Terms of service
What you can expect from Essay Clarity, what we expect from you, and the things we deliberately do not promise. Using the service means you agree to these terms.
What is Essay Clarity, in contractual terms?
Essay Clarity is a software service that scores college application essays against a published rubric, ranks drafts, and assembles school research. It is a feedback tool. It is not an admissions consultancy, not an editing service, and not affiliated with any college.
The rubric is published in full at /rubric so you can see what is being measured before you pay for anything.
Accounts
You need an account to use the product, you must give a real email address you control, and you are responsible for what happens under your login. Accounts are for one person; do not share credentials.
- Students must be 13 or over (16 in the UK and EEA). If you are under 18, we expect a parent or guardian to be aware you are using the service.
- Keep your password to yourself. Tell us at support@essayclarity.com if you think someone else has access.
- You can close your account at any time by emailing us. See the privacy policy for what deletion removes.
How do credits and payment work?
Actions that call an AI model cost credits. New student accounts get 5 free. Further credits are bought in packs through Stripe as a one-off charge. There is no subscription, nothing renews, and credits do not expire.
- Current per-action costs and pack prices are on the pricing page and are read from the live system, so that page is always the operative one.
- If an AI action fails partway through, the credit is refunded to your balance automatically. You are not charged for a result you did not get.
- For unused credits, email us within 30 days of purchase and we will refund the unused portion to the original payment method.
- We may change prices. A change never affects credits you have already bought.
- Ambassadors earn credits, not cash. Earned credits can be gifted to students and are not redeemable for money.
Who owns what you write?
You do. You keep every right to your essays and drafts. You grant us only the narrow permission needed to run the service for you: to store your work, display it back to you, and send it to our AI provider to produce the feedback you requested.
We do not publish your writing, licence it to anyone, or use it to train models. The feedback text we generate about your essay is yours to use as you see fit.
Academic honesty
Essay Clarity does not write or rewrite your sentences, by design. Receiving feedback on your own work is legitimate and always has been. Submitting an essay you did not write is a matter between you and the college, and most treat it as a misrepresentation.
You agree not to use the service to misrepresent authorship, and not to submit someone else’s writing to it as your own. We would rather build a tool a student can name in an application than one they have to hide.
Acceptable use
Use the service for its purpose and do not attack it. No scraping, no automated bulk access, no attempts to break the credit system, no uploading other people’s personal data, and no illegal or abusive content.
- Do not attempt to circumvent credit charges, access another user’s account, or probe the service for vulnerabilities without telling us first.
- Do not use automated tools to extract content from the product at scale. Our robots.txt sets out what is open to crawlers; public guides and blog posts are, the application is not.
- Do not submit content that is unlawful, harassing, or that contains another person’s sensitive personal information.
- We may suspend an account that breaks these rules, and will say why.
What we do not promise
We do not promise you will be admitted anywhere. We do not promise a score is what an admissions officer would give. Feedback is generated by a language model against a published rubric, it can be wrong, and your judgement about your own essay remains the deciding one.
Stated plainly: the service is provided as is. We work to keep it accurate and available, but we do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any particular outcome will follow from using it. Nothing here excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, and to the extent the law allows, our liability for any claim is limited to what you paid us in the twelve months before it arose.
The ambassador program
Ambassadors refer students and earn credits as those students spend theirs, at the published rate. Earned credits may be gifted to other students. They are not cash, are not redeemable for cash, and self-referral is not permitted.
Rates and tiers are on the Ambassadors page. We may adjust future earn rates, and an ambassador’s already-earned credits are unaffected.
Changes and contact
When these terms change materially, the date at the top changes and account holders are emailed. Continuing to use the service after that means you accept the new terms. Questions go to support@essayclarity.com.
These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and of the state in which Essay Clarity operates.
Frequently asked questions
Do credits expire?
No. Credits stay on your account until you spend them. There is no subscription and nothing renews automatically.
Can I get a refund?
Credits consumed by an AI action that failed are refunded automatically. For unused credits, email support@essayclarity.com within 30 days of purchase and we will refund the unused portion.
Does using Essay Clarity count as cheating?
Getting feedback on your own writing is not cheating, and is what teachers and counselors have always done. Essay Clarity deliberately does not write or rewrite your sentences, so what you submit stays your own work. Submitting text you did not write is a matter between you and the college.
Does Essay Clarity guarantee admission?
No. No tool or service can, and any that claims to is misleading you. Essay Clarity tells you whether a draft is doing its job. It has no relationship with any admissions office.
Who owns the essays I write in Essay Clarity?
You do. You keep all rights to your writing. We hold it only to run the service for you, and we do not publish it, licence it or train models on it.