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Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of terms

By accessing or using Improve my Chess ("the Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service. We may update these Terms at any time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or by posting a notice on the Service at least 14 days before they take effect. Your continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

2. Description of the Service

Improve my Chess is an AI-powered chess coaching tool that analyses your chess.com game history and provides personalised feedback, training drills, and opponent scouting. The Service uses artificial intelligence (the Anthropic Claude API) and is provided for educational and entertainment purposes only.

3. Accounts

To access certain features, you must create an account with a valid email address. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity under your account. You must notify us immediately of any unauthorised use. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms.

4. Plans, tiers, and the credit system

The Service uses a credit system. Every AI-powered action (analysing a game, asking a question, scouting an opponent, building a training plan) costs a fixed number of credits, and your plan tier determines how many credits you receive each 30-day cycle.

The current plan tiers are:

  • Free: 3 credits per 30-day cycle. Enough to analyse 3 games (the introductory experience). Free credits reset every 30 days from your sign-up date.
  • Plus (£4.99/month or £39/year): 100 credits per 30-day cycle. Unlocks Ask My Games, opponent scouting, and personalised training drills.
  • Pro (£9.99/month or £79/year): 250 credits per 30-day cycle. Same features as Plus with a higher monthly allowance, suitable for serious players and tournament preparation.

Credit costs (subject to change with reasonable notice):

  • Analysing one of your own games: 1 credit
  • Asking one Ask My Games question: 1 credit
  • Refreshing your training plan: 5 credits
  • Scouting an opponent: 25 credits (includes analysing the opponent's last 10 games and generating the strategic battle plan)
  • Monthly reset: Plan-allocated credits are NOT carried over between 30-day cycles. Unused monthly credits are forfeited when the cycle resets.
  • Top-up credit packs: Top-up credits purchased separately (see Section 5) never expire and persist across plan changes, downgrades, and cancellations.
  • Spend order: When you take a paid action, the Service spends your monthly plan credits first, and only draws from top-up credits once your monthly bucket is empty. This preserves the non-expiring pool for as long as possible.
  • Plan changes: Upgrading mid-cycle (e.g. Plus → Pro) immediately grants the new tier's full monthly allowance. Downgrading or cancelling takes effect at the end of your current billing period.
  • Future changes: We may add, modify, or remove features at our discretion, and may adjust credit costs or monthly allowances with at least 30 days' notice by email.

5. Pricing, payment, and billing

  • Subscriptions: Plus and Pro plans are offered on a monthly or annual basis at the prices displayed on the pricing page at the time of purchase. All prices are in British Pounds (GBP) and include applicable UK VAT.
  • Top-up credit packs: In addition to subscriptions, we offer one-time purchases of credit packs (e.g. 25, 50, or 150 credits) at the prices displayed on the pricing page. Top-up credits never expire.
  • Price changes: We reserve the right to change subscription prices, top-up pack prices, monthly credit allowances, and per-feature credit costs at any time. Changes to subscription prices will take effect at the start of your next billing cycle. We will notify you by email at least 30 days before a material price increase takes effect. If you do not agree to the new price, you may cancel before the next billing cycle.
  • Billing: All payments are processed securely by Stripe. By subscribing, you authorise us to charge your payment method on a recurring basis (monthly or annually) until you cancel. Top-up purchases are one-time charges.
  • Failed payments: If a recurring subscription payment fails, we may retry the charge. If payment cannot be collected after reasonable attempts, your paid-tier access may be suspended or downgraded to the free tier. Top-up credits you have already purchased are not affected by subscription payment failures.

