Terms of Service

1. About AISTeA

AISTeA (AI Smart Teaching Assistant) is an AI-powered learning platform operated by the AISTeA team based in India. We provide personalised study plans, on-demand homework help, AI-graded practice tests, and topic summaries aligned to CBSE, ICSE, and State Board syllabi for students in Grades 1 to 12.

The service is available at aistea.in, the web app at app.aistea.in, and our official Android application. References to "AISTeA", "we", "us", or "our" mean the AISTeA team. "You" means the person using the service, or, where the user is a minor, the parent or guardian.

2. Who can use AISTeA

• If you are under 18, you may only use AISTeA with the consent and supervision of a parent or guardian. Your parent or guardian must accept these Terms on your behalf.
• If you are a school administrator creating accounts for students under your school, you confirm that you have lawful authority to do so and have obtained appropriate parental consent under applicable law.
• You must provide accurate registration information (name, email, grade, board) and keep it current.

3. Your account

• You are responsible for all activity that happens under your account. Don't share your login with anyone else.
• If you suspect your account has been accessed by someone else, contact us at karthikeyan@aistea.in immediately.
• We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, abuse the service, or remain inactive for an extended period.

4. AI content disclaimer — please read

• Always double-check important information against your textbook, teacher, or a trusted source — especially for board exam answers, scientific facts, dates, and formulas.
• AISTeA is a study aid, not a replacement for your school teacher, tutor, or official curriculum.
• AI-graded exam scores are estimates intended to give you practice feedback. They are not official board scores or certified evaluations.
• If you spot a factual error, please report it via karthikeyan@aistea.in — we use these reports to improve the system.

5. Acceptable use

You agree NOT to:

• Use AISTeA to cheat on exams, assignments, or tests where AI assistance is prohibited.
• Submit content that is illegal, harmful, hateful, harassing, sexually explicit, or violates the rights of any person.
• Attempt to reverse engineer, scrape, or programmatically extract content from the service except through APIs we provide.
• Use the service to build a competing AI tutoring product.
• Impersonate another person or misrepresent your affiliation with a school.
• Disrupt the service, bypass usage limits, or attempt to access another user's account.

We may remove content or suspend accounts that violate these rules without prior notice.

6. School accounts

• Schools that subscribe to AISTeA may onboard students under a custom plan with the school's branding and pricing.
• The school administrator is responsible for ensuring that parental consent has been obtained for each enrolled minor where required by law.
• Schools may set custom limits and toggle features for their students; AISTeA is not responsible for content or restrictions configured by the school.
• If a school subscription is suspended or terminated, student accounts may be downgraded to the free plan or deactivated.

7. Pricing, payments & refunds

A. Billing model — one-time, manual renewal

AISTeA does not operate any auto-renewing subscription, recurring mandate, UPI Autopay, or NACH e-mandate. Every payment is a one-time charge that grants a fixed period of access:

• Monthly plan — one-time charge that grants 30 days of access from the date of payment.
• Yearly plan — one-time charge equal to 10× the monthly price that grants 365 days of access (i.e. pay for 10 months, get 12 months — 2 months free as the loyalty discount).
• Free plan — no charge, no expiry.
• School plan — bespoke per-school contract; refer to the school's agreement with AISTeA.

When the paid period ends, your account is automatically moved back to the Free plan until you choose to renew. You do not need to cancel anything; there is nothing to cancel because there is no recurring debit. Your data, learning history, and referral points are preserved across the lapse.

B. Plan pricing

All fees are stated in Indian Rupees (INR / ₹) and are inclusive or exclusive of applicable GST as indicated at checkout. Pricing may change from time to time; changes apply only to new payments after the change date and never to access you have already paid for.

C. Payment processing

Payments are processed through our authorised payment partner Razorpay Software Pvt. Ltd. By making a payment, you also agree to Razorpay's terms. AISTeA does not see or store your card / UPI / bank credentials.

D. Renewing or changing plan

You can renew the same plan, switch billing period (monthly ↔ yearly), or upgrade/downgrade at any time from the Account → Subscription page. Renewing before your expiry date adds the new period on top of your existing expiry — you do not lose any paid time you have already purchased.

