01What Backline is
Backline is a one-page tool that parses the official Instagram DM export Meta gives you, classifies each conversation (zone, country, role, booking signal), runs a Claude Sonnet 4.6 narrative summary on the qualified ones, and outputs a CSV you can import into your own Notion contact list.
It's run by Josh Torrent, solo, as a complement to a music management business. Not a startup, not a SaaS, not VC-backed. The infrastructure is Cloudflare Pages + Workers + KV. The summarization model is Anthropic's Claude.
02What you get when you pay
Each tier is a one-time payment for one specific deliverable. There is no monthly subscription, no auto-renewal, no recurring charge.
- Free — 20 randomly-picked qualified contacts get full Sonnet 4.6 narratives. The rest are sorted with regex but locked.
- One Run (€99) — one managed run on our API key, all qualified contacts get full narratives. Run the parse, get the CSV, you're done. The license is consumed after one successful run.
- Lifetime (€199) — unlimited managed runs on our API key. Soft cap of 1 run per calendar month to keep the cost predictable on our side.
- Update (€29) — single-run add-on for past One Run buyers, when you want to re-run after fresh DMs.
- BYOK (€79) — unlimited runs using your own Anthropic API key. We never see your key (it stays in your browser's local storage).
Your license key is delivered by email immediately after Stripe confirms the payment. Format: BACKLINE-<TIER>-<ID>. Paste it in the URL ?license=... or in the app's license field — it's stored in your browser's localStorage, nowhere else.
03What the license actually grants
You get a personal, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to use Backline for your own contact list, on whatever device you control. Concretely:
- You can use it for the artist(s) you manage or are
- You cannot resell access, share your license key publicly, or rebrand the output as your own product
- You cannot bypass the rate limits, the free-tier cap, or the IP-based anti-abuse signals
- You cannot reverse-engineer the proxy to extract our Anthropic key
Anti-sharing is loose by design — the license stamps the IP of first use, but we don't kick you out for traveling or using a VPN. We do revoke keys we see being passed around in Discord servers or shared in screenshots.
04If you connect your Notion workspace
Optional. If you click "Connect Notion" inside the app, you authorize Backline (via Notion's standard OAuth flow) to push contacts directly into your contact list (a Notion database) — instead of downloading a CSV and importing it manually.
- We request the minimum scope: read content, insert content, update content. No comments, no email reading.
- The access token Notion gives us is tied to your license key, stored encrypted in Cloudflare KV, and used only when you run a parse and ask us to push the results.
- You can revoke the connection anytime — from inside the app, or from your Notion settings → Connections.
- We never read pages you didn't explicitly grant us during the OAuth dialog.
05Refunds
The free tier exists specifically so you can verify Backline works on your archive before paying. 20 qualified contacts get full narratives at zero cost — that's the trial.
That said: if you bought a tier and the run fails for a reason that's our fault (proxy down, model misbehaves, license validation broken on our end), email [email protected] within 14 days. Refund within 48h, no questions.
We don't refund:
- Cases where you ran out of qualified contacts because your archive is short — that's a feature of your archive, not a bug
- Cases where the summaries don't match your subjective expectations
- Lifetime keys after multiple successful runs
06What we don't promise
Backline is provided as-is. It's a tool built by one person, on top of third-party APIs (Anthropic, Cloudflare, Notion, Stripe, Brevo). When any of those break, Backline breaks too.
- No uptime SLA. We aim for "available almost always" but we're not paged at 3am
- No guarantee that Sonnet 4.6 will classify any specific conversation correctly. The model is good, not perfect
- No guarantee Instagram won't change their export format and silently break the parser. We patch quickly when it happens
- No guarantee about the quality, accuracy, or business outcome of the contacts surfaced — Backline is a triage tool, not a booking agent
If accuracy or uptime is mission-critical to you, Backline is probably the wrong tool. Build it yourself.
07Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law: our liability for any claim related to Backline is capped at the amount you paid for the license in the 12 months preceding the claim. For free-tier users, that cap is €0.
We're not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages — including lost bookings, lost income, or lost opportunities — arising from your use of Backline. This applies even if we were advised of the possibility.
08Termination
You can stop using Backline anytime. Just delete backline_license from your browser's local storage. There's nothing to "cancel" — there's no subscription.
We can revoke a license key, with or without notice, if we see:
- Public sharing of the key (Discord, forums, screenshots)
- Use against the rate limits or anti-abuse measures
- Chargebacks or fraudulent payment
- Use that exposes us to legal risk we didn't sign up for
Revoked keys are not refunded. If you think a revocation is a mistake, email [email protected].
09If these terms change
If we change anything material — pricing, license rules, what scopes we request from Notion — we update this page and email every license holder before the change takes effect. Your existing license keeps the rules under which you bought it. New rules apply to new purchases.
10Governing law & contact
These terms are governed by the laws of France. Any dispute that can't be resolved by emailing each other goes to the competent courts of Paris, France. EU consumer rights are not waived by this clause.
For anything contract-related: [email protected]. Reply within 48h is the norm.
LAST UPDATED · 2026-04-26