Terms of Service

1. Who can use Prof Insider

• You must be at least 13 years old.
• If you’re under the age of majority where you live (18 in Ontario and most US states), a parent or legal guardian must review and agree to these Terms for you. They’re responsible for your use of the Service.
• You, or your parent or guardian on your behalf, must be able to enter a binding contract, and no law can bar you from using the Service.
• The Service is currently offered only to people who live in the United States or in Canada outside Quebec. It isn’t available to residents of Quebec. You confirm that you aren’t located in a country under a Canadian or US embargo and aren’t named on a Canadian or US government sanctions or restricted-party list.
• We may refuse, limit, or restrict access by person, account, device, email address, payment method, or location when we reasonably believe it’s needed to protect the Service, the people our users contact, or other users, or to comply with the law.

2. What Prof Insider does

Prof Insider helps students find professors and researchers whose work matches their interests, write personalized outreach emails, and send and track those emails from their own email account. The Service includes:

• a searchable database of researcher profiles built from public sources;
• matching based on your profile and resume;
• AI-assisted drafting and editing of emails;
• sending, scheduling, and follow-ups through an email account you connect; and
• tracking of your outreach and, if you turn it on, the replies you get.

We may add, change, or remove features. Some features are only available on paid plans. Features we label as beta or early access are experimental and may not work reliably.

What Prof Insider is not

Prof Insider is not a university, research institution, employer, recruiter, or placement agency. We don’t give admissions, academic, career, legal, or immigration advice. We aren’t affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any university, department, lab, or researcher in the Service unless we say so explicitly. University names and logos are trademarks of their owners, and we use them only to identify institutions. We don’t offer, control, or guarantee any research position, reply, reference, admission, funding, or other outcome. Using the Service doesn’t make us your adviser, fiduciary, employer, or agent, except for the limited authority you give us in Connected email accounts.

3. Your account

• You sign in with Google or with a one-time code we send to your email. Keep those accounts secure: anyone who controls them can get into your Prof Insider account.
• You’re responsible for everything done through your account. If you think someone has used it without permission, tell us right away at support@profinsider.app.
• Each account is for one person’s own use. Don’t share, sell, or transfer your account. Don’t open an account with someone else’s identity or email address, and don’t create extra accounts to get around limits, a suspension, or the Reply Guarantee’s one-claim rule.
• Keep the information you give us accurate and up to date. We rely on it without checking it.

4. Connected email accounts

When you connect an email account such as Gmail, you let the Service act for you in the limited ways described below.

What you authorize

You authorize us and our email infrastructure provider to:

1. send emails you’ve approved from your account, including emails you schedule for later;
2. send the follow-ups and campaign emails you set up or turn on, on the schedule and within the limits you choose, without asking you to approve each one again;
3. if you turn on reply tracking and grant the permission it needs, read the messages in email threads started through the Service so we can find and show you replies; and
4. keep records of those emails and whether each one was sent, scheduled, cancelled, or failed.

We act only as your limited technical agent to carry out these instructions. We don’t read, send, or change any other email in your account, and we only ask for the permissions a feature needs.

You are the sender

Emails go out in your name from your address. You’re responsible for what they say and who they go to. You’re also responsible for following the laws that apply to them, including Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and the US CAN-SPAM Act where they apply, as well as your email provider’s terms and the rules of any school or employer whose email account you connect.

Review what you send

Read drafts before you approve them. Turning on automated sending or follow-ups approves those messages in advance, and you’re responsible for them as if you’d sent each one yourself.

Limits and interruptions

We may cap how many emails you can send and how often, space them out, or pause, delay, or cancel scheduled emails. We do this when we reasonably believe it’s needed to protect you, recipients, email deliverability, or the Service, or to follow the law or your email provider’s rules. Your email provider sets its own limits and may filter, block, or suspend your account. We don’t control those decisions and aren’t responsible for them.

No delivery guarantee

We can’t guarantee that an email will be delivered, arrive on time, reach the inbox instead of spam, or be read.

Disconnecting

You can disconnect your email account at any time in Settings. Disconnecting there cancels emails that haven’t been sent yet. If you only remove Prof Insider’s access in your Google Account, disconnect in Settings as well to make sure scheduled emails are cancelled. Emails that have already been sent can’t be recalled.

