In short
You pay per staff seat, monthly, through Stripe. You can try it for 14 days without a card while billing is not yet switched on. If you cancel, you keep access for 7 days, then the workspace is suspended and later deleted. Use it to moderate your own network fairly and within Mojang's rules. The $299 self-hosted licence is perpetual for one organisation with 12 months of updates. We aim for high availability but do not guarantee it, and our liability is capped at what you paid us in the last 12 months.
Who we are and acceptance of these terms
Cortex is provided by Prioxy, a game design and build studio established in the Netherlands (“Prioxy”, “we”, “us”). These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a contract between Prioxy and the organisation or person that creates a Cortex workspace or purchases a self-hosted licence (“you”, the “Operator”).
You accept these Terms by completing the onboarding wizard, by purchasing a licence, by installing a Cortex plugin against the managed service, or by signing in to a workspace. If you accept on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to bind it. If you do not agree, do not use the service.
Cortex is a business tool for people who run Minecraft networks. It is not offered to consumers in their private capacity, and you must be at least 16 years old to hold an account. Staff members who are invited into your workspace are bound by the acceptable-use rules in section 7 and the Privacy Policy, but the contract, the bill and the responsibility for the workspace are yours.
The Privacy Policy forms part of these Terms. Where the two conflict on a matter of data protection, the Privacy Policy prevails.
The service
Cortex is a staff management, moderation, player-intelligence, Discord ChatOps and telemetry platform for Minecraft networks. It consists of:
- the Cortex API and staff portal, reached at https://<slug>.cortex.prioxy.io/portal on the managed service;
- the cortex-paper plugin for Paper 1.20–1.21+ and the cortex-velocity plugin for Velocity 3.3+, which report events to the API over HMAC-SHA256-signed requests and buffer them locally when the API is unreachable;
- the Cortex Sentinel Discord bot and the two-way staff chat bridge between in-game /sc, Discord #staff-chat, the web TeamChat and the mobile app;
- the Cortex Staff mobile app for iOS and Android;
- the player verification server at verify.cortex.prioxy.io and the associated privacy portal for GDPR Article 15 and 17 requests;
- for Enterprise / BYO customers, the self-hosted Docker stack described in section 9.
Cortex is offered in two distributions. On the managed service Prioxy hosts everything, applies schema updates and keeps backups. On a self-hosted installation you run the stack on your own infrastructure with your own database and, optionally, your own white-labelled Discord bot and custom domain; Prioxy hosts nothing and receives no player or staff data. Some sections of these Terms apply to only one distribution and say so.
Features are described accurately on cortex.prioxy.io. Any preview of the interface shown there is a simulated preview with fictional data. We do not publish uptime figures, customer names or testimonials, and nothing on the site should be read as a guarantee of a particular result on your network.
Workspaces, accounts and roles
A workspace is created through the onboarding wizard and identified by a slug that you choose and that becomes your subdomain. Slugs are first come, first served, must not impersonate another network or brand, and may be reclaimed if they infringe someone's rights.
The person who creates the workspace holds the owner role. Owners invite staff and assign one of five roles: helper, moderator, developer, admin or owner. Only owners can see or change billing, and a workspace must always have at least one owner. You are responsible for who you invite and for what they do with the access you give them; the audit ledger exists to help you hold them to account, not to shift that responsibility to us.
Every account must belong to one named person. Sharing accounts, or letting a departed staff member keep access, undermines the audit ledger and is a breach of these Terms. Every account must enrol in two-factor authentication when prompted, keep its password and recovery codes confidential, and tell us promptly at [email protected] if it may have been compromised. Sessions can be revoked at any time from the portal.
Each game server or proxy you connect receives its own credential (a ctx_live_ key). Keys are shown once, stored hashed, and can be revoked individually. You are responsible for keeping them out of public repositories, screenshots and support tickets.
