Terms & Conditions of Sale

All orders placed by Customer are subject to acceptance by SparkFun. All orders must identify the products, unit quantities, part numbers, applicable prices and requested delivery dates of the Products being purchased. Unless otherwise agreed, all materials will be shipped no later than one year from the date that SparkFun accepts the purchase order. SparkFun may in its sole discretion allocate Product among its Customers. SparkFun may designate certain Products and Services as non-cancelable, non-returnable (“NCNR”) and the sale of such Products shall be subject to any special terms and conditions contained in SparkFun’s NCNR Letter, which shall prevail and supersede any inconsistent terms and conditions contained herein or elsewhere. NCNR Orders may not be cancelled or rescheduled without SparkFun’s written consent.

The prices of the Products are those prices specified on the front of the invoice. Pricing for undelivered Products may be increased in the event of an increase in SparkFun’s cost, change in market conditions or any other causes beyond SparkFun’s reasonable control. Price quotations shall automatically expire in fifteen (15) days from the date issued, or as otherwise stated in the quotation.

Unless otherwise agreed to in writing by SparkFun, all prices quoted include freight and shipping costs and sales tax, compliant with federal, state, and local tax regulations. All prices quoted are exclusive of insurance costs. Customer agrees to indemnify and hold SparkFun harmless for any liability for tax in connection with the sale, as well as the collection or withholding thereof, including penalties and interest thereon. When applicable, transportation and taxes shall appear as separate items on SparkFun’s invoice.

Payment may be made by check, money order, credit card, PayPal or wire transfer (all fees are borne by the Customer). Where SparkFun has extended credit to Customer, terms of payment shall be net thirty (30) days from date of invoice, without offset or deduction unless otherwise noted. If Customer fails to make each payment when it is due, SparkFun reserves the right to change or withdraw credit and thereby suspend or cancel performance under any or all purchase orders or agreements in which SparkFun has extended credit to Customer. In the event of default by Customer, SparkFun shall be entitled to costs, fees, and expenses, including but not limited to recovery of attorney fees, court costs and fees, and collections costs.

At any time, SparkFun may change the terms of Customer's credit. SparkFun may apply payments to any of Customer's accounts. If Customer defaults on any payment, SparkFun may reschedule or cancel any outstanding delivery or Order and declare all outstanding invoices due and payable immediately. Unless otherwise provided by applicable law, Customer credits provided by SparkFun will expire if unused within 12 months.

All deliveries from SparkFun to a Customer’s delivery location are in accordance with Incoterms 2010 FCA (“Free Carrier”) unless otherwise specified in writing. Title & risk of loss pass to the Customer upon delivery to the carrier. SparkFun’s delivery dates are estimates only and SparkFun is not liable for delays in delivery or for failure to perform due to causes beyond the reasonable control of SparkFun, nor shall the carrier be deemed an agent of SparkFun. A delayed delivery of any part of an Order does not entitle Customer to cancel other deliveries.

Returns must be initiated within 30 days of purchase. Only products originally shipped from SparkFun will be considered for return to SparkFun. By a Customer requesting return of products to SparkFun, the Customer certifies that the products were purchased from SparkFun and there has been no substitution of the product from another supplier, distributor or other source of the product, including a dropship partner. Returns must be for products that are: (a) unmodified or unused and in original packaging; (b) product that has been damaged in transit; or, (c) if the incorrect product was received. If the product is approved for failure analysis/warranty evaluation by a SparkFun representative via a Return Material Authorization (RMA). 

Any item for exchange must be in original packaging and in unused condition. Exchanges must be requested within 30 days of ship date. Defective item(s) may be exchanged/returned for the same item if approved by a Customer Support Representative. Items purchased from SparkFun that have been used or altered and any items that have been sold NC/NR will not be accepted for exchange.

Because of the custom nature of NCNR orders, our standard return and cancellation policies do not apply. Once the Product has been shipped from SparkFun, those Products cannot be returned. If SparkFun (a) holds Product(s) in our inventory for Customer, (b) orders specialty Product(s) specifically for an order from a third party supplier, (c) has begun manufacturing Product(s) based on order, (d) an Order for an A La Carte (ALC) board has been placed, or (e) has begun manufacturing a Custom Kit, that order cannot be canceled. A Custom Kit is defined as any kit that has been modified from our storefront SKU to be customized to the customer’s specifications.

