Refund & Cancellation Policy

Try before you pay

New accounts start on the free plan — no card required. When you choose to subscribe, your first Scholar or Max subscription includes a 7-day free trial: a card is collected at checkout but nothing is charged until the trial ends, and cancelling before then costs nothing. Pro subscriptions are billed from day one. We recommend using the Scholar or Max trial to decide whether MarkScheme is right for you before paying.

Subscriptions and billing

Paid plans are billed through Polar, our payment provider and merchant of record, on a monthly or yearly basis depending on the plan you choose. Polar handles card processing, receipts and any applicable sales tax or VAT. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period until you cancel. Current prices are shown on our pricing page.

Cancelling your subscription

• You can cancel at any time from your account billing settings, or by emailing us.
• When you cancel, you keep access until the end of the billing period you have already paid for — we do not cut off access immediately.
• After that date your plan stops renewing and you are not charged again.
• Cancelling stops future payments; it is not by itself a request for a refund of a payment already made (see below).

14-day cooling-off period

If you are a consumer in the UK, EU, or another region with equivalent consumer-protection law, you may have the right to cancel a purchase within 14 days of subscribing and receive a refund. Because MarkScheme is digital content delivered immediately, by starting to use a paid feature you ask us to begin the service during this period and acknowledge that your statutory right to cancel may be reduced or lost once the service has been fully performed. Where the cooling-off right applies, email us within 14 days and we will process the refund.

Our goodwill refund promise

Beyond your statutory rights, we want you to feel safe paying:

• Monthly plans — if you are unhappy within 14 days of your first payment and have made little or no use of paid features, email us and we will refund that payment.
• Yearly plans — if you cancel within 14 days of purchase, we will refund in full. After 14 days we may offer a pro-rata refund for the unused, whole months remaining at our discretion, less any period already used.
• Billing mistakes — duplicate charges, charges after a confirmed cancellation, or amounts that do not match the plan you chose are always refunded in full.

What is not normally refundable

• Periods you have already used substantially during the billing term.
• Renewals you forgot to cancel before the renewal date, beyond the goodwill window above (though we will always consider these case by case).
• Accounts terminated for breaching our Terms of Service (e.g. fraud or abuse).

MarkScheme is a study companion, not a guarantee of any exam grade. Not achieving a particular result is not grounds for a refund.

How to request a refund

Email hello@markscheme.app from the address on your account, with the date of the charge and a short reason. We aim to respond within a few business days. Approved refunds are returned to your original payment method via Polar and typically appear within 5–10 business days, depending on your bank.

Please contact us before opening a card chargeback — we can almost always resolve billing issues faster and more cheaply than your bank can.

Price changes

We may change prices for new subscriptions or future renewals with advance notice. Changes never apply retroactively to a period you have already paid for. See our Terms of Service for more.

Contact

Questions about billing or refunds? Email hello@markscheme.app or visit our contact page.