5. Outreach rules

The professors and researchers in our database didn’t sign up for Prof Insider. To keep outreach welcome, you agree to the following:

• Every email you send through the Service is a genuine, individual inquiry about research, study, or academic opportunities related to the recipient’s work.
• You won’t use the Service to send advertising, sales pitches, surveys, fundraising requests, chain letters, or anything else unrelated to your own academic or research interests.
• If someone asks you to stop contacting them, you’ll stop, and you won’t contact them again from another account, address, or tool.
• You won’t harass, threaten, or pressure anyone, and won’t send more follow-ups than the Service allows.
• You won’t misrepresent who you are or your affiliation, qualifications, or experience.
• You’ll use researcher information from the Service only for your own outreach. You won’t use it to build contact lists, to contact people for someone else, or for any other purpose.

We may block emails to researchers who have asked not to be contacted through Prof Insider. We may also pause sending or suspend accounts whose emails lead to complaints, many bounces, or spam reports.

6. Plans, billing, and cancellation

• Some features require a paid subscription or a paid add-on to a subscription, such as sending emails from your connected account. You’ll see the price, billing period, and what’s included before you pay. Payments go through our payment processor, Stripe. We never receive or store your full card number.
• When you start a paid plan, you authorize us and Stripe to charge your payment method the subscription fee and any applicable taxes at the start of each billing period.
• Automatic renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period, at the price in effect then, until you cancel. We’ll send you any renewal notices the law requires.
• Cancelling. You can cancel at any time in Settings under Billing, or by contacting us. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. You keep paid features until then and won’t be charged again.
• Refunds. Fees are non-refundable except as described in our Refund Policy (which includes the Reply Guarantee) or as the law requires. The Refund Policy is part of these Terms.
• Price changes. We may change the price of your plan only through the process in Changes to these Terms, with at least 30 days’ notice, and you can cancel before the new price applies.
• Free plans and trials. We may offer free plans or trials with limits, and change or end them. If a trial turns into a paid plan, we’ll tell you when you’ll be charged, and how much, before the trial starts.
• Disputed charges. If you think a charge is wrong, contact us first so we can fix it. We may suspend accounts tied to fraudulent payments or chargebacks filed in bad faith.
• Nothing in this section limits your rights under consumer protection laws that can’t be waived, including the rules on automatic renewal and cancellation where you live.

7. AI-generated content

The Service uses automated systems, including AI models from third parties, to match you with researchers, summarize their work, and draft and edit emails. We call what they produce “AI Output.”

• AI Output can be wrong, incomplete, out of date, or inappropriate. It can misdescribe you or a researcher’s work. Treat it as a starting point, not a finished product.
• You’re responsible for reviewing AI Output before you use it and for everything you send.
• Everything you send must be true. Don’t ask the Service to invent or exaggerate your experience, skills, grades, publications, awards, affiliations, or references, and don’t send AI Output that does.
• AI Output you receive may be similar to what other users receive.
• We may refuse to generate or send content we reasonably believe is false, abusive, unlawful, or outside what the Service is for.
• We don’t have to disclose the models, prompts, or methods we use.

8. Researcher information and matches

• Researcher profiles come from public sources and automated processing. They include names, positions, contact details, research areas, and publications, and may include signals such as whether a lab may be taking students or when a professor tends to reply. Any of this may be incomplete, out of date, or wrong.
• Matches, scores, and estimates are for information only. They don’t predict or promise that anyone will reply, has an opening, or will accept you.
• Check anything important with the source, such as the researcher’s own website, before relying on it.
• We don’t control researchers or universities. We aren’t responsible for their decisions, their conduct, or whether they reply.

9. Your content

“Your Content” means what you provide or create in the Service, such as your profile, your resume, your instructions to the drafting agent, your drafts, the emails you send, and replies you bring into the Service.

• You keep ownership of Your Content.
• You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, process, transmit, and display Your Content, and to create outputs from it. We can use this license only to provide, secure, and maintain the Service for you, to improve the Service as described in our Privacy Policy, to comply with the law, to prevent abuse, and to enforce these Terms. The license ends when Your Content is deleted from the Service, except for copies we must keep by law or as the Privacy Policy describes. Data from your Google account is subject to the stricter limits in the Privacy Policy’s Google section.
• You confirm that you have the right to provide Your Content and that it’s accurate and lawful. This includes information about other people you include in it, such as a reference’s contact details.
• We may remove or refuse to process content we reasonably believe breaks these Terms or the law.

