Terms of Service

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we will tell you before the change takes effect and ask you to accept the new version.

1Who we are

BetterCents Budgeting is operated by Amanda Vanderheiden, carrying on business as BetterCents Budgeting, of 6 Highland Boulevard, Caledonia, Ontario N3W 1G6, Canada (“we”, “us”). Subscriptions are sold to you by Link, LLC (“Link”), a Stripe company, which takes your payment, adds and pays any sales tax, and sends your receipts. Section 4 explains what that means for you. You can reach us at support@bettercentsbudget.ca and we aim to reply within two business days.

2What BetterCents is — and what it is not

BetterCents is a budgeting tool. You enter your own income, spending, savings, and debts, and the app organises those figures, does the arithmetic, and shows you where you stand.

• It is not financial advice — BetterCents does not provide financial, investment, tax, or legal advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to take or avoid any action with your money. Decisions about your money are yours. If you want advice, speak to a qualified professional.
• It does not connect to your bank — by design. We never ask for your banking credentials, we never hold them, and the app cannot see, move, or withdraw any money. Everything in BetterCents is there because you typed it in.
• It is only as accurate as what you enter — the app calculates correctly on the numbers you give it. It has no way to know whether those numbers are complete or correct.
• It does not guarantee any outcome — budgeting helps, but we cannot promise you will save a particular amount, clear a debt by a particular date, or reach any financial goal.

3Your account

• Who can subscribe — you must be the age of majority in your province to have an account, and we ask you to confirm that when you sign up. BetterCents is not built for children and we do not knowingly hold a child's information. If we learn an account belongs to someone under the age of majority, we will close it and delete what is in it.
• Where BetterCents is available — BetterCents is sold across Canada, outside Quebec. Offering it in Quebec properly means a French version of the app and of these terms, and meeting Quebec's own privacy law. We would rather wait until we can do that well than do it badly, so for now we cannot accept subscribers who live there.
• One account per household — you are welcome to share your login with your spouse or partner — the app is built for a household to use together. You are responsible for what anyone using your account does.
• Keep your password to yourself — apart from the spouse or partner you share the account with, do not give your password to anyone else. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has got into your account.
• Accurate contact details — we need a working email address to send you receipts, notices, and password resets.

4Subscription, price, and renewal

• The price — the price of each plan, in Canadian dollars, is shown on our pricing page and again before you pay. Sales tax is added where it applies.
• It renews automatically — your subscription continues, and your card is charged, at the end of each period until you cancel. You can cancel at any time (section 6).
• If we change the price — we will tell you well before it happens and ask you to accept the new price. An increase does not take effect until you have accepted it — we will not raise what you pay on notice alone. If you would rather not accept it, cancel and nothing further is charged; your subscription simply ends when the period you have already paid for ends.
• Your subscription is sold through Link — when you subscribe, you also agree to Link’s terms and privacy policy, which cover the payment itself. Link takes your payment, works out and adds any sales tax, and sends your receipts. Your card statement shows LINK.COM* BETTERCENTS. Your card details go to Link and are never stored on our systems.
• Special offers — we sometimes run offers — a free first month, a number of months free, a discount, or a code from someone who recommended the app. Whatever the offer, we will tell you before you accept it exactly what you get, how long it lasts, and what you will be charged when it ends. If we hold a card for you, it will not be charged until the free or discounted period is over.

5If a payment fails

Cards expire and payments bounce; it happens. If a payment fails, Link will try again over the following days and email you about it. Your account keeps working normally during that time. If it still has not gone through after we have finished trying, your account becomes read-only — you keep your sign-in, you can see everything, and you can export everything, but you cannot add new entries until the subscription is active again. Fixing it is a matter of updating your card and takes a moment.

6Cancelling

You can cancel yourself, at any time, from inside the app or from your orders on link.com — no email required, no phone call, no retention conversation. Cancelling takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for, so you keep access until then. We do not charge a cancellation fee. Any cancellation rights the law gives you apply in addition to this and are not affected by it.

