Terms of Use

These Terms of Use (the “Terms”) apply to the Stoic Practice iPhone app (the “app”) and to this website, practicestoicism.com (the “website”). Stoic Practice is provided by Kaizen Apps (“we,” “us,” “our”).

The app is licensed to you, not sold. Your use of the app is governed by Apple’s Licensed Application End User License Agreement (opens in a new tab) (the “Standard EULA”). These Terms add details specific to Stoic Practice, such as how the Premium subscription works. If these Terms conflict with the Standard EULA, the Standard EULA controls with respect to the license of the app.

By downloading or using the app, you agree to the Standard EULA and to these Terms. By using the website, you agree to these Terms as they apply to the website. If you do not agree, please do not use the app or the website.

The short version

The full Terms below are what apply. In short:

• Stoic Practice is philosophy and personal reflection. It is not therapy or medical care.
• Premium is an optional auto-renewable subscription. Apple handles payment, renewal, cancellation and refunds.
• What you write belongs to you. In the app it stays on your device, and on this website it never leaves your browser. We cannot see it.
• The classical quotations are in the public domain. Our modern writing, design and code are ours, licensed to you for personal use.

The app

Stoic Practice is an iPhone app for the daily practice of classical Stoic philosophy. It requires iOS 17 or later and is available in English.

The practice follows a simple loop. You prepare with the Morning Practice, respond to difficult moments with I Need Perspective, examine the day with the Evening Examination, and repeat. The app also includes a Practice Library, a Journal and optional reminders.

The Morning Practice follows a 365-day curriculum. It moves forward at most once per calendar day, after you complete a Morning Practice. Missed days create no backlog and skip nothing: you continue where you left off. After Day 365, the teachings continue as Year 2.

The app works offline and does not require an account. You need an internet connection to download the app, to buy or restore a subscription, and to open web links.

Stoic Practice is not directed to children under 13.

The website and its free exercises

The website offers articles, verified passages from the Stoics, and free interactive exercises that mirror the app’s free features: I Need Perspective for Anger, Worry and Outside My Control, the Evening Examination, the library’s free Try It Now practices, and the day’s teaching.

The exercises run in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to us or stored (see the Privacy Policy). Because nothing is saved, closing or reloading the page clears what you wrote; use Copy my answers if you want to keep it.

The website is provided free of charge and may change at any time. Its daily teaching follows the calendar, so it may differ from the day you have reached in the app.

Not medical or professional advice

Stoic Practice, in the app and on the website, offers teachings and exercises from classical Stoic philosophy for informational, educational and reflective purposes.

Stoic Practice is philosophy and personal reflection. It is not therapy, medical treatment, diagnosis or crisis support, and it is not a substitute for professional care. If you are in danger or crisis, contact local emergency services.

Nothing in the app or on this website is medical, psychological, legal or financial advice. For questions about your health or any other professional matter, consult a qualified professional. Do not delay or disregard professional advice because of something you read in the app or on this website.

In the U.S., you can also call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (opens in a new tab).

Some practices ask you to reflect on hard subjects, such as loss, fear and mortality, or to choose a small hardship on purpose. Use your judgment. Skip any exercise that is not right for you at a given time, and never take a practice such as voluntary discomfort to the point of risking your health or safety.

Subscriptions

Stoic Practice offers an optional auto-renewable subscription, Stoic Practice Premium, inside the app. It comes in two options. Both belong to one subscription group, so you can have only one at a time.

Prices. The prices above are U.S. prices. Prices in other countries and regions are set by the App Store in local currency and are shown in the app before you buy.

Payment and automatic renewal. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. Your subscription renews automatically for another period of the same length unless you cancel it at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your Apple Account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the end of the current period, at your current option’s price, unless the price has changed as described below.

Managing and canceling. Subscriptions are managed by Apple. To manage or cancel yours, open the Settings app on your iPhone, tap your name, then tap Subscriptions. While you are subscribed, you can also open the app’s Settings tab and tap Manage Subscription. A cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period. You keep Premium until then, and you are not charged again. Deleting the app does not cancel a subscription. If you switch between the monthly and annual options, Apple determines when the change takes effect and handles any adjustment to what you pay.

Restoring a purchase. If you reinstall the app or move to a new iPhone, sign in to the same Apple Account and tap Restore Purchases. It is in the app’s Settings tab and on the subscription screen.

Refunds. Payments are processed by Apple, so refunds are handled by Apple under its policies. You can request one at reportaproblem.apple.com (opens in a new tab). We cannot issue refunds ourselves. Canceling does not by itself refund the current period.

Free trials and offers. No free trial or introductory offer is currently available. If we offer one in the future, its terms will be shown before you subscribe, and any unused portion of a free trial is forfeited when you purchase a subscription.

Price changes. We may change subscription prices in the future. Price changes follow Apple’s notice and consent rules. Apple notifies subscribers in advance, and where Apple requires your consent to a higher price, your subscription does not renew at the new price unless you agree to it.

What Premium includes.

• The full guided Morning Practice: deeper commentary (“Going Deeper”), a closer look at the day’s principle, a reflection prompt and a daily intention.
• All 12 I Need Perspective exercises. In addition to the three free ones, Premium adds Setback, Difficult Person, Procrastination, Fear, Overwhelm, Jealousy, Loss, Uncertainty and Difficult Decision.
• The complete Practice Library of 12 practices. In addition to the three free ones, Premium adds Memento Mori, Amor Fati, Negative Visualization, View From Above, Premeditatio Malorum, Voluntary Discomfort, Objective Representation, Morning Preparation and Reserve Clause.
• Browsing the full archive of teachings.

