Version 1.0 — May 1, 2026

Effective date: May 1, 2026 · Last updated: May 1, 2026

Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are the agreement between you and Evidence Based Vocabulary (“we,” “us,” or “our”) for your use of the Evidence Based Vocabulary website, applications, and related services (together, the “Service”). Evidence Based Vocabulary is a vocabulary-learning service designed for children ages 8 to 12 and operated under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian. Please read these Terms carefully — by creating an account or using the Service, you agree to them.

Plain-English summary. You must be 18+ and the parent or legal guardian of any child you add to your account. We charge $19.99/month after a 14-day free trial; you can cancel anytime, and we'll refund your first month within 7 days, no questions asked. You keep ownership of any books you upload. AI-generated content (definitions, illustrations, quizzes) may occasionally be imperfect — please review with your kid. We'll handle disputes through Delaware law or AAA consumer arbitration, your choice. Full terms below.

1. The Service

Evidence Based Vocabulary is an AI-assisted vocabulary-learning tool for children. A parent creates an account, adds one or more child profiles, and uploads books (typically EPUB files) the child is reading. The Service extracts candidate vocabulary words from those books and presents them to the child as short interactive exercises that include AI-generated definitions, illustrations, example sentences, audio pronunciations, and quizzes. A spaced-repetition schedule brings each word back for review on a cadence that adapts to the child's performance.

The Service is positioned as “AI tutoring” — large language models generate the bulk of the instructional content. We design the Service for use under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian. We do not represent that the Service is a substitute for a teacher, tutor, or any other human educator.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and capable of forming a binding contract under the laws of your jurisdiction to create an account. If you are adding a child to your account, you must be the child's parent or legal guardian, or you must have the verifiable consent of that child's parent or legal guardian. Children may not create accounts themselves, and may use the Service only under the supervision of a parent who has agreed to these Terms.

The Service is offered worldwide where permitted by law, but we make no representation that the Service is appropriate or available in any particular jurisdiction. You are responsible for compliance with local laws.

3. Your account

3.1 Creating your account

To use the Service, you must create a parent account by providing an email address and a password. You agree to provide accurate, current information and to update it if it changes. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account, including activity by any child profile you create.

3.2 Keeping your account secure

You are responsible for choosing a strong password, keeping it confidential, and signing out of shared devices. We store passwords only as cryptographic hashes — we cannot recover a forgotten password, only reset it via your email. Notify us at hello@evidencebasedvocabulary.com immediately if you suspect unauthorized access.

3.3 One parent per account

Each parent account is for a single household and is associated with a single primary parent or guardian. You may not share your login credentials with anyone outside your household, and you may not use one account to administer multiple unrelated families.

3.4 Student profiles

You may create one (1) student profile per parent account. The subscription price of $19.99 USD per month covers a single student profile. If you have a legitimate need for additional profiles (for example, a sibling, a foster family, a co-parented arrangement, or a small homeschool co-op), email hello@evidencebasedvocabulary.com and we will review the request. The cap may change over time; the current limit is enforced in the Service.

4. Subscription, billing, and cancellation

4.1 Free trial

The Service includes a 14-day free trial. We do not require a credit card or any other payment method to start the trial. During the trial, you have full access to the Service for one parent account and one student profile. The trial automatically ends 14 days after your account is created.

4.2 Conversion to a paid subscription

To continue using the Service after the trial, you must subscribe. Our standard subscription is $20.00 USD per month, per student profile, billed monthly in advance through our payment processor, Stripe. Conversion to paid requires a valid credit or debit card.

As part of the conversion, we charge a temporary $0.50 USD authorization on your card and immediately refund it. This serves two purposes: it confirms that the card is valid, and it functions as one of the FTC's accepted methods of obtaining verifiable parental consent under COPPA (16 CFR § 312.5). You will see both the charge and the refund on your card statement; the net effect is zero.

4.3 Recurring billing

Once you subscribe, your card will be charged automatically each month on the anniversary of your subscription start date until you cancel. You authorize us and Stripe to charge your payment method for the subscription fee and any applicable taxes. If a charge fails, we will retry over the next several days and notify you by email; if the charge cannot be completed, your subscription may be suspended or terminated under section 15.

4.4 Price changes

We may change the subscription price at any time. We will give you at least 30 days' notice by email before any price increase. The increase will not apply to your then-current billing period; you may cancel before the increase takes effect, and your existing rate will hold through the end of the period you have already paid for. The new price will apply only to billing cycles that begin after the notice period has elapsed. Founding-member or grandfathered pricing, where offered, is honored according to the terms communicated at the time of offer.

