Refund & Cancellation Policy

1. The Cancel-Anytime Promise

You can cancel a SoloCogs subscription at any time from your account settings, or by emailing hello@solocogs.co.uk. There is no hold-period, no penalty, no phone call required. The cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period you have already paid for - the platform stays open until that date, then closes automatically. We never auto-charge a fresh period after cancellation.

The cancel-anytime model is here because we want parents to feel safe trying SoloCogs. If your child does not get on with the platform, you should not feel locked in.

2. 14-Day Cooling-Off Right (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013)

Under UK consumer law, you have a statutory right to cancel digital service purchases within 14 days of sign-up and receive a full refund of any fees already paid.

There is one important exception. When you sign up to SoloCogs, you are asked to tick a box agreeing to immediate access to the digital content. This is the standard "waive your cooling-off right in exchange for instant access" clause that the regulations specifically allow for digital services. By ticking the box you are:

• Confirming you want the platform to start working straight away rather than wait 14 days.
• Waiving the right to a refund for any content your child has accessed during the cooling-off period.

What this means in practice:

• If you sign up but do NOT use the platform within 14 days, email us and we refund the period in full.
• If your child has accessed any subscription-only content within those 14 days, we refund any portion of the period your child has NOT yet used (pro-rata on remaining days), but not the days where access was used.
• After 14 days, the cancel-anytime rule in section 1 takes over.

3. Monthly vs Annual Plans

Plan	What you've paid for	Refund on cancellation
Monthly	One month of access at a time	None mid-month - you keep the remainder of the month you paid for, then the subscription stops. Next month is not charged.
Annual	12 months of access at a discounted rate	Pro-rata refund of unused full months remaining at the equivalent monthly rate, less a £5 admin fee. (We charge the £5 to discourage abuse of the annual discount via fast cancel-and-rebuy cycles. We waive it if you are cancelling because of a genuine safeguarding, accessibility, or service-failure concern.)
School / tutoring-company licence	Custom-built per the signed contract	As specified in your signed contract. Schools that pre-pay an annual licence can cancel year-to-year; pro-rata refunds for mid-term termination follow the terms in your contract, not this consumer policy.

4. We Will Always Refund If…

Some situations override the standard policy. We will issue a full or appropriate refund - no questions asked - if any of the following apply:

• We materially break the service. An outage or content removal that prevents you accessing what you paid for, for an extended period.
• You were charged in error. Duplicate charges, charge after cancellation, wrong tier.
• Accessibility makes the platform unusable for your child. If something about how SoloCogs is built genuinely blocks your child's access (we work hard to prevent this, but if you tell us during the cooling-off period that the platform does not work for your child, we refund the lot).
• Safeguarding makes continued use inappropriate. If a safeguarding situation arises that means the platform is not safe for your child to keep using, we end the subscription immediately and refund the unused remainder.
• The student has died. We are sorry to even type that. Email us and we will refund the unused remainder, close the account compassionately, and follow the data retention rules in our Privacy Policy.

5. We Will Not Refund For…

We are clear in advance so there are no surprises. We will not normally refund:

• Content your child has already accessed (you waived the cooling-off right for that content at sign-up).
• A change of mind after 14 days - cancellation works as described in section 1 (you keep what you paid for; the next period is not charged).
• A grade or exam result that did not meet your expectations. Per our Terms of Service §7, SoloCogs is an educational support tool and does not guarantee any particular grade.
• Issues caused by the user's own device, connection, or browser where the platform works correctly elsewhere.
• Acceptable-Use violations (cheating on assessments, account sharing, etc.) - per the Terms of Service §6 these can lead to account termination without refund.

6. How to Cancel

• From your account: Sign in > Account settings > Manage subscription > Cancel.
• By email: hello@solocogs.co.uk with the subject line "Cancel my subscription" from the email address on the account. We confirm within 1 working day.
• Via PayPal: you can also cancel the recurring payment directly in your PayPal account. We see the cancellation signal from PayPal and treat it the same way as an in-app cancellation. We recommend telling us anyway so we can confirm the cancellation took effect.

7. How to Request a Refund

1. Email hello@solocogs.co.uk from the account holder's email. Subject: "Refund request". Tell us the reason.
2. We acknowledge within 1 working day and either approve straight away (most cases under section 4) or ask a clarifying question.
3. Once approved, refunds go back to the original PayPal payment method within 5-10 working days (PayPal's standard processing time).
4. If we decline a refund request that you believe should have been approved, you can escalate via our Complaints Policy.

8. Statutory Rights Notice

None of the above limits your statutory consumer rights under UK law. Where this policy is more generous than your statutory rights, this policy applies. Where this policy is somehow narrower than your statutory rights, your statutory rights apply. If you are unsure, see the Citizens Advice page on digital services.