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 and annual subscriptions can be canceled any time, in one click, from your billing portal. You keep full access until the end of the period you have already paid for, and nothing further is charged.
• If the service fails on our side for more than 7 days in a row, write to us. We make it right, normally by adding credits for the affected days.
• Refunds are considered on request, by email, as a goodwill gesture. Any refund we agree to goes back to the original payment method, typically 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, rather than 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.

When you cancel, the month you have paid for stays yours: full access until it ends, and no further charge. Anything beyond that is a request under section 5.

5. Goodwill refunds

Refunds are considered on request, at our discretion, as a goodwill gesture and not as a contractual right. Email billing@mastheads.app with the charge in question and a short explanation, and we will look at it case by case.

One goodwill refund is available per customer. Where the cause was on our side, such as an outage or a failure to deliver, we are flexible about this.

We may offer an equivalent account credit or a free period of service instead of a cash refund, with your agreement.

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.

When you cancel, the year you have paid for stays yours: full access until it ends, and no further charge. If we agree to a goodwill refund under section 5, it is calculated from the months you used at the plan's monthly price, and the remainder is returned. For example, a $990 annual Starter plan canceled in month 5 counts 5 × $99 = $495 as used.

Months used are valued at the monthly price because the annual discount is earned by a full year's commitment.

7. Service failures

If the service fails to produce or publish articles to your site for more than 7 calendar days in a row due to issues on our side (excluding planned maintenance announced at least 24 hours in advance, customer-side outages such as rotated CMS credentials, or third-party outages beyond our reasonable control), write to us. We make it right, normally by adding credits for the affected days. A refund for those days is considered under section 5.

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.