Refund policy

When refunds apply, how to claim them, and the cooling-off period. The formal terms are in the Terms of Service; this page is the working explainer.

The short version

Three refund paths:

1. Failed renders refund automatically. No action needed.
2. Job cancellations refund per the cancellation schedule. Auto-credited.
3. Anything else is an email path to hello@cuethescene.com. Reply within a day or two during UK working hours.

Plus the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 give you a 14-day cooling-off period on subscription sign-up, covered below.

Failed renders

If the pipeline errors before producing a renderable MP4 (Claude rate limit, ElevenLabs failure, Shotstack failure, footage source unavailable, unknown error), the credit charge for that job is refunded automatically. The refund posts to your balance within a few minutes of the failure, logged as refund in the ledger.

You don't need to email. The pipeline's failure-handling job fires the refund as part of the same Inngest function that sets the job status to failed.

If the failure happens mid-render after Shotstack has started (rare), the render-stage portion of the charge is NOT refunded because Shotstack has already billed us for the partial render. The outline / script / voice / footage portions still refund. The refund amount on a partial-render failure is shown on the job-status page.

Job cancellations

Cancel from the dashboard's project row menu or the editor's "Cancel job" button. The refund schedule:

Cancelled at	Refunded
Before outline lands	Full credit refund
After outline, before script	Refund minus outline cost (10 credits dry-run, or the outline-fraction of the full charge)
After script, before render	Refund minus script + voice costs already incurred
After render starts (Shotstack submitted)	Render portion NOT refunded; everything else refunded

Refunds post immediately to your credit balance. No support email needed.

If you cancelled because the result wasn't what you wanted (not because the pipeline failed), see "Dissatisfied with the output" below.

Dissatisfied with the output

The pipeline produced an MP4 but you'd rather not publish it. You don't have to publish a video to consume the credits, they're already spent at admission time, and the MP4 sits on the dashboard until you delete or publish it.

Separately from anything we do as a goodwill gesture, your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 always apply: if a rendered video is not of satisfactory quality, not fit for purpose, not as described, or materially off the brief you submitted, you're entitled to have it re-generated at no charge and, if that can't be done in a reasonable time, a price reduction up to a full refund. That's the floor, and it's in the Terms of Service.

On top of that floor, if you genuinely think the output was below the standard the pipeline should have delivered (a published-quality video, not a draft to refine), drop the job ID and a one-sentence explanation to hello@cuethescene.com within seven days of the render landing. This part is a goodwill review at our discretion, not a contractual entitlement. We review case-by-case. Common patterns we refund on:

• The script wandered off the brief's named angle in a substantive way.
• Voice synthesis came back with multiple unrecoverable artefacts.
• Footage chose clips that don't match the script's content.
• The render output has a technical defect (corrupted file, missing audio track, mismatched aspect ratio).

Common patterns we don't refund on:

• Subjective tone preference ("I wanted more energy"). The brief's tone field is the lever for this.
• Single-scene fixes ("one clip was wrong"). Use the editor's per-scene regenerate; the per-scene cost is small.
• "It read AI-generated to me". The pipeline produces AI-generated output, the polish is what differentiates it; if a specific aspect read poorly, name it and we'll dig in.

Unused subscription credits at cancellation

If you cancel your subscription mid-month, your plan stays active until the end of the current billing period. The credits you've already received for that month stay spendable.

Unused credits at the end of the cancelled billing period don't automatically refund. They sit on your balance and roll over for 30 days under the standard rollover rules (see Credits explained), then expire if unused.

If you cancelled because of dissatisfaction with the service AND you have a significant balance you didn't spend, drop a note to hello@cuethescene.com within 14 days of the cancellation. We'll review case-by-case; refunds are at our discretion outside the failed-render / cancelled-job paths.

Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, 14-day cooling-off

UK law gives you a 14-day cooling-off period on subscription services. Within 14 days of your first subscription sign-up:

• You can cancel for a full refund of the subscription fee.
• The cooling-off applies to the subscription, not to credits already spent generating videos. If you submitted briefs and the pipeline produced rendered videos within the 14-day window, the credit charges for those videos are NOT refundable (you consumed digital content, which waives the cooling-off for that specific consumption under regulation 37 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013). You don't need any particular form of words to cancel: any clear statement by email, from your account settings, or by post is fine, and the Terms of Service carry the model cancellation form if you'd rather use it.
• The unspent portion of the subscription fee is refundable: the fraction of credits you didn't use, valued at the subscription rate.

Email hello@cuethescene.com with the subject "Cooling-off cancellation" within 14 days of your first subscription. We'll process within 5 working days.

Cooling-off does NOT reset on plan changes (upgrade / downgrade) or re-subscription after a cancel. It's a one-time-per-customer right.

Founding-member refunds

Founding-member slots are permanent (per the account-and-sign-in note). If you cancel and re-subscribe later, your founding-member slot and the 30 percent discount return automatically.

If you go through the 14-day cooling-off, your founding-member slot is RELEASED back to the pool. Re-subscribing after a cooling-off cancellation does NOT bring the slot back, and if the cap (100 slots) has been hit by then, the founding-member price is unavailable.

The framing: cooling-off treats the original transaction as undone, slots and discounts are part of that transaction.

Disputes

If you disagree with a refund decision, the escalation path is:

1. Reply to the original email with "Please escalate". The reply goes to Carl directly.
2. If we still can't resolve it between us, you can get free independent consumer advice from Citizens Advice (citizensadvice.org.uk) or your local Trading Standards. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is voluntary for both of us unless we have separately agreed to use a provider; if you would like to use a certified ADR provider, you can find one on the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) approved list.

CueTheScene is a trading name of MARKETEZEAI LTD (Companies House 16787865). UK consumer law applies; the company is registered at 10 Shaw Green Crescent, Euxton, Chorley, PR7 6QR.

What's next

Credits explained covers the credit model and ledger reasons.

Pay-as-you-go covers the auto-PAYG mechanism + credit packs.

Plans and pricing covers the subscription plans + founding-member offer.

Cheers,
Carl