Terms of Service

You may create an account only if you are at least 18 years old and live in the United Kingdom. You must confirm both facts and agree to these terms when registering. If you do not meet those conditions, do not create or use an account.

Your free-plan contract begins when we create your account. A paid subscription begins when Stripe confirms your order. These terms, the plan information shown before purchase and our Privacy Notice form the relevant agreement. Save a copy for your records.

WhyCited analyses a citation in an academic paper at your request. It uses openly accessible research, scholarly metadata and AI models to explain the likely relationship between the cited work and the passage you are reading, with available evidence and a confidence grade.

WhyCited is a research and reading aid. It is not a substitute for reading or citing the original source, professional advice, peer review, academic supervision or your own judgement. AI-generated output can be incomplete, outdated or wrong. You must verify claims against the original materials and comply with your institution’s academic-integrity and citation rules.

• Provide accurate information and keep your account secure.
• Use one account per person. Do not use email aliases, shared accounts or other methods to obtain repeated free allowances or evade plan limits.
• Tell us promptly at hello@whycited.com if you believe your account has been compromised.
• You are responsible for activity carried out through your account unless it resulted from our failure to use reasonable care.

You must not:

• break any law or infringe another person’s rights;
• use the Service to circumvent a paywall, access control or publisher restriction;
• upload or submit material you have no right to process, or knowingly submit malware, unlawful material or sensitive personal data;
• scrape, probe, reverse engineer, overload or programmatically drive the Service outside its intended extension and published interfaces;
• interfere with security, obtain another user’s data, extract keys or prompts, or misrepresent generated output as independently verified;
• resell, share or pool access without our written permission.

We may apply reasonable technical limits and investigate suspected misuse. We will act proportionately and give notice where reasonably practicable.

The pricing page describes each plan’s current monthly allowance of standard and, where included, deep analyses. Allowances reset at the start of the next stated period and do not roll over. If you reach a limit, you must wait for renewal or move to an eligible plan.

A launch or promotional price is the amount payable for as long as the offer states. Any reference price or saving will identify its genuine basis. The checkout page shows the binding price, billing frequency, applicable taxes and total due before you place the order.

Paid plans renew automatically each month and are charged in advance by Stripe to your chosen payment method until cancelled. You authorise those recurring charges. If payment fails, we may retry it, ask you to update the payment method, suspend paid features or return the account to the Free plan.

You can change a plan, update payment details or cancel renewal through Manage billing on your account page. Cancellation normally takes effect at the end of the paid billing period, and you keep access until then. This contractual cancellation route does not limit the separate statutory cancellation right below.

We may change a future renewal price or allowance by giving reasonable advance notice. The change will not affect a period already paid for. You may cancel before the changed price takes effect.

If you buy as a consumer at a distance, you generally have 14 days from the day after the paid contract is made to cancel without giving a reason. To exercise that right, send a clear statement to hello@whycited.com before the period ends. You may use the model form in section 18, but you do not have to.

At checkout, you ask us to provide paid access immediately during the cancellation period. If you cancel after paid service has begun, we may deduct a proportionate amount for the service supplied up to your cancellation, where the law permits. We will refund any balance due using the original payment method, normally within 14 days after we receive your cancellation notice.

Nothing in these terms limits refund, cancellation, quality or other rights that UK consumer law gives you. Advice about those rights is available from Citizens Advice.

You retain any rights you have in citation context, feedback and other material you submit. You give us a limited, non-exclusive permission to host, transmit, reproduce and analyse that material only as needed to provide, secure, support and improve the Service in accordance with the Privacy Notice. You confirm that you have the right to do so.

The WhyCited software, extension, design, branding and original site content belong to us or our licensors. These terms give you a personal, limited, revocable, non-exclusive and non-transferable right to use the Service while your account remains open and compliant. They do not transfer our intellectual property to you.

Subject to third-party rights and applicable law, you may use an analysis in your own research and writing. We do not promise that generated wording is unique or that it can be used without checking the underlying sources and relevant academic rules.

Our Privacy Notice explains what personal data we use, the providers involved, international transfers, retention and your rights. Do not submit confidential, unpublished or sensitive personal data to an analysis or feedback field.

We use reasonable care to provide the Service but do not promise that it will always be uninterrupted, error-free or compatible with every webpage. Retrieval depends on third-party pages and providers that may change or be unavailable. We may maintain, secure or change features and models over time.

If we permanently discontinue a paid Service, we will give reasonable notice where practicable and refund any prepaid amount for service we do not provide.

We may suspend or restrict an account where reasonably necessary to investigate misuse, protect users or systems, comply with law, address non-payment or enforce these terms. We may terminate for a material or repeated breach, normally after giving you a reasonable opportunity to put the issue right where it can be remedied.

You may stop using WhyCited, cancel a subscription and request account closure at any time by emailing hello@whycited.com. Closure does not erase payment or other records we must lawfully retain.

We are responsible for loss or damage that is a foreseeable result of our breaching these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss that was not foreseeable, for a problem caused by information or instructions you supplied, or for your reliance on an AI analysis without reasonable verification.

We do not exclude or limit liability where it would be unlawful, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or your statutory consumer rights. The Service is provided for personal research use; we are not responsible to a consumer for business losses such as lost profit, revenue, opportunity or business interruption.

If you use the Service wholly or mainly for your trade, business, craft or profession, consumer-only rights may not apply. To the extent permitted by law, we exclude implied business warranties and are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost profit, revenue, data, goodwill or opportunity. Our aggregate liability to a business user in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of £100 and the fees that user paid us in that period. The exclusions in section 13 still apply.

We may update these terms for legal, security, technical or service changes. We will identify the effective date. If a material update affects an existing user, we will give reasonable advance notice and may ask that user to accept the new version before continuing. Changes do not remove rights or obligations that already arose.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you are a consumer, you may bring proceedings in the courts of the part of the United Kingdom where you live. If you are a business, the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.

Please contact us first so we can try to resolve a complaint. Nothing in this section prevents either party from using any mandatory dispute process or remedy available under law.

To: Ashley Tew trading as WhyCited, Flat 33, Danelaw Court, LE10 0NU, United Kingdom; hello@whycited.com

I give notice that I cancel my contract for the following WhyCited subscription: [plan]. Ordered on: [date]. Name: [name]. Account email: [email]. Address: [address]. Date: [date].