Terms of Service

Last updated: 9 November 2025

1. Agreement to Terms

By accessing or using Essy ("the Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not use the Service.

These Terms apply to all users, whether using the Free or Pro plan.

📋 At-a-Glance Summary

Here's what you need to know about using Essy:

  • We help you plan essays, not write them. Essy provides AI-powered guidance and structure—all content must be your own original work.
  • You own your data. Your essays belong to you. We don't sell your data or use it to train AI models.
  • AI features use Anthropic Claude. Pro plan AI features are powered by third-party services and may contain inaccuracies—always review outputs.
  • Pro plan is £2.99/month. Renews monthly, cancel anytime. 14-day cooling-off period for UK/EU users (waived if you use Pro features immediately).
  • We comply with GDPR. Full data deletion available anytime (Avatar → Security → Delete Account).
  • Third-party services. We use Clerk (auth), Stripe (payments), Supabase (storage), Anthropic (AI), Resend (email), and Upstash (rate limiting).
  • 16+ or parental consent required. Users under 16 must have parent/guardian approval.

Note: This summary is for convenience only and does not replace or override the detailed Terms that follow. Please read the full Terms below for complete legal details.

2. Description of Service

Essy is an essay planning and organisation tool that helps students structure, plan, and write their academic essays. The Service provides:

  • Essay structure generation based on essay types
  • Section-by-section guidance with questions
  • Progress tracking and word count management
  • Auto-save functionality
  • Export capabilities (Word, PDF, text)
  • AI-powered features (Pro plan only) including analysis, title generation, and personalised questions

Important: Essy provides AI-powered guidance and planning assistance. It does NOT write essays for you. All essay content must be your own original work.

3. Account Registration

3.1 Eligibility

You must be at least 16 years old to use Essy independently. If you are under 16, you must have parental or guardian consent to use the Service. By registering, you represent that you meet this age requirement or have obtained the necessary parental consent.

3.2 Account Security

You are responsible for:

  • Maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials
  • All activities that occur under your account
  • Notifying us immediately of any unauthorised access

3.3 One Account Per Person

Each person may only maintain one account. Creating multiple accounts to circumvent Free plan limits is prohibited and may result in account termination.

4. Subscription Plans

4.1 Free Plan

  • Limited to 3 essays
  • Access to all 11 essay types
  • Generic guiding questions
  • Basic features (progress tracking, export, auto-save)
  • No AI-powered features

4.2 Pro Plan

The Pro plan is a paid subscription (£2.99/month) that includes:

  • Unlimited essays
  • AI-powered features (Analyse with AI, AI Title Generator, AI-Personalised Questions)
  • Smart validation and AI Readiness Score
  • 10 AI generations per day
  • All Free plan features
  • Priority support

4.3 Billing

Pro subscriptions are billed monthly in advance. By subscribing, you authorise us to charge your payment method on a recurring basis. Subscriptions automatically renew unless cancelled.

4.4 Subscription Cancellation

You may cancel your Pro subscription at any time while keeping your account active. To cancel:

  1. Click on your account avatar (top right)
  2. Select "Manage Subscription"
  3. Click "Cancel Subscription"

Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. You will retain Pro access until that date, after which your account will automatically revert to the Free plan. Your essays and data will remain saved in your account.

Refund Policy: Subscription fees are generally non-refundable. If you cancel mid-month, you will not receive a refund for the remaining days.

UK/EU Consumer Rights: If you are a consumer residing in the UK or EU, you have a statutory right to cancel within 14 days of purchase under the Consumer Contracts Regulations. However, by beginning to use Pro features immediately upon subscription, you expressly agree to waive this cooling-off period. If you wish to preserve your 14-day cancellation right, please contact support@essy.app before using any Pro features.

4.5 Price Changes

We may change subscription prices with 30 days' notice. Existing subscribers will be notified by email. Price changes take effect on your next renewal date.

4.6 Payment Security and Chargebacks

All payment processing is handled securely by Stripe, a PCI DSS Level 1 certified payment processor. Essy does not store, process, or have access to your full credit card details. Stripe encrypts and securely stores your payment information.

