If a chat analyser ends your access, where money goes
Portraitor's terms page writes down three different endings, and the money settles differently in each. A Pass bought in the iPhone app settles differently again.
If a chat analyser ends your access, the most it can take from you is allowance you have not spent yet. Portraitor runs no accounts and keeps none of your conversation, so there is no library on its side to lose. The terms page says where the unspent money goes, and it says something different in each of three cases.
Section 13 of the Portraitor terms, version 1.3, writes down three endings: access ended because you breached the terms or used the service unlawfully, a Pass ended for any other reason, and the service taken offline. Each settles differently.
A fourth difference cuts across all three. A Pass bought on the website and a Pass bought in the iPhone app do not settle the same way, because different companies took the money. The terms page says so in the same sentence that promises the refund.
An ending can only take unused allowance
It is worth being clear first about what an ending has nothing to reach. The privacy policy, version 1.3, says the service does not operate user accounts. It says Portraitor does not store the content of your conversation, and that conversation text is never written to its database, its backups or its logs. On the website your portrait history sits in your own browser’s storage; in the iPhone app your portraits, and the masked conversations they were made from, are saved only on your phone, where the app keeps your most recent 100.
None of that is held by Portraitor, so an ending cannot remove it. How the Pass works without an account goes through what a Pass is instead of a login, and where your portrait is saved covers the browser and phone storage in more detail.
What the privacy policy does say Portraitor holds is narrow. Payment records are kept for seven years, because tax law requires it, and the policy says they contain no name, email address or card details. A Pass record is retained indefinitely, so the monthly allowance works and a cancelled Pass can be reinstated, and the policy says it contains no information identifying you.
That leaves money as the only thing an ending can be about. The visible prices are $10 for one portrait and $19 a month for a Pass of ten portraits, and the home page says the ten come back on your renewal date each month, with unused ones lost rather than added on top. So the question is what happens to a month you have paid for and not finished.
Breach and unlawful use: ended without notice
Section 13 opens: We may suspend or end your access without notice if you breach these Terms or use the Service unlawfully. No notice period is attached to that sentence, and no refund is attached to it either. The refund promise in the same paragraph begins with the words If we end a Pass for any other reason, so it is written to cover endings other than this one.
Section 5 is where the terms set out what you undertake not to do. Two of those undertakings are about the conversation and the portrait rather than about payment: not to submit a conversation you do not have permission to analyse, which you confirm before paying, and not to use a portrait, or anything derived from one, to make or support a decision about a person’s employment, education, housing, credit, insurance, immigration status, or access to any service or benefit. The rest of section 5 covers surveillance, stalking, harassment and harm, unlawful or infringing content, circumventing security or reverse engineering the service, overloading it with automated systems, and reaching it through browser automation or scripted tools.
The decision rule is the one most likely to catch an ordinary buyer by surprise, because it is about a use that feels reasonable rather than about misconduct. What you cannot use a chat analysis for lists it with the rest of the acceptable use section.
Section 13 adds that on termination your right to use the service stops, and that clauses which should survive, named in the section as liability, indemnification and governing law, continue to apply.
Any other reason: the unused part of the month
For every other reason, section 13 says: If we end a Pass for any other reason, we will refund the unused part of the current month. That is a refund written into the terms for a case where the ending was not your decision.
It is a different mechanism from cancelling. Section 6.2 says cancellation takes effect at the end of the monthly period you have already paid for, that your Pass stays usable until that date, and that it will not renew afterwards. Nothing is handed back there, because you keep the month. Section 13 hands money back instead, because the month is being cut short. The cancellation side is covered in how the monthly Pass renews and cancels.
It is also separate from the statutory refund a buyer might expect. Section 7.1 says the 14 day cancellation period a United Kingdom or European Union consumer would ordinarily have does not apply here, because a portrait and the allowance of a Pass are supplied as soon as you pay and you ask for them to be supplied straight away when you confirm the order. The same clause says this does not stop you ending a Pass so that it does not renew. The refund in section 13 is therefore one the terms write for themselves, not one section 7.1 preserves. The refunds that do run on their own are set out in when a chat analysis portrait is refunded.
The iPhone app settles through Apple instead
The same sentence that promises the refund carves out the iPhone app: a Pass bought in the iPhone app, which we cannot refund, instead stays usable until the end of the month that has been paid for and does not renew. The settlement is time rather than money.
The reason is in section 6.3. A Pass bought on the website is billed by Stripe and managed on the website from the Pass panel. A Pass bought in the app is billed by Apple and managed in your Apple Account settings, including when you use it on the website. Section 6.3 says refunds for purchases made in the app are decided by Apple, that you can request one at Apple’s own page, and that Portraitor cannot issue refunds for App Store purchases itself.
