Terms, with the important parts up front.

1. Agreement, scope, and eligibility

These Terms of Service (the Terms) are an agreement between you and the individual who operates the Service as a California sole proprietorship under the trade name Quester (Quester, we, or us). They govern the Quester application at app.quester.tech, our website at www.quester.tech, and related services we provide (collectively, the Service).

By creating an account, accepting an invitation, purchasing a plan, or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

You must be at least 18 years old and legally able to enter this agreement. If you use Quester for a university, employer, laboratory, or other organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization, and you includes that organization. A signed order form, institutional agreement, or data processing addendum controls over these Terms to the extent of a direct conflict.

2. Accounts, workspaces, and collaborators

• Accurate account information. Provide current information, keep your credentials and sign-in links secure, and tell us promptly at support@quester.tech if you suspect unauthorized access.
• One person per account. You may not share an individual account. You are responsible for activity performed through your account unless you promptly report that it was compromised.
• Workspace roles matter. Owners and administrators can invite or remove members, assign roles, manage billing, transfer projects, and control workspace settings. You are responsible for choosing appropriate collaborators and permissions.
• Organization-managed accounts. An organization that provides your account may administer the workspace and access, transfer, export, restrict, or delete its content as its agreement and your role permit. Direct questions about those decisions to the organization.

3. What Quester provides

Subject to these Terms and the limits of your plan, Quester gives you a revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service for your own research, teaching, and authorized institutional work during the term of your account.

The Service includes tools for organizing sources, notes, research questions, models, citations, projects, collaboration, exports, and optional AI-assisted analysis and guidance. Features, usage limits, previews, and plan availability can differ by account and can change as the product develops. We may improve, replace, or discontinue features. If a change materially reduces the core functionality of a paid plan during its current term, we will provide reasonable advance notice when practicable.

4. Your Research Content

Research Content means the projects, files, sources, extracted text, notes, questions, models, connections, messages, prompts, and other material placed in or created through a Quester workspace.

You keep ownership

As between you and Quester, you retain all rights you have in your Research Content. These Terms do not transfer ownership of it to us.

The limited permission we need to operate Quester

You grant Quester and its service providers a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, format, index, transmit, analyze, display, and create technical or AI-assisted transformations of Research Content solely as needed to provide, secure, maintain, support, and comply with law for the Service. This license lasts only as long as needed for those purposes, including the retention periods described in our Privacy Policy.

This license does not permit us to use Research Content to train Quester or a general-purpose AI model. We do not make your Research Content public unless you direct us to share or export it.

Your responsibilities

You represent that you have the rights and permissions needed to place Research Content in Quester and allow us to process it as described above. Respect copyright, database rights, confidentiality duties, consent requirements, licenses, embargoes, and publisher or library access terms. Your ability to read a source does not always include a right to upload, share, or republish it.

Do not upload regulated or highly sensitive personal data unless Quester and the responsible organization have agreed in writing to the safeguards required for it. This includes protected health information, student education records, government identifiers, financial-account credentials, and identifiable raw research-participant data. You are responsible for minimizing, de-identifying, and lawfully handling personal data in your Research Content.

5. AI-assisted features and academic integrity

Quester can send relevant Research Content and instructions to an AI provider to perform a feature you request. You can disable AI for a project. Our Privacy Policy explains the data flow and provider restrictions.

• Review every output. AI-generated material can be inaccurate, incomplete, biased, outdated, or misleading, and can invent quotations, citations, findings, or references. Verify it against primary sources before relying on or sharing it.
• You remain responsible. You are responsible for your research design, analysis, attribution, disclosures, submissions, and decisions, including compliance with your institution's AI, authorship, academic-integrity, and research-ethics rules.
• Do not misrepresent authorship or evidence. Do not use Quester to fabricate data, sources, peer review, participant statements, credentials, or original work, or to conceal uses of AI that you are required to disclose.
• Outputs may not be unique. Other users can receive similar output. We do not promise that an output is copyrightable, original, non-infringing, or suitable for publication. To the extent permitted by law, Quester claims no ownership in the output generated specifically for you.

6. Acceptable use

You may not use the Service, or help someone else use it, to:

• break the law, violate another person's rights, or breach a contract or duty;
• harass, threaten, exploit, deceive, discriminate against, or impersonate another person;
• upload malware, interfere with the Service, probe or bypass security, gain unauthorized access, or disrupt another user's work;
• scrape the Service, evade rate or plan limits, automate access except through an interface we provide, or burden our infrastructure unreasonably;
• reverse engineer or attempt to discover source code or underlying model components, except where applicable law expressly permits it despite this restriction;
• resell, sublicense, or provide the Service to third parties outside your authorized workspace, or use it to build or train a competing product or model;
• make decisions about a person's eligibility for healthcare, education, employment, credit, housing, insurance, legal services, or another high-impact service without lawful, meaningful human review; or
• publish or submit fabricated, plagiarized, deceptively attributed, or otherwise fraudulent research or academic work.

Reasonable, good-faith security research requires our prior written authorization. If you discover a vulnerability, report it privately to support@quester.tech and do not access, alter, or retain other users' data.

7. Third-party content and services

Quester depends on service providers for functions such as authentication, cloud hosting, file storage, payments, email, product analytics, error monitoring, and AI processing. It also retrieves scholarly metadata from services such as Crossref, OpenAlex, and Open Library. Our Privacy Policy identifies relevant data-processing relationships.

Third-party websites, source repositories, integrations, citation records, and linked content are controlled by their providers and may have separate terms. We do not endorse or warrant third-party content, licenses, availability, metadata, or services. Changes or outages outside our control can affect related Quester features.