Chargebacks and Payment Disputes: If a payment is reversed, disputed, or charged back by your payment provider or financial institution:

  • We reserve the right to immediately suspend or terminate your access to Pro features until the issue is resolved
  • Your account may be subject to review for potential fraudulent activity
  • You may be required to provide additional verification before restoring service
  • Repeated chargebacks or payment disputes may result in permanent account termination

If you have a legitimate billing concern, please contact support@essy.app before initiating a chargeback so we can work with you to resolve the issue directly.

5. Acceptable Use

5.1 Permitted Uses

You may use Essy to:

  • Plan and organise your academic essays
  • Generate essay structures and outlines
  • Track your writing progress
  • Use AI features to receive guidance and suggestions
  • Export your work for submission

5.2 Prohibited Uses

You may NOT:

  • Use the Service for any illegal or unauthorised purpose
  • Submit content generated by other AI tools as your own work
  • Violate academic integrity policies of your institution
  • Share your account with others
  • Attempt to circumvent usage limits or restrictions
  • Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to access the Service's source code
  • Use the Service to harass, abuse, or harm others
  • Upload malicious code, viruses, or harmful content
  • Scrape, data mine, or use automated tools to access the Service
  • Resell or commercialise the Service without permission

5.3 Academic Integrity

Essy is designed to help you plan and organise your thoughts—not to write essays for you. You are responsible for ensuring your use of Essy complies with your institution's academic integrity policies. We strongly recommend:

  • Using AI suggestions as guidance, not as final content
  • Writing all essay content in your own words
  • Properly citing any sources you reference
  • Checking with your instructor if you're unsure about permitted tools

5.4 Non-Commercial Use

The Service is intended for individual academic use only. Institutional use, commercial use, or use by educational organizations (such as schools, universities, tutoring services, or essay-writing businesses) requires prior written consent from Essy. For institutional licensing inquiries, please contact support@essy.app.

6. AI Usage Limits

Pro plan users are limited to 10 AI generations per day. This includes:

  • AI requirement analysis
  • AI title generation
  • AI-personalised question generation

These limits reset daily at midnight UTC. We reserve the right to adjust these limits to prevent abuse and manage costs.

We also maintain a monthly AI spending cap of $50 USD to protect against runaway costs. If this cap is reached, AI features may be temporarily unavailable.

7. Intellectual Property

7.1 Your Content

You retain all ownership rights to the essays and content you create using Essy. By using the Service, you grant us a limited licence to:

  • Store and display your content to you
  • Process your content to provide AI features (Pro plan)
  • Make backups to prevent data loss

We do NOT use your content for training AI models, marketing, or any other purpose beyond providing the Service to you.

7.2 AI-Generated Content

You own all outputs generated using the Service, including AI-generated suggestions, titles, and personalized questions, subject to these Terms. Essy does not claim ownership of AI-generated content created for you through the Service.

However, you acknowledge that AI-generated content is created using third-party services and may not be unique to you. Other users may receive similar suggestions. You are responsible for ensuring all content you submit academically is your own original work.

7.3 Our Content

The Service itself, including all software, designs, text, graphics, logos, and trademarks, is owned by Essy and protected by intellectual property laws. You may not copy, modify, distribute, or create derivative works without our permission.

8. Data and Privacy

Your use of the Service is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which explains how we collect, use, and protect your data.

Key points:

  • We store your essays securely
  • We do not sell or share your personal information
  • You can export or delete your data at any time
  • AI processing is done by Anthropic (Claude AI) with appropriate safeguards

9. Third-Party Services

Essy integrates with trusted third-party services to provide essential functionality. These services include:

  • Clerk: User authentication and account management
  • Stripe: Payment processing and subscription management
  • Supabase: Database storage for your essays and user data
  • Anthropic: AI-powered features (Claude AI)
  • Resend: Transactional email delivery
  • Upstash: Rate limiting and performance optimization

By using the Service, you acknowledge that your use of these features may also be subject to each provider's respective terms of service and privacy policies. We select service providers based on their security standards, reliability, and compliance with data protection laws.

Important: Essy is not responsible for service interruptions, data handling practices, security breaches, or changes in functionality caused by third-party systems. While we take reasonable steps to monitor and manage our integrations, we cannot guarantee the continuous availability or performance of third-party services.