10. Acceptable use

You agree not to do any of the following, or help anyone else do it:

• break the law or anyone’s rights, or use the Service to defraud or deceive;
• give false, plagiarized, or misleading information to us or to anyone you contact;
• send spam or bulk unsolicited messages, or break the Outreach rules;
• copy, scrape, export, bulk-download, resell, publish, or share the researcher database or other content from the Service, or use it to build or improve a competing product or dataset, or to train or evaluate AI models;
• use bots, scripts, or other automated means to access the Service (except features we provide), or get around rate limits, sending limits, security measures, or access controls;
• reverse engineer or decompile the Service or try to extract its source code, except where the law allows it despite this term;
• probe or test the Service for vulnerabilities without our written permission, or interfere with it, for example with malware or by overloading it;
• impersonate anyone or misstate your affiliation;
• run the Service for someone else or as part of a paid service, such as sending outreach on behalf of clients; or
• cause us to break a law or our agreements with our providers, such as Google’s API policies.

If you find a security issue, please report it to support@profinsider.app instead of testing it further.

11. Our intellectual property

The Service belongs to us or our licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws. That includes our software, design, text, and graphics, the researcher database as we’ve compiled it, and our matching and drafting systems. It doesn’t include Your Content. We don’t claim to own public facts about researchers; the limits in these Terms apply to our compilation of them.

As long as you follow these Terms, we give you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Service for your own non-commercial academic outreach. We reserve all other rights.

If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them for any purpose without paying you or owing you anything.

12. Third-party services

The Service works with services we don’t control, such as Google (for sign-in and Gmail), our email infrastructure provider, Stripe, and websites we link to. Their own terms and privacy policies govern your use of them. We aren’t responsible for their availability, content, or actions. That includes an email provider suspending your account, or a provider changing its service in a way that stops one of our features from working.

13. Electronic communications

• You agree to receive agreements, notices, receipts, and other communications from us electronically, by email or in the Service. They meet any legal requirement for writing. Clicking to accept, or continuing past a notice that refers to these Terms, counts as your electronic signature.
• We send service messages such as sign-in codes, security alerts, billing notices, updates to our terms, and notices about your emails and account. You can’t opt out of these while you have an account.
• We send marketing emails only where the law allows it (in Canada, only with your consent under CASL). Every marketing email includes our mailing address and an unsubscribe link.
• You can withdraw your consent to electronic communications by closing your account.

14. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and share personal information. That includes information from your Google account and about the researchers in our database. It isn’t part of these Terms.

15. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service, AI Output, and researcher information are provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties or conditions of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, merchantable quality, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement.

We don’t promise that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, or that information, matches, or drafts will be accurate or complete. We also don’t promise that emails will be delivered or that data will never be lost. Keep your own copies of anything important.

We don’t guarantee that any professor or researcher will read or reply to your emails, or that you’ll get any research position, interview, reference, admission, funding, or other opportunity.

Those decisions belong to other people. Our only commitment about replies is the Reply Guarantee in our Refund Policy, and it’s limited to a refund.

Some places don’t allow these exclusions, so some of them may not apply to you.

16. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

1. We aren’t liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost opportunities (including research positions, admissions, or funding), lost data, harm to reputation, or the actions of email providers or recipients, arising out of or related to the Service or these Terms, even if we were told they were possible; and

2. Our total liability for all claims related to the Service or these Terms is limited to the greater of (i) the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event that gave rise to the claim and (ii) CAD $100.

These limits apply whatever the legal theory (contract, tort including negligence, strict liability, statute, or anything else), and even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose. They don’t reduce any refund you’re owed under the Refund Policy or the Reply Guarantee. They also don’t limit liability that the law doesn’t allow to be limited, such as liability for fraud, gross negligence, intentional misconduct, or death or personal injury caused by negligence.

17. Indemnity

To the extent the law allows, you’ll defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Prof Insider and its owners, officers, directors, employees, contractors, and agents against any claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from: (a) your use or misuse of the Service; (b) your breach of these Terms or the law; (c) Your Content and the emails you send through the Service; or (d) your violation of anyone’s rights, including a recipient’s privacy or anti-spam rights. We may take control of the defense of any such claim, and you’ll cooperate with us.

18. Release

To the extent the law allows, you release us from claims, demands, and damages arising from disputes between you and third parties connected with the Service, including researchers, universities, email providers, and payment processors.

If you’re a California resident, you waive California Civil Code section 1542, which says: “A general release does not extend to claims that the creditor or releasing party does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release and that, if known by him or her, would have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor or released party.”

