Terms of Service

Effective Date: April 25, 2026

Last Updated: September 5, 2026 (v2026-09-04: describes the email acknowledgement step in the verifiable parental consent flow)

Welcome to Explanova. These Terms of Service ("Terms") form a binding agreement between you and Explanova LLC, a Virginia limited liability company ("Explanova," "we," "us," or "our"), governing your use of the Explanova educational platform at https://explanova.ai and related features (collectively, the "Service").

Explanova is an AI-assisted homework help and tutoring service designed for K-12 learners. Because the Service is used by children, the way we frame these Terms is parent-first: only an adult parent or legal guardian can hold an account, accept these Terms, and decide what their child sees.

By creating an account, clicking "I agree," or otherwise using the Service, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1Acceptance and Eligibility

1.1 Who May Hold an Account. You may create and hold an Explanova account only if you are at least 18 years old and are the parent, legal guardian, or a school-authorized adult acting on behalf of one or more K-12 learners. You represent that all information you provide is accurate and that you have authority to accept these Terms for any child profile you create.

1.2 Children May Not Hold Accounts. Children under 18 may not register for or independently sign in to the Service. Child profiles are created and controlled by the account-holding parent. See Section 2.

1.3 Acceptance. Creating an account, signing in, or using any portion of the Service constitutes acceptance of these Terms. If you are accepting on behalf of an organization (such as a school or district), you represent that you are authorized to bind that organization.

1.4 Where the Service Is Available. The Service is offered to users in the United States. We do not represent that the Service is appropriate or available for use in any other jurisdiction. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws.

2Account Architecture: Parent Holds the Account

2.1 One Account, One Family. Each account is held by an individual parent or guardian and may include multiple child profiles. Child profiles are sub-profiles of your account; they do not have independent login credentials and cannot be transferred to another account.

2.2 Parental Consent (COPPA). When you create your account, you affirm that you are the parent or legal guardian of any child for whom you create a profile, and you consent, on that child's behalf, to the collection and use of the child's information as described in our Privacy Policy. In the Explanova web dashboard you are asked for this affirmation on every route that sets up a family; in our iOS and Android apps you are asked for it on the sign-up form, and we are extending it to a first-time sign-in with Google or Apple in an app update. That affirmation alone does not complete your consent: we then email you a one-click acknowledgement link, and you must click it before any child profile can be created. Your affirmation together with that emailed acknowledgement is your verifiable parental consent under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), 15 U.S.C. § 6501 et seq., and the FTC's COPPA Rule, 16 C.F.R. Part 312. Section 2.3 of our Privacy Policy describes the full process, including the confirmatory email that follows, the single bounded exception that applies where we could not deliver the acknowledgement email because of a failure on our side, and how to revoke consent. This applies to accounts created on or after September 4, 2026. If you created your account before that date, it was created under the previous version of these Terms, which did not include the emailed acknowledgement step, and we are not asking you to complete that step now.

2.3 You Are Responsible for Your Account. You are responsible for: (a) maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials; (b) all activity that occurs under your account, including activity by any child whose profile you create; and (c) supervising your child's use of the Service in accordance with their age and maturity.

2.4 Notify Us of Unauthorized Access. Notify us immediately at explanovasupport@gmail.com if you suspect any unauthorized use of your account.

3Description of the Service

3.1 What the Service Does. Explanova helps K-12 learners work through homework, practice problems, and concept explanations through AI-generated text, diagrams, and avatar video lessons. Specific features may include homework photo upload, step-by-step explanations, practice problem generation, an AI avatar tutor, and parent-facing progress views.

3.2 What the Service Is Not. Explanova is a supplemental educational tool. It is not a substitute for: school-provided instruction, a licensed teacher, a special-education professional, a medical or mental-health professional, a counselor, a lawyer, or any other licensed advisor. The Service does not provide medical, legal, financial, mental-health, or safety advice.

3.3 Service Evolution. We may add, change, or remove features at our discretion to improve the Service. We will not materially reduce paid features during a paid term without offering a prorated refund or comparable alternative.

3.4 Availability. We aim for high availability but do not guarantee that the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free. The Service depends on third-party providers (cloud hosting, AI inference APIs, payment processors) whose outages may temporarily affect the Service.

3.5 Third-Party API Services and YouTube. The Service uses third-party APIs to deliver certain features. When you use the optional YouTube Recommender feature (currently in beta, opt-in), you also agree to the YouTube API Services Terms of Service and to Google's Privacy Policy. Explanova's use of the YouTube Data API v3 is read-only (search.list only) and links you to youtube.com to view video content; we do not host, transcode, modify, or rehost any YouTube content. See Privacy Policy Section 6.5 for the data-flow details of this feature.