Plans, seats and billing
The managed service is priced per staff seat. A seat is one staff account in your workspace, regardless of role. Current prices are in US dollars and exclude VAT, which is added where applicable.
| Plan | Base price | Seats included | Extra seat | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $9 / month | 3 | $3.00 / seat / month | 1 proxy or server, 30-day logs, Discord bridge |
| Network Pro | $24 / month | 10 | $2.50 / seat / month | Multi-proxy network, 1-year logs, iOS and Android staff app, priority ingest |
| Enterprise / BYO | $49 / month or $299 lifetime | Unlimited | Included | Self-hosted Docker stack, bring your own database, white-label Discord bot, custom domain |
Billing is handled by Stripe. When you subscribe you become a customer of Stripe's checkout and billing portal; your card details are entered on Stripe's pages and never reach our servers. Subscriptions renew monthly in advance until cancelled. Extra seats above the included allowance are added to the next invoice pro rata from the day the seat is created, and removed seats stop being charged from the next renewal. Reducing seats does not generate a refund for the current month.
We may change prices with at least 30 days' notice by email to the workspace owner. A price change takes effect at your next renewal after the notice period; if you do not accept it you may cancel before then and pay nothing more. Prices for lifetime licences already purchased never change.
If a payment fails, Stripe retries it and we notify the owner. If it still fails after the retry period, the workspace enters the grace period described in section 6 as if it had been cancelled. Fees are non-refundable except where these Terms or mandatory law say otherwise, or where we have failed to deliver the service and cannot fix that within a reasonable time.
Free trial
New workspaces can start with a 14-day trial. The onboarding wizard adapts to the platform's billing state: while billing is not yet enabled on the platform, the wizard creates a trial workspace without asking for a card, and the workspace simply pauses at the end of the trial until a plan is chosen. Once billing is enabled, the wizard will say so and explain whether a card is required up front. In either case you will never be charged without having chosen a plan and confirmed a price.
A trial workspace has the features of the plan you selected in the wizard and is subject to these Terms in full, including the acceptable-use rules. We may limit trials to one per organisation and may end a trial early if it is being used abusively. Data created during a trial is kept for the same grace and deletion periods as a cancelled workspace (section 6), so you lose nothing by deciding later.
Cancellation, grace period and suspension
You can cancel a subscription at any time from the billing portal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid period; you keep full access until then.
After the paid period ends — or immediately, if a trial ends or a payment has failed after retries — the workspace enters a grace period of 7 days. During the grace period staff can still sign in, ingest continues, and the owner can export data, resubscribe or fix the payment. Nothing is lost.
When the grace period ends without a plan in place, the workspace is suspended: staff cannot sign in, plugins receive an error and buffer locally, the Discord bridge stops relaying, and the mobile app shows the workspace as unavailable. The owner can still sign in for the sole purpose of resubscribing or requesting an export. The data is deleted 30 days after suspension, with backups rolling off within a further 30 days, as described in the Privacy Policy. Plugin credentials for a deleted workspace stop working permanently.
Lifetime licences are not subscriptions and are not subject to this section; see section 9.
Acceptable use
Cortex gives staff considerable insight into players. You agree to use it only to run and moderate a Minecraft network that you operate or are authorised to operate, and in particular you agree that you and your staff will not:
- use player data for anything other than moderation, safety and the operation of your network — not for advertising, profiling players outside the game, selling or sharing data, doxxing, harassment or retaliation;
- use the fingerprinting or alt-correlation features to identify, track or expose a player outside your network, or to target a player for reasons unrelated to your published rules;
- interfere with a player's rights under the GDPR or other applicable law, including by obstructing or discouraging use of the verification and erasure flow, or by re-adding data that a player has had erased;
- breach the Minecraft EULA and Mojang's Usage Guidelines, or use Cortex on a server that does;
- use Cortex on servers, proxies or Discord guilds you do not control or are not authorised to moderate;
- attempt to access another operator's workspace or data, probe or circumvent tenant isolation, forge or replay ingest signatures, or test the platform's security without written permission;
- reverse-engineer the hosted service, resell seats or offer Cortex as a service to third parties without an agreement with us (self-hosted licensees see section 9);
- upload malware, or use the ingest API or the Discord bridge to send spam, threats or unlawful content;
- run the plugins against the managed service from a server whose volume is so far outside its plan that it degrades the service for others; we will contact you before acting on this.
You are solely responsible for the moderation decisions your staff make with Cortex, for the rules you publish to your players, and for having a lawful basis to process their data. Cortex provides evidence and tooling; it does not make or endorse bans.
