Terms

You must be 18 or older. You may use First Letter for your own family situation. Do not use it where a court has ordered you not to contact your child, or to harass anybody. If your child has asked you for space or for no contact, that is exactly what four of the questions are for: they decide whether a letter is right now, and if not, when.

The questions are free, and so are the three things parents in your situation most often get wrong, which you are shown along the way.

The First Letter is $29, paid one time. It gives you the letter, what was left out of it and why, a guess at how your child might respond, and the sending plan, for as long as the service exists. There is no subscription and nothing renews.

The payment is taken by Stripe. We never see or store your card number. You do not need an account before you pay. Stripe collects your email address with the payment, we create your account from it, and we email you a link that signs you in, so that you can come back to your letter later.

First Letter does not write a letter in every case. Four of the questions, all answered before you pay, check for the situations below, and what you write in your short answers is checked for them again. Based on your own answers, we will decline where:

• there is a court order, a restraining order, or a written demand from your child or their lawyer that you not make contact;
• your child has said that you, or someone in your home, hurt them, and you tell us that it did not happen or was not as bad as they remember;
• your child asked for space within the last ninety days; or
• you tell us you could not accept it if your child never replied.

When we decline we will tell you plainly which of these it was and why it matters, and point you towards a family therapist or an attorney, whichever fits. You will never be charged for a letter we did not write. Where the reason shows up before you pay, whether in those four questions or anywhere else in your answers, nothing is charged.

If you have already paid and a changed answer means we decline, what happens to the money depends on the reason.

Where a recent request for space is the only problem, your payment is held as a credit rather than refunded. The date it becomes reasonable to send is shown to you, the credit is good for twelve months from the day we decline, and when you come back there is nothing further to pay. If you would rather have the money back instead, write to us and we will refund it.

In the other three cases, which are anything formal in writing, a disputed allegation of harm, or your own answer that you could not accept a silence, your payment is refunded in full automatically. You do not have to ask, and there is no form.

Declining is not a judgment about your character, and we do not tell anybody. Your answers stay saved either way.

Where we decline to write your letter after you have paid, the refund, or for a recent request for space the twelve-month credit, is automatic and immediate, as described above. Where we decline before you pay, there is nothing to refund.

A payment that arrives after an answer that stops a letter is refunded in full automatically, and a refund is always of the amount you actually paid.

We only write what you have told us, so a letter needs enough of your own words to be worth sending. If there is too little, you are asked for a little more before any price is shown. If a letter you have paid for still cannot reach 110 words after one more question, we do not deliver it: your payment is refunded in full automatically, and the page says why.

Otherwise: if you do not come away with a letter you would actually send, email us at hello@writefirstletter.com within 14 days of buying it and we will refund what you paid in full. You do not have to explain yourself.

The answers you give and the letters produced for you belong to you. You can do whatever you like with them. We do not claim any ownership and we do not publish them.

We cannot promise to write you a letter at all, as described above. We cannot promise that your child will reply, that they will read the letter, or that anything will change. Estrangement is not a problem a letter solves on its own, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something worse than this.

The service is provided as it is. To the extent the law allows, our liability is limited to what you have paid us.

If we change anything important here, we will say so on this page and change the date at the top. Continuing to use the service after that means you accept the change.

Write to hello@writefirstletter.com and we will answer.