10. Data Transfers and International Processing

Some of our third-party service providers may process or store data outside your country of residence, including in the United States and other jurisdictions:

  • Anthropic's AI services operate primarily in the United States
  • Supabase may replicate data across multiple geographic regions for redundancy
  • Stripe processes payment data in compliance with international payment standards

We ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your personal information when transferred internationally, including:

  • Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission
  • Adequacy decisions by the UK or EU regarding data protection in recipient countries
  • Contractual obligations requiring third-party providers to maintain UK GDPR and EU GDPR compliance

For more details on data transfers and your rights, please see our Privacy Policy.

11. Service Availability

11.1 Uptime

We strive to provide reliable service, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. The Service may be temporarily unavailable due to:

  • Scheduled maintenance
  • Technical issues or outages
  • Third-party service disruptions

Force Majeure: We are not liable for failure or delay in performance caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of nature, war, terrorism, riots, embargoes, acts of civil or military authorities, fire, floods, accidents, pandemics, network infrastructure failures, strikes, or shortages of transportation, facilities, fuel, energy, labor, or materials. This includes failures or disruptions caused by third-party service providers, internet service providers, or hosting services.

11.2 Modifications

We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Service at any time, with or without notice. We will make reasonable efforts to notify users of significant changes.

12. Termination

12.1 By You

You have two options for ending your relationship with Essy:

Option 1: Cancel Subscription (Keep Your Account)

If you want to stop paying for Pro but keep your account and essays:

  1. Click on your account avatar (top right)
  2. Select "Manage Subscription"
  3. Click "Cancel Subscription"

Your account will revert to the Free plan at the end of your billing period. All your essays remain saved.

Option 2: Delete Your Account (Permanent Removal)

If you want to permanently delete your account and all associated data:

  1. Click on your account avatar (top right)
  2. Select "Security"
  3. Scroll to "Delete Account"
  4. Click "Delete My Account" and confirm

Upon account deletion:

  • Your user profile, email, and personal information are deleted immediately
  • All your essay content and notes are permanently deleted within 30 days
  • Your Pro subscription (if active) is automatically cancelled
  • You will not receive a refund for any unused subscription time
  • Anonymous analytics data (usage stats, cost tracking) is preserved for legal/compliance purposes but cannot be linked back to you

Backup Systems: Copies of deleted data may persist in our backup systems for up to 90 days before permanent deletion. These backups are not accessible and are maintained solely for disaster recovery purposes.

Note: Account deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. Export any essays you want to keep before deleting your account.

12.2 By Us

We may suspend or terminate your account if you:

  • Violate these Terms
  • Engage in fraudulent or abusive behaviour
  • Fail to pay subscription fees
  • Create multiple accounts to bypass limits

We will provide notice where reasonably possible, but reserve the right to terminate accounts immediately in cases of serious violations.

We reserve the right to take appropriate action (including warnings, temporary suspension, feature restrictions, or permanent account termination) in response to violations of these Terms. The specific action taken will be at our discretion based on the severity and frequency of the violation.

13. Disclaimers

13.1 "As Is" Service

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO:

  • Merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose
  • Non-infringement
  • Uninterrupted or error-free operation
  • Accuracy or reliability of AI-generated suggestions

13.2 AI Features and Third-Party Services

AI-generated suggestions are provided as guidance only. We do not guarantee their accuracy, quality, or suitability for your specific needs. You are responsible for reviewing and evaluating all AI suggestions before using them.

AI outputs are generated using third-party AI services (including Anthropic's Claude AI). Essy is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, appropriateness, or reliability of content generated by these third-party services. AI outputs may contain inaccuracies, biases, or inappropriate content.

AI Accountability: All AI outputs are generated automatically and may contain errors, factual inaccuracies, or unsuitable suggestions. You are solely responsible for reviewing, editing, and verifying all AI-generated content before use. Essy does not claim responsibility for any academic consequences, factual errors, or other issues arising from your use of AI outputs.

You use AI-generated outputs at your own discretion and risk. We disclaim all liability for any errors, omissions, or issues arising from third-party AI services or their outputs.

13.3 Academic Success

Essy is a planning tool, not a guarantee of academic success. Your grades depend on your own effort, research, and writing skills. We make no promises about grades, academic performance, or outcomes.

