Terms of Service

Agreeing to these terms

You accept these terms by checking the box that says "I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy" when you create an account. We record which version of each you accepted and when. If you already have an account when a new version takes effect, we ask you to accept it the next time you sign in. If you use Berdee for a school, district or other organization, you accept on its behalf and confirm you are allowed to.

Who can use Berdee

Berdee has two kinds of users. Educators (teachers, therapists, tutors, homeschooling parents and other adults who teach) create accounts, build lessons, and add students. Students never create their own accounts. An educator adds them and gives them a code or link to open the lessons assigned to them.

You must be at least 18 to create an educator, tutor or publisher account. Anyone under 18 uses Berdee only as a student added by an educator. If you add students, you must have the authority to do so: as their teacher acting for a school, as their parent or guardian, or with their parent's or school's permission. Our Student Privacy Policy explains how this works under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

Your account and sign-in

Give us accurate account details and keep your email address current. Educators sign in with a one-time link sent to that address; Berdee has no passwords. Keep access to your email account secure, because anyone who can read it can sign in as you. You are responsible for what happens under your account.

Each student gets an access code for each lesson assigned to them. A code signs that student in, so treat codes like keys: share a code only with the student it belongs to. A code stops working when its lesson is unassigned. If a code reaches the wrong person, replace it from the student's page in Berdee, or contact us at support@berdee.app and we will.

Schools and student information

When you add students, you control their information in Berdee on behalf of their school or family, and we process it only to provide Berdee to you, as described in the Student Privacy Policy. You agree to:

• add only students you teach, with the authority described above;
• enter only the student information Berdee asks for;
• keep students' access codes and results private to the people who should see them;
• tell us if a parent or your school asks for a student's information to be erased.

Plans, billing and cancellation

Berdee has a Free plan and two paid plans, Plus and Studio Pro, billed monthly or yearly. Current prices and what each plan includes are on our pricing page. Payments are processed by Stripe.

• Renewal. A paid plan renews automatically at the end of each billing period until you cancel it.
• Cancelling. You can cancel at any time from your billing settings. You keep the plan until the end of the period you have paid for, and it does not renew.
• Refunds. We do not give full, partial or prorated refunds for a subscription, including when you cancel, except where the law requires it. If something has gone wrong, such as a duplicate charge, contact us and we will look at it.
• Changing plans. Upgrading charges the prorated difference straight away. Downgrading turns the unused part of your current plan into account credit that pays future bills; it is not refunded to your card.
• Renewal reminders. Before a yearly plan renews, we email you a reminder.
• Founder pricing. A founder discount applies once, to the first yearly invoice. Cancelling during that year works like any other cancellation.
• Taxes. Prices do not include sales tax. Where it applies, tax is calculated by Stripe from your billing address and added at checkout.
• Price changes. If we change the price of your plan, we will tell you before it applies to your next renewal.

Paid plans include monthly allowances for AI features (such as AI-built lessons, images and narration). Unused allowance does not carry over, and when an allowance runs out the feature pauses until the next period.

Marketplace credits

Lessons in the marketplace are bought with credits. 100 credits cost $1, and larger bundles include bonus credits. Yearly Plus and Studio Pro plans also include bonus credits each year. Credits:

• do not expire while your account is open;
• can only be spent on Berdee, and cannot be exchanged for cash or moved to another account;
• are not refunded automatically. Contact us if you think a credit purchase went wrong.
• are forfeited when your account closes. Before you close it, you can ask us to refund credits you paid for and have not spent, at the price you paid, if you bought them within the last 12 months. Bonus and promotional credits are never refundable.

Berdee is built for educators in the United States, and prices are in US dollars. Anyone can subscribe to a plan or buy credits, but buying a lesson in the marketplace needs a US billing address, so credits can only be spent from the United States. If you are outside the United States, don't buy credits. Sales tax on a lesson is calculated when you spend credits on it, not when you buy credits.

Your content

You own the lessons, images, recordings and other material you create or upload ("your content"). We claim no ownership of it.

You give us a license to host, store, copy, display and process your content only as needed to run Berdee for you: to save it, show it in the studio, play it for the students you assign it to, share it with the people you share it with, and, if you list it in the marketplace, deliver it to buyers under the marketplace terms below. This license ends when you delete the content, except for copies we must keep (for example, a version of a lesson a buyer has already purchased, or a version a student was graded on). Closing your account does not delete your content: we keep it without your name, under this license and only to keep serving what already relies on it (such as a lesson another educator added with your share code), until you ask us to delete it. The Privacy Policy explains what closing an account removes.

