Terms of Service

1. Service Description

Comment Coach is a web application that helps users prepare comments for study group meetings. The service provides AI-powered coaching, bilingual support (English/Spanish), comment drafting, sharing features, live audio capture with transcription, and bilingual reading tools.

The AI coaching features use third-party AI services (Anthropic Claude) to analyze and improve your comments. Live transcription uses Deepgram for real-time speech recognition. By using these features, you acknowledge that your content is processed by external services as described in our Privacy Policy.

2. Account Registration

To use Comment Coach, you must create an account with a valid email address. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and for all activities under your account.

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. If you are under 18, you must have parental or guardian consent.

3. Account Tiers & Trial

Free Trial: New users receive a 30-day trial of Plus features. The trial starts automatically on account creation. No credit card is required. The trial cannot be extended or restarted. After 30 days, the account reverts to the Free plan.

Free: Comment preparation without AI coaching. Write your own comments, use timed practice, and live capture (speech-to-text). Limited to 3 subjects. AI features are not available unless you provide your own API key.

Plus (paid): Full AI coaching, comment generation, sharing, bilingual review, portfolio, export, research threads, live intelligence, audio transcription, and unlimited subjects.

Paid subscriptions are billed monthly or annually through Stripe. You may cancel at any time; access continues until the end of the billing period. No refunds are provided for partial billing periods.

You may add your own API key (Anthropic, OpenAI, or Deepgram) to access AI features on the Free plan. Keys are stored in your browser only and are never sent to our servers for storage.

4. AI-Assisted Coaching & Transcription

Comment Coach uses AI (Anthropic Claude) to provide coaching suggestions, score comments, generate alternatives, and translate content. Live transcription uses Deepgram for real-time speech recognition. You acknowledge that:

• AI suggestions are not professional advice and should be reviewed before use
• Your comment content is sent to Anthropic's API for processing
• When using live transcription, audio from your microphone is streamed to Deepgram's API. Audio is not retained after processing and is not used for model training
• Transcriptions may not always be fully accurate, especially in noisy environments or with specialized vocabulary
• AI outputs may not always be accurate or appropriate
• You retain full ownership of your original comments and transcriptions
• You are responsible for obtaining appropriate consent before recording audio in any setting. The app will remind you of this obligation but cannot verify compliance
• When using your own API key (BYOK), you are responsible for safeguarding your key and for any charges incurred on your API provider account. Comment Coach transmits your key only to process your requests and does not store it on our servers. Comment Coach is not liable for unauthorized use of your API key.

5. Sharing Features

Plus users can share comments via public links, QR codes, and direct user-to-user sharing. When you share content:

• Public share links are viewable by anyone with the URL (no login required)
• You control what is shared — sharing is per-item and opt-in
• You can revoke any share at any time
• Recipients may react to, leave feedback on, or "Build on" your shared content
• "Build on this" creates an independent copy in the recipient's account with attribution

6. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Use the service for any unlawful purpose
• Share content that is abusive, harassing, or inappropriate
• Attempt to access other users' accounts or data
• Interfere with or disrupt the service
• Use automated tools to scrape or abuse the service
• Circumvent rate limits or feature restrictions

7. Your Content

You retain ownership of all comments, notes, and content you create in Comment Coach. We do not claim any intellectual property rights over your content.

You grant us a limited license to store, process, display, and transmit your content as necessary to provide the service (including sending content to AI providers for coaching and displaying shared content to authorized viewers).

8. Data and Privacy

Your use of Comment Coach is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which describes how we collect, use, and protect your information.

9. Third-Party Services

Comment Coach integrates with the following third-party services:

• Anthropic (Claude AI) — processes your comment content for coaching, scoring, generation, and translation
• Deepgram — processes audio for live transcription (audio is not retained after processing; mip_opt_out is always enabled)
• OpenAI (Whisper) — processes uploaded audio files for transcription (BYOK only — requires your own API key)
• Stripe — processes subscription payments (we never see or store your card numbers)
• Resend — delivers transactional emails (verification, password reset, share notifications)
• Fly.io — provides application hosting and infrastructure

10. Limitation of Liability

Comment Coach is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. We are not liable for any damages arising from your use of the service, including but not limited to loss of data, service interruptions, or reliance on AI-generated content.

Our total liability to you for any claims arising from your use of the service shall not exceed the amount you paid us in the twelve months preceding the claim.

11. Account Termination

You may delete your account at any time through the Settings page. Upon deletion, all your data (subjects, comments, coaching history, shared links, feedback, notifications) is permanently removed.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms.

12. Changes to These Terms

We may update these terms from time to time. We will notify users of material changes via email or in-app notification. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance of the new terms.

13. Governing Law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, United States, without regard to conflict of law principles.

14. Contact

For questions about these terms, contact us at contact@comment.coach.