# xskill Pricing and Refund Policy

_Draft updated: 2026-06-25. This launch draft is for operational alignment and
must receive legal review before production use._

A product by Achronon.

This policy explains prepaid credits, pricing,
free credits, refunds, and billing disputes.

## Pricing Unit

xskill stores customer balances as integer micro-credits:

- `1_000_000` micro-credits = `$1.00`
- `$0.02` = `20_000` micro-credits

The active price card is documented in [pricing.md](./pricing.md). API responses
include `usage.pricing` with the operation, price-card version, units, and
customer price applied to the call.

## Top-Ups

Customers add prepaid credits through Stripe Checkout.

- Minimum top-up: `$10.00`.
- `$10.00` credits `10_000_000` micro-credits.
- Credits are added only after Stripe reports a paid Checkout Session and
  xskill records the ledger credit.
- Checkout Sessions are fulfilled idempotently by Stripe Checkout Session ID, so
  retries do not double-credit a balance.

Signup and checkout surfaces must link this policy and the
[Terms of Service](./terms.md) before a customer creates a Checkout Session.

## Free Tier and Promotional Credits

The default free tier tops each account balance up to a monthly cap. Free credits
are account-scoped, not API-key-scoped, and unused free credits do not stack
above the cap.

Free, trial, promotional, test, or manually granted non-paid credits are not
redeemable for cash and are not refundable.

## Usage Charges

Billable routes reserve credits before provider or LLM spend when possible, then
settle the usage record to the actual returned units or final operation.

If xskill cannot fetch data because the provider fails before a completed fetch,
the route should settle the reservation to zero. If parser or vision work fails
after a raw data fetch, the route may still charge the completed raw-data portion
according to the active price card.

Consumed API calls are not refundable simply because the output was not useful,
because third-party content changed, or because machine-generated parse/OCR
output was imperfect.

## Refund Eligibility

Subject to applicable law and legal review, Achronon's launch policy is:

- Unused paid credits may be refunded within 30 days of purchase. Refunds go to
  the original payment method on customer request when supported by Stripe.
- Duplicate payments, mistaken overpayments, or Stripe/payment processing errors
  are eligible for correction or refund after review.
- Credits consumed by API usage are not refundable unless Achronon determines
  there was a billing error.
- Free, trial, promotional, test, or manually granted non-paid credits are not
  refundable.
- Refunds are issued through Stripe to the original payment method when
  supported by Stripe.

Achronon may deny or delay refunds for suspected abuse, fraud, chargeback risk,
account compromise, sanctions/compliance risk, or unresolved payment disputes.

## Billing Errors and Disputes

Customers should report billing issues within 30 days of the charge or usage
record. Include the account identifier, approximate time, endpoint, request ID
or usage ID when available, and Stripe Checkout Session ID for payment issues.

If xskill confirms an overcharge, duplicate charge, failed zero-settlement, or
incorrect price-card application, Achronon may correct the balance, issue service
credits, or refund unused paid credits.

Chargebacks or payment disputes may cause account suspension while the dispute is
reviewed.

## Price Changes

Achronon may change the price card, free-tier amount, minimum top-up, rate
limits, or cost ceilings. Changes apply prospectively. Existing usage records
keep the price-card version and customer price metadata used at the time of the
call.

## Account Closure

On account closure, unused paid credits remain subject to the same refund
eligibility rules. Free, trial, promotional, test, and non-paid credits are
removed with the account and are not refundable.