Refund Policy

Summary

• The $12 unlock and every top-up are refundable on the credits you haven’t used. If you never start a scan, you get a full refund within 110 days. Once you’ve started scanning, the unused portion stays refundable pro-rata until the base credits from that purchase are used up — there is no separate time limit on that.
• Refunds are calculated against the base credits you paid for. Any bonus credits (the +5% / +10% promotional credits) have no monetary value, were never part of the price, and are removed rather than refunded.
• Credits never expire. Credits already consumed in completed scans are not refundable.
• Failed scans — if a scan errors due to our infrastructure, the credits are returned to your balance automatically. This is not a refund; no action needed on your end.
• Lockouts caused by a third-party site’s own anti-bot or paywall systems (when scanning ahead on a page) are not refundable.
• Start a refund inside Nevala (Refund status); Paddle, our Merchant of Record, processes the payment back to you.

1. The $12 Unlock and Starter Credits

The one-time $12 unlock includes 1,560 starter (base) credits. If you have not started any scan, the unlock is fully refundable within 110 days of purchase — you get the full $12 back.

Once you start scanning, the credits a completed scan consumes are used up and aren’t refundable — but your remaining unused base credits stay refundable, pro-rata, until those base credits are fully consumed. (EU/UK/EEA residents: you expressly ask us to begin the scanning service right away, so your statutory right of withdrawal is lost only for each individual scan once that scan has been fully performed. Unused base credits remain refundable on a pro-rata basis until they are used up.)

2. How the Pro-Rata Refund Is Calculated

For any purchase — the unlock or a top-up — the refund is:

Refund = dollars you paid × (unused base credits from that purchase ÷ base credits that purchase granted).

Each purchase is tracked as its own credit lot, so refund eligibility is per-purchase, not against your combined balance.

3. About Bonus Credits

Bonus credits are a free goodwill grant. They have no monetary value, cannot be exchanged for money, and are not part of the price you paid. If you ask us for a goodwill or pro-rata refund, the refund is calculated only against the base credits you bought, using the formula in section 2. Any bonus credits on your account at the time of refund are removed; they are not refunded because you never paid for them. Your statutory rights under applicable consumer law are not affected.

4. Paid Top-Up Balances

Each top-up purchase ($5, $10, or $25) follows the same rule: if you’ve started no scan against it, it’s fully refundable within 110 days; otherwise the unused base portion of that specific top-up’s credit lot is refundable, pro-rata, until that lot’s base credits are consumed, using the formula in section 2.

5. Your Statutory Rights and Goodwill Refunds

Your statutory rights always apply. If you live in the EU/EEA, you can cancel within 14 days under your local consumer law (for Irish consumers, the Consumer Rights Act 2022 Part 5). You also keep all of your conformity rights — if a scan service does not meet the required standard, you can ask us to put it right or get a proportionate price reduction.

Goodwill refunds. Outside those statutory rights, we offer goodwill refunds on a case-by-case basis. We do not apply a fixed annual quota. We may decline a goodwill refund only where there is clear evidence of abuse of the refund process; we will explain the reason in writing.

6. How to Request a Refund

Start your refund inside Nevala — open the settings screen and choose Refund status. This applies our refund policy first, then hands the payment to Paddle, our Merchant of Record, to process. You can also use the refund link in your Paddle receipt email.

Refunds typically arrive in your original payment method within 5–10 business days, depending on your bank.

7. Failed-Scan Credit Restoration

If a scan fails for reasons on our side — an infrastructure error, an AI-provider failure, a timeout, or content our system couldn’t actually read — the credits for that scan are returned to your balance automatically. This is a service-level guarantee, not a refund. You don’t need to contact support; the restoration happens at scan-failure time.

8. User Cancellation Mid-Scan

If you cancel a scan in progress, credits are returned for the segments that had not yet been dispatched to the AI provider at cancellation time. Segments already submitted consumed processing cost and are charged at the standard rate.

9. Hardship Unlock

The $2 hardship unlock follows the same rules as the standard unlock: full refund within 110 days if no scan has been started, otherwise a pro-rata refund on the unused base credits until they are consumed.

10. Safety-Filter Quota and Billing

Each unlock includes an allowance of safety-filter re-scans (scans that the AI provider blocks for safety reasons before any analysis happens), and top-ups add a small further allowance. A scan blocked by the safety filter within your allowance is not charged. Once your lifetime safety-filter allowance is exhausted, further scans that are safety-blocked are charged at the standard rate, because they still consume processing cost.

11. Billing Reconciliation

Scans are billed at the actual measured AI cost when each scan completes, so your charge is final at that point. Any later billing reconciliation is expected to change the amount by essentially nothing; where it does, the final charge may be finalized after that reconciliation.

12. Non-Refundable Scenarios

• Credits that have been consumed in completed scans (whether base or top-up)
• Bonus credits (the +5% / +10% promotional credits — no monetary value; see section 3)
• A no-scan-started refund requested more than 110 days after purchase (EU/UK/EEA statutory consumer rights are preserved regardless of this window)
• Account lockouts, paywall counters, or rate-limits triggered by a third-party site’s own anti-bot systems when scanning ahead on a page

13. Chargebacks

Chargebacks cost us a non-trivial fee and may trigger account review or suspension. Please use the in-app refund flow first — it’s faster than a chargeback and reaches the same outcome for any legitimately refundable purchase.

14. Paddle’s Role

As Merchant of Record, Paddle processes refunds and handles payment disputes. Their buyer terms and refund policy at the time of purchase apply to your purchase in addition to our Terms of Service, and where they are more generous to you, they prevail. If a refund is granted on one platform (Apple in-app purchase on iOS, or Paddle on the web), the corresponding credit balance is reconciled across platforms within 24 hours.

15. Contact

If the in-app flow doesn’t resolve your situation, email support@nevala.app. You can also raise a payment matter with Paddle (our Merchant of Record) directly.