase is a contest entry, not a purchase of goods.
• The vote total is final and not refundable.
• The voter's email address will be used to send a receipt and may be used to contact the voter regarding their purchase.

Directors retain ownership of content they upload (e.g., contestant photos, pageant bios), but grant Pageant Post a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty free license to display, host, and share that content on the Service. Pageant Post may remove content at its sole discretion if it violates these Terms.

All other content on the Service, including the "Pageant Post" name, logo, design, and software, is the intellectual property of Pageant Post.

Pageant Post may suspend or terminate any account that violates these Terms, with or without prior notice. You may delete your account at any time from your account settings. A Director who owns a pageant, including an archived one, must first transfer it to another Director or ask us to close the account at [email protected]. Outstanding payouts will be processed in accordance with these Terms.

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind. Pageant Post does not guarantee uninterrupted access, operation free of errors, or any particular contest outcome.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Pageant Post's total liability for any claim arising from or relating to the Service is limited to the platform fees Pageant Post has retained from your account in the 12 months preceding the claim.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Tennessee, without regard to conflict of law principles. Any dispute will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Davidson County, Tennessee.

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will post the updated Terms on this page with a new "Last updated" date. Continued use of the Service after such posting constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

Questions about these Terms? Email [email protected].