SparkFun reserves the right to charge cancellation fees. SparkFun does not refund the original shipping and handling. Customer is responsible for all return freight charges. SparkFun does not accept COD shipments.

Upon receipt and inspection of returned item(s), SparkFun will advise of the refund status. In this case of factory warranty or failure analysis, SparkFun will issue any applicable credit pending manufacturer confirmation of failure. SparkFun initiates credits via the original method of payment within 48 hours of approval. Refunds via credit card can take up to 10 business days to post to the account. Returns for Orders older than 30 days or returns including merchandise that is not in original condition or unable to be restocked, SparkFun reserves the right to deny the return or change the refund method to store credit.

See Return Policy page.

If SparkFun is found to breach this limited warranty, Customer’s sole remedy is limited to (at SparkFun’s election) (1) refund of Customer’s purchase price for Product(s), (2) repair of Product(s), or (3) replacement of Product(s); provided that Product(s) must be returned to SparkFun, along with acceptable evidence of purchase, within 30 days from ship date, transportation charges prepaid. No warranty will apply if the Product(s) has been subject to misuse, static discharge, neglect, accident or modification, or has been soldered.

SparkFun warrants that at the time of delivery, Product(s) will conform to the specifications stated by SparkFun in its published data sheet for the Product(s). All warranty claims will be time-barred 12 months from the time of delivery of the non-conforming Product(s).

SparkFun makes no representation of warranty with respect to information, materials and Services provided on or through the website. INFORMATION, MATERIALS AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED ‘AS IS’.

SparkFun makes no representation of warranty with respect to Software and will have no liability in connection therewith. SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ WITH NO ADDITIONAL WARRANTY.

SPARKFUN MAKES NO OTHER WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, SUCH AS WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON INFRINGEMENT.

SparkFun’s liability to Customer is limited to Customer’s direct damages up to an amount not exceeding the price of the Product at issue. SparkFun is not liable for, and Customer is not entitled to any indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages (for example, loss of profits or revenue, loss of data, loss of use, rework, repair, manufacturing expense, costs of product recall, injury to reputation or loss of customers). To the extent SparkFun cannot lawfully disclaim any implied or statutory warranties, Customer’s statutory rights are not affected by this limitation of liability. Customer will indemnify, defend and hold SparkFun harmless from any claims based on (a) Customer’s compliance with SparkFun’s designs, specifications, or instructions, (b) modifications of any products by anyone other than SparkFun, or (c) use in combination with other products.

Customer shall comply with the manufacturer’s Product specifications. Product are not authorized for use in life support systems, life sustaining systems, human implantation, nuclear facilities, war or military devices or any other application where Product failure could lead to personal injury, loss of life or significant property damage. If Customer uses or sells the Products for such use in such applications or fails to comply with SparkFun’s Product specifications, Customer acknowledges that such use, sale, or non-compliance is at Customer’s sole risk. Customer shall indemnify, defend and hold SparkFun harmless from any claims based on: (i) SparkFun’s compliance with Customer’s designs, specifications, or instructions, (ii) modification of any Product by anyone other than SparkFun, or (iii) use of Products in combination with other products or in violation of this clause.

If Customer uses or sells the Products for use in any such applications: (1) Customer acknowledges that such use or sale is at Customer’s sole risk; (2) Customer agrees that SparkFun is not liable, in whole or in part, for any claim or damage arising from such use; and (3) Customer agrees to indemnify, defend and hold SparkFun harmless from and against any and all claims, damages, losses, costs, expenses and liabilities arising out of or in connection with such use or sale.