7Refunds

• A 30-day refund on your first subscription — if BetterCents turns out not to be for you, tell us within 30 days of your first payment — monthly or annual, it makes no difference — and we will refund it in full. This applies to a first subscription, not to a renewal.
• After the first 30 days — you can cancel whenever you like and you keep access until the end of the period you have already paid for. We do not refund partial months, or the unused part of an annual term.
• Asking for a refund — you can ask us or Link. Link may also refund a payment where its own policy or the law gives you that right, and nothing in this section limits that.
• If we charged you in error — that is not a refund, it is a mistake, and it is ours to fix. Tell us and we will put it right.
• Your legal rights are unaffected — nothing in this section removes any refund or cancellation right Ontario’s consumer-protection legislation gives you.

8Your information belongs to you

• We keep your budget so the app can work — the app works by keeping what you enter: your income, spending, savings, debts, goals and notes. When you accept these terms, you agree to BetterCents keeping that information and using it only to run the app for you, for as long as this section and our Privacy Policy say. Nobody here can see it, as the next point explains.
• You can take it with you — at any time, in one action, as a spreadsheet — every budget, every transaction, every report, the lot. You do not have to ask us and you do not have to be a paying subscriber to do it.
• Nobody here can see your budget — no screen, report, export, or log available to our staff shows a single figure from your budget. Support can see your account and your subscription status and nothing else. Link holds your payment details, receipts and billing address under its own privacy policy. There is one unavoidable exception, and we would rather name it than imply it does not exist: the technical administrator who maintains the servers can reach the underlying data, as any database administrator can. He is bound by written agreement to open a subscriber's budget only where a specific fault requires it, to look at no more than that fault requires, never to copy it out, and to record every occasion. Our Privacy Policy sets this out in full.
• How long we keep it — if your subscription ends, your account stays open in read-only form for twelve months, so you can look back and export whenever you need. We will email you at ten months, and again thirty days before deletion, each time with a one-click way to export everything or to resubscribe. After twelve months your budget information is deleted. You can ask us to delete it sooner at any time. Full detail is in our Privacy Policy.

9The email we send you

Email is how the app reaches you when you are not in it. There are two kinds, and you are always in charge of the second.

• The email you cannot switch off — the messages the service itself depends on: verifying your address, resetting your password, receipts, notices that a payment failed, and notices about these terms. They are part of the subscription rather than marketing, so they continue for as long as you have an account. Receipts, payment notices, and a reminder before each yearly renewal come from Link, not from us.
• The email you can switch off — reminders, encouragement, and the nudges that help the habit stick. You choose these when you sign up, you can change them at any time in Settings, and every one of them carries a one-click unsubscribe.
• When your subscription has ended — we write at ten months, and again thirty days before your information is deleted, as section 8 describes. Those messages include a way to resubscribe. If you would rather not hear from us at all, the unsubscribe link stops them and the deletion goes ahead on schedule.
• We never sell or share your address — no advertising, no partner mailings, no lists, ever.
• Every message says who it is from — our name and contact details appear on all of it, as Canada's anti-spam legislation requires.

10Using the app sensibly

Please do not try to break into other people's accounts, interfere with the service, get around security, or use automated tools to harvest information from the app. If you do, we may suspend your account — and if we do, we will tell you why and you will still be able to export your information.

11Availability and changes

• We aim to keep it running — but we cannot promise the app will never be unavailable. Things break, and maintenance sometimes has to happen. Where we can plan an interruption, we will give notice.
• The app will change — we will improve it over time. We will not remove something you depend on without telling you first.
• These terms may change — if we make a material change, we will tell you in advance and ask you to accept the new version. Older versions remain on record with the dates they applied.

12Our responsibility to you

We will provide the service with reasonable care and skill. But there are limits on what we can be responsible for, and it is fairer to say so plainly than to bury it:

• What we are not liable for — indirect or knock-on losses — for example lost income, lost opportunities, or costs arising from a decision you made using the app.
• A limit on what we are liable for — our total liability to you, for everything taken together, is limited to the greater of $500 or the total amount you have paid for BetterCents in the twelve months before the claim.
• What we do not limit — we do not exclude or limit liability for fraud, for wilful misconduct, or for anything the law does not allow us to limit. Nothing in these terms takes away any right you have under Ontario's consumer-protection legislation, including your right to bring a claim or to take part in a class proceeding.

13Which law applies

These terms are governed by the laws of Ontario and the laws of Canada that apply in it, and the courts of Ontario have jurisdiction. If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still applies.

14Getting in touch

Questions, problems, or complaints: support@bettercentsbudget.ca. We would much rather hear from you than have you stuck. For a question about a payment, a receipt or a refund, you can also contact Link at support.link.com.