Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your use of The Detective (“the Service”), a niche-research desk operated at thedetective.io. By creating an account or making a purchase, you agree to these Terms.

If you don't agree, don't use the Service. If a clause here is unclear, email hello@thedetective.io and we'll explain in plain language before you commit.

1. Who operates the Service

The Detective is built and operated by its two founders. We run the Service directly; there is no reseller or intermediary between you and us. The fastest way to reach a real person is hello@thedetective.io or the contact page. We answer within one business day. Billing on your card statement is handled by our payment processor as the merchant of record (see §3.2).

2. The service we provide

The Detective generates market research analyses on business niches. Each analysis is produced by an AI pipeline that runs web research, synthesizes findings against your profile, and renders a verdict with sourced evidence.

We do not provide professional advice. The Service is a research tool, not investment, legal, tax, medical, or regulatory advice. Decisions based on our analyses are your own.

3. Plans and billing

3.1 Tiers

• Starter. $12.99 one-time. Delivers a single analysis. Non-recurring.
• Explorer. $24.99/month. Weekly cadence.
• Hunter. $99/month. Cadence every 3 days.
• Operator. $299/month. Daily cadence, team seats, and a monthly pick-a-loser deep-dive.

Tier features and prices are described on the pricing page. We may change prices for future billing cycles with at least 30 days' notice; your existing cycle is honored at the price you signed up at.

3.2 Payment processor and merchant of record

Payments are processed by Polar (Polar Software Inc.), which acts as the merchant of recordfor every transaction. The merchant of record is the legal seller for the payment: it appears on your card statement and is responsible for billing, currency conversion, sales tax and VAT/GST, invoicing, refunds, and chargebacks. We do not see or store your card number at any point. By making a purchase you agree to Polar's buyer terms in addition to these Terms; those terms are also presented at checkout.

3.3 Refunds

• Recurring plans (Explorer / Hunter / Operator): 7-day money-back guarantee on your first month. After that, no prorated refunds. Cancel any time and your current cycle finishes before billing stops.
• Starter ($12.99 one-time): non-refundable.
• Idea Lab failures: when our preflight gate refuses to spend on your idea (regulated industry or insufficient public evidence), no cycle is consumed. You can re-submit a revised idea at no cost.
• Quality issues with a delivered analysis: credit-first, escalated to a cash refund only if the credited re-run also falls short. See the Refunds Policy for the full ladder.
• Billing errors (duplicate charge, charged after cancellation, wrong tier charged): refund-first, no credit step. Email hello@thedetective.io before opening a card dispute; we respond within one business day and have never refused a legitimate billing-error request.

3.4 Cancellation

Cancel any time from your dashboard settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing cycle. You retain access to delivered analyses indefinitely; the dashboard's active features (Idea Lab, new cycles, watchlist alerts) stop on the cycle-end date.

4. Account and content

4.1 Your responsibility for the account

You're responsible for keeping the email on your account secure. We use email-based magic-link sign-in; whoever has access to your email has access to your account.

4.2 Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Submit ideas in regulated categories we don't research (insurance, medical, legal advice, financial advice, tax preparation, construction lien). Our preflight will refuse and no cycle is consumed.
• Use the Service to generate analyses for the purpose of deceiving investors, customers, or regulatory bodies.
• Resell, sublicense, or redistribute our analyses as your own original research without attribution. Sharing is encouraged; plagiarism isn't.
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or otherwise extract the underlying pipeline beyond ordinary use of the Service.
• Submit ideas designed to cause harm (weapons, defamation, targeted harassment campaigns). Standard you-know-it-when-you- see-it rule.

4.3 Your content, your rights

You own the analyses we deliver to you. We retain a license to the analyses for the purpose of operating the Service (e.g. cross-analysis aggregation, internal quality improvements, the Sources library card). We don't sell your data or use your analyses to train models for other customers.

5. The AI pipeline. Honest scope

The analyses are produced by a 3-stage AI pipeline (research → synthesis → critic) built on Anthropic Claude. We make every reasonable effort to ground claims in primary sources, surface confidence tiers, and refuse to spend on un-researchable niches.

That said: AI output is statistical. It can be wrong. Every analysis carries source citations so you can verify; please do. Don't treat any of our verdicts as final without your own judgment.

6. Service availability

We aim for 99% uptime but make no formal SLA at this stage. Most analyses deliver within 5 to 15 minutes of submission. When the runner fails, we surface the failure honestly, don't consume a cycle, and offer a free re-run.

7. Privacy

How we collect, store, and use your data is described in the Privacy Policy. By using the Service you agree to that Policy.

8. Termination

We can suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or the payment provider's terms. You can delete your account any time from settings; on deletion we remove your customer record and team memberships; delivered analyses you authored may be retained in anonymized form for product-improvement purposes (described in the Privacy Policy).

9. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that any analysis will be error-free, complete, or that acting on it will produce any particular outcome.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, our total aggregate liability for any and all claims arising out of or relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (a) the total amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) USD 50. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or business-loss damages, including lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, or lost opportunities, even if we were advised of their possibility.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law, including liability for fraud, gross negligence, willful misconduct, or death or personal injury caused by negligence. If you are a consumer, this section does not affect statutory rights that your local law guarantees and that cannot be waived by contract.

10. Governing law and disputes

These Terms, and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or to the Service, are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Service's operators are established, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules and excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The courts of that jurisdiction have non-exclusive venue over any dispute.

Nothing in this section deprives you, if you are a consumer, of the protection afforded by the mandatory provisions of the law of your own country of residence; those rights always apply regardless of the governing law chosen above. Before any formal proceeding, both sides agree to first attempt to resolve the matter in good faith by contacting hello@thedetective.io.

The named governing-law jurisdiction and exclusive venue will be stated explicitly here when the operating entity is formed. We recommend an attorney confirm both before scaling beyond self-serve plans; the consumer-rights carve-out above is written to remain valid in the meantime.

11. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. Material changes (changes that reduce your rights or refund window) are emailed to your account with at least 30 days' notice. Continued use after the notice period means you accept the updated Terms.

12. Contact

Questions, refund requests, or anything else reach a founder directly at hello@thedetective.io or through the contact page, which also lists dedicated billing and security addresses. We respond within one business day. A registered business mailing address will be published here once the operating entity is formed; until then email is the address of record for all notices.