Terms of Service

1. About the Service

Science AI Journal ("we", "us", "the Service") provides AI-assisted peer review and research tools for academic researchers, including automated manuscript review, pre-submission scoring, research gap discovery, journal recommendation, and an AI-assisted article writer, alongside an open-access publication pathway for accepted work.

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Service. By creating an account or using any part of the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Accounts & Eligibility

You must provide accurate information when creating an account and are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your credentials and for all activity under your account. You must be legally capable of entering into a binding contract to use the Service.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, engage in abusive automated use, or attempt to circumvent credit metering, rate limits, or security controls.

3. Credits, Billing & Regional Pricing

Access to paid features is credits-only and pay-as-you-go. There is no subscription: you purchase one-time credit packs and spend credits as you use individual tools (for example, a full AI review, the Article Writer, or a pre-submission check). Purchased credits do not expire.

New accounts receive a one-time allocation of free welcome credits. Free credits, welcome credits, and promotional credits are provided at our discretion and may be modified or discontinued at any time without affecting previously granted balances.

Prices are set regionally: the amount you are charged may vary by country and is displayed in your local currency at checkout before you confirm a purchase. This regional pricing reflects differences in purchasing power across markets, not a temporary discount or promotional markdown.

All payments are processed by Dodo Payments, our payment processing partner and Merchant of Record for these transactions. Dodo Payments handles payment processing, applicable sales tax/VAT/GST collection and remittance, and appears as the merchant of record on your statement. We do not store your full card details.

4. AI-Generated Output Disclaimer

Reviews, scores, synthesis reports, research gap suggestions, journal recommendations, and drafted text produced by the Service are generated with the assistance of large language models. They are provided as decision-support and drafting assistance for researchers — they are not a guarantee of manuscript quality, publication, acceptance by any journal (including our own), or freedom from error.

AI-generated output may contain mistakes, omissions, or mischaracterizations of source material. You are responsible for independently verifying any factual claim, citation, score, or recommendation before relying on it in a submission, publication, or any other academic or professional context.

Acceptance into the open-access publication pathway remains subject to editorial review and is not determined solely by an automated score.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to: submit content you do not have the right to submit; use the Service to generate or facilitate plagiarism, fabricated data, or academic misconduct; attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or overload the Service; circumvent credit metering or rate limiting; or use the Service for any unlawful purpose.

We may remove content or suspend accounts that violate this section, and may report suspected academic misconduct or fraud where appropriate.

6. Intellectual Property

You retain ownership of the manuscripts and materials you submit. By submitting content for review or publication, you grant us a limited license to process that content through our AI review pipeline and, where you choose to publish, to distribute it under the license terms described in our editorial policies.

The Service itself — including its software, models, prompts, and design — remains our property or that of our licensors.

7. Limitation of Liability

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, including lost research time, lost publication opportunities, or reputational harm, arising from your use of the Service or reliance on AI-generated output. Our total liability for any claim arising from these Terms or the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months preceding the claim.

8. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws applicable in the operator's jurisdiction, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Any dispute not resolved informally will be subject to the courts of that jurisdiction, except where local consumer-protection law grants you the right to bring a claim elsewhere.

9. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in the Service, applicable law, or our business practices. Material changes will be reflected by an updated "Last updated" date on this page. Continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

10. Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent to [email protected].