Terms of Service

1.The agreement

These Terms of Service ("terms") are an agreement between you and Smarty Ears, LLC ("Smarty Ears", "we", "us"). They cover Smarty Ears Online: the app at app.smartyearslearning.com, its activities and games, student and family logins, and this website, smartyearslearning.com (together, the "Service").

By creating an account, starting a trial, buying a plan, accepting a quote, or using the Service, you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the Service. Section 21 explains that disputes are settled by arbitration, not in court, and that you give up the right to a jury trial.

Our apps for iPad and iPhone and smartyearsapps.com have their own terms.

2.Who can use Smarty Ears Online

• Professionals and organizations. Accounts are for adults: speech-language pathologists, teachers, other educators and clinicians, and the schools, districts, clinics, therapy companies and universities they work for. You must be at least 18 and able to make a binding contract to create an account or buy a plan.
• Students and families. Students sign in only with a login that their educator or clinician sets up, and families see only what that educator shares with them. A student's use is the responsibility of the educator, organization or parent who set it up.
• For an organization. If you accept these terms, a quote or an invoice for an organization, you confirm that you may do so for it. If your organization has a signed agreement with us (such as a data privacy agreement), that agreement governs where it differs from these terms.

If using the Service is illegal where you are, please don't use it.

3.Your account

• Give accurate information and keep it up to date.
• An account and each organization seat is for one person. Don't share your sign-in or let others use your account.
• Keep your password secret, and tell us at once if you think someone else has used your account. You are responsible for what happens in your account.
• To protect student information, we may pause sign-in after repeated wrong passwords, sign people out after a period without activity, and ask you to confirm your identity.

4.Plans, payment and renewal

Individual plans

Individual clinicians can buy Basic Professional or Professional Plus, monthly or yearly, at app.smartyearslearning.com. The price and what each plan includes are shown at checkout. Payments are processed by Stripe, Inc.; we don't keep your card number.

Your plan renews automatically at the end of each month or year, and your payment method is charged for the next period at the price you agreed to, until you cancel. A price change never applies to a plan you already have while it keeps renewing.

If a payment fails, for example because a card expired, you remain responsible for the amount due, and we may keep trying your payment method, as you update it. You authorize us to receive updated card details from your card issuer. You can update your card under My account, Change card or billing address.

Cancelling

To cancel, sign in at app.smartyearslearning.com, open My account and choose Cancel plan in the Your plan box. You keep your plan until the end of the period you have paid for, and it won't renew. If your access comes through your school or organization, your organization's administrator manages it. What happens to your student information afterwards is explained in Section 7.

Free trial

Some plans start with a free trial. At present, the Basic Professional monthly plan includes a 14-day free trial. Other plans, yearly plans and organization licenses don't include a trial unless we say so at checkout.

A valid payment card is required to start a trial; you won't be charged during it. At checkout we show the date your trial ends and the price you will pay after it. Unless you cancel before the trial ends, your paid plan starts on that date and your card is charged the price shown at checkout (currently $29 per month for Basic Professional), then each month until you cancel. If you cancel during the trial, you won't be charged, and you can keep using the trial until it ends. We may limit trials to one per person, and change or end trial offers at any time; a change doesn't affect a trial you have already started.

Changing plans

• Upgrading (Basic to Plus, or monthly to yearly) happens right away. We charge your card on file the difference for the rest of your current period, as shown before you confirm.
• Moving from Plus to Basic happens at your next renewal. You keep Plus until then, and you can undo the change before it happens. Features that only Plus has, such as student logins and home practice, stop at that renewal.

Offers, discounts and free months

Discounts, promo codes, free months and other offers come with their own conditions, shown when we make the offer (for example, how long they last and which plans they apply to). An offer can't be exchanged for cash and, unless it says so, can't be combined with another.

Refunds

Generally, payments are final and we don't give refunds or credits for partly used periods, unless the law where you live requires it or Section 23 gives you a right to cancel. If you think you were charged by mistake, write to support@smartyearsapps.com and we'll look into it.

5.Organization licenses

Schools, districts, clinics, therapy companies and other organizations buy Smarty Ears Online as a yearly license for a number of educator seats, from a quote, usually paid by purchase order and invoice.

• The quote and invoice set the number of seats, the plan, the dates and the price. Payment is due by the date on the invoice. If an invoice isn't paid on time, we may pause the organization's access until it is.
• Seats. The organization's administrator gives seats to its staff and can move them. Each seat is for one person.
• Renewal. An organization license ends on its end date unless the organization renews it. We send a renewal quote before then.
• Administrators manage the organization's staff, seats and licenses, and see the goals and progress of the organization's students. They don't see an educator's session notes unless that educator shares them.
• Complimentary licenses, such as University Grant licenses, follow the conditions we confirm when we approve them, including what happens when they end.

6.Student information

Smarty Ears Online keeps the student information you enter, such as names, goals, session results, notes, reports and recordings, so you can do your work. Our Privacy Policy explains in detail how we handle it.

