Terms of Service

1. Who we are

ChessCubs is operated by Chesscubs LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“ChessCubs”, “we”, “us”). These Terms are a contract between Chesscubs LLC and you. By creating an account, booking a class, or using our website or app, you agree to them. You can reach us at support@chesscubs.com about anything here.

2. Who may use ChessCubs

You must be 18 or older to create an account, agree to these Terms, or buy anything from us. Children do not sign up themselves: a parent or legal guardian creates the account and then adds their child to it. That order is deliberate. It is what lets us verify that an adult with authority over the child has agreed to these Terms and consented to their child taking part.

If you create an account on behalf of a child, you confirm you are their parent or legal guardian and are authorised to make decisions for them.

3. Your account

You are responsible for what happens under your account, including anything done by your child using the account you created for them. Keep your password to yourself, and tell us promptly if you think someone else has access.

Your child's sign-in. Children sign in with a username you choose, not an email address, so that we do not have to collect an email address for your child. That username is converted internally into an address on our own domain; it is not a mailbox and cannot send or receive mail. Please choose one that does not reveal your child's full name, school, or location.

4. Children's accounts, consent and data

A child's account does not work until you approve it. When you add a child their account is created blocked, and only completing the consent screen activates it.

What we collect about your child is deliberately minimal: a first name you choose to display, a birth year (not a full date of birth), their username, and what they do in lessons: puzzles, homework, games, attendance and progress. We do not ask children for an email address, phone number, photograph, or location. We do not use children's data for advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not disclose it to third parties for their own marketing.

You may review your child's information, ask us to correct it, withdraw consent for future collection, or ask us to delete the account. Email support@chesscubs.com. Our Children's Privacy Notice and Privacy Policy cover this in full, including how long we keep information. Where they and these Terms disagree about privacy, those documents govern.

5. The ChessCubs app

The app includes puzzles, lessons, practice against computer opponents, game review and progress tracking. There is no open chat. Children cannot message strangers, and there is no public profile, friend request or open lobby. Messaging exists only between a parent and their child's coach, and between a family and our support team.

6. Classes and coaching

Our adult coaches are screened and background-verified before they teach. Every class is recorded in full, which is how we protect children and coaches alike. Classes are delivered online through a third-party video service; you will need a reasonably modern device, a working connection, and, for younger children, an adult nearby at the start.

We teach in small groups of never more than 6 students, at every level. Group classes are what we sell and what the prices on this site describe. A small number of families hold private one-to-one arrangements agreed with us directly; those are not offered for sale here, and the terms of any such arrangement are whatever we agreed with you in writing.

Missed classes. If a group at your child's level has a spare seat that week we will offer a make-up slot; there is no guarantee one is available, and if there isn't, the class is forfeited. Tell us as early as you can. Early notice is what makes a make-up possible.

If we cancel. If ChessCubs cancels a class we will reschedule it or credit it to your next month. A class we cancel is never simply lost.

7. Free trial class

We offer a free trial class of about 45 minutes, including a placement assessment on our seven-level map. It is free, needs no payment method, and carries no obligation. We may limit it to one per family.

8. Fees, billing and cancellation

Paid coaching is $59 a month, every level included, billed through Stripe in US dollars. It is a monthly subscription that renews automatically until cancelled. We will make the renewal date, the amount and how to cancel clear before your first charge.

The price you join at is the price you keep. If we ever raise the price it applies to new families only.

Cancelling. There is no lock-in and no minimum term. You can cancel yourself at any time from the Billing page in your parent dashboard. No phone call, no retention offer, and no reason needed. Your current month's classes run to the end of the cycle you have paid for. Very occasionally our payment provider holds two records for one email address and the button cannot tell which is yours; if that happens it says so, and one message to support@chesscubs.com cancels it for you the same day.

Refunds. If ChessCubs is not right for your family, email support@chesscubs.com within 14 days of your child's first paid class and we will refund that first month in full. No forms, no reason needed. There is no refund button in the app: one of us issues it by hand to the card you paid with, through Stripe. After that, the month you have paid for runs to the end of its cycle. Classes your child misses are not refunded (that is what the make-up seat is for); classes we cancel and cannot make up always are, refunded the same way.

Taking a break. There is no pause. Cancel from the Billing page whenever you like, and your child's account, their level, their games and their certificates all stay exactly as they are. When you want to come back, email support@chesscubs.com and we will put them back in a class. Nothing is lost by stopping for a while.

More than one child. Families with two or more enrolled children receive 10% off the total. Like the refund above, one of us puts it on your subscription by hand, so it shows on your Stripe bill rather than being worked out in the app. If you have a second child in classes and you cannot see it on your bill, email support@chesscubs.com and we will fix it and back date it.