You are responsible for having the rights to everything you upload. Do not upload material you are not allowed to share, or personal information about students beyond what a lesson needs.

Stock media

The studio lets you search and add stock images from outside providers. Stock media is licensed by its provider, and you may use it only inside your Berdee lessons.

What students create

Students' answers, drawings and scores are part of the school's or educator's records. We hold them for the educator who assigned the lesson, as described in our Student Privacy Policy.

AI features

Paid plans include AI features: the Berdee Assistant that builds lessons from a description, Ask Berdee in the studio, AI image generation, and text-to-speech narration and sound effects. To provide them, we send what you type and the lesson content involved to the AI providers listed in our Privacy Policy.

• Check the output. AI output can be wrong, incomplete or unsuitable for your students. You are responsible for reviewing anything AI produces before you assign it.
• Student records are not sent to AI. Students do not use AI features, and their answers are not sent to AI providers. Do not type students' personal information into AI prompts.
• No training on your content. Berdee does not use your lessons or students' work to train AI models. The AI providers that process your requests have their own data terms, which apply to what they receive.
• You own what AI makes for you. Lessons, images, narration and other output our AI features generate for you are yours. We assign to you any rights we have in that output, and keep only the license we need to host it and run Berdee for you (the same license described under Your content). The law may not give AI output copyright protection, and similar output may be generated for other people.

Connecting an AI assistant

You can connect Berdee to an AI assistant you use (such as one that supports the Model Context Protocol) so it can read and edit your lessons and media for you. You choose whether to connect one and approve its access on a consent screen; you can disconnect it at any time. What the assistant does with your lessons once it reads them is governed by that assistant's own terms and privacy policy, not ours. Student accounts cannot connect an assistant.

Buying lessons in the marketplace

When you buy a lesson, you get a license to use it with your own students, across all of your classrooms, for as long as Berdee offers it. You do not own the lesson, and you may not copy it out of Berdee, resell it, or share it outside your own teaching.

• Updates are included. When the publisher publishes an improved version, your license moves to it at no extra cost.
• All sales are final. Lessons are digital and available as soon as you buy them, so they are not returnable. We may reverse a sale in cases such as a billing error, fraud, or a lesson removed for breaking these terms.
• Removed lessons. If a lesson is taken down, or its publisher closes their account, we stop serving it, including to people who bought it and to the students they assigned it to. A purchase that is refunded stops being served too.

Berdee is the seller of record for marketplace sales and collects and remits any sales tax. Publishers are independent creators, not Berdee employees, and we do not review lessons before they are listed.

Selling lessons in the marketplace

Publishing to the marketplace requires a Studio Pro plan, a publisher profile, and a payout account with Stripe Connect. Stripe verifies your identity and holds your bank details; Berdee never sees them. Berdee pays your earnings and issues any tax forms they require (such as a 1099), delivered through Stripe.

Pricing and your share

• You choose a price for each lesson from a fixed list (currently free, or $3, $5, $7, $10, $15 or $20 in credits).
• Your share is a percentage of what the buyer actually paid for the credits they spent on your lesson, not including sales tax. Credits a buyer got for free, such as the bonus credits in a credit bundle and promotional credits, count as $0, so a sale paid partly or wholly with them earns you less than the lesson's price, or nothing.
• While you are on a Studio Pro plan, you keep 85% of that amount. If your plan is canceled, goes unpaid, or changes to a plan below Studio Pro, your lessons stay for sale and you keep 50% of the sales made while you are not on Studio Pro; subscribing to Studio Pro again restores 85% for sales after that. Founding publishers keep 100% whatever their plan, and some partners have a negotiated share. The share applied to a sale is recorded with it and does not change later.
• Sales tax is collected and remitted by Berdee and never comes out of your share.
• You cannot buy your own listing.

Payouts

• Earnings from a sale become payable 30 days after the sale, which covers the window in which a sale can be disputed or reversed.
• We pay out once a month, on the 5th, when your payable balance is at least $50. A smaller balance carries over to the next month.
• A payout is a transfer to your Stripe account; Stripe then deposits it in your bank on its own schedule.
• If a sale is reversed after we have paid you for it, the amount may be deducted from a later payout or we may ask you to repay it.
• If Stripe disables payouts on your account, your listings are unlisted after 30 days. You can list them again once payouts work.
• If we take one of your lessons down, we hold payment for its sales that have not been paid out yet until the matter is resolved. If we lift the takedown, those sales are paid as usual; a sale we refund to its buyer is not paid.