So one Pass code can run in two places while only one company can reverse the charge on it. That is a fact about how the product is assembled rather than a policy choice, and it is why section 13 writes two outcomes into one sentence. The privacy policy shows the other half of the same wiring: for a Pass bought in the app, it says Apple tells Portraitor when the Pass renews, is cancelled, expires or is refunded. Portraitor learns about that ending from Apple.
Which company holds your card is worth knowing before you buy rather than after. Where the card goes when you pay for a chat analysis follows the payment path on the website.
If the service goes offline mid purchase
The second paragraph of section 13 is about the service going away rather than your access: We may take the Service offline for maintenance or in an emergency. Any purchase interrupted by this is refunded automatically under section 7.2.
Section 7.2 is the clause that already covers a portrait that cannot be made. It says that if your portrait cannot be generated, or the removal of identifying details on your device cannot complete, nothing is transmitted and the charge is reversed automatically, and that you do not need to ask. It then splits the same way section 13 does. For a Pass, the portrait is returned to your allowance instead of money being returned. For a purchase made in the iPhone app, the purchase stays available for your next portrait instead.
Three ways to pay, three settlements, one event. The pattern across sections 13 and 7.2 is that the terms settle in whatever unit you bought in: money for a one off website purchase, allowance for a website Pass, and an unused purchase or a paid month for anything bought through Apple.
What the pages do not settle
Several questions this raises are not answered on the four pages Portraitor publishes, and the honest answer is that they stop short.
Neither section 13 nor section 7 says how the unused part of a month is worked out. Section 6.2 says unused portraits expire at the end of the monthly period and do not carry forward, so the allowance is not a balance that rolls; whether the refund is measured in days remaining, portraits remaining, or something else is not written down. Nor is there a stated time by which the refund arrives.
Section 13 says access may be suspended or ended without notice in the breach case, and the pages do not describe a route for questioning that decision. Section 14 asks you to write to the published address before starting proceedings, and says plainly that this is a request and not a precondition to any right you may have. That is as far as the pages go.
For a Pass bought in the app, what Apple would decide about a refund is on Apple’s side and not on Portraitor’s pages, so Portraitor’s terms can only say that Apple decides it.
A portrait already delivered is not mentioned in section 13 at all. What the pages do say sits elsewhere: section 8 says the conversation stays yours and the portrait is yours to use for personal purposes, with Portraitor claiming no ownership, and section 2 says Portraitor keeps no copy of a portrait and cannot reissue it if you lose it. Who owns a chat analysis goes through the ownership clause, and what happens if you lose your Pass covers the case where the code goes missing rather than the access being ended.
If you want to read the clauses yourself before buying, the terms and the privacy policy are both linked from the Portraitor home page, and each carries a version number and a date at the top so you can see which wording applied when you bought.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
Do I get a refund if a chat analyser ends my access?
Portraitor’s terms answer that differently depending on why it ended. Section 13 promises a refund of the unused part of the current month where a Pass is ended for any reason other than a breach of the terms or unlawful use, and attaches no refund to the breach case. A Pass bought in the iPhone app is settled in time rather than money.
Can Portraitor end my access without telling me first?
Section 13 of the terms says access may be suspended or ended without notice where you breach the terms or use the service unlawfully. For any other reason the same section says a Pass that is ended is refunded for the unused part of the current month.
What happens to a Pass I bought in the iPhone app?
Section 13 says a Pass bought in the iPhone app, which Portraitor cannot refund, instead stays usable until the end of the month that has been paid for and does not renew. Section 6.3 explains why: an app purchase is billed by Apple, and the terms say Apple decides refunds on it.
Do I lose my saved portraits if my access is ended?
The privacy policy says they are not held by Portraitor to begin with. On the website portrait history is stored in your own browser, and in the iPhone app your portraits and the masked conversations behind them are saved only on your phone. Section 2 of the terms says Portraitor keeps no copy of a portrait and cannot reissue it if you lose it.
What if Portraitor is offline at the moment I pay?
Section 13 says any purchase interrupted by the service being taken offline for maintenance or in an emergency is refunded automatically under section 7.2. That clause says a Pass has the portrait returned to its allowance instead, and an app purchase stays available for your next portrait.
Three endings, three settlements, and the one that decides which you get is how you paid.
One portrait, or a monthly Pass
No account is created either way, and the terms page states in writing what happens to money you have not spent.
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