There is no advertising in Stoic Practice, with or without Premium.

When Premium ends. If your subscription ends, the Premium features become unavailable until you subscribe again. Nothing you have written is deleted, and the free features keep working.

Free features

You can use Stoic Practice without paying. The free version of the app includes:

• the Morning Practice: one teaching per day from the 365-day curriculum, with the source passage, an “In Plain English” explanation and the day’s practice
• the Evening Examination
• three I Need Perspective exercises: Anger, Worry and Outside My Control
• three practices in the Practice Library: Dichotomy of Control, Four Virtues and Evening Examination
• the Journal, with your day-by-day history and saved reflections, and your saved bookmarks
• morning and evening reminders, appearance settings, Export My Data and Import Backup

Free features may change over time, like the rest of the app. Your journal and everything you write are never locked behind Premium.

Your content

Your journal entries, saved reflections and anything else you write in Stoic Practice belong to you. We claim no ownership of them.

Your content in the app is stored only on your device. There is no account, we run no server, and we have no access to what you write. The app does not sync between devices. Our Privacy Policy explains in detail how the app and the website handle information.

Because your content lives only on your device, you are responsible for backing up anything you want to keep. You can make a backup at any time with Export My Data in the app’s Settings tab and save the file wherever you choose. Backup files are not encrypted by the app, so keep them somewhere you trust. Your app data may also be included in your own iCloud Backup or computer backup of your iPhone, depending on your settings.

We cannot recover content that you delete (for example, with Delete All Data), content removed when you delete the app, content lost with a device, or anything typed into the website’s exercises. Delete All Data does not cancel a subscription.

If you email us, we receive what you choose to send. If you send us suggestions, we may use them to improve Stoic Practice without owing you anything for them.

Teachings and intellectual property

The classical texts in Stoic Practice are in the public domain. Direct quotations are exact excerpts from public-domain English translations: George Long’s translations of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations and Epictetus’s Discourses and Enchiridion, and Aubrey Stewart’s translations of Seneca’s dialogues and On Benefits. The names of ancient authors and the public-domain texts themselves are free for anyone to use.

Everything else that we created for the app and the website is owned by Kaizen Apps. This includes the modern explanations, commentary, original paraphrases, exercises, reflection prompts, the selection and arrangement of the curriculum, articles, the design, our images and our code. Our content is licensed to you for your personal, non-commercial use, under the Standard EULA (for the app) and these Terms. Apple’s system fonts, symbols, App Store badge and other iOS components belong to Apple.

Please do not copy, republish or redistribute our modern content. Brief quotations, for example in a review or a discussion, are fine with attribution to Stoic Practice and a link to the page. Please do not use the Stoic Practice name or icon in a way that suggests we endorse or are connected with something we are not.

All rights not expressly granted to you are reserved.

Acceptable use

When you use Stoic Practice, please:

• do not copy, modify, distribute, sell or rent the app or any part of it, except as the Standard EULA or the law allows
• do not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the app, or try to derive its source code, except where applicable law permits it despite this restriction
• do not try to bypass purchase verification or otherwise access Premium without a valid subscription
• do not use the app or this website for anything unlawful, or in a way that could damage, disable or interfere with them (including automated scraping that burdens the website)
• comply with all laws that apply to you and with the Usage Rules in Apple’s Media Services Terms and Conditions (opens in a new tab)

If you break these Terms or the Standard EULA, your license to use the app may end, as described in the Standard EULA.

Availability and changes

We may change, add or remove features and content over time, for example to fix errors or to improve the practice. App updates are delivered through the App Store. We may also stop offering the app or the website in the future. Because your app content is stored on your device, you can still use Export My Data to keep a copy.

We work to keep the teachings accurate. Quotations are checked word for word against the source texts, and paraphrases are labeled as paraphrases. Still, philosophy is interpretive and translations differ. Our explanations are one careful reading of the texts, not the only one. Content is provided “as is,” for reflection.

Links to other sites, such as Apple’s or Project Gutenberg’s, are provided for convenience. Those sites have their own terms.

Disclaimers and limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, the app and this website are provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We do not promise that the app or the website will be free of errors or interruptions, or that they will meet every need. This is consistent with the Standard EULA, which also describes what happens if the app fails to conform to an applicable warranty.

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, or for loss of data, arising from your use of, or inability to use, the app or this website. Our total liability for the app is limited as described in the Standard EULA.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties or the limitation of certain damages, so some of these limitations may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits rights you have under consumer protection laws that cannot be waived or limited by contract.

Apple

These Terms are between you and Kaizen Apps, not Apple. Apple is not responsible for the app or its content, except as stated in the Standard EULA, and has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of the Standard EULA and these Terms, and once you accept them, Apple may enforce them against you. The Standard EULA’s other provisions, including those on governing law, continue to apply.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time, for example when the app, the website or Apple’s rules change. When we do, we will update the effective date at the top of this page. Changes apply going forward, not to past use.

If you continue to use the app or the website after updated Terms take effect, you accept them. If you do not agree, stop using them and cancel any subscription in your Apple Account settings.

Contact

Questions about these Terms are welcome. Email gpmediacontact@gmail.com or call 253-338-5428.

For help with the app, see Support. To learn how the app and the website handle information, read the Privacy Policy.