If we become aware of a breach we will normally warn the owner and give a reasonable time to fix it. For serious breaches — attacks on the platform, use against players' rights, or unlawful content — we may suspend affected accounts or the whole workspace immediately and notify you afterwards.
Your data and data protection
All player data, staff notes, chat, punishments and configuration in your workspace (“Workspace Data”) belong to you. You grant Prioxy a licence to host, process, back up and display Workspace Data only as needed to provide the service and as instructed by you through the workspace settings and these Terms. We do not use Workspace Data for any other purpose, do not sell it and do not train models on it.
For the managed service, you are the controller and Prioxy is the processor of player and staff data within the meaning of the GDPR. This section together with the Privacy Policy constitutes the data processing agreement between us for the purposes of Article 28 GDPR. Prioxy will:
- process Workspace Data only on your documented instructions;
- ensure people with access are bound by confidentiality;
- implement the security measures described in the Privacy Policy;
- engage only the sub-processors listed in the Privacy Policy and give you 30 days' notice of changes, during which you may object and terminate;
- assist you with data-subject requests, including through the self-service verification flow, and with your own security and impact assessments where reasonable;
- notify you of a personal data breach without undue delay and within 72 hours of becoming aware of it;
- delete or return Workspace Data at the end of the contract as described in section 6;
- make available the information needed to demonstrate compliance and allow audits on reasonable notice, at your cost, no more than once a year unless required by a supervisory authority.
You warrant that you have a lawful basis for the processing you instruct, that you have informed your players in a privacy notice that Cortex or a processor is used, and that your instructions comply with the law. You will indemnify Prioxy against claims arising from your failure to do so.
For a self-hosted installation Prioxy is neither controller nor processor and this data processing agreement does not apply.
Self-hosted licence (Enterprise / BYO)
The Enterprise / BYO plan can be bought as a $49 / month subscription or as a $299 one-time lifetime licence. Both grant the same software; they differ in duration and in how long updates are included.
Grant
Prioxy grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to install and run the Cortex self-hosted Docker stack, the plugins, the bot and the mobile app configuration for one organisation — the legal entity or person named on the purchase — on infrastructure it controls, for the Minecraft networks that organisation operates. There is no limit on staff seats, servers, proxies, players or instances within that organisation. A group of unrelated networks sharing one licence is not one organisation.
Duration and updates
- The subscription licence lasts while the subscription is paid and includes all updates released during that time. When it ends you must stop running the software within the 7-day grace period; already exported data remains yours.
- The lifetime licence is perpetual: you may keep running the version you have for as long as you like, and it does not expire. It includes all updates — security fixes, new versions of the plugins, bot and stack — released within 12 months of purchase. After that you may continue on the last version you are entitled to, or buy an update extension if we offer one. Prioxy has no obligation to keep any version compatible with future Minecraft, Paper, Velocity or Discord releases beyond the update window.
Restrictions
You may modify configuration and, where source is provided, the source for your own use. You may not remove licence notices, redistribute the stack or plugins to third parties, offer Cortex as a hosted service to other organisations, or use the licence to build a competing product. White-labelling the Discord bot and using a custom domain are expressly permitted. The lifetime licence may be transferred once, with the whole organisation's rights, to a successor that acquires the network, on written notice to us.
Support and refunds
Self-hosted support is by email at [email protected] and covers the stack itself, not your operating system, database server, network or hosting. Lifetime licences can be refunded within 14 days of purchase if the stack has not been deployed to production; after that they are final.
Plugins, the mobile app and third-party platforms
The cortex-paper.jar and cortex-velocity.jar plugins are provided for download from cortex.prioxy.io/downloads/ and may be installed on any server you connect to a licensed workspace or self-hosted installation. Keep them updated; we may drop support for old plugin versions with 90 days' notice, after which the API may refuse them.
The Cortex Staff app is distributed through Apple's App Store (including TestFlight) and Google Play under their respective terms. It works against the managed service or against a self-hosted URL you enter. Availability of the app on a given platform is not guaranteed and may depend on store review.
Cortex depends on platforms we do not control: Mojang's authentication servers, Discord's API, Apple's and Google's app stores, Stripe and Cloudflare. We are not responsible for their outages, rule changes or termination of our access, but we will work in good faith to restore functionality or offer an alternative. Cortex is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Mojang, Microsoft or Discord.
