Refund Policy

Guardian Foundry · Level Effect, LLC (Texas, USA)
Version: gf-sub-policy-2026.08.21
This policy is part of your contract with Level Effect, LLC. It applies with the Terms of Service to every paid subscription.
Support: support@leveleffect.com

Who you are contracting with

Guardian Foundry is operated by Level Effect, LLC, a limited liability company registered in Texas, United States. In this policy, "we," "us," and "Level Effect" mean Level Effect, LLC.

The short version

This is a prepaid subscription. You pay for a month or a year up front. You get access for that whole period. You may cancel anytime to stop the next charge. Canceling does not undo the payment you already made. We do not refund unused time, unused content, unused seats, or a change of mind. The only refunds are the narrow cases listed below, or where the law requires one.

1. This policy is the deal

By checking the box at checkout (or the in-app equivalent) and paying, you agree to this Refund Policy and the Terms of Service. The box is not checked for you. You can read both documents before you pay, and anytime after, from the site footer, your account, and your subscriptions page.

The price, plan, interval, and any sale or coupon shown at checkout, plus Stripe's invoice for that payment, are the financial record of the deal. A chat message, Discord message, or verbal comment does not change this policy.

2. What you are buying

You are buying access to the Guardian Foundry service for a paid period (monthly or annual), not a pile of unused hours you can cash out.

Access starts as soon as payment succeeds. That is when we have delivered the digital service you bought. Logging in, or being able to log in with the credentials on the account, is delivery. You do not have to use every course, lab, or feature for the period to have been provided.

If a sale or coupon lowers the first charge, checkout will show both amounts: what you pay now, and what you pay at renewal. Paying the sale price is not a promise that later periods stay at that price.

3. Automatic renewal

Unless you cancel before the renewal date, we charge you again for the next period at the then-current price, plus tax, using the payment method on file. We send a renewal reminder email. You are responsible for canceling in time even if an email is delayed, filtered, or not read.

We may change the price for future periods. A period you already paid is not re-priced. A future price change, after notice, is not a refund of the current period.

4. Canceling

Cancel on your subscriptions page. You do not need to call. After you cancel:

• we will not charge you for the next period;
• you keep the paid plan until the end of the period you already paid for (the "paid-through date");
• then the account returns to Free, unless you still have access through an organization seat.

You may turn renewal back on before the paid-through date. That does not charge you immediately and does not create a refund.

Canceling is not a refund request and does not start a refund review. It only stops future charges.

Deleting your account, closing the browser, ignoring emails, or asking in Discord is not cancellation and is not a refund request.

5. All prepaid periods are final

Once payment succeeds and access is available, the charge for that period is final. We do not refund, credit, or prorate unused days, weeks, or months, including if you:

• change your mind;
• do not use the service, or use it less than you expected;
• find the material too hard, too easy, or not what you hoped;
• do not get a job, a raise, a certification, a particular grade, or a particular amount of instructor time;
• dislike AI grading, community features, or a change to content or features;
• bought an annual plan and want a monthly equivalent back;
• downgrade, switch monthly/annual, or change seats and want leftover time cashed out;
• have unused Enterprise seats;
• forgot to cancel, missed the reminder, or did not read these terms;
• lost access because you broke the Terms of Service;
• lost access because of your internet, device, password, or a third-party tool (including a lab vendor) outside our production service;
• already used the service and later ask for a cooling-off or withdrawal refund, except where a law still requires one after the acknowledgments you gave at checkout.

The list above is illustrative. If a reason is not in section 6, the answer is no refund, plus cancellation if you want to stop the next charge.

6. When we will refund a subscription charge

We will refund a subscription charge only in these cases:

1. Billing error. We charged the wrong amount, charged you twice for the same period, charged a price other than the one shown at checkout, or charged you after the subscription had already ended.
2. Unauthorized payment. The charge was made with a stolen instrument or without the account holder's authority, and that is confirmed.
3. We did not provide the paid service. For reasons on our side, paying customers could not access the Guardian Foundry paid product (sign-in and the bundled learning surfaces included in the plan) for a substantial part of the paid period — not a brief incident, not scheduled maintenance we announced, and not a problem on your connection or device.
4. The law requires it. For example a non-waivable withdrawal or cooling-off right that still applies to your purchase after the facts and the acknowledgments you gave. We apply that using billing-country evidence, not a guess from your IP address.
5. A written exception we choose to grant. We do not have to grant these. If we do, we will say so in writing and the Refund Policy otherwise still applies.

How to ask. Email support@leveleffect.com or use Contact Support. Say you are requesting a subscription refund review, and include the invoice or the date, amount, and last four of the payment method. Canceling in the product is not this request.

When to ask. Report billing errors within 60 days of the invoice date (or longer if the law requires). Report unauthorized charges as soon as you reasonably can. A late request does not create a refund that section 5 already closed.

We may ask for information to verify the claim. We may refuse a request that is incomplete, contradicted by Stripe's records or our access logs, or that duplicates an open chargeback. Approved refunds go only to the original payment method, in the original currency, for no more than the remaining refundable amount on that invoice. Bank timing is outside our control.

Our records, Stripe's invoice, and the policy version you accepted are the evidence of what was bought and agreed. You are not entitled to a refund because you did not read the documents you accepted.

7. What a refund does — and does not do

• A full refund of the current period ends paid access when the refund is processed, unless the law requires otherwise. That is the trade: money back, access ends.
• A partial refund (for example a duplicate-charge correction) does not extend or cash out the period. Access stays through the paid-through date unless we say otherwise in the refund confirmation.
• A refund is not account deletion, is not a grade change, and does not undo other purchases.
• You cannot keep paid access and also receive a full refund of that same period.

8. Chargebacks

If a payment was authorized and the service was available, a card dispute is not a substitute for this policy. Tell us first using section 6.

If you open a dispute anyway, we may pause paid access while it is open and send the issuer our checkout, acceptance, and access records. We will not pay you twice. If the issuer rules against you, this policy still applies. If the issuer reverses the charge, that reversal is the remedy; we do not add a second refund.

9. Organizations, taxes, and other products

If you buy an Enterprise / team plan, the organization is the customer. Unused seats, unused member licenses, and a member leaving the team are not refunds. Members who inherit a seat are not the billing customer.

Tax is refunded only as part of an approved refund of the charge it was collected on. Card-network fees, currency conversion, and bank fees are not refunded separately.

This policy covers subscriptions. One-off content purchases and lab-credit packs follow the terms shown at those checkouts.

10. Law we cannot waive, and which law applies

Nothing in this policy takes away a right the law says you cannot give up. It also does not stop you from telling your bank about a charge you did not authorize.

Where the law lets you agree that a digital service starts immediately and that a withdrawal right then ends, you agree to that at checkout. If a non-waivable right still applies, section 6(4) is the path — not the cancel button.

This policy is part of your contract with Level Effect, LLC. Texas law governs it on the same terms as the Terms of Service.

11. Updates

We may update this policy. The version and date are at the top. A new version applies to purchases and renewals on or after its effective date. We will not treat "you kept using the site" as agreement to a new version unless you accept it or the law allows that treatment.