Last updated 20 September 2026 · Createful Ltd, United Kingdom
Sotto is a quiet way for a child to reach their family. These terms say what the service does, whose account is whose, and what we each promise, in words meant to be read once and understood.
Sotto lets a child tell their family they're fine, they've arrived, they're on the way home, they'd like a call with an excuse, or they'd like to be collected, with one tap, and with their location attached at that moment only. Their guardians receive it, and the child sees who has. Everything the child sends, the child chooses to send.
Sotto reaches the people who look after you. For danger of the kind emergency services exist for, call your local emergency number: 999 in the UK, and 112 across Europe and on most mobile networks anywhere in the world. The app teaches every child the right number for where they are at setup, and its own tiers deliberately stop short of that line. Sotto is not an emergency service, is not monitored by people, and no human watches individual check-ins.
Guardian accounts are for adults with parental responsibility for the children they add, or invited by someone who has it. You're responsible for what happens under your account, for keeping your password to yourself, and for the truth of what you tell us: a child's profile may only be created by someone entitled to create it.
A child uses Sotto on a phone their guardian pairs and approves. The child holds no account and agrees to no terms; the guardian who set them up does that on their behalf, and that guardian, the primary, is the one who can add or remove other guardians, link or unlink the child's phone, and remove the child entirely. Every guardian linked to a child can see who else is, and the child sees the full list on their own phone. Adding a guardian means their check-ins reach that person; only add people the child should be reachable by.
We built Sotto to deliver, and to tell the truth when it can't: a check-in is saved on the child's phone before anything else happens, retried until it lands, escalated from notification to email until a person answers, and the child's screen says plainly whether anyone has. That honesty is the promise.
What no app can promise is the phone network, a charged battery, a granted permission, or a notification setting: delivery depends on things outside our control, and you shouldn't rely on Sotto as the only way your family reaches each other. It is a layer, not a guarantee. The app's own test button (Settings → Notifications) exists so you can check the whole path yourself.
Don't use Sotto to harass, monitor, or control anyone; don't pair a phone belonging to a child you have no responsibility for; don't probe, overload, or reverse the service; don't put unlawful content in the free-text fields (the app filters what a family shouldn't see, and we may act on what the filter is for). We can suspend or close accounts that break these terms, and where a child's safety is involved, we will act first and explain after.
Sotto is free, meaningfully: every safety feature (all five check-ins, escalation, waves, practice runs) is free for one child and two guardians, forever. The delivery of a child's check-in will never be the thing behind a paywall.
Sotto Family is an optional subscription that adds room (more children, unlimited guardians) for £2.49 a month or £24.99 a year in the UK; the App Store shows the price in your own currency before you buy. It is purchased through Apple, renews automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the current period ends, and can be cancelled at any time in your Apple account's subscription settings. Apple handles all payment; refunds follow Apple's own process.
If a subscription ever lapses, your family keeps working exactly as it stands: every guardian and child stays, every check-in delivers. You just can't add more until it's back, and after fourteen days the "ask how they're doing" nudge pauses. Nothing a child relies on is ever affected by a payment.
What we collect, why, and for how long lives in the privacy policy, which is part of these terms. The app, the service, and the Sotto name are ours (Createful Ltd); your family's data is yours, and deleting your account or a child's profile in-app really deletes it, on the schedule the policy states.
Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law doesn't allow us to limit, and nothing in them reduces your statutory rights as a consumer.
Beyond that: Sotto is provided as described here, honestly and with care, but we're not liable for losses caused by things outside our reasonable control (networks, devices, app-store platforms) or for a message not arriving where the cause is a setting, a permission, or a phone we don't run. Where we are liable, our liability is limited to what you've paid us in the last twelve months (currently: nothing), except where the first paragraph applies.
Your country gives you consumer guarantees we cannot sign away, and nothing here tries to. Where anything above conflicts with them, your law wins and the rest of these terms carries on as written. In particular, the twelve-month limit above does not apply to you.
In Australia: Our services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. For major failures with the service, you are entitled: to cancel your service contract with us; and to a refund for the unused portion, or to compensation for its reduced value. You are also entitled to be compensated for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. If the failure does not amount to a major failure, you are entitled to have problems with the service rectified in a reasonable time and, if this is not done, to cancel your contract and obtain a refund for the unused portion of the contract.
In New Zealand: the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 gives you guarantees for services bought for personal or household use, including that they are supplied with reasonable care and skill. We do not contract out of them.
Sotto Family is bought from Apple, so refunds run through your Apple account. If Apple's process does not put it right, write to support [at] sotto.family and we will help you sort it. We will not hide behind Apple to avoid a right your own law gives you.
We'll update these terms when the product genuinely changes, with the date above moved and material changes flagged in the app. You can stop using Sotto and delete your account at any time, in the app, without asking us. If we ever discontinue the service we'll give reasonable notice: a family relying on it deserves time to arrange the alternative.
These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and its courts have jurisdiction. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you keep the protections and courts of home, and the same principle travels further: wherever you live, your own country's consumer protections apply whatever this paragraph says, and you can bring a claim where you live. Questions to support [at] sotto.family. A person reads it.