Artist Agreement

Charon provides scheduling, communication, and payment technology. Charon is not your employer, and nothing in this agreement makes you an employee, partner, or joint venturer of Charon. You operate your own independent business.

Illinois does not license individual tattoo artists; it registers body-art establishments. You represent and warrant that you perform services only at an establishment holding a current Certificate of Registration under the Tattoo and Body Piercing Establishment Registration Act, and that you comply with all applicable health and safety law, including the IDPH Body Art Code. Your account is also subject to the Artist Verification Policy and Code of Conduct.

You appoint Charon as your limited agent for the sole purpose of collecting and processing retainer payments from Clients on your behalf. A Client's payment obligation to you with respect to a retainer is deemed fully satisfied and extinguished upon receipt of those funds by Charon's payment processor, regardless of whether or when Charon remits those funds to you. You — not the Client — bear the risk of any failure by Charon to remit funds owed to you.

[This clause is drafted to track the Illinois Uniform Money Transmission Modernization Act's agent-of-payee exemption, 205 ILCS 658/3-1(2). Have counsel confirm the exact wording before use.]

Charon charges a subscription fee of $30/month, billed automatically to the payment method on file until you cancel, plus a per-booking platform fee — charged to the Client as its own line item on top of your retainer, not deducted from it, so you receive your full retainer amount. Both fees are subject to change with notice. Payment processing fees charged by Stripe on refunds are your responsibility, as the merchant of record for your Client transactions. See the Payment Policy for the full picture.

Your account is only visible to Clients and able to accept bookings while your subscription is active. You can cancel at any time through your billing portal — access continues through the end of the period you've already paid for, then your page and booking calendar become private again. Charges already made are not refunded for a partial month. If a renewal payment fails, Charon will attempt to collect it again automatically; your account stays live during that retry window, and only goes private if the payment ultimately can't be collected.

You set your own retainer amount for each request you accept. Charon's standard cancellation policy applies to bookings made through Charon, unless you and Charon agree to a different policy in writing: once a Client has paid their retainer, it is non-refundable if the Client cancels, for any reason and at any time — except as described in Section 6 below. If you decline a request or cancel a booking for any reason, the Client receives a full refund of anything they've paid.

Because charges are processed directly on your connected account, you are the merchant of record. Chargebacks and disputes are filed against your account and debited from your balance, and you're responsible for any associated dispute fees. Charon is not responsible for resolving disputes about the quality or outcome of your work — those are between you and the Client.

You may reschedule a Client's accepted or paid booking to a different date or time whenever you need to — that alone is never treated as ghosting or as you backing out of the booking, and it's never held against your account. Charon expects artists will sometimes need this flexibility to manage a real schedule.

The one thing to know: once you've rescheduled the same booking twice, the Client's retainer stops being non-refundable for that booking. From that point on, they may cancel at any time and receive a full refund, even if they'd otherwise be willing to move again. Plan around this if you're juggling a date that might need to shift more than once.

Separately, a Client may reschedule their own confirmed appointment: free the first time, for a fee the second and third time, and not at all after that. You'll be notified by text whenever a Client moves a booking, whether or not a fee applied.

The 72-hour cutoff. Neither side can move a booking's date or time inside 72 hours of the appointment — this applies equally to you and the Client. Once that window is reached, the only remaining option is to cancel under the policy in Section 5.

When you accept a request, you decide the retainer for that specific booking — it doesn't have to match your default rate. If you've turned on Time Blocks in your account settings, you can also assign a specific start and end time instead of holding the Client's entire day, which lets you take more than one booking on the same date.

Once you accept, the Client has 72 hours to pay before the offer expires and the date opens back up. This window is currently fixed platform-wide and may change with notice.

If you turn on auto-accept in your settings, incoming requests are accepted automatically at your default retainer rate with no review from you — you're still notified by text either way. You can turn this off at any time, and doing so only affects requests going forward.

If a Client misses a scheduled, paid appointment without contacting you, you may report it through Charon. This is separate from — and unrelated to — a booking you rescheduled yourself, which is never reportable under this policy. A confirmed pattern of missed appointments may restrict a Client's ability to book through Charon.

The same kind of review applies in the other direction: repeatedly failing to honor scheduled appointments (as distinct from rescheduling them) can be reported by a Client and may restrict your account after two confirmed instances. Charon reviews every report individually before taking action, and you'll have the chance to explain your side first. Full policy: Ghosting & Cancellation Policy.

You retain ownership of your designs, photographs, and other content you upload to Charon. You grant Charon a worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, display, reproduce, and create derivative works from that content for the purpose of operating and promoting Charon — including the calendar-sharing image feature and any marketing use. This license survives your departure from the platform for content already published before you left.

If your uploaded content includes an identifiable client (e.g., a photo of a tattoo on their body), you are responsible for obtaining that client's consent to publish it. [Charon should build a release into the client booking flow rather than relying solely on artist representation here — see counsel's memo.]

You represent that you: operate at a properly registered establishment; hold any insurance required by law or your establishment; will not provide services to anyone under 18; comply with all applicable law; and have the right to upload and license all content you post.

You agree to indemnify and hold Charon harmless from any claim arising from your services, your content, or your violation of these terms.

If you send messages to Clients through Charon, you represent that you have obtained any consent required by law to do so. You may not use Charon's messaging tools to send unsolicited marketing to Clients who haven't consented to it.

Either party may terminate this agreement at any time. Charon may suspend your account for violation of these terms, fraudulent activity, or conduct that harms Clients or Charon's reputation.

These terms are governed by Illinois law. Venue for any dispute is Cook County, Illinois.

Questions about these terms: chrn.support@gmail.com.