E. Refunds & cancellation

No automatic recurring charge to cancel. Because AISTeA does not auto-debit you, there is nothing to cancel. If you no longer wish to use a paid plan, simply do not renew — your account will automatically move to the Free plan when the period ends.

All payments are one-time and non-refundable. We do not offer refunds for change-of-mind, accidental purchase, partial-period use, lack of use, account termination due to breach, or because the user's circumstances changed after payment. By making a payment you confirm you have reviewed the plan's features and pricing and understand no refund is available except in the limited cases set out below.

AISTeA may, at its sole discretion, consider a refund (full or partial) only in the following narrow circumstances:

• Sustained service outage caused by AISTeA (not by your device, network, ISP, or a third-party service like Razorpay or Google) that meaningfully prevented you from using the paid features for which you were charged.
• Clear billing error — for example, you were charged twice for the same order, or charged for a plan you did not select.
• Unauthorised charge — somebody used your payment method without your consent (subject to your having reported the unauthorised use to your bank as well).

To request consideration, write to support@aistea.in within 14 days of the disputed charge with your registered email/phone and the order ID. Decisions are at AISTeA's sole discretion; the existence of this section does not create an entitlement to a refund in any specific case.

Where AISTeA does approve a refund, it is credited to the original payment method through Razorpay, typically within 5–10 business days of approval. We may withhold an amount equal to any payment-gateway fees, GST, or transaction taxes that we ourselves cannot recover.

Discount vouchers minted from referral points are non-refundable and have no cash value (see § 11A). Once consumed at checkout, they cannot be reissued.

8. Intellectual property

• The AISTeA platform, brand, logo, course structure, and original written content are owned by the AISTeA team and protected by Indian and international copyright law.
• Textbook content surfaced through the platform is owned by the respective publishers (NCERT, board publishers, school publishers). AISTeA uses this content under fair-use educational principles and assumes responsibility for removal on legitimate request.
• Content you submit (homework photos, chat messages, voice clips) remains yours. You grant AISTeA a limited licence to process, transmit, and store it only as required to deliver the service to you.
• AI-generated outputs are produced for your personal study use. You may save, print, or share them privately, but you may not republish them commercially.

9. Third-party services

AISTeA uses third-party platforms to operate. These include (but are not limited to):

• Google Cloud / Firebase — hosting, authentication, and storage.
• Google Gemini — large-language-model inference for AI features.
• Razorpay — payment processing.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging — push notifications.

These services have their own terms and privacy policies. Your use of AISTeA implies acceptance of the relevant third-party terms where they apply to features you use.

10. Termination

You may stop using AISTeA at any time and delete your account from the profile page (or by emailing us). We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these Terms, abuse the service, or for any other reason at our reasonable discretion, with notice where practicable. Termination does not entitle you to a refund of unused subscription time except where required by law.

11. Limitation of liability

AISTeA is provided "as is" and "as available". To the maximum extent permitted by Indian law:

• We do not guarantee that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that AI-generated content will be accurate or complete.
• We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages, including loss of marks, study time, exam outcomes, or data — even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
• Our total aggregate liability for any claim arising out of or related to the service is limited to the amount you paid to AISTeA in the 12 months preceding the claim, or ₹5,000, whichever is greater.

11A. Referral programs

AISTeA operates two structurally separate referral programs. They differ in who can participate and how the reward is delivered. The structure is intentional: it ensures no cash payment is ever directed to or routed through a minor.

A. Student Referral Program (in-app rewards only — no cash)

Who can participate. Every signed-in user — students, parents, school administrators — automatically receives a referral code and may participate. For users under 18, the parent or legal guardian who consented at registration also consents to participation in this in-app rewards program.

How a referral becomes "qualified". A signup using your code is qualified when both of the following are true:

1. The referred friend subscribes to a paid plan (Basic / Student / Pro / School), and
2. The friend's account is at least 30 days old (anti-fraud cooling period).

