Version 1.2 · v.1.9-public-beta
These terms govern your use of AcademiCats. By creating an account or subscribing you agree to them.
AcademiCats is an AI-assisted academic research assistant (currently v.1.9-public-beta). It helps you discover relevant papers from open-access databases (Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref, arXiv, PubMed, and others), read and translate individual papers, synthesise sources into research briefs and longer documents, trace claims back to their sources (Evidence Chain), and run a range of related research and writing tools. The service is available on a free tier and on paid Plus and Pro subscription tiers. It is provided on an "as is" / "as available" basis and is under active development; features and limits may change.
To operate the service we collect: (a) your account email and sign-in metadata provided by our auth provider (Supabase Auth); (b) the queries you submit and the results that are returned, so we can show you your search history and improve the quality of search/ranking/brief generation; (c) anonymised usage counts (per feature, per day) to enforce fair-use quotas and to understand which features matter most; (d) anonymised error traces when something breaks, so we can fix bugs. We never sell this data, we do not share it with third parties for marketing, and we retain only what is necessary to run the service.
Your queries are sent to upstream AI service providers for interpretation and for generating research briefs. Those providers process your query text under their own privacy policies. We do not send your email or other identifying account information alongside your query. Paper metadata returned by the academic databases is cached briefly to improve performance; we don't store full paper PDFs on our servers long-term.
AcademiCats provides two AI-assisted writing tools — the Synthesis Lab (drafting research syntheses, personal statements, and proposals) and Paper Review (multi-agent critique of your own draft). Both tools produce content using large language models that can hallucinate facts, fabricate citations, misinterpret sources, or miss substantive issues in the input. Output from these tools is intended as a starting point for your own work and is NOT a substitute for human peer review, original scholarship, or independent verification of any claim or citation. You retain full authorship responsibility for any work derived from or assisted by these tools — including factual accuracy, citation integrity, originality, and compliance with the publication, academic-integrity, or institutional rules that apply to your submission. AcademiCats does not warrant that AI-generated output is correct, complete, novel, or fit for any particular purpose, and is not liable for the consequences of using such output without independent verification and editing. Do not paste AI-generated text directly into a final submission without review.
AcademiCats offers a free tier and paid subscription tiers (Plus and Pro), billed monthly through our payment processor, Stripe. By subscribing you authorise us, via Stripe, to charge your chosen payment method the then-current subscription fee at the start of each billing period. Subscriptions renew automatically each month until you cancel. The price of each tier is shown in the subscription panel before you confirm; we may change prices in the future, and any change will apply only from your next renewal after we give notice. Paid tiers include daily fair-use allowances per feature; you may also optionally buy one-time credit packs for usage beyond your plan's allowance. We do not store your full card details — they are held by Stripe under its own security and privacy terms. Any applicable taxes are your responsibility unless stated otherwise at checkout.
You can cancel your subscription at any time from the in-app billing panel or the Stripe customer portal. When you cancel, your paid features stay active until the end of the billing period you have already paid for, and you will not be charged again. Payments already made are non-refundable: we do not provide refunds or credits for partial billing periods, for unused daily allowances or credit packs, or for downgrades. This does not affect any rights you may have under mandatory consumer-protection law that cannot be waived by agreement. If you believe you were charged in error, contact us at academicatstool@gmail.com and we will review it.
You can export every piece of data we hold about you (Article 15, GDPR right of access) or permanently delete your account and all associated records (Article 17, right to erasure) from the user menu at any time. Both actions are immediate and irreversible. Deleting your account also cancels any active subscription going forward (subject to the refund terms in Section 6). If you have questions about your data, email us at academicatstool@gmail.com.
AcademiCats is under active development. We aim for high availability, but the service may occasionally be unavailable for maintenance or because of factors outside our control, and individual features may be added, changed, or removed. For paid subscribers we will give reasonable advance notice in the in-app announcement banner of planned interruptions or material feature changes. We take reasonable measures to preserve your account data and do not intentionally reset it; in the rare event of a major incident affecting stored data we will notify affected users. Usage allowances and bonus balances are applied on a best-effort basis and may be corrected if we discover a bug in the metering system.
You agree not to use AcademiCats to generate defamatory, infringing, or harmful content, to submit AI-assisted output in violation of an institution's or publisher's academic-integrity rules, to scrape data at a rate that disrupts service for other users, or to circumvent the rate limits or tier restrictions applied to your account. Accounts that violate these rules may be suspended or terminated; where we suspend an account, the reason is communicated on the next sign-in attempt.
The service, including all AI-generated output, is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. To the maximum extent permitted by law, AcademiCats and its operator will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, or for any loss of data, academic standing, publication outcome, or opportunity, arising from your use of — or reliance on the output of — the service. To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the three (3) months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim.
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Utah, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You agree that any dispute arising out of these terms or your use of the service is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Utah, and you consent to venue in those courts. Before bringing any formal claim, you agree to first contact us at academicatstool@gmail.com so we can try to resolve the matter informally.
We may update these terms; when we do, the version number below changes and you will be asked to accept again on your next session. Your previous acceptance remains on record for compliance purposes. The exact timestamp and version of each acceptance is stored on your profile row so we can always show which version was in effect for any specific action.
Questions? Email academicatstool@gmail.com.