Refund & Cancellation Policy

1. Summary

• The 7-day trial is free - no payment method is collected and no charge occurs, so there is nothing to refund. The trial ends automatically; you are never billed unless you choose a paid plan.
• Monthly subscriptions can be canceled any time from your billing portal. Service continues until the end of the current billing period. No pro-rated refund for the unused portion of a paid month.
• We will refund a recurring monthly charge in full if you cancel within 7 days of that charge and have not used the service materially during the period (defined as fewer than 5 articles published).
• We will refund pro-rata if the service fails to deliver for a continuous period of more than 7 days due to issues on our side.
• Refunds are processed back to the original payment method via our payment processor and typically appear within 5-10 business days.

2. The free 7-day trial

Signup provisions a free 7-day trial: 10 articles on one site, with the full editorial toolkit. No payment method is collected and no charge of any kind occurs during the trial. The trial ends automatically after 7 days (or when its 10 articles are used) - there is no auto-conversion to a paid plan and nothing you need to cancel. Paid service begins only if and when you select a plan ($99, $249, or $599 per month).

3. Article quality claims

If an article has a verified quality defect (factual error, broken language or formatting, wrong or broken image, or off-topic/duplicate content), email billing@mastheads.app with the article. Each article already records what our desks checked, including any check that failed, so send us the article and we will read that trace against your report. Preference-based complaints do not qualify. If we agree the defect is real, we return the article as a credit that never expires - not a monetary refund; your usage counter and invoices are unaffected.

4. Recurring monthly subscriptions

Monthly subscriptions auto-renew each month on the calendar day you first subscribed. Cancellation is one click in your billing portal and takes effect at the end of your current billing period. You retain access through that period.

We do not pro-rate refunds for partial months when you cancel voluntarily.

5. Goodwill refunds

We will refund a recurring monthly charge in full if all of the following apply:

• You request the refund within 7 days of the charge.
• Fewer than 5 articles have been published to your connected site during the relevant billing period.
• You did not previously request a goodwill refund.

This is offered at our discretion as a goodwill gesture, not as a contractual right. In lieu of a cash refund, we may offer an equivalent account credit or a free month of service, at our discretion and with your agreement. Repeated goodwill-refund requests will be declined.

6. Recurring annual subscriptions

Annual subscriptions are billed once per calendar year on the anniversary date you first subscribed. Cancellation is one click in your billing portal and takes effect at the end of your current billing period. You retain access through that period.

A full refund applies if you cancel within 14 days of your annual chargeand have not used the service materially during the period (defined as fewer than 5 articles published). After 14 days, we will refund the balance of your annual charge minus the value of months used, calculated at the plan's monthly rate. For example, if you paid $990 for an annual Starter subscription and cancel in month 5, we retain 5 × $99 = $495 and refund the remainder.

We do not pro-rate refunds based on the annual rate - refunds calculate from the monthly price to prevent annual subscribers from receiving the annual discount on partial commitments.

7. Service-failure refunds

If the service fails to produce or publish articles to your site for a continuous period of more than 7 calendar days due to issues on our side (excluding planned maintenance announced at least 24 hours in advance, customer-side outages such as CMS credentials rotated, or third-party outages beyond our reasonable control), we will issue a pro-rated refund for the affected days.

Note: low-news days are not a service failure. In your dashboard you choose how many articles each section publishes per day; your plan sets the overall allowance. That per-day figure is a maximum the engine works toward - it fills it as far as real news in your niche allows, and it will publish fewer rather than fabricate or pad, so output varies day to day. If the engine materially underdelivers against your settings for reasons within our control (not thin news, your own site or credential outages, or third-party outages), contact us and we will make it right at our discretion, typically with article credits.

8. Chargebacks

Please contact us at billing@mastheads.app before filing a chargeback with your bank or card issuer. We aim to resolve billing disputes within 48 hours, though this is not a guarantee. A chargeback filed without a prior attempt to contact us may result in immediate account suspension.

9. How to request a refund

Email billing@mastheads.app with:

• Your account email address
• The date and amount of the charge in question
• A brief explanation of your request

We aim to respond to refund requests within 2 business days, though this is not a guarantee.

10. Payment processor

Mastheads uses a third-party merchant of record for payment processing. Refunds are issued via the same processor to the original payment method. Processing time varies by card issuer but typically 5-10 business days.