Why Freehold Doesn't Do KYC

No identity document at signup. None once you scale, either. That's a structural decision, not a policy we might revisit.

Most hosting platforms start you off with just an email and a password. Then, at some threshold — more usage, a bigger card, a support ticket that touches billing — the form changes. A "verify your identity" step appears: a government ID upload, a phone number tied to a real name. It's rarely announced up front, because it doesn't need to be — it happens gradually enough that most people don't think of it as a rule, just a growing pain.

The form we don't have

Freehold's signup form has two fields: email and password. Or you can skip both and continue with GitHub. That's the whole form — not a streamlined version of a longer one, the entire thing. No legal name, no date of birth, no phone verification, no business tax ID, no passport scan.

Why "permanently" means permanently

The easy version of this promise is free: any platform can skip ID checks for a small hobby account. The commitment is what happens as you scale — more apps, more traffic, a card that gets flagged for review. That's exactly the point at which most platforms introduce KYC, framed as a compliance requirement rather than a product decision. Freehold doesn't have that step to introduce. There's no tier where it turns on.

What this doesn't mean

No KYC doesn't mean no accountability — you still agree to Freehold's Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy, and abuse still gets accounts suspended. It just means what gets checked is behavior, not identity documents. We don't need your passport to tell that a container is running a spam campaign.

The trade-off, stated plainly

This is a real trade-off, not a hidden win. Some payment processors, and some enterprise customers, will always want KYC from a hosting provider, and Freehold will lose that business. That's the deal: refuse to ask, and some doors close. We'd rather build for the people the form was actually keeping out.