diff --git a/cmd/createuser/main.go b/cmd/createuser/main.go
index 8dc3c014..d3557418 100644
--- a/cmd/createuser/main.go
+++ b/cmd/createuser/main.go
@@ -14,9 +14,7 @@
 //	createuser -id 1000 [-first-name Test] [-last-name User] [-username testuser] -phone "15550001234"
 //	createuser -id 1000 [-first-name Test] [-last-name User] [-username testuser] -email "test@example.com"
 //
-// Exactly one of -phone or -email is required: login resolves the account by
-// one of them, so an account with neither can never be signed in to. They are
-// mutually exclusive because an email-signup account never
+// -phone and -email are mutually exclusive: an email-signup account never
 // stores the address in users.phone directly (see internal/domain/emailphone.go)
 // -- it gets a synthetic "888"-prefixed display phone instead (the same one
 // assignEmailSignupDisplayPhone hands a real email-signup account), with the
@@ -60,8 +58,8 @@ func main() {
 	firstName := flag.String("first-name", "Test", "first name")
 	lastName := flag.String("last-name", "", "last name")
 	username := flag.String("username", "", "username, without @ (optional)")
-	phone := flag.String("phone", "", "phone number (exactly one of -phone or -email is required)")
-	email := flag.String("email", "", "email address for an email-signup account (exactly one of -phone or -email is required)")
+	phone := flag.String("phone", "", "phone number (optional; mutually exclusive with -email)")
+	email := flag.String("email", "", "email address for an email-signup account (optional; mutually exclusive with -phone)")
 	force := flag.Bool("force", false, "skip the reserved-id / sequence-collision safety checks")
 	flag.Parse()
 
@@ -69,10 +67,6 @@ func main() {
 		fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, "createuser: -id is required and must be positive")
 		os.Exit(2)
 	}
-	if *phone == "" && *email == "" {
-		fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, "createuser: one of -phone or -email is required - an account with neither cannot be logged in to")
-		os.Exit(2)
-	}
 	if *phone != "" && *email != "" {
 		fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, "createuser: -phone and -email are mutually exclusive")
 		os.Exit(2)
@@ -122,8 +116,8 @@ func main() {
 	}
 
 	// phone/username/signup_email all sit under partial unique indexes that
-	// exclude '', so a blank username or (for a phone account) signup_email
-	// never collides with another blank-valued account.
+	// exclude '', so leaving any of them blank never collides with another
+	// blank-valued account.
 	row := pool.QueryRow(ctx, `
 		INSERT INTO users (id, access_hash, phone, signup_email, first_name, last_name, username, country_code)
 		VALUES ($1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, '')