Points earned per qualified referral (in-app credits — 2 points = ₹1 nominal value):

How points can be redeemed. Points are usable only inside AISTeA, in either of two ways:

• Plan-purchase discount — applied at checkout against any paid plan. The conversion rate is 2 points = ₹1, capped at the plan price. Unused points remain in your balance.
• Physical study-material milestone gifts — unlocked by lifetime cumulative qualified referrals:

  Lifetime qualified referrals	Reward unlocked
  5	"Study Starter Pack" — premium geometry box + Reynolds gel pen set + spiral notebook
  10	Casio FX-82MS scientific calculator + protective sleeve
  20	USB rechargeable eye-care study lamp + A4 notebook bundle
  50	"Champion's Toolkit" — Casio FX-991ES + premium school backpack + desk organiser + ₹1,000 reference-book bundle + AISTeA Champion badge on profile

Each tier may be claimed once per account. Gifts ship within 21 working days of claim, anywhere in India, by our courier partner.

Important conditions for the Student Program.

• Points and milestone gifts have no cash value, are non-transferable, cannot be withdrawn as money, and cannot be sold, gifted to another account, or exchanged for cash equivalents (no vouchers, no UPI, no bank transfer, no cheque).
• Points expire 24 months after the date they were earned if still unredeemed.
• AISTeA may substitute a milestone gift of equivalent retail value (e.g. if a SKU is out of stock).
• Self-referral, fake accounts, refund-then-resubscribe loops, mass-bulk farming, and use of a code to obtain a discount on your own account are prohibited and will result in forfeiture of points and possible account suspension.
• A parent or guardian of a minor referrer may at any time pause, freeze, or disable the child's referral code by writing to karthikeyan@aistea.in.

B. Partner Program (adults only — cash rewards)

Who can participate. Adults aged 18 or above who are not enrolled as a learning student on AISTeA — including parents acting as affiliates, tutors, tuition-centre owners, school teachers, employees, and friends-of-AISTeA. Sign-up is via the "Register as a partner" path on the registration page and is subject to manual approval by AISTeA. By signing up, you represent that you are at least 18 years old and are entering this agreement in your own legal capacity.

Cash reward per qualified referral:

A referral becomes qualified under the same 30-day-on-paid-plan rule as the Student Program.

Payout mechanics.

• Payouts are made via Razorpay to the partner's own UPI handle or bank account, in the partner's own name. Payouts to a third party are not permitted.
• AISTeA may aggregate payouts and remit on a monthly basis. Minimum payout threshold: ₹500 (smaller balances accrue).
• Where annual payouts to a single partner cross ₹50,000 per financial year, AISTeA will request the partner's PAN and may withhold tax at source as required by the Income-Tax Act, 1961.
• Partners are responsible for declaring the income in their own tax filings. Cash rewards are referral commission and are taxable in the partner's hands.
• AISTeA may at any time pause, suspend, or close a partner account for fraud, account-stuffing, misleading advertising, or breach of these Terms; pending balances earned through such activity may be forfeited.

Why minors cannot participate in the Partner Program. Under the Indian Contract Act, 1872, a contract with a minor is void. A binding partner-referrer agreement, which carries cash consideration and tax obligations, must be entered into by an adult. If a child wishes to earn rewards through referrals, the child should use the Student Referral Program. If a parent wishes to earn cash for referrals on the child's behalf, the parent must register as a Partner in the parent's own name.

C. General

• AISTeA may modify the points-per-plan rates, partner cash rates, gift catalogue, and qualification rules at any time, with at least 7 days' notice via email or in-app banner. Already-earned points and already-qualified payouts are honoured under the rates that applied at the time they were earned.
• AISTeA may discontinue either program with 30 days' notice, in which case any accrued-and-qualified balance must be redeemed within 60 days of the discontinuation notice.
• Disputes about specific qualifications or payouts should be raised first with the Grievance Officer within 60 days of the disputed event.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or by a notice inside the app at least 7 days before the change takes effect. Continued use of the service after the change means you accept the updated Terms.

13. Governing law & disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of India. Any dispute arising out of or related to the service or these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. Before resorting to legal action, you agree to first contact us in good faith at karthikeyan@aistea.in to attempt an informal resolution.

14. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Reach us at:

• Email: karthikeyan@aistea.in
• WhatsApp: +91 93458 41136
• Web: aistea.in