Certain products sold by SparkFun are subject to applicable laws of the United States and other applicable laws may restrict the export and/or re-export of certain commodities and technical data. Customer agrees that it will not export or re-export restricted commodities or technical data obtained from Sparkfun except in compliance with all applicable laws. Nothing in these terms adds to, changes, supersedes, or waives any of the requirements of applicable United States export control laws, Executive Orders, and regulations, including but not limited to –

1.     The Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.);

2.     The Export Administration Act of 1979 (50 U.S.C. app. 2401 et seq.), as continued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (Title II of Pub. L. 95-223, 91 Stat. 1626, October 28, 1977; 50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.);

3.     Trading with the Enemy Act (50 U.S.C. App. 5(b), as amended by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961);

4.     International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) (22 CFR parts 120 through 130);

5.     Export Administration Regulations (EAR) (15 CFR Parts 730 through 774); and

6.     The regulations administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury (31 CFR parts 500 through 598).

SparkFun reserves the right to refuse and/or cancel any order if, at any time, SparkFun believes that any export controls or trade sanctions laws may be violated.  Customer agrees to not export or re-export Products to any country or entity to which such export or re-export is prohibited, including any country or entity under sanction or embargo administered by the United States, European Union, or other countries. Customer will not transfer any export-controlled products to a "non-US person" without the proper authority of the United States Government or other governing body. Customer shall indemnify and hold SparkFun and its affiliates, founder, officers, directors, employees, and agents harmless from all liabilities and claims, including, but not limited to, any third party claims, any sanctions imposed by governmental authorities, and any costs or expenses (including reasonable attorney's fees) arising out of any failure to comply with applicable export control laws and regulations.

SparkFun is not liable for failure to fulfill its obligations under this Agreement due to causes beyond its reasonable control (for example, acts of nature, acts of omissions of Customer, operational disruptions, natural or artificial disasters, epidemic medical crises, materials or Product shortages, strikes, riot, war, criminal acts, delays in delivery or transportation, inability to obtain labor, government priorities, changes in law, material shortages, fire, floods, quarantine restrictions, acts of terrorism, materials or Products through regular sources).

If technical assistance or advice are offered or given to Customer, such assistance or advice is given free of charge and only as an accommodation to Customer. SparkFun shall not be held liable for the content or Customer’s use of such technical assistance or advice nor shall any statement made by any of SparkFun’s representatives in connection with the Products or Services constitute a representation or warranty, express or implied.

SparkFun assumes the following responsibilities:

1. Protecting all data generated by and provided to us by our users from being stolen, compromised, or used in violation with this policy.
2. Never selling user-provided and user-generated data for financial gain or competitive advantage.
3. Providing transparency for our users into what data we collect and what we do with it including what access third parties have to user data and for what purpose.
4. Informing users if their data is compromised, either by failure to protect data or by order to surrender data to a legal authority, to the fullest extent we are lawfully able.

If you register an account with SparkFun, we’ll have access to your e-mail address and any additional contact information you choose to provide us. If you place an order, we retain a record of the contents of the order, delivery and billing address information, and any communication you might have with our customer support team about the order. If you use features such as commenting, in-stock notifications, and comment reply notifications, we retain record of this fact.

If you browse sparkfun.com, with or without a login, we know for a limited time that a user at your IP address has visited pages on the site.

We collect data on what products and content you browse in order to offer better value to you through personalized email, and to see which products/content are the most useful to you.

We send email to users when orders are placed, paused, shipped, or ready for local pickup. We may be in contact when an order requires payment before shipping or if other issues prevent us from fulfilling an order. We will send you email to verify your email address or if you request a password reset. We may send you email to request reviews of our products or feedback on your experience with our website, products, or customer support.

We will notify users if we believe their privacy has been compromised, if it is within our power to do so. For example, if we discover a customer’s account user login information has been exposed elsewhere on the web, or if we are compelled to disclose information to law enforcement.

We offer a set of opt-in email subscriptions for things such as newsletters, in-stock notifications for products, and comment reply notifications. You can control your subscriptions (when logged into your account) on the Email Notifications page. All new customers are signed up to our main newsletter by default, and SparkFun may at any time add all new and all existing customers to existing and new newsletters at our discretion.

We may occasionally send you an email that you did not request or trigger with an action of any kind in order to promote a certain aspect of our site, products, or services.

