RivalGauge
Refund policy
Written so the answer is already decided before anyone has to ask for it. The rules below are the whole policy, and they are not negotiated case by case.
The short version
You are not charged until a 14 day trial ends, and the trial does not start until you press Go live. So the ordinary way to not pay us is to cancel before then, which costs one click and no conversation.
If you are charged anyway, in one of the situations below, we refund it. We do not ask why, we do not offer a discount to keep you, and nobody has to explain themselves to get money back that is owed.
When a refund is owed
- You were charged after cancelling. Full refund of that charge.
- You were charged twice for the same month. Full refund of the duplicate.
- You were charged during a period when the service was unusable because of a fault on our side, and you told us at the time. Refund of that month.
- You were charged for a month in which you ran no scans at all and had not used the dashboard, and you ask within 30 days of that charge. Full refund of that month. This is the one that covers an honest forgot-to-cancel, and it is deliberately mechanical: no judgment call, no reference to what you meant to do.
- A price changed on an existing subscription without notice to you by email first. Refund of the difference.
Refunds go back to the card that was charged, through Stripe. They usually appear within five to ten business days, which is Stripe's and your bank's timing rather than ours.
When one is not
- Part months after a cancellation. Cancelling takes effect at the end of the period you have paid for, and you keep full access until then.
- Months you used the service in and later reconsidered, outside the unused-month rule above.
- Scans you spent, including scans of the wrong domain. A scan is a real cost the moment it runs.
- Results you did not like. A report measures what it measures, and grades are our scoring of that. We do not promise a ranking, a lead volume, or any commercial outcome, and the terms say so.
- A founding price you gave up by cancelling. The seat may have gone to someone else.
How to ask
Write to support@rivalgauge.com from the address on the account and say which charge you mean. You do not need to make a case. If it is on the owed list we process it; if it is not, we say so plainly and tell you which rule applies.
An honest note about the mechanics. Stripe has no button that lets a customer refund themselves. A refund is always an action the merchant takes, so there is always a human step on our side. What this policy is for is making that step a decision that has already been made: the rules above decide the answer, so the only thing left is the click.
Why the policy is shaped this way
Most refund requests in a subscription business are really one of three things: a charge after cancelling, a duplicate, or a month nobody used. The first two are our mistakes and the third is an easy one to make. Writing all three down as automatic means the awkward conversation never happens, and it means we cannot quietly apply a different standard to a customer who argues harder than another one.
The card requirement at Go live exists for the same reason. Asking for a card only at the moment the widget starts answering real visitors, rather than at signup, removes the largest category of unwanted charge before it can happen.