Failed payments. If a payment fails we will contact you by email from support@chesscubs.com, and may pause classes until the account is up to date. That email is written by a person rather than sent automatically, so it may not arrive the same hour the payment fails. We will not delete your child's account or their progress for non-payment. Prices exclude any sales or similar taxes, which we add where required.

9. Acceptable use

Please do not, and please ensure your child does not:

• harass, bully or abuse anyone, including coaches and other students;
• use engine assistance or outside help during assessments, rated play, or homework meant to be solved independently, because it gives your child a false level;
• share account credentials, or let anyone else attend a class in your child's place;
• record, redistribute or republish our lessons, curriculum, puzzles or class materials;
• probe, scrape or overload the service, or access another family's data;
• upload anything unlawful, hateful, sexual, or inappropriate for a service used by children.

We may remove content or suspend an account that breaches this. Where a child is involved we will normally raise it with the parent first, unless doing so would put a child at risk.

10. Keeping children safe

If we become aware of a credible risk to a child's safety we may act on it: contacting you, suspending an account, and where the law requires or a child is in danger, contacting the appropriate authorities. We will not stay silent about a child's safety to protect a customer relationship.

11. Your content

Your child's games, homework, notes and uploads remain yours. You give us permission to store and process them to run the service: showing their coach their homework, generating reports, reviewing games, and improving how we teach.

We may use anonymised, aggregated information (for example, “60% of students play this losing move in this position”) to improve our curriculum. This never identifies your child and is never sold. We will not use your child's game, quote, photograph or result publicly without asking you separately first.

12. Our content

The ChessCubs curriculum, lessons, puzzle collections, level map, software, branding and the ChessCubs name and logo belong to us or our licensors. You may use them for your own family's learning. You may not resell or republish them, use them to teach others commercially, or use them to train a machine-learning model. Chess positions and openings themselves are owned by nobody; our particular selection, sequencing and explanation of them is.

13. Third-party services

We rely on third parties for parts of the service: video conferencing for live classes, hosting and database infrastructure, email delivery, and payment processing by Stripe. We do not store your card details; Stripe does. We are not responsible for the content or practices of third-party sites you reach through links from ours.

14. Availability and changes

We work to keep ChessCubs available but do not promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may take it down for maintenance and may change, add or remove features. If a change materially reduces what you are paying for, we will tell you before it takes effect and you may cancel.

15. Suspension and termination

You may stop using ChessCubs at any time. We may suspend or close an account that breaches these Terms, endangers or harasses someone, or where the law requires it. Except in serious cases we will contact you first and give you a fair chance to put it right. If we close your account without cause, we refund the unused portion of any period you have paid for.

16. Disclaimers

ChessCubs is an education service. We do not promise any particular rating, result, tournament placing or rate of improvement. Children learn at different speeds, and progress depends on practice and attendance as much as on teaching. Except as stated in these Terms the service is provided “as is” to the fullest extent the law allows. Nothing here limits any consumer-protection right that cannot lawfully be limited.

17. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes our liability for:

• death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
• any harm to a child arising from our failure to take reasonable care of them; or
• anything else that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded.

Subject to that, and to the fullest extent the law allows:

• we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, including loss of opportunity, tournament results or ratings; and
• our total liability for all claims arising in any 12-month period is limited to the total amount you paid us in that period.

18. Indemnity

You agree to cover us for claims and costs arising from your misuse of the service or your breach of these Terms. This does not apply to anything we are responsible for.

19. Disputes and governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Before any formal proceedings, please contact us at support@chesscubs.com. Most problems are resolved in a single email, and we would rather fix something than argue about it. Nothing here stops you taking a dispute to your local small-claims court.

20. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. If a change is material we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect, and continuing to use ChessCubs after that means you accept the update. The “last updated” date at the top always reflects the current version.

21. Class recordings

Classes held in the ChessCubs classroom are recorded in full, including the camera and microphone of every participant, students included. The primary purpose is safeguarding: a coach is an adult alone online with children, and recording provides online the protection that a second adult provides in a room. It protects students and coaches alike. Reviewing how classes are taught is a secondary purpose. By enrolling you consent to this recording; for a trial class, consent is given on the booking form. Recordings are retained for 30 days and then deleted automatically, except where a recording has been flagged for review, in which case it is retained until that review concludes. Access is restricted to the founder and every access is logged. Recordings are not made available to parents, are never shared or published, and are not used for any other purpose.

Recordings are deleted after 30 days. They are visible only to ChessCubs, are used only to review teaching quality, and are never shared, published or used in advertising. This is separate from clause 9 (Acceptable use) above, which is about you not recording our lessons; this clause is about us recording our own.

22. Contact

Chesscubs LLC
support@chesscubs.com