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Smile Design LabLegal

Terms of Service

Effective April 30, 2026

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the Smile Design Lab platform (“the Platform”), operated by Smile Design Lab, Inc. (“we,” “us”). By creating an account or otherwise using the Platform, you agree to these Terms.

1. Who can use the Platform

You must be at least 18 years old and authorized to bind the entity you represent. The Platform is offered to two kinds of users:

  • Practices — licensed dental practices and the clinicians, assistants, or administrators they employ.
  • Labs — registered dental laboratories and the technicians, designers, owners, or managers they employ.

We may also issue Platform-administrator accounts to our own staff for operations and support. Those accounts are governed by separate internal policies.

2. Account responsibilities

  • Provide accurate registration information and keep it current.
  • Use a strong password and enable multi-factor authentication.
  • Do not share account credentials. You are responsible for activity that occurs under your account.
  • Notify us promptly at security@smiledesignlab.com if you suspect unauthorized access.

3. Practice obligations

If you submit cases as a practice, you represent and warrant that:

  • You are a covered entity (or a permitted hybrid entity) under HIPAA or the equivalent in your jurisdiction, and you have all necessary consents from each patient before submitting their data to the Platform.
  • You have executed the Business Associate Agreement (“BAA”) we offer through your account before any case containing Protected Health Information is submitted.
  • You only mark a patient as “consented to share with lab” when you have, in fact, obtained an authorization satisfying 45 C.F.R. § 164.508 (or your local equivalent) for that disclosure.
  • The clinicians performing treatment hold the licenses required in their jurisdiction, and the Platform is not a substitute for that professional judgement.

4. Lab obligations

If you accept cases as a lab, you represent and warrant that:

  • The lab holds the registrations and licenses required to operate in its jurisdiction (e.g. FDA establishment registration in the United States, MDR compliance in the EU where applicable).
  • You have completed our Know-Your-Customer review and Stripe Connect identity verification before accepting paid work.
  • You will treat any patient identifiers received under a consent-disclosed case strictly under our BAA and only for the purpose of fulfilling that case.
  • The cases you produce meet the specifications captured on the Platform and any applicable medical-device standard.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  • Submit data that you do not have the right to share, including third-party PHI without authorization.
  • Attempt to access another tenant's data or to bypass our row-level security controls.
  • Reverse-engineer, scrape, or use the Platform to train any machine-learning system without our express written consent.
  • Send unlawful, harassing, or deceptive content through the case messaging surface.
  • Use the Platform to circumvent payment, escrow, or platform-fee obligations (e.g. routing the financial side of a case off-Platform after using our marketplace to find the counter-party).

6. Case workflow and authority

The Platform records every case as a sequence of states (draft, submitted, accepted, in-production, design-review, manufacturing, shipped, delivered, completed, cancelled, disputed). State transitions are gated by role: only the practice can submit, only the assigned lab can accept or move work forward, and only the practice can approve a design. We log every transition with the actor, timestamp, and prior state.

7. Intellectual property

  • You retain ownership of the data and files you upload. You grant us a worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, display, transmit, and back up that content for the sole purpose of operating the Platform.
  • The lab owns the design files it produces, except where the submitting practice and the lab have agreed otherwise. The practice receives a perpetual licence to use those design files for the patient's ongoing treatment.
  • The Platform itself, including the software, design system, and aggregated benchmarks, is our intellectual property. Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of the Platform to you.

8. Confidentiality

Both parties will treat the other's non-public business and clinical information as confidential and use it only to perform under these Terms. PHI is governed additionally by the BAA.

9. Payments and escrow

Payments on the Platform are processed by Stripe under Stripe's Connected Account Agreement and Stripe Services Agreement. By registering as a lab, you also agree to those agreements. The Platform holds funds in escrow under the following flow:

  1. The practice authorizes payment when the case is quoted.
  2. Funds are captured into escrow when the lab accepts the quote.
  3. Funds are released to the lab's connected Stripe account when the practice marks the case as completed, or after a 14-day window following delivery if no dispute is raised.
  4. Disputes pause the release. We act as a neutral intermediary and encourage resolution between the parties; if a refund or split is agreed, we issue it through Stripe.

10. Platform fees

We charge a platform fee equal to 10% of the gross doctor-charge amounton every case that funds successfully. The fee is deducted from the lab payout at the time of release. Stripe's own processing fees are deducted by Stripe before the gross amount reaches the Platform; we do not mark up Stripe's fees. We may revise the platform fee for new cases on at least 30 days' notice; cases already in flight at the time of a fee change keep the fee in effect on the day of acceptance.

11. Taxes

Each side is responsible for its own taxes on the amounts it receives. Labs are responsible for collecting and remitting any sales, use, VAT, GST, or similar tax due on their services. The Platform does not provide tax advice.

12. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate access if you breach these Terms, if required by law, or if continued provision of the service exposes the Platform or its users to material risk. We will give as much notice as is reasonable in the circumstances. You can close your account at any time from your account settings; some retention obligations survive closure (see the Privacy Notice §7).

13. Disclaimers

The Platform is provided “as is” and “as available.” We do not warrant that the Platform will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we are not a clinical decision system. Patient care decisions remain the responsibility of the treating clinician.

14. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party will be liable for indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits or lost business, arising out of or relating to these Terms. Our aggregate liability under these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the platform fees paid by you in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the liability or (b) US$1,000.

15. Indemnification

You will defend, indemnify, and hold us harmless from any claim arising out of (a) your breach of these Terms, (b) your violation of law, or (c) third-party claims relating to data you submitted without authority.

16. Governing law and dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The parties will first attempt to resolve any dispute informally. If informal resolution fails, the dispute will be settled by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules, seated in Wilmington, Delaware. Each party retains the right to seek injunctive relief in any court of competent jurisdiction.

17. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be communicated by email at least 30 days before they take effect. Continuing to use the Platform after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent to legal@smiledesignlab.com.