4Acceptable Use

You agree that you and any child whose profile you create will use the Service only for lawful, personal, educational purposes. You agree not to:

Submit content that is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, hateful, sexually explicit, or otherwise inappropriate for a K-12 platform;
Submit personally identifying information about other children (names, faces, addresses, schools) without verifiable consent from their parent or legal guardian;
Attempt to bypass age-appropriate content filters, safety guardrails, or rate limits;
Attempt to "jailbreak," prompt-inject, or otherwise manipulate the AI to produce content that violates these Terms or our content policies;
Use the Service to cheat in violation of a school's academic-integrity policy. Explanova is designed to help students learn, not to produce assignments to be passed off as original work;
Reverse engineer, decompile, scrape, mirror, or attempt to extract the source code, prompts, models, or training data of the Service;
Use automated tools (bots, crawlers, scripts) to access the Service except as expressly permitted;
Resell, sublicense, or redistribute any part of the Service or its outputs as a competing tutoring product;
Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any account, system, or data;
Interfere with or disrupt the integrity, performance, or security of the Service;
Use the Service in any manner that violates applicable law (including export controls, COPPA, FERPA, and state privacy laws).

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these acceptable-use rules. See Section 9 (Termination).

5AI-Generated Content: Important Disclaimer

5.1 AI Outputs Are Not Guaranteed Accurate. Explanova uses large language models, image generation, and synthetic-voice technology to generate explanations, practice problems, and avatar lessons. AI systems can produce content that is incorrect, incomplete, biased, or inappropriate even when used as intended. This is sometimes called a "hallucination."

5.2 Parent Review Is Expected. You acknowledge that AI-generated content is provided for educational support only and that you, as the parent, are responsible for reviewing material your child relies on for school. Explanova provides parent-facing review surfaces (session history, transcripts, lesson previews) for this purpose.

5.3 Not Professional Advice. Nothing produced by the Service constitutes medical, legal, financial, psychological, or safety advice. If your child appears to be in distress or you have concerns about their well-being, contact a qualified professional or, in an emergency, call 911 (or 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the U.S.).

5.4 Reporting Inaccurate or Inappropriate Content. If you encounter content from the Service that appears incorrect, inappropriate, or harmful, please report it via the in-app "Report a problem" button or email explanovasupport@gmail.com. We treat content reports involving K-2 learners as priority.

6User Content and License

6.1 What "User Content" Means. "User Content" includes anything you or your child submits to the Service, such as homework photos, typed problems, voice recordings, parent-uploaded avatar imagery, names or nicknames, and feedback.

6.2 Ownership Stays With You. You retain all ownership rights in your User Content. We do not claim ownership of homework, voice clips, or avatar photos.

6.3 Limited License to Operate the Service. You grant Explanova a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, transmit, process, display, and create derivative works of your User Content solely to:

Deliver the Service to you (e.g., generate explanations, render avatar lessons, show progress);
Maintain backups and ensure security and integrity of the Service;
Comply with legal obligations.

This license ends when the User Content is deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy retention schedule (see Privacy Policy Section 8). It does not permit use of User Content for advertising, third-party data sales, or training Explanova's own AI models.

6.4 Your Representations About User Content. You represent that you have the right to upload everything you submit and that doing so does not violate any third party's privacy, intellectual property, or other rights.

6.5 Feedback. If you send us suggestions, ideas, or feedback about the Service, you grant us a perpetual, royalty-free license to use them without obligation to you. Feedback is treated separately from child profile data and is never linked to a specific learner.

7Subscriptions, Billing, Cancellation, and Refunds

7.1 Free Trial. If a free trial is offered, the trial converts to a paid subscription at the end of the trial period unless you cancel before the trial ends. We will email you a reminder before conversion when feasible.

7.2 Subscription Plans. Paid plans are billed in advance on a monthly or annual cycle. Pricing, features, and any limits are shown on the pricing page at the time of purchase.

7.3 Payment Processing. All payments are processed by Stripe. Explanova does not receive or store full card numbers. By providing payment information, you authorize Explanova (through Stripe) to charge your payment method on each renewal cycle until you cancel.

7.4 Automatic Renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the then-current price for the same term unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the renewal date. We will notify you in advance of any price increase.

7.5 Cancellation. You may cancel at any time from Crew Settings → Manage subscription. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid term; you keep access until that date. After cancellation, your data is retained so you can return without re-entering child profiles. Privacy Policy Section 8 states how long, and says plainly that the automatic removal for cancelled accounts is built but not yet switched on.

7.6 Refunds. Subscriptions are generally non-refundable, except where required by law and except for the following discretionary refund cases we honor:

You were charged after cancelling but before the next renewal due to a billing error on our end;
The Service was materially unavailable for an extended period during your billing cycle;
You upgraded by mistake and request a refund within 7 days of the upgrade.

To request a refund, email explanovasupport@gmail.com with your account email and the date of the charge.

7.7 Taxes. Subscription prices are exclusive of any applicable sales, use, or VAT taxes, which we may add at checkout where required.

8Intellectual Property

8.1 Our IP. The Service, including the Explanova name, logo, the avatar tutor design, lesson templates, software, prompts, curated curriculum, and all content other than User Content, is owned by Explanova LLC or its licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws. Explanova® is a federally filed trademark of Explanova LLC (USPTO Serial No. 99776390).