If you email or chat with us, we do keep and track those communications via Hubspot. This is done so for training and audit purposes and the private conversations between customers and Support staff are never sold to or shared with third parties (except when a third party tool, such as email, is used to make the interaction possible).

In order to understand traffic to our sites and diagnose technical problems, we log individual web requests. These logs include time of request, individual IP address, referer, and user agent strings. We may retain these logs for up to 60 days, although individually-identifying information will be obscured after one week.

In order to prevent fraud and detect malicious behavior, we log IP addresses for specific actions, such as creating a customer account and placing an order. This information is automatically deleted after no more than 60 days.

Except in the case of malicious traffic, we will not share log data with any third party, unless compelled by legal process to do so.

We use cookies, tags, and tracking pixels to know when users are logged in to SparkFun services and to track preferences such as display currencies and the rendering of product menus.

Our analytics software, Google Marketing Platform and CrazyEgg, use tags/tracking pixels to help keep track of how many unique visitors we’re getting, where they come from, and how they navigate our site, unless you’re browsing with Do Not Track enabled. We use this information to inform site improvements.

We do our best to serve all content securely over HTTPS.

Do Not Track is a standard for telling sites that you don’t want to be tracked. It’s aimed at sites you don’t visit directly, like advertisers and social media platforms.

SparkFun supports the Do Not Track standard. While third party plugins with access to visitor browsing data are limited on sparkfun.com, all are disabled for visitors passing a Do Not Track HTTP header. This includes third party tools for analytics, live chat, and web optimization (described below).

We use GMail, and mail sent to or from sparkfun.com addresses generally passes through Google’s servers.

Promotional and informative mail sent to mailing lists, such as the newsletter, is sent using HubSpot. Automated mail sent from a triggering event, like a back-in-stock notification, is sent from sparkfun.com directly. All users with accounts can manage all subscriptions via the Email tab in Account Settings. All users can opt out of these lists by clicking Unsubcribe in the emails.

See HubSpot’s privacy policy here.

We offer shipping through third parties: FedEx, UPS, and the United States Postal Service (via a service called Endicia). We pass delivery addresses, phone numbers, and invoices to these companies to the extent required for quoting shipping prices and successful delivery of orders.

We comply with United States export regulations and authorities. We use Visual Compliance to automatically screen billing and delivery addresses for potential export control violations. This entails transmission of customer billing and delivery address information to Visual Compliance servers.

The Third Party Fulfillment Center will only have access to info on your order's shipment. This may include your name, address, and contact information related to your order. We will not share your data that doesn't apply directly to orders, including but not limited to email, payment info, profile info, etc.

Credit Card payments are processed through Braintree. All credit card data including the cardholder name, credit card number, expiration date, CVV, and full billing address are sent to Braintree via an API for processing. Details regarding what products a customer is purchasing and other demographic information are not sent to Braintree.

Each transaction is logged by retaining the transaction amount, the cardholder name, the last four digits of the credit card, and the card expiration date. No other credit card data is stored at any point on SparkFun servers. This is in full compliance with PCI DSS.

PayPal is offered as a payment method. When using PayPal on sparkfun.com a user must provide their PayPal email address. The user will then be directed to paypal.com to complete their payment, after which they will be redirected to sparkfun.com to complete the order.

SparkFun uses Google Marketing Platform, HubSpot, Facebook, and CrazyEgg to track aggregate behavior of visitors on sparkfun.com.

Google Universal Analytics is a service hosted on Google’s servers, and is our primary analytics tool. It is activated by a JavaScript snippet that loads on every page to send visitor behavioral information to Google. SparkFun uses this information to understand how visitors use our site. Sometimes SparkFun will run A/B tests, where Google Analytics will track cookies set on users to divide them into groups that get slightly different pages to see which perform better. Visitors who have Do Not Track enabled will not have any information sent to Google’s servers for use in analytics.

SparkFun also utilizes Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting. This means we combine personally identifiable information about your SparkFun account, browsing, and shopping habits and merge it with Google's tracking cookies, all of which goes to Google. This is enabled by default for all visitors to SparkFun.com. You can opt out of this by enabling Do Not Track headers in your browser or installing and enabling the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-on.

