Terms of Service

1. Agreement to these terms

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are a binding agreement between you and MKV Consulting, the operator of FreeBench (“FreeBench”, “we”, “us” or “our”). They govern your access to and use of our websites, web applications, engineering, drawing, document and calculation tools, account features, plans, payment features, content and any related services (together, the “Service”).

By accessing the Service, creating an account, starting a free period, making a payment or otherwise using the Service, you confirm that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy, which is part of this agreement. If you use the Service on behalf of a company, school or other organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind it, and “you” includes that organisation.

If you do not agree with these Terms, you must not use the Service.

2. Definitions

• “Account” means the registered profile through which you use the Service.
• “Content” means any text, figures, tables, files, drawings, designs, quotes, reports, templates, settings and other material.
• “Your Content” means Content that you enter, import, create, upload, generate or save using the Service.
• “Output” means documents, files, calculations, tables, drawings and other results that the Service produces for you, including exports.
• “Free Period” means a period of Pro access that we give to a new account without charge.
• “Free Plan” means the level of access available without payment, with the limits we set from time to time.
• “Pro” means the paid level of access that unlocks the tools and features that we describe as Pro.
• “Plan” means a Pro plan or a team plan that you buy for a set period.
• “Single Export” means a one-time purchase that unlocks one export of a tool for a limited time.

3. Who may use the Service

You may use the Service only if you can form a binding contract with us under the law that applies to you and you are not barred from using it under any applicable law. If you are under the age of majority where you live, you may use the Service only with the involvement and consent of a parent or guardian, who accepts these Terms on your behalf.

You must give us accurate information when you register and keep it up to date. You must not use the Service if we have suspended or ended your access, unless we have given you our written permission.

4. Your account

Some or all of the Service requires an account. You are responsible for all activity under your account, for keeping your password confidential, and for any actions taken by people who use your credentials, whether or not you authorised them. Choose a strong password, do not share it, and tell us at once at MKVConsultingOfficial@gmail.com if you suspect unauthorised use.

You may hold one account for yourself. Creating several accounts to get more free access, to avoid a limit, or to get around a restriction is a breach of these Terms. We may combine, restrict or close accounts that we reasonably believe are doing this.

Accounts are personal. You may not sell, rent, lend, transfer or share an account or its access with anyone else, except as a team plan expressly allows.

5. What the Service is

FreeBench provides online tools that help engineers, designers, students, businesses and other users to prepare documents and calculations, such as bills of materials, quotations and invoices, curriculum vitae, reports, and engineering analysis aids. Many tools run in your browser. We may add, change, rename, combine, limit, lock or remove tools and features at any time.

Some tools may be shown as locked, offline or coming soon. We may keep a tool unavailable to some or all users, and we may give early access to chosen people. Nothing on the site is a promise that a particular tool will be released, or released on a particular date.

6. Sign-in is required

You need an account to use the tools in the Service. Some pages, such as the home page, the pricing page and legal pages, can be read without signing in. To open a tool, you must create an account or sign in.

7. Free Period

When a new account is created, we may give it a Free Period of Pro access without charge. The length of the Free Period is set by us, may be different for different kinds of accounts, such as accounts that use an email address from a recognised educational institution, and may be changed at any time. A change applies to new accounts and does not shorten a Free Period that has already started.

A Free Period is a courtesy and not a purchase. It does not require a payment method. It starts when your account is first recognised by the Service, and it ends at the date and time shown to you in the Service. Time that passes while you are not using the Service still counts.

We give one Free Period to each person and, to keep access fair, usually one to each device. If we believe a Free Period has already been used by you or on your device, whether on the same account or another one, we may decline to give another, end one early, or remove it. We may use technical means to recognise repeated use, as described in our Privacy Policy.

When your Free Period ends you move to the Free Plan, unless you buy a Plan. Offers that we may show you after a Free Period, such as a discount for early-career users, are subject to their own conditions and time limits, and we may withdraw them at any time before you accept them.

8. Free Plan

The Free Plan lets you use the parts of the Service that we make available without payment, with the limits that we set. Limits may include which tools are open, how many exports you can make in a period, which templates or designs are available, and whether Output carries a mark or watermark.

We may change what the Free Plan includes, and we may change its limits, at any time. We will try to make changes in a way that is fair to people who are using the Service, but we are not required to keep any feature free.

9. Plans and payments

Pro and team plans are sold for fixed periods, such as one month, six months or twelve months. The price, the period and what the plan includes are shown on the pricing page at the time you buy. The price shown when you pay is the price you agree to.

Payments are processed by Paystack, an independent payment provider. When you buy, you are taken to its secure page. By paying, you also agree to the terms of the payment provider and of any bank, card scheme or wallet you use. We are not responsible for the actions or failures of those third parties, but we will help you to resolve problems where we can.

You promise that you are entitled to use the payment method that you use. Payments are made in naira, and your bank may charge fees or apply exchange rates that we do not control. Your plan starts when we receive confirmation that your payment has succeeded. If confirmation is delayed, your plan will start as soon as it arrives, and you do not need to pay again. Please do not pay twice for the same thing. If you do, write to us at MKVConsultingOfficial@gmail.com with the payment references.

Plans do not renew by themselves. When a plan ends, you move back to the Free Plan unless you buy another one. If we ever offer automatic renewal, we will tell you clearly and ask for your agreement first.

10. Prices, offers and taxes

We may change prices, plans, discounts and offers at any time. A change does not affect a plan that you have already paid for, for the period you paid for. Offers may be limited by time, by eligibility, by the number of people, or by account, and we may check eligibility, for example by looking at the kind of email address used.