8. Free access, paid plans, and billing

Plan terms

Current self-service plans and limits are described on our pricing page and at checkout. Department and institutional service may be governed by a separate order form. We may offer previews, trials, promotions, or legacy pricing with additional terms. Unless we say otherwise, those offers are personal, limited, and can end or revert to the standard plan when the stated period or eligibility ends.

Charges, taxes, and renewal

Paid self-service plans are billed through Stripe in advance on the monthly or annual cycle you select. You authorize Quester and Stripe to charge the payment method on file for the disclosed price, applicable taxes, and any authorized prorated plan change. Subscriptions automatically renew for the same billing period until canceled. Keep your billing and payment information current.

Cancellation

You can cancel a self-service subscription online from the billing controls in your Quester workspace, which open Stripe's customer portal, or by contacting support@quester.tech. The portal will show when the cancellation takes effect. When cancellation is scheduled for the end of the current billing period, paid access continues until then and the workspace subsequently returns to the applicable free plan. Deleting an owner account or its workspace also cancels its active billing, but you should not rely on deletion as a substitute for reviewing the billing portal confirmation.

Refunds, plan changes, and price changes

Except where required by law or expressly stated at purchase, charges are non-refundable and we do not provide credits for a partially used billing period. A plan change may take effect immediately and create a prorated charge or credit, as shown before you confirm it. Contact us promptly if you believe a charge was made in error.

We may change future prices. We will provide legally required notice before a changed price applies to a renewal and, where required, request your consent. You can cancel before the new price takes effect. We may restrict paid features for overdue amounts after providing notice and a reasonable opportunity to update payment information.

9. Suspension, termination, and data after departure

You can stop using Quester at any time. You can delete eligible projects, leave or transfer shared workspaces, request account deletion, and cancel a paid plan through the controls described above. Export Research Content you need before deleting an account, project, or workspace.

We may restrict or suspend access when reasonably necessary to protect the Service or its users, investigate suspected abuse, comply with law, address nonpayment, or respond to a material breach of these Terms. We may terminate an account for a material or repeated breach. When practicable, we will provide notice and a reasonable opportunity to cure or export Research Content, but we may act immediately for security, legal, fraud, or safety reasons.

Our Privacy Policy explains deletion timing and necessary retention. Content in a shared or organization-managed workspace can remain available to that workspace after a member leaves. Terms that by their nature should survive (including ownership, payment obligations, disclaimers, liability limits, and dispute terms) survive termination.

10. Quester's intellectual property and feedback

Quester and its licensors own the Service, including its software, design, branding, documentation, and technology, excluding your Research Content and third-party content. No rights are granted except the limited right to use the Service under these Terms. You may not use Quester's names, logos, or marks in a way that suggests endorsement or affiliation without written permission.

If you voluntarily send product feedback or suggestions, you grant us a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free right to use them without restriction or compensation. Feedback does not include your Research Content, unpublished findings, or confidential material you identify as such.

11. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available.” Quester disclaims implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, and any warranties arising from course of dealing or usage of trade. We do not warrant that the Service or any AI output, metadata, citation, export, analysis, or third-party content will be uninterrupted, secure, error-free, complete, accurate, or suitable for your purpose.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions. In that case, the exclusions apply only to the extent permitted, and nothing in these Terms limits a non-waivable consumer guarantee or statutory right.

12. Limits on liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Quester's operator, employees, contractors, and licensors will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages; lost profits, revenue, goodwill, or business opportunities; or loss, corruption, or interruption of data, even if advised that those damages were possible.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the aggregate liability of Quester's operator and those parties for all claims arising from or relating to the Service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid Quester for the Service during the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim or (b) US $100.

These limitations do not apply to liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including where applicable liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, willful misconduct, or death or personal injury caused by negligence. Each limitation applies only to the maximum extent allowed in your jurisdiction.

13. Governing law and disputes

Before filing a formal claim, you and Quester agree to try in good faith for 30 days to resolve it by sending a written description to the other party. Send notices to support@quester.tech. This informal process does not prevent either party from seeking urgent injunctive relief or pursuing a claim before a limitations period expires.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. You and Quester consent to personal jurisdiction and venue in the state and federal courts located in California that have jurisdiction over the dispute. If you are a consumer, this paragraph does not deprive you of mandatory rights or a forum available under the law where you live.

These Terms do not require individual arbitration or waive the right to participate in a class action.

14. General terms

• Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any applicable order form or signed agreement are the entire agreement about the Service and replace prior understandings about it.
• Order of precedence. A signed institutional agreement or order form comes first for its subject matter, followed by these Terms and then referenced policies, unless the document expressly says otherwise.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, or by operation of law, while remaining subject to applicable privacy obligations.
• Severability and waiver. If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary and the rest remains effective. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver.
• No third-party beneficiaries. These Terms do not give rights to anyone other than you and Quester, except as expressly stated.
• Events beyond reasonable control. Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events it could not reasonably control, though this does not excuse your payment obligations for Service already provided.

15. Changes, notices, and contact

We may update these Terms as the Service or law changes. We will revise the date above and, for a material change, provide reasonable advance notice by email, in the Service, or on this page. Material changes apply prospectively from their stated effective date. If you do not agree to an update, you must stop using the Service and cancel any subscription before the change takes effect. Continued use after that date means you accept the updated Terms.

We may send operational and legal notices to the email associated with your account or through the Service. You are responsible for keeping that email current.

Questions, cancellation requests, billing concerns, and legal notices can be sent to support@quester.tech.

Quester is currently operated as a sole proprietorship from California, United States.