Refund & Cancellation Policy

This policy is part of the Terms of Service between you and Grumpy Gopher, LLC, the Montana company behind String Theory. It explains what happens to your money and to your work when you cancel, downgrade, or ask for a refund.

1. 30-day money-back guarantee

If you're not happy with a paid plan, tell us within 30 days of your first payment and we'll refund it in full. You don't have to give a reason. This applies to the first payment on a plan—monthly or annual.

2. Who actually issues the refund

Payments are processed by Paddle, which acts as the merchant of record. That means they are the seller for the transaction: the charge on your statement and the receipt in your inbox come from them, not from us, and they handle sales tax and VAT. We never see or store your card details.

You can request a refund either way and it reaches the same place—email us at accounts@stringtheoryconnect.com, or use the receipt from Paddle, which links to their buyer portal. Refunds return to the original payment method. How quickly the money reappears is your bank's decision, not ours; a few business days is typical.

3. Renewals and price changes

Subscriptions renew automatically until you cancel. We email you before renewals, wherever you live: 30 days before an annual plan renews, and once a year for a monthly plan, 30 days before the renewal that starts its next year. Each reminder gives the renewal date, the price, and a link to cancel. Paddle may also send its own reminder in places where the law requires one.

If a renewal charges you and you'd meant to cancel, tell us within 14 days and we'll refund it, provided the account hasn't been used since the renewal date. We'd rather refund a forgotten renewal than argue about it.

If we change the price of a plan you subscribe to, we email you between 7 and 30 days before the new price applies, with the old and new prices and the date of the first charge at the new price. Cancel before that date and you never pay it. If the first charge at a higher price goes through and you cancel within 14 days of it, we refund that charge in full.

4. Annual plans

Annual plans are billed for the year. After the 30-day window in section 1, we don't refund the unused part of a year—but cancelling never cuts your access short: you keep the paid plan until the period you've paid for ends, and it simply doesn't renew.

You can switch a monthly plan to yearly billing at any time from your Account page. The switch takes effect straight away: the unused part of your current month is credited, the rest of the year's price is charged that day, and your yearly plan starts then. We show you the exact amount before you agree. A yearly plan can't be switched to monthly part way through a year; to go back to monthly, cancel, and subscribe monthly once your year ends. Nothing in your workspace is deleted in between (section 6 explains what Free allows), though links shared with named people pause until you subscribe again.

Upgrading from Personal to Group works the same way and also takes effect straight away: the unused part of your Personal period is credited against your first Group payment. If that credit is more than the payment (for example, moving from a yearly Personal plan), you pay nothing that day and the rest stays on your account for your next payments. We show you the exact amount before you agree. Group can't be changed back to Personal part way through a period; to go back, cancel, and subscribe to Personal once the period ends.

Switching from Personal to Classroom works the same way, and because Classroom is billed only yearly, a monthly Personal plan moves to yearly billing with it. Group and Classroom can't be changed into each other, or back to Personal, part way through a period; cancel, and subscribe to the plan you want once the period ends. If you cancel Classroom, your classes keep running until the year you've paid for ends; then your students' links to your classes lapse, they keep their boards, and nothing of theirs is deleted.

5. Canceling

Cancel any time with the Cancel subscription button in your account settings. It takes one click and a confirmation: no email, no call, and no form. If we ever show you an offer to stay, a button to finish canceling stays on screen beside it. There is no cancellation fee. Paddle emails you a confirmation that gives the date the cancellation takes effect.

The cancel link in any email from Paddle works too. Paddle's customer portal, linked from the same settings, is where you update a card or download past invoices. If you can't sign in, email accounts@stringtheoryconnect.com and we'll cancel for you.

Canceling takes effect at the end of the period you've already paid for. You keep everything your plan carries until then, and afterwards each workspace the plan covered moves to the Free plan.

6. What happens to your work when a plan ends

This is the part most policies leave vague, so here it is exactly.

• We do not delete your content because a subscription ended. Projects, entities, connections, notes, and uploaded media all stay where they are.
• Your work stays editable. If a workspace is over the Free plan's limits after a downgrade, that stops you adding new projects, entities, or uploads until you're back under them. It does not lock or hide what's already there.
• Downgrading never makes a private thing public. If a share link uses an option your new plan doesn't carry, that link is switched off—it is never quietly widened to a bigger audience. Visitors get a page saying the link is no longer available. Turning a share back on is always your deliberate act, never ours.
• You can always take your data with you. Account → Export produces a complete archive of everything you own, on any plan including Free, whether or not you ever paid.

Deletion only ever happens when you ask for it—by deleting a project, or by deleting your account (Account → Delete), which removes the workspaces you own. Export first; that one can't be undone.

7. Before anything stops working, we'll tell you

If a change of plan would switch off a share link that's currently live, we'll say so before the change takes effect, name the links affected, and give you the chance to back out. Finding out from a confused reader is not an acceptable way to learn this.

8. Seats on a Group plan

Group plans are billed per seat with a minimum of two. You can add or remove seats at any time from your Account page, and the change takes effect straight away. Added seats are charged that day for the rest of the current billing period. For removed seats, the unused part of the period is credited to your account and pays toward your next payments; it isn't refunded to your card. We show you the exact amount before you agree. You can't remove a seat someone is using (an invitation not yet accepted counts), and dropping below the two-seat minimum means moving off Group, which follows section 5.

A Group plan belongs to the person who buys it and covers every workspace they're the only owner of, plus any they create while it's active. Each person counts as one seat however many of those workspaces they're in, and the plan's projects, entities, and storage are shared across all of them.

Removing someone's seat doesn't delete their work—content they created in your workspace stays in the workspace, because it belongs to the workspace.

9. The Free plan

Free costs nothing, so there's nothing to refund. Everything in section 6 about your content still applies: it isn't deleted, it stays editable within the Free limits, and you can export it whenever you like.

The Free plan never turns into a paid plan on its own. You start paying only by subscribing yourself, and we don't offer free trials that convert to paid plans.

10. Chargebacks

If something looks wrong on your statement, please ask us first—email is faster than a bank dispute and we would rather just refund you. Disputing a charge with your bank can suspend the account while the dispute is open, which we'd both rather avoid.

11. Where this doesn't apply

Some places give consumers stronger cancellation rights than this policy does. Where the law gives you more than we've promised here, you get what the law gives you—this policy doesn't take away rights you have by statute.

12. Changes to this policy

If we change these terms we'll bump the version above. A change never applies retroactively to a payment you've already made—the version in effect when you paid is the one that governs it.

13. Contact

Grumpy Gopher, LLC · accounts@stringtheoryconnect.com