Refund & Cancellation Policy

Every new organization gets a 14-day free trial of the full product, with no payment details required. We would rather you discover Substantively isn't for you during the trial than after a charge — please use it.

Subscriptions are sold through our merchant of record, Paddle, which appears on your statement and issues your invoices. Plans are billed in advance (monthly or annually) and renew automatically until cancelled.

If you are not satisfied for any reason, we will refund your first payment in full when you request it within 14 days of that first charge— no questions asked (though we appreciate hearing what fell short). This applies to your organization's first subscription payment on any plan, monthly or annual.

Renewal payments are generally non-refundable, except where the law of your jurisdiction requires otherwise. To avoid an unwanted renewal, cancel any time before the renewal date — and if a renewal genuinely caught you by surprise, contact us within 7 days; we handle these case by case and lean toward fairness.

An organization owner can cancel from Settings → Billing at any time, or by emailing hello@substantively.ai. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period: you keep full access until then, are not charged again, and your workspace then becomes read-only with a 30-day window to export your data (see our Terms of Service). Your documents are unaffected — they were always in your own Microsoft 365 tenant, never on our servers.

Email hello@substantively.ai from an email address associated with your organization, with your organization name and (if handy) the Paddle invoice or transaction number. You can also reply to your Paddle receipt. Approved refunds are processed by Paddle to the original payment method, typically within 5–10 business days; we respond to requests within 2 business days.

• Refunds are issued to the original payment method only, in the original currency. Bank processing times vary.
• Where a refund is granted outside the guarantee window, it may be prorated.
• We may decline refunds in cases of abuse — for example repeated trial/refund cycling or violations of our Terms of Service.
• If you believe a charge is incorrect or unauthorized, contact us before disputing it with your bank — a chargeback freezes the process on Paddle's side and is almost always slower than emailing us.
• Nothing in this policy limits any non-waivable statutory rights you may have in your jurisdiction.
• Custom enterprise agreements may specify different terms, in which case the signed agreement controls.