Refund Policy

This page sets out the refund eligibility rules, the request process, and the timing customers can expect for paid Cloudarq subscriptions. It is the canonical source — where the Terms of Service §4.2 summarises the 14-day clause, this policy is the operative document. If the two ever drift, this page wins.

Cloudarq subscriptions are sold by Paddle.com Market Limited as the Merchant of Record. Paddle — not Cloudarq — is the legal seller of your subscription, even though the product is provided by Cloudarq. Refunds are issued through Paddle’s standard adjustment flow; Cloudarq routes the request, Paddle moves the money. See subprocessors for the full Merchant-of-Record context.

1. Eligibility window

A new paid subscription is eligible for a full refund if all of the following are true:

• The cancellation request reaches us within 14 calendar days of the first successful charge for that subscription.
• Fewer than two completed scans have run on the subscription as of the request time. A scan is “completed” when its findings are available in your dashboard.
• The subscription is not currently in a chargeback, dispute, or fraud-investigation state.

Outside this window we do not offer pro-rated refunds for partial billing periods. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period and is not retroactive.

Organisation and Enterprise tiers are quote-driven and the refund clause in the signed order form supersedes this section. If the order form is silent on refunds, this policy applies.

2. What is refundable

• Subscription fees within the eligibility window above. The full charged amount, including any tax Paddle collected at checkout.
• Overage charges caused by an actual product or billing error (duplicate scan triggered by an internal retry, miscount of resources by a scanner bug). Reviewed case-by-case; we ask for the audit IDs concerned.
• Duplicate-charge corrections. If Paddle’s payment retry charges twice for the same billing period, the duplicate is refunded automatically once we reconcile — you do not need to ask.
• Service-outage credits. If a published Cloudarq incident prevented you from running scans for more than 24 hours within a billing period, we issue a credit calculated against that billing period. Credits are applied to the next invoice, not refunded to your card, unless you specifically request otherwise.

3. What is NOT refundable

• The Starter (free) tier. No charge; nothing to refund.
• Subscriptions cancelled after the 14-day window. Cancellation stops the next renewal; the current period’s fee is not refunded.
• Subscriptions terminated for Terms of Service violations: scanning AWS accounts you do not own, attempting to circumvent tier limits, abuse of the AI remediation endpoints, or any other §5 (Acceptable Use) breach. Termination forfeits refund eligibility for the current period.
• Chargeback fees. If you initiate a chargeback through your card issuer instead of asking us for a refund, Paddle imposes a chargeback fee on Cloudarq which we pass through. Use the request flow below first — it is faster and avoids the fee.
• AI-enrichment usage already consumed. If your subscription used AI-generated remediation suggestions during the period (Pro and Max tiers), the per-call enrichment cost is not separately refunded; the subscription fee is refunded in full or not at all per the eligibility window.
• Third-party costs. AWS API calls Cloudarq performs against your account during a scan are billed by AWS to your AWS account, not by Cloudarq. We never see those charges and cannot refund them.

4. How to request a refund

There are two equally valid request paths:

1. Email [email protected] with subject line “Refund request”. Include the email address on the account, the approximate charge date, and which clause of this policy applies (eligibility window, duplicate charge, service-outage credit, etc.).
2. Open the Paddle customer portal from the “Manage subscription” link on your billing settings page and request the refund there. Paddle routes the request to us for approval.

We acknowledge every refund request within 1 business day with either an approval and the Paddle adjustment ID, or a denial that names the clause of this policy under which the refund does not qualify.

5. Processing time

Once we approve a refund and dispatch it to Paddle’s adjustments API, Paddle processes it back to your original payment method on the following timing:

• Cards: typically 5–10 business days to land on your statement. This is Paddle’s standard timing communicated to card issuers; we cannot shorten it.
• Cards issued outside your primary processing region: can extend to up to 14 business days due to inter-network settlement.
• Bank-debit (SEPA, ACH): 7–14 business days depending on your bank.

Refunds always return to the original payment method — we cannot redirect them to a different card, a different account, or a different person. If the original payment method has expired or been closed, Paddle handles the recovery flow with your bank directly; we forward any communication Paddle sends us for that case.

6. Exceptions

• No proration for partial periods. If you cancel mid-cycle outside the 14-day window, we do not refund the unused portion of the cycle. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period.
• Goodwill refunds. Outside the policy we may issue a refund at our discretion for individual cases (a customer who paid for a year and discovered after several months that the product genuinely doesn’t fit their needs, for example). Goodwill refunds are case-by-case, are not a guarantee, and exhaust at our judgement — do not rely on them.
• ToS violations. A refund may be denied or reversed if we discover after issuing it that the subscription was used in violation of the Terms of Service §5 (Acceptable Use).
• Active chargebacks. If you have already initiated a chargeback through your card issuer for the same charge, we wait for that process to complete before honouring a refund request directly — running both in parallel risks a double-recovery the issuer will reverse anyway.
• Order-form refund clauses (Org / Enterprise). A signed Order Form’s refund terms supersede this policy. Where the Order Form is silent, this policy applies as the default.

7. Changes to this policy

Material changes to this policy — tightening the eligibility window, adding a new exclusion, or changing the request process — are announced in-app and via email to the account’s billing contact at least 30 days in advance. The change applies to charges occurring on or after the announced effective date; charges before that date are governed by the policy version in force at the time of the charge.

Cosmetic or clarifying edits (rewording, fixing a typo, adding an example) do not count as material changes and ship without the 30-day notice. The Last Updated date at the top of this page reflects every edit, material or otherwise.

8. Contact

Questions about a refund, a denial, or this policy: [email protected].

Cross-references: Terms of Service §4 (Billing and Cancellation) | Subprocessors and Paddle as Merchant of Record | Privacy Policy.