Terms of Service

1. Agreement to these terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and BandApex (“BandApex”, “we”, “us”). They apply when you visit our website, create an account, submit work or buy a pass. By doing any of these, you agree to the Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use BandApex.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information and forms part of how we provide the service.

2. What BandApex provides

BandApex is an online practice tool for IELTS and TOEFL iBT writing and speaking. It offers timed tasks, AI-generated band estimates against published scoring criteria, side-by-side rewrites of your work at higher levels, explanations of suggested changes, and, on eligible passes, timed TOEFL mock simulations.

3. Not an official score or exam service

BandApex’s scores are AI-generated estimates for practice. They are not official results, and they do not predict or guarantee any result on a real exam. Only the organizations that run those exams can issue official scores. Scores from BandApex may differ from those of a human examiner and may vary between attempts.

AI-generated feedback and rewrites can contain mistakes. Use your own judgment before relying on them.

BandApex is independent. IELTS is a registered trademark of its respective owners, and TOEFL and TOEFL iBT are registered trademarks of ETS. BandApex is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by them, and we refer to these exams only to describe what our practice covers.

4. Who can use BandApex

You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. If you are under 18, or under the age of majority where you live, a parent or guardian must agree to these Terms for you and must make any purchase. You may not use BandApex if the law prohibits you from doing so.

5. Your account

You can sign in with Google or with an email and password. Give accurate information, keep your credentials secure and do not share your account. You are responsible for activity under your account, and you should tell us promptly at support@bandapex.com if you suspect unauthorized access.

Each person may hold one account.

6. Free diagnostic

Each person may use one free diagnostic in their lifetime, on either one IELTS essay or one TOEFL iBT writing task. An IELTS essay comes with an overall band and rewrites of your first paragraph. A TOEFL iBT writing task comes with an overall score and marks showing where your response can improve. Criterion scores, the corrections and the remaining rewrites are locked unless you hold an active pass. Creating extra accounts or otherwise working around this limit breaches these Terms.

7. Passes and payment

Passes give time-limited access to paid features. We currently offer:

• One-time payment. A pass is not a subscription. It is charged once and never renews.
• Seller. Passes are sold through Polar Software Inc. (“Polar”), our reseller, which processes payment and handles applicable sales taxes. Your purchase is also subject to Polar’s buyer terms. Taxes may be added at checkout depending on your location.
• Start and end. A pass starts when payment is confirmed and runs continuously for its full length, whether or not you use it. Unused time cannot be paused or transferred.
• Buying during an active pass. The new pass’s days are added after your current expiry date. The higher of the two tiers applies for the whole combined period.
• When a pass ends. New evaluations require a new pass, except for an unused free diagnostic. Your scores remain in your history, but reports created under the free diagnostic lock again.
• Fair use. “Unlimited” evaluations means no set total during your pass. We apply reasonable rate limits to protect the service, and they are not intended to affect ordinary study.
• Price changes. We may change prices for future purchases. Changes do not affect passes you have already bought.

8. Refunds

If BandApex isn’t right for you, email support@bandapex.com within 10 days of your purchase with the email address you used at checkout. We will normally approve a refund if:

• you have made little or no use of the pass; or
• a fault on our side substantially prevented you from using what you paid for.

Requests may be declined where a pass has been substantially used, or where we see abuse such as repeated purchases and refunds. Approved refunds are issued by Polar to your original payment method, and we may end the related pass when a refund is made.

Nothing in these Terms limits any right to a refund or withdrawal that you have under mandatory consumer law where you live.

9. Your content

You keep ownership of the essays, responses and recordings you submit (“Your Content”). You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, process, transmit and display Your Content only as needed to provide BandApex to you, including sending it to the service providers named in our Privacy Policy. We do not publish Your Content or use it to train AI models. This license ends when Your Content is deleted, apart from any copies we must retain by law.

You confirm that you have the rights to submit Your Content and that it does not break the law or infringe anyone’s rights. Do not include other people’s personal information or sensitive details about yourself.

