Cancellation & Refund Policy

1. Try before you buy

Our interactive demos are not marketing reels — they're the actual product, fully functional, free, and require no sign-up:

• Whiteboard tutor demo
• Reading coach demo
• AI tutor demo

Spend as much time with the demos as you like before subscribing. We believe a paid subscription should be a confident decision, not a regret.

2. How to cancel

You can cancel your subscription at any time. Two ways:

• Sign in and click Cancel subscription on your billing page. The cancellation is processed immediately.
• Email support@hearthslate.com and we'll process it within one business day.

When you cancel, your subscription stops at the end of the current paid term. You keep full access through that period. Your card is not charged again. There is nothing else you need to do.

This satisfies the FTC's requirement under the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (15 USC §8403) and California's Automatic Renewal Law (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §17602) for a "simple mechanism" for cancelling an auto-renewing subscription.

3. No routine refunds on yearly subscriptions

Subscription fees are non-refundable once charged. This applies to both:

• Your initial yearly subscription payment
• Each subsequent yearly renewal

Cancelling stops your nextrenewal charge — it does not refund the term you're currently in. You retain full access for the rest of the paid term.

We've set this policy intentionally:

• The free demos let you validate the product without paying.
• The first-student discount tier ($290 for Core) is intentionally priced near our cost floor — every additional student is steeply discounted.
• Yearly billing keeps the per-month price low; routine refunds on used yearly subscriptions would force us to raise prices for everyone.

4. Exceptional refunds (we will issue these)

We will issue a refund — promptly, at our discretion — in any of the following situations:

• Duplicate charges. If you were billed more than once for the same subscription period, the extra charge is refunded.
• Mistaken charge. If you were billed after a successful cancellation, the charge is refunded.
• Failed delivery. If a substantial portion of the platform was unusable for an extended period due to an outage on our end (more than 48 hours of cumulative downtime in your first month), email us and we'll prorate or refund.
• Fraudulent / unauthorized charge. If someone other than the account owner subscribed, we'll refund and lock the account on confirmation.
• Account terminated by us for reasons not involving customer breach of the Terms of Service — we prorate the unused portion of the term.

Email refunds@hearthslate.com with your account email and a brief description. A human responds within one business day; refunds, when approved, are processed within five business days to the original payment method.

5. Chargebacks

If you believe you're owed a refund, please email us first. We will always work with you on a legitimate error or hardship. Filing a chargeback with your bank before contacting us:

• Delays resolution by 30–90 days while the bank investigates
• Requires us to formally dispute, which may result in your account being suspended
• Costs us a chargeback fee, which can lead to permanent account termination if it becomes a pattern

We'd much rather just resolve the issue directly with you.

6. What happens to your data after cancellation

When your subscription ends, your account enters a 90-day grace window. During that window:

• You can sign in and export your child's data, transcripts, and portfolio
• You can re-subscribe and pick up exactly where you left off
• We do not collect any new personal information from your child (no new lessons, no new audio recordings)

After 90 days, your data is permanently deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy and COPPA §312.10. You can request immediate deletion at any time from Settings → Privacy.

7. Taxes

Any refund we issue includes the proportional sales tax we collected on the original charge. If your tax authority returns the tax to us, we pass it back to you with the refund; if they don't, the refund is the full amount you paid us.

8. Questions

Email refunds@hearthslate.com for billing or refund questions, or support@hearthslate.com for anything else. A human reads every message and responds within one business day.