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.

String Theory is free during early access, and nobody is being charged yet. This policy is published in advance so the terms are knowable before the first payment, not after.

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

Subscriptions renew automatically until you cancel, and Paddle emails you before each renewal.

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.

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.

5. Cancelling

Cancel any time from your account settings, which link to Paddle's customer portal—the same place you update a card or download past invoices. There is no cancellation fee and nothing to email us about.

Cancelling takes effect at the end of the period you've already paid for. You keep everything your plan carries until then, and afterwards the workspace 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. Removing a seat takes effect at the end of the current billing period and reduces the next invoice; we don't refund part-months for a seat you stop using mid-period. Dropping below the two-seat minimum means moving off Group, which follows section 5.

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.

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