13.4 Beta and Experimental Features

Some features of the Service, particularly AI-powered tools, may be provided in beta, experimental, or early-access form. These features:

  • May be incomplete, unstable, or contain bugs or errors
  • May change, evolve, or be discontinued at any time without notice
  • May produce variable or inconsistent results
  • Are provided "as is" with no guarantees of functionality, accuracy, or availability

You acknowledge that experimental features are constantly evolving. Functionality, accuracy, output quality, or availability may vary. We may modify, limit, or remove experimental features at any time as we continue to develop and improve the Service.

14. Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW:

  • WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES
  • OUR TOTAL LIABILITY SHALL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM
  • WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DATA LOSS (though we make reasonable backup efforts)
  • WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ACADEMIC CONSEQUENCES OF USING THE SERVICE

Liability Cap for Free Plan Users: For users on the Free plan (who have paid £0), our total liability for any claims shall not exceed £10 GBP. For Pro plan users, liability is capped at the total amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim.

This limitation includes losses from service interruptions, data breaches (despite our security measures), third-party service failures, or any content generated by AI features.

15. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Essy, its affiliates, and their respective officers, directors, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, or expenses (including legal fees) arising from:

  • Your use of the Service
  • Your violation of these Terms
  • Your violation of any academic integrity policies
  • Your infringement of any third-party rights

16. Dispute Resolution

16.1 Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, without regard to conflict of law principles.

16.2 Informal Resolution

Before filing any legal claim, you agree to first contact us at support@essy.app to attempt to resolve the dispute informally. We commit to working in good faith to resolve complaints.

16.3 Jurisdiction

Any legal disputes shall be resolved in the courts of England and Wales.

17. General Provisions

17.1 Entire Agreement

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Essy.

17.2 Changes to Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by email or through a prominent notice on the Service. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.

17.3 Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in effect.

17.4 Waiver

Our failure to enforce any right or provision does not constitute a waiver of that right or provision.

17.5 Assignment

You may not transfer or assign your rights under these Terms. We may assign our rights to any affiliate or successor without notice.

17.6 Future Plans and Features

We reserve the right to introduce new subscription plans, pricing tiers, features, or service offerings at any time. New plans or features may be subject to separate terms, additional fees, or different usage limits. We will provide notice of significant changes that affect your current plan.

17.7 Survival

Provisions relating to intellectual property, limitation of liability, indemnification, and dispute resolution shall survive termination of these Terms. Additionally, any obligations accrued before termination shall remain enforceable.

17.8 Headings for Convenience

Section and subsection headings in these Terms are provided for convenience only and shall not affect the interpretation or construction of these Terms.

18. Security

We take the security of your account and data seriously. Our security measures include:

  • Authentication: Secure account authentication provided by Clerk, including support for multi-factor authentication (MFA) if enabled by you
  • Encryption: Data encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS) and at rest in our database
  • Access Control: Row-level security policies to ensure users can only access their own data
  • Payment Security: PCI DSS compliant payment processing through Stripe
  • Rate Limiting: Protection against abuse and automated attacks

Your Responsibilities: You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and for enabling security features such as multi-factor authentication. We recommend using a strong, unique password and enabling MFA for enhanced protection.

If you suspect unauthorized access to your account, please contact support@essy.app immediately.

19. Support and Response Times

We provide customer support via email at support@essy.app. Our typical response times are:

  • General inquiries: Within 3 business days
  • Technical issues: Within 2 business days
  • Billing questions: Within 2 business days
  • Account security issues: Within 1 business day (priority)

Response times are targets and not guarantees. During periods of high volume or holidays, response times may be longer. Pro plan users may receive prioritized support.

Business days are Monday through Friday, excluding UK public holidays.

20. Contact Us

Legal Entity: Essy is operated by David Hailes, based in the United Kingdom.

If you have questions about these Terms, please contact us:

  • General inquiries: support@essy.app
  • Privacy and data protection: privacy@essy.app

For data protection and privacy-related matters, please refer to our Privacy Policy, which identifies Essy as the data controller responsible for your personal data.

Summary: Use Essy responsibly and in accordance with your institution's academic integrity policies. We provide planning tools and AI guidance—not essay writing services. Your essays must be your own work. Respect usage limits, don't share accounts, and remember that subscriptions are non-refundable.