6. Cancellation, refunds, and credits

  • Cancellation: You may cancel your subscription at any time through the Stripe Customer Portal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period — you will retain paid-tier access and your remaining monthly credits until then. At the end of that period, your account drops to the free tier (3 credits per 30 days).
  • What happens to your credits on cancellation:
    • Monthly plan credits are forfeited at the end of your final billing period (they would have been reset anyway).
    • Top-up credits never expire and remain in your account. You can continue spending them on free-tier features, or use them if you re-subscribe later.
  • No partial subscription refunds: We do not provide refunds for partial billing periods. If you cancel mid-cycle, you will not be charged again, but no refund will be issued for the remaining time in your current period.
  • Top-up refunds: Top-up credit pack purchases are non-refundable once any credits from that pack have been spent. If you purchase a pack but have not used any of its credits, you may request a refund within 14 days of purchase by emailing support@improvemychess.co.
  • Cooling-off period: If you are a consumer in the UK or EU, you may have a statutory right to cancel within 14 days of your initial subscription purchase for a full refund, provided you have not substantially used the Service during that period. To request a cooling-off refund, email support@improvemychess.co within 14 days of purchase.
  • Service failures: If an AI-powered action fails due to a fault on our side (e.g. our AI provider returning an error), the credits debited for that action will be automatically refunded to your account as top-up credits, which never expire.

7. Fair use and rate limits

The credit system is the primary mechanism for managing per-user costs. In addition, we apply rate limits to protect the Service from sustained spike traffic and abuse:

  • Rate limits: Even within your credit allowance, the Service may apply short-window rate limits to individual features (e.g. preventing more than a certain number of analyses per hour). These exist to protect the Service from runaway scripts and accidental loops, not to restrict normal human usage.
  • Automated access: Automated, scripted, or bot-driven access to the Service is prohibited. Accounts exhibiting patterns of automated or abusive usage may be suspended or terminated without notice, with no refund of unused subscription fees. Top-up credits will be refunded on a case-by-case basis.
  • Reserved discretion: We reserve the right to suspend or restrict accounts that materially abuse the Service, including but not limited to: creating multiple accounts to circumvent free-tier limits, attempting to extract or resell AI-generated content, or any usage that materially threatens Service availability for other users.
  • Notice of changes: We will endeavour to provide reasonable notice before changing credit costs or monthly allowances on existing paid plans, but reserve the right to act immediately where necessary to protect the Service or its users.

8. Service availability and discontinuation

  • Availability: We aim to keep the Service available at all times but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. The Service may be temporarily unavailable due to maintenance, updates, or circumstances beyond our control (including third-party API outages).
  • Discontinuation: We reserve the right to discontinue the Service (in whole or in part) at any time. If we permanently discontinue the Service:
    • We will provide at least 30 days' notice by email to all registered users.
    • Annual subscribers will receive a pro-rata refund for the unused portion of their annual subscription, calculated from the date the Service becomes unavailable to the end of their paid period.
    • Monthly subscribers will not be charged for any period after the Service becomes unavailable.
    • We are not liable for any indirect losses, lost data, or consequential damages arising from discontinuation of the Service.

9. No warranty

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Specifically:

  • AI analysis is for educational guidance only and should not be treated as professional chess coaching. We make no guarantees about the accuracy of move classifications, improvement suggestions, or ELO predictions.
  • We do not guarantee that using the Service will improve your chess rating or game results.
  • Opponent scouting reports are based on publicly available data and AI interpretation. They may contain inaccuracies and should not be relied upon as definitive assessments.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of profits, revenue, data, or goodwill, whether arising from contract, tort, or otherwise, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our total aggregate liability for any claims arising from or related to the Service shall not exceed the amount you have paid us in the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim. If you are on the free tier, our maximum liability is £0.

11. Intellectual property

All content, design, code, and branding of Improve my Chess are owned by us or our licensors. You may not copy, modify, distribute, or reverse-engineer any part of the Service. AI-generated analysis and reports provided to you are licensed for your personal, non-commercial use only.

12. Third-party services

The Service relies on chess.com, Anthropic, Stripe, Supabase, and Vercel. Your use of the Service is also subject to these providers' respective terms and policies. We are not responsible for outages, changes, or issues caused by third-party services. If a third-party service becomes unavailable or changes its terms in a way that prevents us from operating, we may modify or suspend affected features without liability.

13. Chess.com disclaimer

Improve my Chess is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Chess.com LLC. Chess.com is a registered trademark of Chess.com LLC. We access only publicly available data through chess.com's Public API.

14. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. Nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights as a consumer.

15. Contact

For questions about these Terms, email support@improvemychess.co.