Refund Policy

Introduction

This Refund Policy explains when and how refunds are available for ChronoLedger and how the token-billing model works in practice. It supplements our Terms of Use and is read alongside any mandatory consumer-protection rights you have under the law of your country of residence — those rights are described in the Your statutory rights section below and are not affected by anything else in this policy.

All token purchases and auto-top-up charges are processed by our merchant of record, Paddle.com Market Limited ("Paddle"). Paddle is the seller of record for tax purposes; any statutory cooling-off rights, where they apply, are administered by Paddle at checkout and remain available even where this policy would not otherwise grant a refund.

How billing works

ChronoLedger is billed by usage, not by subscription. There is no recurring monthly or annual subscription fee. You pay only for what you actually use, in the form of tokens — non-refundable digital prepaid credits that are consumed by metered actions in the Service (for example, exports and automated invoice generation) at the per-action rates published in your workspace billing settings.

You acquire tokens in two ways:

• Free weekly tokens — granted to every workspace at no charge on a use-it-or-lose-it basis (see Free tokens).
• Paid tokens — purchased in packs at any time, or credited automatically by auto-top-up when you have authorised a card on file with a monthly cap.

No charge to your card occurs without you having either (a) manually purchased a token pack at a price you saw and confirmed at checkout, or (b) configured auto-top-up with an explicit monthly cap.

Free tokens

Every workspace receives a fresh allocation of free tokens at the start of each weekly grant cycle. Free tokens:

• are use-it-or-lose-it — unused free tokens are forfeited at the end of the grant cycle and do not roll over;
• are never converted into paid tokens;
• do not require a payment method on file;
• are subject to the same per-action rates as paid tokens;
• may be increased, decreased, or paused at our discretion at any time without notice.

Paid tokens

Paid tokens are non-refundable digital prepaid credits. The performance obligation for paid tokens is the credit of the tokens to your workspace balance, which is performed at the moment of payment receipt. Subsequent consumption is your exercise of the pre-paid right to use metered features of the Service at the then-current per-action rates published in your workspace billing settings.

• Paid tokens are not refundable for cash, are not transferable between workspaces, and are not redeemable for any other product or service.
• Paid tokens do not expire merely because they are not consumed, except as set out in Token inactivity expiry below.
• Per-action token costs may be revised over time at our discretion. Where a token cost is increased, the existing balance continues to spend at the per-action rate in effect at the time of consumption — not the rate in effect at the time of purchase.

Tokens are not securities, are not cryptocurrency, are not stored value within the meaning of any e-money or payment-services regulation, and do not represent a claim against any ChronoLedger asset. The licence we grant you under the Terms of Use includes the limited right to use paid tokens to invoke metered features of the Service.

Auto-top-up

Auto-top-up is an optional convenience feature. When you enable auto-top-up, you authorise us — and Paddle as our merchant of record — to charge a payment method you have placed on file automatically when your token balance falls below a threshold you set, up to a monthly cap you set, in order to replenish tokens to a target balance you set.

Your controls. You may pause, disable, modify the cap, or remove the card at any time from your workspace billing settings; changes take effect immediately for charges not already in flight.

• You set the monthly cap when you authorise a card; you can change or remove it at any time from your workspace billing settings.
• When your token balance falls below the trigger threshold you set, we charge your card to top up to your target balance, capped at your remaining monthly limit.
• When the monthly cap is reached, no further automatic charges occur in that calendar month and metered actions will require manual top-up or wait until the next month.

Pre-charge notification. Before each automatic charge, we record the trigger event in your workspace billing settings and send a confirmation email after the charge clears. Where you have approached or reached your monthly cap, we send an email so that you can decide whether to raise the cap, top up manually, or wait until the next calendar month.

What auto-top-up is not. Auto-top-up is not a subscription, is not a continuous service offering at a recurring fixed price, is not subject to auto-renewal regulation (such as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Negative Option Rule, the California Automatic Renewal Law, or the German BGB § 312k Kündigungsbutton requirement), and does not commit you to any minimum spend over any period. Each automatic charge is the consumer's pay-as-you-go top-up of a prepaid credit balance, authorised in advance up to a cap you control.

Refunds of auto-top-up charges. Auto-top-up charges credit you with paid tokens, which are non-refundable for cash under Paid tokens above. If we determine — at our sole discretion — that an auto-top-up charge occurred contrary to your configured cap or threshold because of a bug on our side, we will refund the charge in full or, at our option, issue an equivalent goodwill token credit. Disputes over whether usage was legitimate are resolved by reference to the audit log we maintain in your workspace.