Your responsibilities

• Only add students you are allowed to serve, and only the information you need for your work with them.
• Make sure you, or your school or organization, have any permission the law or your workplace requires, including before you switch on a student login (for school use, or with a parent's or guardian's permission).
• Only share a student with people who need to see that student's information, and keep printed login cards and reports safe.

Our promises

• Student information belongs to you or to the school or organization you work for. We use it only to provide the Service to you, as our Privacy Policy explains.
• We never sell personal information, to anyone, and we don't use student information for advertising.
• Our team can see student information only to help you, keep the Service working and safe, or when the law requires it.

7.When access ends

Before we delete any student information because access has ended, we always email first.

• Individual plans. When your plan ends, we keep your students for at least 30 days. We email you at least 30 days before we delete them, with reminders, so you can choose a plan and keep them. We don't delete a student who is still shared with someone who has access.
• Organizations. When an organization's license ends, we keep its students for 90 days. We email the administrator at least 30 days before we delete them, with reminders, and confirm in writing when they have been deleted. An organization can also ask us in writing to delete its students sooner.
• Educators who leave an organization and buy their own plan keep the students they own. An organization's written request to delete its students still covers the students they had while they were part of it.

Download any reports you want to keep before access ends. Once deleted, student information can't be recovered.

8.AI writing tools

Some features, such as the document writer, use an AI service (OpenAI) to draft text from the information you choose. We don't send students' names to it, and our agreement with the provider doesn't allow it to train its models on what we send.

AI drafts can be wrong or incomplete. Read, check and edit every draft before you use or share it; you are responsible for what you use. Plans may include a limited number of new documents each month, shown in the app.

9.Professional judgment

Smarty Ears Online supports professionals; it doesn't replace them. It isn't a medical device and doesn't diagnose or treat any condition. Activity results, reports, goal suggestions and AI drafts are information for a qualified professional to interpret. Decisions about evaluation, eligibility, goals, therapy and care remain yours and your team's.

If you provide therapy online, following the rules of your license, your state and your workplace (for example about teletherapy, supervision and records) is your responsibility.

10.What you may do with the Service

While you have access, we give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Service for your professional or educational work with your students, clients and their families. You may print and download the reports, documents and materials it makes for that work.

Smarty Ears Online, and everything in it (software, activities, games, pictures, symbols, recordings, videos, word lists, goal bank and designs), belongs to Smarty Ears or the companies that license them to us, and is protected by copyright, trademark and other laws. Other companies' trademarks mentioned on the Service belong to them and don't mean they endorse us.

11.Rules for using the Service

Please don't:

• Break any law, or use the Service to harm, exploit or expose children to inappropriate content, or to ask them for personal information.
• Copy, resell, rent, sublicense or redistribute the Service or its content, or use it to build a competing product.
• Decompile or reverse engineer the Service, or get around its security, sign-in limits or plan limits.
• Use robots, scrapers or other automated tools to access or copy the Service.
• Upload viruses or anything harmful, overload the Service, or interfere with other people's use of it.
• Pretend to be someone else, send spam, or infringe anyone's rights.

12.Copyright complaints (DMCA)

We respect other people's intellectual property. If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, send our designated copyright agent a written notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512) by email to contact@smartyearsapps.com or by mail to:

Smarty Ears, LLC
ATTN: Copyright Agent
3839 McKinney Avenue, Suite 155-2129
Dallas, Texas 75204-3839

Your notice must include: (1) identification of the copyrighted work you say is infringed; (2) identification of the material you say is infringing, with enough information (such as web addresses) for us to find it; (3) your name, postal address, telephone number and email address; (4) a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; (5) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act for the owner; and (6) your physical or electronic signature (typing your full legal name is enough). A notice that doesn't meet 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) may not be effective, and knowingly false claims can make you liable for damages under § 512(f).

Counter-notices. If you believe material you posted was removed by mistake, you may send our agent a counter-notice with: your signature; identification of the material and where it appeared; your name, address, telephone number and email; a statement under penalty of perjury that you believe in good faith it was removed by mistake or misidentification; and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for your address (or, outside the United States, any judicial district where the Service may be found) and will accept service from the person who made the complaint. We may restore the material if the complainant doesn't start a court action within ten (10) business days of receiving a copy of the counter-notice.

We may suspend or close the accounts of people who repeatedly infringe copyrights.

13.Feedback and stories

We may ask about your experience with the Service. If you send us ideas, suggestions or feedback, you agree that we may use them to improve the Service without owing you anything for them.

If you share a story about using Smarty Ears Online, we publish it only with your permission. When a story came with a thank-you from us, such as a free month, we say so wherever we publish it. Any honest story is welcome, not only positive ones.

Anything you post on the Service or our social media pages must not include material you don't have the right to share, and we may remove it.

14.Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use and protect it, who can see it, and how long we keep it. It is part of these terms.

15.Links and other companies

The Service links to, and works with, services run by other companies, such as Stripe for payments. We aren't responsible for their content or practices; their own terms apply to them.

16.Changes to the Service

We keep improving Smarty Ears Online, so activities, features and designs change over time. We may add, change or remove features, and the Service may sometimes be unavailable, for example for maintenance. We aren't liable if any part of the Service is unavailable for a time.