4.5 Cancellation

You can cancel your subscription at any time, for any reason, through the Customer Portal linked from your parent dashboard, or by emailing hello@evidencebasedvocabulary.com. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period — you will continue to have full access through the date you have already paid for, and you will not be charged again.

4.6 Taxes

Listed prices do not include taxes. You are responsible for any sales, use, value-added, or other taxes that apply to your subscription, except for taxes on our income. Where required by law, applicable taxes will be added at checkout and shown on your receipt.

5. Refund policy

Our full refund policy is published at evidencebasedvocabulary.com/refund. The summary:

Free trial: there is nothing to refund, because we do not collect payment during the trial.
First paid month — 7-day no-questions-asked refund: if you cancel within 7 days of your first paid charge, we will refund that charge in full upon request.
After the 7-day window: we do not offer prorated refunds for partial months. Cancel anytime and you will not be charged again, but you will keep access through the end of the period you have already paid for.
Goodwill refunds: in exceptional cases — for example, an extended outage that materially prevented you from using the Service — we may issue a goodwill refund at our discretion.

6. Coupons and promotional codes

From time to time we may issue coupons or promotional codes. Unless the specific code's terms say otherwise:

Codes are single-use per account, may only be applied at the moment of subscription, and cannot be combined with other offers.
Codes have no cash value and are not redeemable for credit, refund, or transfer.
We may deactivate a code at any time, including before its stated expiration, without notice — for example, if we find that a code is being abused or shared outside its intended audience.
If a code reduces the price of your subscription, any refund you become eligible for under section 5 will equal the actual amount you paid, not the pre-discount list price.
The specific terms communicated with a code (eligibility, expiration, discount amount, renewal terms) govern that code's application.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

Upload books or other content for which you do not hold the necessary rights, including pirated copies and material whose license forbids the kind of processing the Service performs.
Use the Service for any purpose other than personal, household vocabulary education for the children on your account. The Service is not licensed for classroom, library, or other institutional distribution without a separate written agreement.
Scrape, crawl, harvest, or otherwise systematically extract content from the Service, including AI-generated illustrations, definitions, and quizzes.
Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive the source code of the Service or any underlying model, except to the limited extent that applicable law permits despite this restriction.
Attempt to circumvent our safety filters, prompt-inject our LLM features, or otherwise manipulate the Service into producing harmful, sexually explicit, hateful, deceptive, illegal, or age-inappropriate content for a child.
Use the Service to generate or store content that exploits, sexualizes, or endangers a child, or that violates any applicable law.
Probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service, breach its security, or interfere with its operation, including by sending abnormally high volumes of requests or by using credentials that are not your own.
Resell, sublicense, or otherwise commercially exploit the Service, including by offering it as a tutoring product to third-party families.
Use the Service to train another AI or machine-learning model, or to create a product that competes with the Service.

We may suspend or terminate your account, with or without notice, for any violation of this section. Suspensions or terminations for abuse do not entitle you to a refund.

8. Books and other content you upload

8.1 Your ownership

You retain all rights you have in the books and any other content you upload to the Service (“Your Content”). We do not claim ownership of Your Content.

8.2 License you grant us

To operate the Service, we need a limited license to process Your Content. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, parse, transform, and display Your Content solely for the purposes of (a) providing the Service to you and your children, (b) generating vocabulary candidates, definitions, illustrations, example sentences, and other instructional artifacts derived from Your Content, and (c) backing it up and securing it against loss. The license terminates when you delete Your Content from the Service, except for backups that age out under our retention schedule (see Privacy Policy section 8).

8.3 Your representations

By uploading Your Content, you represent and warrant that you have the rights necessary to upload it and to grant us the license above, and that Your Content does not infringe anyone's copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights, and does not violate any applicable law.

8.4 We configure AI providers to disable training on Your Content

We use AI providers (currently OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini) to generate vocabulary definitions, illustrations, and quiz content from Your Content. Where each provider exposes a setting to disable training on customer inputs, we have enabled that setting. We rely on each provider's published policy that they do not train on data so flagged. This commitment depends on the providers honoring their own terms; if a provider materially changes its policy in a way that affects our compliance, we will update this section and notify you by email.

8.5 DMCA and copyright

If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, send a notice that complies with 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) to hello@evidencebasedvocabulary.com with the subject line “DMCA Notice.” We will respond as required by law.

9. AI-generated content

The Service generates instructional content using third-party large language models and image-generation models, including those operated by Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. AI-generated content includes word definitions, example sentences, illustrative images, novel quiz items, sense-extension cards, and audio pronunciation lookups.