Token inactivity expiry

Paid tokens are forfeited after 6 months of continuous account inactivity ("Inactivity Expiry"). "Account inactivity" means the absence of any human login to the workspace (an agent-API call alone does not reset the clock).

Warning emails. Before any inactivity-based forfeiture, we send two warning emails to the Workspace Owner's email of record:

• a first warning 30 days before the forfeiture date;
• a final reminder 7 days before the forfeiture date.

Each warning identifies the balance at risk, the forfeiture date, and a one-click link to log in to the workspace.

Re-grace. Logging in to the workspace at any time during the warning window cancels the pending forfeiture and resets the Inactivity Expiry clock to zero.

Suspension carve-out. Where we have suspended your workspace under the Suspension clause of the Terms of Use, the Inactivity Expiry clock is paused for the duration of the suspension. On reinstatement, the paid token balance is restored as it stood at the time of suspension (less any consumption during a permitted limited-access period).

Service-incident carve-out. Where we have a documented service incident that materially prevents you from consuming tokens during the warning window, the Inactivity Expiry clock is paused for the duration of that incident. Service-incident records are referenced in the audit log of any forfeiture decision.

Audit log. Every forfeiture event is recorded in our immutable token-audit log, which captures the user identifier, the amount forfeited, the warning emails sent, the date of last login, and any applicable carve-out. The Workspace Owner may request the audit-log entry for their own workspace at any time.

Your statutory rights

Nothing in this policy excludes or limits any statutory right that applies to you and that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law. The principal statutory rights that may apply, depending on where you are resident, are:

• EU and EEA consumers — under the Consumer Rights Directive (Directive 2011/83/EU), as amended, you have a 14-day right to withdraw from a distance contract. For digital content delivered immediately — including a token pack — this right is waived only if you expressly consent to immediate delivery and acknowledge that you lose the right to withdraw, which Paddle captures at checkout. If the right has not been waived, you may withdraw within 14 days of the relevant token-pack purchase by contacting Paddle or by emailing us at legal@chrono-ledger.com.
• UK consumers — under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (UK CCRs), the equivalent 14-day right applies, with the same digital-content waiver mechanism at Paddle checkout.
• Authorisation of auto-top-up. When you first configure auto-top-up, the same 14-day cooling-off mechanism applies in respect of the first automatic charge processed under that authorisation. Subsequent automatic charges are usage-driven top-ups of a prepaid balance you have already configured and are not separate distance contracts.

Business customers (B2B). If you are not a Consumer — that is, if you are acquiring the Service for purposes that are within your trade, business, craft, or profession — the consumer- protection rights above do not apply, and the rest of this Refund Policy is the exclusive description of your refund rights.

Goodwill credits

We may, at our sole discretion, issue goodwill credits in additional tokens (not in cash) where, for example, a documented service incident caused tokens to be consumed without delivering the metered action, or where an auto-top-up charge cleared contrary to your configured cap or threshold because of a bug on our side. Goodwill credits are not a contractual right, are not cumulative, and may not be exchanged for any other form of consideration. We may decline a goodwill request that is repetitive, that contradicts the spirit of this policy, or that relates to a Service issue caused by your own configuration or use.

Chargebacks

Chargebacks are processed in the first instance by Paddle as the merchant of record. Where a chargeback is processed against a transaction, we may, in addition to any other remedy:

• reverse any tokens credited in respect of the disputed transaction;
• suspend the workspace pending resolution of the chargeback;
• disable auto-top-up on the workspace until the dispute is resolved;
• recover from you any chargeback fees levied by Paddle.

Initiating a chargeback in lieu of using the refund-request channel below is unfair and may result in account termination.

Enterprise plans

We do not currently offer subscription plans. We expect to offer enterprise subscription arrangements in the future under a separate order form. If and when we do, the terms of any such order form will govern the subscription, and this Refund Policy will be superseded for that customer to the extent the order form conflicts. The token model and inactivity expiry described above will continue to apply to any token element of an enterprise arrangement unless the order form provides otherwise.

How to request a refund

Email legal@chrono-ledger.com from the email address on the workspace, with the following information:

• Workspace name and account email.
• Order or invoice ID (visible in workspace billing settings — the invoice is generated by Paddle as merchant of record).
• Date and amount of the charge in question.
• A short description of the issue and what outcome you are seeking.
• Where you are exercising a statutory right, the statutory right you rely on.

We aim to resolve refund requests within ten business days. Approved refunds are issued through Paddle to the original payment method; processing time depends on your card issuer or bank.