Terms of Service

Who we are

GradeLamp (gradelamp.com) is run by [Company legal name], a company at [Registered address] (“GradeLamp”, “we” or “us”). You can reach us at support@gradelamp.com.

Agreeing to these terms

By using GradeLamp you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy, which explains how we handle your data. If you don't agree, please don't use GradeLamp. If you are under 18, please read these terms with a parent or guardian.

Who can use the service

• You must be 13 or older. GradeLamp isn't for children under 13, and we delete accounts we learn belong to one.
• If you are under 18, you need a parent's or guardian's permission to buy a pass. You can send a parent a pay link instead.
• If you are in India, you must be 18 or older to create an account.
• Teacher accounts, when they open, are for teachers of grades 9 and up and of college students, used within their school's policies.

What we provide: feedback, never writing

GradeLamp scores your essay against a rubric, row by row, quotes the sentences behind each score and suggests one fix per row. A fix is an instruction about what to change, never replacement wording. GradeLamp does not write, draft, rewrite, paraphrase or “humanize” essays, at any price, and it does not detect AI writing.

You're responsible for following the rules of your school, your teachers and the colleges you apply to. Our academic integrity page explains how to use feedback within them.

GradeLamp is independent. It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by the College Board, Common App®, the University of California or any exam board, and its scores are not official scores of any kind.

Scores are estimates

Feedback is generated by AI (Claude, by Anthropic) and checked by our code. Every score is a practice estimate. It can be wrong, it isn't a grade from your teacher, and it says nothing about your chances of admission. Use it as a second reader, not a final judge. How GradeLamp grades explains the method and its known limits.

We provide GradeLamp “as is”. To the extent the law allows, we make no promise that feedback will be accurate, complete or right for your purpose, or that the service will always be available.

Your account

• You sign in with a code sent to your email. Keep access to that email secure: anyone who can read it can sign in as you.
• An account is for one person. Paid accounts can be signed in on up to 3 devices at once; signing in on another ends the oldest session.
• Give us accurate information, including your age. You can delete your account at any time in Settings.

Free grades and fair use

• Without an account, you get 1 free graded essay per browser.
• A free account gets 3 graded essays in any rolling 30-day window, starting from your first grade.
• Passes have fair-use limits so the service stays fast for everyone: currently up to 25 grades in any 24 hours (40 on busy deadline days) and 200 in any 30 days. Passes are not “unlimited”.
• Re-grading the same draft, failed grades, viewing, printing and deleting results never use a grade.

We may adjust these limits to keep the service fair and running well for everyone.

Passes and payment

• 30-Day Pass ($9.99): 30 days (30 × 24 hours) from purchase.
• Season Pass ($29): At least 120 days, and always through the end of the season you bought it in: 31 January for purchases from August to January, 31 May for purchases from February to May.

Both are one-time payments. They never renew and nothing is charged after the end date, which we show before you pay. Prices are in US dollars, plus tax where applicable.

Student passes are for one student's own essays. They aren't for grading a class set or other people's work. One student can have one live pass at a time; a second pass can be queued to start when the first ends.

Dodo Payments is our merchant of record. Dodo sells you the pass on our behalf, takes payment, issues receipts and handles sales tax. Its own checkout terms also apply when you pay. We never see your card details.

Paid passes aren't on sale yet; they open once our payment provider approves our account.

Refunds

These rules are the same as on our refund policy page:

1. Passes are one-time payments. They never renew, so there is nothing to cancel and no later charge.
2. Full refund if you ask within 14 days of purchase and 10 or fewer grades were used on the pass.
3. Otherwise, a pro-rated refund for the days you haven't used, if you ask within 30 days of purchase.
4. One refund per student account for each kind of product.
5. A refund ends the matching access straight away.

Your receipt comes from Dodo Payments, our payment provider. Your card statement shows [Card statement descriptor].

To ask for a refund, use “Request a refund” in Account, then Billing, or email support@gradelamp.com. Nothing here limits refund rights you have under the law where you live.

Subscriptions and teacher accounts

GradeLamp doesn't offer plans that renew or teacher accounts yet. Both are planned from 22 January 2027. Before they open, we'll add their terms here (renewal and cancellation terms, and a school-use section for teachers: grades 9 and up, use within school policy, and no disclosure of student work), with at least 30 days' notice.

Your essays and what you paste

You own your essays. You give us permission to process what you submit only to grade it, show you the result, keep your history and run the service, as our Privacy Policy describes. We never use your essays to train AI, and we never publish them.

You are responsible for what you paste. Only submit text you have the right to use, including any prompt or documents. Don't paste other people's personal information or work without their permission. Exam boards own their published questions and materials, and some don't allow them to be used with AI tools, so check before you paste one.

Our content. Our rubrics are written in our own words, and our site, design and software belong to us. You may print rubrics and results for your own study or teaching.

Acceptable use

Please don't:

• use GradeLamp to submit someone else's work as your own, or to break your school's or a college's rules;
• share an account, resell access, or get around free-grade or fair-use limits (for example with many accounts);
• scrape the site, run automated grading, or overload or probe our systems;
• try to make the grader ignore its rubric or reveal its instructions;
• submit unlawful, hateful or harassing content, or content that infringes someone's rights;
• misuse share links, for example to publish other people's writing.

If you do, we may limit, suspend or close your account. Where we can, we'll tell you why first and give you a chance to explain.

Limits on our liability

To the extent the law allows, GradeLamp isn't liable for indirect or consequential losses, such as a grade, an admissions decision or lost opportunities, and our total liability to you is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim. Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't be limited by law, or your rights as a consumer.

Ending your use

You can stop using GradeLamp and delete your account at any time. Deleting an account ends any live pass; if the pass is still within the refund rules, we open a refund for you. If we close the service or your account without you having broken these terms, we'll refund the unused part of any pass.

Changes to the service and these terms

We improve GradeLamp often. If we change these terms in a way that matters, we'll email account holders at least 30 days before the change takes effect and update the date at the top. A change never applies to a pass you have already bought in a way that makes it worse for you.

Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of [Governing law]. If something goes wrong, please email us first: most problems are fixed quickly. This doesn't take away any right you have to bring a claim in the courts where you live.