AI generation is non-deterministic. Even with safety filters, prompt engineering, and re-ranking, an AI model may occasionally produce content that is incorrect, awkward, off-topic, or unsuitable for a particular child. We strongly recommend that a parent review newly generated material with their child, especially in the first few sessions and whenever a sensitive word appears.

We make no guarantee that any specific AI-generated artifact will be accurate, complete, age-appropriate for your particular child, or pedagogically optimal. We reserve the right to regenerate, edit, suppress, or moderate any generated content at any time, including in response to feedback, safety reviews, or model updates. If you encounter generated content that you believe is inappropriate or harmful, please report it through the in-app feedback link or by emailing hello@evidencebasedvocabulary.com — we take these reports seriously and act on them.

10. Children's accounts and COPPA

Evidence Based Vocabulary is designed for children, used under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian. Our handling of children's data is governed by the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the FTC's COPPA Rule, 16 CFR Part 312, as well as the equivalent provisions of the GDPR Article 8 in the EU and UK GDPR.

10.1 Parent creates and controls the account

Only a parent or legal guardian may create the account and add child profiles. The child does not create credentials, does not log in independently, and does not interact with anyone outside the household through the Service. The child's profile lives entirely inside the parent's account.

10.2 Verifiable parental consent

We obtain verifiable parental consent in two steps:

At signup, you affirmatively confirm that you are the parent or legal guardian and that you agree to these Terms and the Privacy Policy, including the COPPA disclosures.
At conversion from the free trial to the paid subscription, we run a $0.50 USD authorization on your credit or debit card and immediately refund it. The use of a credit-card transaction is one of the methods explicitly approved by the FTC for obtaining verifiable parental consent under COPPA Rule 312.5(b)(2)(ii).

Until both steps are complete, we collect from a child only the limited information necessary to operate the Service for the duration of the free trial — first name or pseudonym (your choice), age or grade level, reading level, and quiz performance. See the Privacy Policy for the full list of what we collect from children and what we do not.

10.3 Parental review and deletion

At any time, you may review the personal information we have collected from your child, refuse further collection, request a machine-readable export, or delete your child's data — through the parent dashboard, by email to hello@evidencebasedvocabulary.com, or via the data-export endpoint described in our Privacy Policy.

11. Privacy

Your privacy and your child's privacy are governed by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. The Privacy Policy describes what we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, our sub-processors, our retention schedule, and how to exercise the data-access, data-export, and data-deletion rights you have under COPPA, GDPR, the CCPA/CPRA, and other applicable laws.

12. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTY ARISING OUT OF COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE.

Without limiting the generality of the foregoing:

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or free of viruses or other harmful components.
We do not guarantee any specific educational outcome — including, without limitation, that a child using the Service will achieve a particular vocabulary level, score, grade, or rate of mastery. Vocabulary acquisition depends on many factors outside our control.
We do not warrant that AI-generated content will be accurate, complete, suitable for any particular child, or free of errors.
We do not warrant that the Service is suitable for use as a clinical, therapeutic, or special-education intervention. The Service is a consumer product, not a medical or special-education device.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of certain warranties; in those jurisdictions, the disclaimers above apply only to the maximum extent permitted by law.

13. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL EVIDENCE BASED VOCABULARY, ITS OWNERS, OR ITS CONTRACTORS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, OR EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS, REGARDLESS OF THE LEGAL THEORY (CONTRACT, TORT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE) AND EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR TOTAL CUMULATIVE LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (a) THE AMOUNTS YOU HAVE PAID US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, AND (b) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100.00).

Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability for incidental or consequential damages; in those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the minimum extent permitted by law. Nothing in these Terms limits any liability that cannot be limited under applicable law, including for our gross negligence, willful misconduct, fraud, or violation of consumer-protection statutes that grant non-waivable rights.

14. Indemnification

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Evidence Based Vocabulary, its owners, and its contractors from and against any third-party claims, damages, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or relating to (a) your or your child's use of the Service, (b) your breach of these Terms, including the acceptable-use rules in section 7 and the representations in section 8.3, (c) Your Content (including any allegation that Your Content infringes third-party rights), or (d) your violation of any applicable law. We may, at our option, assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter subject to indemnification by you, in which case you agree to cooperate with our defense.

15. Termination and data deletion

15.1 By you

You may terminate your account at any time by canceling your subscription (section 4.5) and deleting your account from the parent dashboard or by emailing hello@evidencebasedvocabulary.com.

15.2 By us

We may suspend or terminate your account, with or without notice, if (a) your payment fails and is not cured after reasonable retries and notice, (b) you violate these Terms — including the acceptable-use rules in section 7 — (c) we are required to do so by law or by a credible safety concern, or (d) we discontinue the Service. We will give you reasonable advance notice of a termination for our convenience.

