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Refund Policy

This policy explains how billing, cancellations and refunds work at ScoutingAPI. It forms part of our Terms of Service. In short: you only pay for data that is actually delivered, and we fix billing mistakes.

Effective 2 July 2026Last updated 2 July 2026

Summary

  • Failed, empty, blocked and not-found calls are always free — you pay only for successful, non-empty results.
  • Top-up credits never expire; subscription credits reset each month.
  • Paid plans renew automatically until cancelled. You can cancel anytime and keep access through the end of the paid period.
  • Credits are prepaid and generally non-refundable once purchased, but we promptly correct billing errors and honor your statutory consumer rights.

You never pay for failed calls

ScoutingAPI charges for data delivered, not attempts. A call that fails, is blocked or times out, returns zero results, or hits a not-found condition costs 0 credits. On a multi-platform fan-out, each platform is metered independently and any platform that fails or returns nothing is free — only the successful, non-empty legs are billed. Polling an async job (/v1/jobs) is always free. This is enforced in the billing pipeline, so there is nothing to request a refund for on a failed call.

Credits are reserved, then settled on success

Before doing chargeable work we reserve the maximum possible cost and check your balance; on completion we settle only the successful legs and release the rest. A low balance is rejected with 402 insufficient_credits before any upstream spend — you are never charged for work that could not run.

Subscription plans

  • Paid plans (Starter, Pro, Scale) are recurring monthly subscriptions billed in advance through Stripe, and renew automatically until cancelled.
  • Each renewal grants that plan’s monthly credit allotment. Unused monthly subscription credits expire at the end of the billing period and do not roll over (top-up credits are separate and never expire).
  • Upgrades and downgrades are prorated. A mid-cycle upgrade grants the additional credits immediately and Stripe prorates the charge; a downgrade takes effect at the end of the current period.
  • Subscription fees are generally non-refundable for periods already started, and we do not provide prorated refunds for partial months except where required by law or expressly agreed. When you cancel, you keep full access until the period you have already paid for ends.

Top-up credit packs

Top-up packs are one-off purchases of prepaid credits. Top-up credits never expire and are preserved across monthly resets. Usage always spends your soonest-to-expire credits first (monthly allotment before non-expiring top-ups), so you never lose top-up value to a reset. Because top-up credits are a consumable digital good delivered immediately, they are non-refundable once purchased, except in the circumstances below or where required by law. Any unused top-up balance remains available to spend as long as your account is open.

When we issue refunds

Even though credits are prepaid, we will review and, where appropriate, issue a refund for:

  1. Duplicate or accidental charges — e.g. a double-submitted top-up. Our billing is idempotency-protected, but if a duplicate charge slips through, we refund it.
  2. Billing errors — you were charged the wrong amount or for a plan you did not order.
  3. Unauthorized charges — a verified charge you did not authorize.
  4. Material, sustained service failure attributable to us and not resolved, assessed against any uptime commitment in your plan or order form (service credits, where offered, are the stated remedy for downtime).
  5. Statutory rights. Where you are a consumer with a legal right of withdrawal (for example a 14-day cooling-off right in the EU/UK), we honor it. Note that once you begin consuming digital credits you may expressly agree that the right of withdrawal no longer applies to those consumed credits.

Approved refunds are returned to your original payment method via Stripe and recorded as a refund adjustment on your credit ledger. We do not refund credits consumed by usage that was successfully delivered, or charges arising from a breach of our Terms of Service.

Cancelling or downgrading

  • Cancel or change your plan anytime from the dashboard’s billing area (the Stripe Customer Portal). Cancellation is effective at the end of the current billing period — you keep access until then, and you are not charged again.
  • When a subscription ends, your account downgrades to Free. Your monthly subscription credits stop renewing and the unused monthly portion expires at period end, but your non-expiring top-up balance is preserved and remains spendable.
  • Closing your account stops future billing. Contact us if you need help exporting data before you close it.

Failed payments & dunning

If a renewal payment fails, we do not hard-cut your service mid-period for a transient failure. Stripe automatically retries and we send dunning notices while the subscription is past_due; your existing balance (including non-expiring top-ups) stays spendable. If payment is not recovered after the retry window, the plan moves to an unpaid/cancelled state and the account downgrades to Free — monthly grants stop, but your top-up balance is never forfeited. Once a downgraded account’s balance is exhausted, live calls return 402 insufficient_credits until you add credits or resubscribe.

How to request a refund

Email support@scoutingapi.com (or billing@scoutingapi.com) from your account email within 30 days of the charge, including your account email, the charge date and amount, and a short description of the issue. We aim to respond within a few business days. Approved refunds are processed to your original payment method; depending on your bank, they may take several business days to appear.

Contact

Billing and refund questions:

  1. Billing & refunds: billing@scoutingapi.com
  2. Support: support@scoutingapi.com

This Refund Policy is part of, and should be read with, our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.