You can also add practice questions of your own, such as one from a book you own, and photos or screenshots to fill them in. These are Your Content too. They are private to your account: we never show them to anyone else, list them on our website or add them to our task library. Add only material you have the right to use for your own study.

10. Scores, rewrites and academic integrity

You may use the scores, feedback and rewrites generated for you for your own personal study. Similar rewrites may be generated for other users, so we do not promise they are unique.

BandApex is a study aid. You must not use it to cheat, or submit its output as your own work wherever that is prohibited, including in any exam, school or university assessment, or application. You are responsible for following the rules that apply to you.

11. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• break the law, or submit content that is unlawful, abusive, hateful or sexually explicit;
• try to reach another person’s account or reports, or get locked content without paying for it;
• probe, disrupt or overload the service, or bypass its limits or security;
• scrape, copy or bulk-download prompts, reports or other parts of the service;
• add questions you have no right to use, including questions from a live exam that its organizers keep confidential;
• attempt to manipulate the AI models through prompt injection or similar techniques;
• use BandApex to build or train a competing product or AI model;
• reverse engineer the service, except where the law permits it; or
• resell, share or sublicense a pass or access to your account.

12. Our intellectual property

BandApex’s software, design, branding, practice prompts and sample materials belong to us or our licensors and are protected by law. We grant you a limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable license to use the service for your own exam preparation. All rights we do not expressly grant are reserved. If you send us feedback, we may use it without obligation to you.

13. Third-party services

BandApex relies on third parties for services such as sign-in, payment, AI evaluation and transcription. Their terms and policies may also apply to you, and we are not responsible for third-party websites or services we do not control.

14. Availability and changes to the service

We work to keep BandApex available, but it may be interrupted by maintenance, outages or failures at our providers. We may change, add or remove features, prompts and AI models over time. If we permanently discontinue paid features during your pass, we will refund the unused part of your pass in proportion to the time remaining.

15. Suspension and termination

You may stop using BandApex at any time, and you can ask us to delete your account as described in our Privacy Policy. Closing your account does not by itself entitle you to a refund.

We may suspend or close your account, without refund where the law allows, if you materially breach these Terms, misuse the service, or if we must do so by law. Where it is reasonable and safe, we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond. Sections that by their nature should continue, including those on intellectual property, disclaimers, liability and disputes, survive termination.

16. Disclaimers

To the extent the law allows, BandApex is provided “as is” and “as available”. We disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We do not promise that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free, that AI-generated output will be accurate, or that using BandApex will improve your score or help you reach any admissions, immigration or employment goal.

17. Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows, we will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of profits, data, opportunity or goodwill, including exam fees, missed deadlines, or admissions or immigration outcomes.

To the extent the law allows, our total liability for all claims relating to BandApex will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid for passes in the 12 months before the claim arose, or US$50.

Some places do not allow these limits. Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot legally be excluded, such as liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

18. Responsibility for misuse

To the extent the law allows, you agree to cover reasonable losses and costs we incur from third-party claims caused by Your Content or your breach of these Terms. This does not apply to the extent we caused the claim, and it does not reduce any rights you have as a consumer.

19. Governing law and disputes

Please contact us first at legal@bandapex.com so we can try to resolve any concern informally. These Terms are governed by the laws of the place where BandApex’s operator is established, and its courts have jurisdiction over disputes, excluding conflict-of-laws rules.

If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the country where you live, and you may bring a claim in your local courts where the law gives you that right.

20. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the service or the law changes. We will revise the date at the top of this page and, for material changes, give reasonable notice through the service or by email before they take effect. Changes do not apply to a dispute that arose earlier. If you continue using BandApex after they take effect, you accept the updated Terms. If you do not agree, stop using the service before that date.

21. General

These Terms are the whole agreement between you and us about BandApex. If part of them is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. If we do not enforce a right, we have not waived it. You may not transfer these Terms without our consent. We may transfer them as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, as long as your rights are not reduced.

22. Contact us

For questions about these Terms, email legal@bandapex.com.