15.3 Effect of termination — soft delete and grace period

When your account is terminated (by you or by us), we apply a soft-delete grace policy:

Your data is locked immediately. You and your child can no longer access the Service.
For seven (7) days after deletion, you can restore the account by clicking the recovery link we email to you at the moment of deletion.
After the 7-day grace window, your data is permanently removed from our primary systems. Encrypted backups age out within 90 days under our retention schedule.
Information we are legally required to retain (e.g., tax records of paid subscriptions) is retained for the period required by applicable law and is otherwise insulated from production use.

15.4 Survival

Sections 8.2 (license to backups during retention), 12 (Disclaimers), 13 (Limitation of liability), 14 (Indemnification), 17 (Governing law and disputes), and 18 (General terms) survive termination of these Terms.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will revise the version line at the top of this page and, where the change is material, notify you by email at least 30 days before the change takes effect. Continued use of the Service after the notice period constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms.

If a change to these Terms is a breaking change — for example, a change to the dispute-resolution clause, a change that materially reduces a right you previously had, or a change that materially expands your obligations — we will require your explicit re-acceptance through an in-product prompt before the change takes effect for you. If you decline, you may continue under the prior version through the end of your then-current billing period and then terminate.

17. Governing law and dispute resolution

17.1 Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

17.2 Forum — courts or AAA arbitration, your choice

Any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service (a “Dispute”) will be resolved as follows. At your election, a Dispute will be resolved either:

In court: exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you and we consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts; or
By binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. The arbitration will be conducted by a single arbitrator, in English, on documents only unless the arbitrator orders otherwise, and the seat will be Delaware unless you and we agree otherwise. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

You may make this election by notifying us in your first written communication about a Dispute (a “Dispute Notice” to hello@evidencebasedvocabulary.com). If you do not elect arbitration in your Dispute Notice, the courts described above will have exclusive jurisdiction.

17.3 Informal resolution first

Before filing a lawsuit or commencing arbitration, the party raising the Dispute will send the other party a Dispute Notice describing the Dispute and the relief sought. The parties will attempt in good faith to resolve the Dispute informally for at least 30 days after the Notice. If the Dispute is not resolved within that period, either party may proceed under section 17.2.

17.4 No class actions

YOU AND WE AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS, COLLECTIVE, REPRESENTATIVE, OR PRIVATE-ATTORNEY-GENERAL PROCEEDING. Unless you and we agree otherwise in writing, an arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims and may not preside over any form of representative proceeding. If a court of competent jurisdiction finds this class-action waiver unenforceable, the entire arbitration provision in section 17.2 shall be null and void, but the remainder of these Terms will remain in effect, and the Dispute will be resolved in court under section 17.2.

17.5 Prevailing-party fee shifting

In any Dispute resolved under section 17.2, the prevailing party is entitled to recover its reasonable attorneys' fees and costs, except where applicable law (including non-waivable consumer-protection statutes) provides otherwise or limits this provision.

17.6 Equitable relief

Notwithstanding the above, either party may seek temporary or preliminary injunctive relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to protect intellectual property, trade-secret, or confidentiality rights pending the resolution of the Dispute under section 17.2.

17.7 Time limit

Any Dispute must be filed within one (1) year after the cause of action arose, OR within the minimum period your jurisdiction requires for non-waivable contract claims, whichever is longer. This provision applies only to the maximum extent permitted by your applicable law.

18. General terms

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and Refund Policy linked above, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service and supersede any prior agreement.
Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect; the unenforceable provision will be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable while preserving its intent.
No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later.
Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms — for example, in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of substantially all of our assets — with notice to you.
Force majeure. Neither party is liable for failure to perform due to causes beyond its reasonable control, including acts of God, war, terrorism, civil unrest, labor disputes, internet or power outages, governmental orders, and acts of third-party providers.
Independent contractors. Nothing in these Terms creates an agency, partnership, joint-venture, or employment relationship between you and us.
Notices to you. We may send you notices by email to the address associated with your account, by in-product notification, or by posting on this page. You agree that electronic notices satisfy any legal notice requirement.
Headings. Headings are for convenience only and do not affect interpretation.

19. Contact us

For questions about these Terms, to send a Dispute Notice, to report a violation, or to make any request these Terms reference, write to:

Evidence Based Vocabulary — Legal
Email: hello@evidencebasedvocabulary.com
Subject line: Terms of Service

These Terms were prepared by Evidence Based Vocabulary. They are not legal advice. If you are using a similar service in another jurisdiction, you should consult a qualified attorney about the applicable rules in your country.

→ Read the Privacy Policy · → Read the Refund Policy