19. Suspension and termination

• You can stop using the Service and delete your account at any time in Settings or by contacting us. Deleting your account cancels your subscription, so you won’t be charged again. It doesn’t refund charges you’ve already paid, except as the Refund Policy provides.
• We may suspend or end your access, or remove features, at any time, with or without notice, if: you break these Terms; your use creates legal, security, or deliverability risk or harms others; you give false information; you abuse the Reply Guarantee or other offers; you file chargebacks in bad faith; or we stop offering the Service. If we end a paid subscription for a reason other than your breach, we’ll refund the unused part of any prepaid fees. This doesn’t apply when a subscription ends because of a Reply Guarantee refund, which the Refund Policy covers.
• Ending your access doesn’t release you from obligations that arose before it ended. The sections on billing, Your Content, intellectual property, feedback, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnity, release, dispute resolution, and governing law, along with any other terms that by their nature should last, survive termination.

20. Governing law and where disputes are heard

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods doesn’t apply.

Disputes will be heard in the courts of the Province of Ontario sitting in Toronto, Ontario, and you and we both submit to their jurisdiction.

Because we’re located in Ontario, Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act, 2002 may protect you wherever you live. If you’re a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the province, territory, or state where you live. You may also bring a claim in your local courts where those laws give you that right. Either of us may bring an individual claim in small claims court if it qualifies.

21. Resolving disputes informally first

Before starting a court case, the party with the dispute must send the other a written notice. Send yours to support@profinsider.app with the subject “Dispute Notice.” We’ll send ours to your account email. A notice must include the sender’s name and account email, a description of the dispute and the dates involved, and the relief requested. It must be signed personally by the person with the claim (a typed name is fine).

We’ll both try in good faith to resolve the dispute for 60 days after the complete notice is received. Limitation periods are paused during that time. This step doesn’t apply to requests for urgent injunctive relief.

22. Changes to these Terms

We may propose changes to these Terms, to our Refund Policy (including the Reply Guarantee), to the price of your plan, and to the features your plan includes. We’ll propose changes no more than once a month.

We’ll email you each proposed change at least 30 days, and no more than 90 days, before it takes effect. The email will include the new or changed text, the date it takes effect, and how to respond. You can accept the change, or you can cancel your subscription and end this agreement before that date at no cost. If you cancel, we’ll refund any fees you prepaid for time after the change takes effect. If you don’t respond, the change applies from its effective date.

Changes that only benefit you, such as a lower price, can apply sooner. Changes don’t apply to disputes already raised in a Dispute Notice.

23. General terms

• Assignment. You can’t transfer these Terms or your account without our written consent. We may transfer them as part of a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of assets, or by operation of law.
• Events beyond our control. We aren’t liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control. These include natural disasters, war, civil unrest, labour disputes, internet or utility failures, outages at our hosting, email, AI, or payment providers, changes to their services or policies, cyberattacks, and government action.
• Severability and waiver. If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary, and the rest stays in effect. If we don’t enforce a term, that isn’t a waiver of it.
• Entire agreement. These Terms and our Refund Policy (including the Reply Guarantee) are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service, and they replace any earlier agreements about it. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information but isn’t part of this agreement.
• Interpretation. “Including” means “including without limitation.” Headings are for convenience only. You and we are independent parties; these Terms create no partnership, employment, or agency relationship beyond what Connected email accounts describes.

24. Notices for specific places

Quebec

The Service isn’t offered to Quebec residents. If you’re a consumer in Quebec and use it anyway, the terms that exclude or limit our liability for our own acts or those of our representatives, or that require you to indemnify us, don’t apply to you, to the extent the Quebec Consumer Protection Act prohibits them.

Ontario and the rest of Canada

Nothing in these Terms limits rights that can’t be waived under Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act, 2002, which may apply to you wherever you live, or under similar laws in your province or territory.

California

The Service is provided by Prof Insider, [Business mailing address], Ontario, Canada, which you can reach at support@profinsider.app. Charges are disclosed before you pay. Under California Civil Code section 1789.3, California residents may contact the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs in writing at 1625 North Market Blvd., Suite N 112, Sacramento, CA 95834, or by phone at (916) 445-1254 or (800) 952-5210.

New Jersey

If any term of these Terms can’t be enforced against New Jersey residents under the Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act or other law, it applies to New Jersey residents only as far as it can be enforced. It still applies in full to everyone else.

25. Contact us

Send questions about these Terms, legal notices, and Dispute Notices to support@profinsider.app. Send privacy questions to privacy@profinsider.app. You can also reach us by mail at [Business mailing address], Ontario, Canada, or by phone at [Business phone number].