8.2 Limited License to You. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to access and use the Service for your family's non-commercial educational use.

8.3 No Other Rights. No license is granted by implication. You may not use Explanova marks or content in a way that implies endorsement, affiliation, or partnership without our prior written consent.

8.4 Copyright Complaints: DMCA Designated Agent. If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, please send a written notice that complies with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512) to Explanova's designated agent:

Stephen Gardner

Explanova LLC, c/o Northwest Registered Agent LLC
8401 Mayland Drive, Suite A
Henrico, Virginia 23294
United States

Email: dmca@explanova.ai

Phone: 571-358-8680

U.S. Copyright Office Service Provider ID: DMCA-1071943

A valid DMCA notice must include the elements listed in 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3): identification of the copyrighted work, identification of the allegedly infringing material with sufficient detail to locate it, your contact information, a good-faith statement that the use is unauthorized, and a sworn statement under penalty of perjury that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner. We will respond to compliant notices within a reasonable time and may remove or disable access to the identified material pending review. Misrepresentations may incur liability under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).

9Termination

9.1 By You. You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time from Crew Settings. Account deletion follows Privacy Policy Section 8: immediate for accounts that never subscribed, and after a 30-day grace period for accounts with a current or former subscription.

9.2 By Us. We may suspend or terminate your account and access to the Service if:

You materially violate these Terms or our acceptable-use rules (Section 4);
We are required to do so by law or by a credible safety concern affecting a child;
Your account remains inactive and unpaid for an extended period (per the Privacy Policy retention schedule);
Continuing to provide the Service to you would expose Explanova to legal, regulatory, or security risk.

Where reasonable and not prohibited by law, we will give notice and an opportunity to cure before terminating a paid account.

9.3 Effect of Termination. Upon termination, your right to use the Service ends and your data is deleted in accordance with the Privacy Policy retention schedule. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including IP, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and dispute resolution) will survive.

10Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including (without limitation) the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, non-infringement, and quiet enjoyment, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.

We do not warrant that: (a) the Service will meet every educational need; (b) AI-generated content will be accurate, complete, or appropriate for every learner; (c) the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free; or (d) any defect will be corrected. Some jurisdictions do not allow exclusion of certain warranties, so portions of this section may not apply to you.

11Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event will Explanova LLC, its officers, employees, contractors, or affiliates be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of profits, revenue, data, use, or goodwill, arising out of or related to your use of (or inability to use) the Service, whether based in contract, tort, statute, or otherwise, even if Explanova has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Explanova's total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid Explanova in the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars ($100).

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, so the above limitations may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including liability for gross negligence, fraud, or willful misconduct.

12Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Explanova LLC and its officers, employees, contractors, and affiliates from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or related to: (a) your use of the Service in violation of these Terms; (b) User Content you submit; (c) your violation of any law or third-party right; or (d) your child's use of the Service in violation of these Terms while under your supervision.

13Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

14Dispute Resolution

14.1 Talk to Us First. Before filing any formal claim, we ask that you email explanovasupport@gmail.com and give us 30 days to resolve the issue informally. Most concerns can be addressed quickly this way.

14.2 Forum. Any dispute that is not resolved informally must be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Henrico County, Virginia, and you and Explanova consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts. Each party may also bring qualifying claims in small-claims court in their local jurisdiction.

14.3 No Mandatory Arbitration; No Class-Action Waiver. Because the Service is used by minors and their families, we have intentionally chosen not to require mandatory binding arbitration and not to require a class-action waiver. You retain the full right to pursue claims in court, individually or as part of a class permitted by applicable law.

14.4 Time Limit. Any claim arising out of or related to these Terms or the Service must be filed within one (1) year after the claim arose, except where a longer period is required by law.

15Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If a change is material (for example, a change to billing, dispute resolution, acceptable use, or how we treat children's data), we will notify you by email and post a notice on https://explanova.ai at least 30 days before the change takes effect. Continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance. If a change requires renewed COPPA parental consent, we will obtain it before the change applies to your child profiles.

16Miscellaneous

16.1 Entire Agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any order forms or supplemental terms presented at sign-up, constitute the entire agreement between you and Explanova regarding the Service and supersede all prior or contemporaneous understandings.

16.2 Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect.

16.3 No Waiver. Our failure to enforce a right or provision of these Terms is not a waiver of that right or provision.

16.4 Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, with notice to you.

16.5 No Third-Party Beneficiaries. These Terms do not create any third-party beneficiary rights.

16.6 Force Majeure. Neither party is liable for any failure or delay caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including natural disasters, acts of government, internet or cloud-provider outages, and labor disputes.

17Contact Information

Explanova LLC

c/o Northwest Registered Agent LLC
8401 Mayland Drive, Suite A
Henrico, Virginia 23294
United States

Mail sent to this address is forwarded to Explanova LLC.

Questions about these Terms:

explanovasupport@gmail.com

Subject line: "Terms of Service"

Last updated: September 5, 2026