17.Suspending or closing accounts

You can stop using the Service and cancel your plan at any time (Section 4). We may suspend or close an account, without refund, if it breaks these terms, puts students or other users at risk, or doesn't pay what it owes. When an account closes, the licenses in these terms end. Sections that by their nature should continue (such as ownership, warranties, liability, disputes and the law that applies) continue afterwards.

18.No warranties

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", AND SMARTY EARS DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. THIS DOES NOT AFFECT ANY WARRANTIES THAT CANNOT BE EXCLUDED OR LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.

19.Limits on our liability

IN NO EVENT WILL SMARTY EARS, ITS AFFILIATES OR THEIR LICENSORS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, OFFICERS OR DIRECTORS BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, UNDER ANY LEGAL THEORY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE SERVICE, ANY WEBSITES LINKED TO IT, OR ANY CONTENT OR SERVICES OBTAINED THROUGH IT, INCLUDING ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOSS OF REVENUE, PROFITS, BUSINESS, GOODWILL OR DATA, WHETHER CAUSED BY TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), BREACH OF CONTRACT OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF FORESEEABLE. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY, AND YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY, FOR ANY CLAIM OF ANY KIND UNDER THESE TERMS WILL NOT BE MORE THAN THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US UNDER THESE TERMS IN THE FOUR (4) MONTHS BEFORE THE LOSS OR DAMAGE.

Some states don't allow limits on implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain damages. If those laws apply to you, some or all of these limits may not apply, and you may have additional rights.

20.If someone makes a claim because of your use

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Smarty Ears and its affiliates, licensors and service providers, and their officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, suppliers, successors and assigns, from claims, liabilities, damages, judgments, awards, losses, costs and fees (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your breaking these terms or your use of the Service, including any information you enter without the permission it needs and any infringement of someone else's rights.

21.Settling disputes

Most problems can be solved by talking. If you have a dispute with us about the Service or these terms (a "Dispute"), you agree to first try to settle it informally, in good faith, for at least sixty (60) days before either of us starts an arbitration. The sixty days start when one of us receives the other's written notice of the Dispute. Send notices to contact@smartyearsapps.com or by registered mail to Smarty Ears, LLC, 3839 McKinney Avenue, Suite 155-2129, Dallas, Texas 75204-3839. We may send notices to the email address on your account or the one you gave us.

If the Dispute isn't resolved that way, either of us may choose to have it finally and exclusively resolved by binding arbitration, and that choice binds the other. This means you and Smarty Ears give up the right to go to court and to have a Dispute heard by a jury. The arbitration will be run by JAMS under its Comprehensive Arbitration Rules and will take place in Dallas County, Texas.

22.The law that applies

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas and of the United States of America, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. You agree to personal jurisdiction in Texas for any Dispute, and that no arbitration, lawsuit or other proceeding will be brought anywhere other than Dallas County, Texas.

23.Cancellation rights in some states

California, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. You may cancel your subscription, without penalty or obligation, at any time before midnight of the third business day after the date you subscribed. To cancel within that time, email support@smartyearsapps.com, or mail or deliver a signed and dated notice saying that you are cancelling, with your name and the email address you used to sign up, to:

Smarty Ears, LLC
ATTN: Cancellations
3839 McKinney Avenue, Suite 155-2129
Dallas, Texas 75204-3839

If you die before the end of your subscription period, your estate is entitled to a refund of the part of any payment that covers the period after your death. If you become disabled, so that you can't use the Service, before the end of your subscription period, you are entitled to a refund of the part of any payment that covers the period after your disability, by telling us at support@smartyearsapps.com or at the address above.

California. Under California Civil Code § 1789.3, you may report complaints to the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs, in writing at 1625 North Market Blvd., Suite N112, Sacramento, CA 95834, or by telephone at (800) 952-5210.

North Carolina. You may review the North Carolina Buyer's Rights at the North Carolina Attorney General's consumer protection pages.

24.Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, for example when the Service or the law changes. When we do, we change the date at the top of this page. For a significant change, we email account holders before it takes effect. If you keep using the Service after a change takes effect, you accept the new terms.

25.Other legal terms

• Waiver. If we don't enforce part of these terms, that doesn't waive our right to enforce it, or any other part, later.
• Severability. If a court or arbitrator finds part of these terms invalid, that part is limited or removed only as much as needed, and the rest stays in effect.
• Entire agreement. These terms, together with the policies they mention, are the whole agreement between you and Smarty Ears about what they cover, and replace earlier versions.
• Assignment. You may not transfer these terms or your rights under them without our written permission. We may transfer ours, for example to a company that takes over our business.

26.Contact us

Help with Smarty Ears Online: support@smartyearsapps.com. Privacy questions: privacy@smartyearsapps.com. Legal notices: contact@smartyearsapps.com or by registered mail to:

Smarty Ears, LLC
3839 McKinney Avenue, Suite 155-2129
Dallas, Texas 75204-3839

Phone: (214) 253-9196. Smarty Ears Online is operated by Smarty Ears, LLC, a Texas company.