Availability and support
Our goal for the managed service is 99.9% monthly availability of the API and portal, excluding announced maintenance windows and outages caused by the third-party platforms above or by your own infrastructure. This is a target, not a guarantee, and we do not publish historical uptime figures or offer service credits under these Terms. The plugins' local H2 buffer is designed so that a short API outage delays events rather than losing them, but we cannot promise that no event is ever lost.
Maintenance that requires downtime is announced to workspace owners at least 48 hours in advance where possible and scheduled outside European evening peak hours. Emergency security maintenance may happen without notice.
Support is by email at [email protected]. We aim to respond within two business days (Netherlands time) for all plans, and within one business day for Network Pro and Enterprise. Response times are targets, not commitments. Documentation is being written and will be linked from the site when available.
Intellectual property and feedback
Cortex, its software, design, documentation, the Cortex mark and the Prioxy name are owned by Prioxy or its licensors. These Terms grant you the right to use them as described and nothing more. Workspace Data remains yours (section 8). Open-source components included in Cortex remain under their own licences, which are listed with the software.
If you send us feedback or suggestions, you allow us to use them without obligation to you. We will not name you or your network publicly without your written permission.
Warranties and liability
We warrant that we will provide the service with reasonable care and skill and materially as described on the site and in these Terms. Beyond that, the service is provided as is. We do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted or error-free, that fingerprinting or alt correlation will identify every evader or never produce a false match, or that it will make your network compliant with any law on its own. Moderation decisions are yours.
To the extent permitted by law, Prioxy is not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, revenue, goodwill or data (other than data we were contractually obliged to keep and lost through our fault), or for claims by your players or staff against you arising from your moderation decisions.
Prioxy's total liability to you under or in connection with these Terms, in any 12-month period, is limited to the total fees you paid to Prioxy in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or, for a lifetime licence, the licence price. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for intent or gross negligence (opzet of bewuste roekeloosheid), for death or personal injury, or for anything that cannot be excluded under Dutch law.
Termination
You may terminate at any time by cancelling your subscription (section 6) or, for a lifetime licence, by ceasing to use the software; lifetime fees are not refunded on termination except as set out in section 9.
We may terminate or suspend your access with immediate effect if you materially breach these Terms and do not cure the breach within 14 days of notice, or immediately for the serious breaches described in section 7, for non-payment after the grace period, or if we are required to by law or by a platform we depend on. We may also discontinue the managed service altogether on at least 90 days' notice, in which case we will refund any prepaid fees for the period after discontinuation and give you the means to export your Workspace Data. Lifetime licences survive discontinuation of the managed service.
On termination your right to use the service ends, Workspace Data is handled as described in section 6, and the sections on data protection, intellectual property, liability, governing law and any accrued payment obligations survive.
Changes to the service and to these terms
We improve Cortex continuously and may add, change or remove features. We will not remove a feature that is material to the plan you pay for without at least 30 days' notice, unless a security or legal reason requires it.
We may update these Terms. Changes that are minor, clarifying or legally required take effect when posted with a new effective date. Material changes are notified to workspace owners by email at least 30 days before they take effect. If you do not agree with a material change you may terminate before it takes effect and receive a pro rata refund of any prepaid, unused fees. Continued use after the effective date is acceptance.
This is version 0.9 and is marked as a draft pending legal review. We expect to adopt a reviewed version; when we do, the changes will be announced in the same way as any other material change.
Governing law and disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Netherlands, excluding its conflict-of-law rules and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. Disputes will be submitted to the competent court in the Netherlands, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer-protection rule that gives you a right to sue in your own country.
Before going to court, please email us. Most problems can be fixed in a few messages, and we commit to responding to a formal complaint within 14 days and trying in good faith to resolve it within 30.
If any provision of these Terms is found invalid, the rest remains in force and the provision is replaced with a valid one that comes closest to its intent. These Terms, the Privacy Policy and your order through the wizard or Stripe are the entire agreement between us and replace any earlier discussions. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent except as allowed for lifetime licences in section 9; we may assign them to a successor of the Cortex business on notice to you.