We serve image files (like product images) and other resources from Amazon’s CloudFront.

Uses can choose to display a Gravatar associated with the email address on their account. This will expose a hash of the address to the public web and to Gravatar, which may be a privacy concern.

We use Elasticsearch to provide search results on sparkfun.com for products, blog posts, tutorials, wish lists, and other content. The text of search strings is sent from our servers to Elasticsearch. We do not send any information about customers to Elasticsearch.

We maintain accounts on various social media platforms, including Facebook, X (Twitter), Pinterest, Flickr, GitHub, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Tumblr. While some of these platforms are themselves invasive of user privacy, we will do our best to apply the principles outlined in the rest of this policy to our use of social media.

We do not make use of third-party social media badges or widgets which function as trackers.

We use HubSpot to manage and prioritize customer contacts, including those by email, phone, chat, and social media.

Customer acknowledges and agrees that if Customer views, accesses, or otherwise uses the content on the website that uses YouTube API, Customer shall be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service.

If you have any questions or feedback regarding this policy, please contact us at support@sparkfun.com.

This Agreement shall be governed, construed, and enforced by the laws and courts of the State of Colorado. The State of Colorado shall have jurisdiction over all controversies arising out of, or relating to, this Agreement.

• The unenforcability or invalidity of any of these terms or conditions will not affect the remainder of the terms and conditions.
• Products, including software or other intellectual property, are subject to any applicable rights of third parties and Customer shall comply with such rights.
• Product information (for example, statements or advice (technical or otherwise) advertisement content, and information related to a Product’s specifications, features, export/import control classifications, uses or conformance with legal or other requirements) is provided by SparkFun on an “AS IS” basis and does not form a part of the properties of the Product. SparkFun makes no representation as to the accuracy or completeness of the Product information, and disclaims all representations, warranties and liabilities under any theory with respect to the product information. All Product information is subject to change without notice.

All features, content, specifications, Product(s) and prices of Product(s) and Services described or depicted on the website are subject to change at any time without notice. The inclusion of any Product(s) or Services on the website at a particular time does not imply or warrant that these Product(s) or Services will be available at any time. It is your responsibility to ascertain and obey all applicable local, state, federal and international laws in regard to the possession, use and sale of any item purchased from the website. By placing an Order, you represent that the Product(s) ordered will be used only in a lawful manner.

• In addition, we may make changes in information about price and availability without notice. While it is our practice to confirm Orders by email, the receipt of an email order confirmation does not constitute our acceptance of an Order or our confirmation of an offer to sell a Product or Service. We reserve the right, without prior notice, to limit the order quantity on any Product or Service and/or to refuse service to any Customer. We also may require verification of information prior to the acceptance and/or shipment of any order.
• We will fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities as per our Guidelines for Law Enforcement.

The design of the website and all text, graphics, information, content, and other materials displayed on or that can be downloaded from the website are protected by copyright, trademark and other laws. The contents on the website are Copyright (c) 2023, SparkFun, or their respective affiliates and suppliers. Any unauthorized use of any such information or materials may violate copyright laws, trademark laws, laws of privacy and publicity, and other laws and regulations. Customer acknowledges and agrees that if Customer views, accesses, or otherwise uses the content on the website that uses YouTube API, Customer shall be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service.

Certain trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos used or displayed on the website are registered and unregistered trademarks, trade names and service marks of SparkFun and its affiliates. Other trademarks, trade names and service marks used or displayed on the website are the registered and unregistered trademarks, trade names and service marks of their respective owners. Nothing contained on the website grants or should be construed as granting, by implication, or otherwise, any license or right to use any trademarks, trade names, service marks or logos displayed on the website without the written permission of SparkFun.

By submitting user content to the website you are granting SparkFun a worldwide, non exclusive license to use the user content and are representing and warranting to SparkFun that the content is owned or duly licensed by you, and that SparkFun is free to publish, distribute and use the user content as hereinafter provided for without obtaining permission or license from any third party.