License you give us and buyers

By listing a lesson, you give Berdee the right to show it in the marketplace (including previews and its opening scene), to sell licenses to it, and to deliver every version you publish to the people who bought it. Buyers keep their license if you unlist the lesson later. Once a paid license exists, you cannot unpublish the listing.

Content rules

Lessons you sell must be your own work or work you have the right to sell, and must follow the acceptable use rules. We may unlist or restrict a listing that breaks these terms or that we receive a valid complaint about. If we close a publisher's account, their listings are restricted.

Berdee's own content and name

Berdee's software, design, templates, tutorial lessons, help articles and other material we create belong to us or our licensors. You may use them only to use Berdee as these terms allow, not copy, modify or resell them. "Berdee" and our logos are our trademarks; do not use them in a way that suggests we endorse you or your lessons. If you send us feedback or ideas, we may use them without owing you anything.

Acceptable use

Berdee is used by children. You agree not to use Berdee to:

• create or share content that is sexual, violent, hateful, harassing, or otherwise unsuitable for the students it is assigned to;
• upload anything that infringes someone else's copyright, trademark or other rights;
• collect personal information from students beyond what teaching requires, or contact students for any purpose other than teaching them;
• upload malware, or try to break, overload or get around Berdee's security;
• access accounts, lessons or student records that are not yours, or guess access codes;
• scrape Berdee, or resell or redistribute it or any marketplace lesson;
• break the law, including laws that protect students' and children's privacy.

Anyone who buys a lesson can report it. We review reports and may remove content, unlist or restrict listings, and suspend or close accounts that break these rules. We do not review lessons before students see them, so educators are responsible for checking what they assign.

Images uploaded to Berdee are checked automatically, and an image flagged as unsafe is refused. We also use our hosting provider's scanning for child sexual abuse material, and report any we find as the law requires.

Copyright complaints

If you believe content on Berdee infringes your copyright, send a notice to support@berdee.app with: your contact details; the work you believe is infringed; where the content is on Berdee (a link); a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorized; and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner, with your signature. We will remove or disable content when the law requires it, tell the person who posted it, and close the accounts of repeat infringers. Buyers can also report a marketplace listing for copyright from the listing itself.

Other services

Some features rely on other companies: Google Classroom for importing class rosters, Stripe for payments and payouts, and the AI and stock-media providers listed in our Privacy Policy. Your use of those services is also subject to their own terms. We are not responsible for services we do not control.

Suspension, closing your account, and deletion

You can stop using Berdee at any time. To close your account, contact us at support@berdee.app; account deletion is handled by our team, not yet from your settings. The Privacy Policy explains what is deleted and what we keep.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, puts students at risk, or does not pay. Where we reasonably can, we will tell you first and give you a chance to fix the problem.

These sections continue after an account closes: your content license to buyers, payment obligations, disclaimers, limits on liability, and disputes.

Disclaimers

We work hard to keep Berdee available and accurate, but it is provided "as is" and "as available". To the extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not promise that Berdee will be uninterrupted or error-free, that lesson content (including AI output and marketplace lessons) is accurate or suitable, or that scores reflect what a student knows.

Limits on liability

To the extent the law allows, Berdee is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue or data. Our total liability for any claim relating to Berdee is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or $100.

You agree to defend and indemnify Berdee against claims arising from your content or your breach of these terms.

Governing law and disputes

If you have a problem with Berdee, contact us first at support@berdee.app; most issues can be solved that way.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute about Berdee or these terms will be decided by the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you and Berdee agree to their jurisdiction. Either of us may instead bring an individual claim in a small-claims court where it qualifies. There is no arbitration requirement and no waiver of class actions.

Using Berdee outside the United States

Berdee is run from the United States and built for educators there. Prices are in US dollars, and buying marketplace lessons needs a US billing address. We don't promise that Berdee meets the laws of any other country. If you use Berdee elsewhere, you are responsible for following your local laws.

General

These terms, with the privacy documents they link to, are the whole agreement between you and Berdee about Berdee. If a part is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce a term straight away, we have not waived it. You may not transfer your account or these terms without our permission; we may transfer them as part of a merger or sale of Berdee.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as Berdee changes. If a change is significant, we will tell you by email or in the product before it takes effect. The date at the top of this page shows when they last changed. If you keep using Berdee after a change takes effect, the new terms apply.

Contact

Questions about these terms: support@berdee.app, or the contact form.

The same address is for legal notices, privacy requests, account deletion and copyright complaints.