Terms of Service
Last updated: February 9, 2026
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of CrucibleIQ, operated by Refracted Aspect Collective Inc. ("we," "us," or "our"). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms.
1. The Service
CrucibleIQ is an integrated research environment for academic researchers and students. The Service allows you to upload PDFs, manage citations, search academic databases, write documents with inline references, and export publication-ready papers with formatted bibliographies.
The Service is available at app.crucibleiq.com and related domains.
2. Account Registration
To use CrucibleIQ, you must create an account with a valid email address. You are responsible for:
- Maintaining the security of your account credentials.
- All activity that occurs under your account.
- Notifying us immediately at hello@crucibleiq.com if you suspect unauthorized access.
You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. By registering, you represent that you meet this age requirement.
3. Subscriptions and Billing
Merchant of Record
Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com (paddle.com). Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our orders. Paddle provides all customer service inquiries and handles returns.
When you purchase a subscription, your contract for payment is with Paddle.com Market Limited ("Paddle"), not directly with Refracted Aspect Collective Inc. Paddle handles all billing, invoicing, sales tax, VAT, GST, and payment disputes on our behalf.
Paddle's buyer terms apply to your purchase: https://www.paddle.com/legal/checkout-buyer-terms
Free trial
New accounts receive a free trial period with full access to the Service. The trial duration is specified at the time of signup. No payment is required during the trial.
Subscription
After your trial ends, continued access requires an active paid subscription. Subscriptions are available in monthly, semester, and annual billing periods. Longer billing periods are offered at a reduced rate compared to monthly pricing. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period unless cancelled.
Cancellation
You may cancel your subscription at any time through the Service or by contacting us at hello@crucibleiq.com. Upon cancellation:
- Your access continues until the end of your current paid billing period.
- No further charges will be made after the current period ends.
- Your data remains available for export until the end of the billing period.
Refunds
If you are not satisfied with CrucibleIQ, you may request a full refund within 30 days of your initial purchase. All refunds are processed by Paddle.com Market Limited ("Paddle"), our Merchant of Record. To request a refund, contact Paddle directly at paddle.net or contact us at hello@crucibleiq.com and we will assist you. For full details, see our Refund Policy.
4. Your Content
Ownership
You retain full ownership of all content you upload or create using the Service, including PDFs, documents, citations, notes, and exported files. We do not claim any intellectual property rights over your content.
License to us
By uploading content to CrucibleIQ, you grant us a limited license to store, process, and display that content solely for the purpose of providing the Service to you. This license ends when you delete your content or close your account, except as described below regarding source records.
Source record retention
When you upload or add a source, the platform stores its bibliographic metadata (title, authors, publication details) in a shared database for citation accuracy and deduplication. If you delete a source from your project or close your account, your personal association with the source is removed. The source record itself may be retained if it is independently referenced by other users. Your personal data, annotations, highlights, and notes are never shared with or visible to other users.
Your responsibility
You are responsible for ensuring you have the right to upload content to the Service. Do not upload content that you do not have permission to use, or that infringes on the intellectual property rights of others.
5. Acceptable Use
You agree not to:
- Facilitate academic dishonesty. CrucibleIQ is a research and writing tool. Do not use it to produce work that misrepresents authorship or violates your institution's academic integrity policies.
- Reverse engineer the Service or attempt to extract source code.
- Overload the Service through automated bulk requests, scraping, or denial-of-service attacks.
- Share accounts. Each account is for a single user. Do not share your credentials with others.
- Upload malicious content, including files containing malware, viruses, or other harmful code.
- Violate any applicable law in your use of the Service.
We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms.
6. Third-Party Services
CrucibleIQ integrates with third-party services to provide its features:
- Academic databases (OpenAlex, CrossRef, Unpaywall, LibKey) for research discovery and citation metadata. These services have their own terms and availability. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or availability of third-party data.
- AI services (OpenAI, Anthropic) for semantic search, metadata extraction from uploaded documents, and research query processing. Excerpts of your uploaded content may be sent to these services for processing. These services process your content transiently and do not retain it. We do not use your content to train AI models.
- Infrastructure providers (Supabase, Railway, Vercel) for hosting, database, and authentication services.
Citation metadata retrieved from external sources is provided as-is. You are responsible for verifying the accuracy of citations in your published work. AI-assisted features (such as metadata extraction) may contain errors and should be reviewed before use in published work.
7. Availability and Changes
We aim to keep the Service available and reliable, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. We may:
- Perform maintenance that temporarily affects availability.
- Modify, add, or remove features of the Service.
- Change pricing for future billing periods (existing subscribers will be notified in advance).
If we make changes that materially reduce the functionality you are paying for, you may cancel your subscription for a prorated refund of the current period.
8. Intellectual Property
The Service, including its design, code, documentation, and branding, is owned by Refracted Aspect Collective Inc. and protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. These Terms do not grant you any rights to our intellectual property except the right to use the Service as described here.
"CrucibleIQ" is a trademark of Refracted Aspect Collective Inc.
9. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law:
- The Service is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind, express or implied.
- We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Service.
- Our total liability for any claim related to the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim.
This does not affect any rights that cannot be waived under applicable consumer protection laws.
10. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Refracted Aspect Collective Inc. from any claims, damages, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:
- Your use of the Service.
- Your violation of these Terms.
- Your violation of any third-party rights.
11. Governing Law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Alberta, Canada, without regard to conflict of law principles. Any disputes arising from these Terms will be resolved in the courts of Alberta, Canada.
12. Termination
By you
You may close your account at any time by contacting us at hello@crucibleiq.com. Upon closure, your data will be deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
By us
We may suspend or terminate your account if:
- You violate these Terms.
- Your subscription payment fails and is not resolved within the grace period.
- We are required to do so by law.
If we terminate your account without cause, you will receive a prorated refund for any unused subscription period.
13. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or by posting a notice within the Service at least 30 days before the changes take effect. Your continued use of the Service after the changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.
14. Severability
If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.
15. Support
For product support, billing questions, or refund requests:
Email: hello@crucibleiq.com
We aim to respond to all support inquiries within 2 business days.
For billing and payment inquiries, you may also contact Paddle directly at paddle.net.
16. Contact Us
If you have questions about these Terms:
Refracted Aspect Collective Inc. Operating as CrucibleIQ
Email: hello@crucibleiq.com