Prices are stated in the amount shown at checkout. Unless we say otherwise, the amount shown includes any taxes that we are required to collect. You are responsible for any other taxes, duties or charges that apply to you.

11. Single exports

For some tools, we may offer a Single Export that unlocks one export for a limited time without a plan. The price, the tool and the time window are shown when you buy. During the window, you may repeat the same export of the same work without paying again. A Single Export does not give access to any other tool, any other work, or any Pro feature.

12. Team plans

A team plan lets one person, the administrator, give access to a stated number of people. The administrator is responsible for who is added, for making sure that those people agree to these Terms, and for any payment. We may show the administrator which email addresses are on the plan. Members keep control of their own Your Content and the administrator cannot read it through the Service.

Seats may be moved from one person to another as the plan allows, but a seat may not be shared by several people at the same time. Access ends for everyone when the plan period ends.

13. Refunds and cancellations

Because digital access starts at once and cannot be returned, payments are generally not refundable, in full or in part, once a plan or Single Export has been activated, including where you do not use it or change your mind. This does not limit any right that you have under the law that cannot be excluded.

We may, at our sole discretion, refund a payment in cases such as a duplicate payment, a payment that was taken but did not activate what you bought and could not be fixed, or an error on our side. To ask, write to MKVConsultingOfficial@gmail.com within a reasonable time with your payment reference and a short explanation. Approved refunds are made to the original payment method where possible, and may take time to appear.

You may stop using the Service at any time. Because plans do not renew by themselves, there is nothing to cancel. Closing your account does not by itself entitle you to a refund of the rest of a period you paid for.

14. How you may use the Service

We give you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable permission to use the Service for lawful purposes and in line with these Terms. You must follow the law and the rights of others whenever you use it. You agree not to:

• use the Service in a way that is unlawful, harmful, misleading, abusive, harassing, defamatory, discriminatory or infringes anyone’s rights;
• use the Service to prepare documents that are false or fraudulent, such as fake invoices, misleading quotations, forged records, or credentials that you do not hold;
• attempt to get around any limit, paywall, watermark, lock, meter, free-period rule or other control, including by creating several accounts, changing device identifiers, or interfering with how the Service stores or checks information;
• access any part of the Service, any other account, or any system, data or network that you are not allowed to access, or test or probe their security without our written permission;
• copy, scrape, harvest, mirror, resell, sublicense or commercially exploit the Service, its templates, designs, data or Output as a standalone product, except as these Terms expressly allow;
• decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer or try to obtain the source code of any part of the Service, except to the extent that the law allows despite this restriction;
• introduce malware, or interfere with or disrupt the Service, its servers or networks, or place an unreasonable load on them, including by automated means;
• use bots, scripts or other automated means to access the Service, create accounts, or make payments, unless we have agreed in writing;
• remove or hide any notice, mark or attribution that the Service places on Output, unless your plan allows it;
• use the Service to build a competing product or to train a competing system;
• help or encourage anyone to do any of the above.

We may investigate suspected breaches and may cooperate with law enforcement and other authorities. We may remove Content and suspend or end access as described below.

15. Your Content

You keep ownership of Your Content. These Terms do not transfer any ownership of it to us. You are responsible for Your Content, for having all rights and permissions needed to use it with the Service, and for making sure it is lawful and does not infringe or harm anyone.

You give us a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free permission to host, store, copy, process, display and transmit Your Content only as needed to run, secure, support and improve the Service for you, and to follow the law. This permission lasts as long as Your Content is with us and ends when it is deleted, subject to a reasonable period for removal from backups.

We do not use Your Content to advertise to you or to others. You are responsible for keeping your own copies. Content that you do not save to your account may exist only on your device, and we cannot recover it if you lose that device or clear your browser data. We recommend that you keep backups of everything that is important to you.

16. Output and your rights in it

As between you and us, you may use Output that you create for your own lawful purposes, including your own business and professional purposes, subject to these Terms and to the rights of others in material that you include. Output may include templates, layouts, fonts, icons, designs and other components that belong to us or to our licensors. You receive permission to use them as part of Output, but not to extract, resell or redistribute them separately.

Where a free or trial level adds a mark, note or watermark, you may not remove it unless your plan allows.

17. Our rights

The Service, including its software, design, look and feel, text, graphics, logos, names, templates, calculation methods, data and all related rights, belongs to us or to our licensors and is protected by intellectual property and other laws. Except for the permission in these Terms, we give you no right in them. All rights not expressly given to you are reserved.

The names FreeBench and the names of our tools, and our logos, are our marks. You may not use them in a way that suggests that you are connected with us or that we endorse you without our written permission.

18. Feedback

If you send us ideas, suggestions, requests or other feedback about the Service, you agree that we may use them without any obligation to you, without payment, and without credit, and you give us a permanent, worldwide, royalty-free permission to do so. Feedback does not include Your Content.

19. Engineering and professional responsibility

This section matters. The Service helps you prepare documents and carry out calculations, estimates, checks and analyses. It is a tool that supports your work. It is not a substitute for professional skill and judgement.

• Results, figures, estimates, checks, templates and examples are provided for general guidance. They may contain errors or omissions, may rest on assumptions and simplifications that do not suit your case, and may not follow the rules, codes or standards that apply where you work.
• You are solely responsible for checking all inputs and results, for selecting appropriate methods, safety factors and standards, and for deciding whether Output is fit for your purpose before you rely on it, sign it, send it, build from it, or use it to make a decision.
• Work that affects safety, health, structures, vessels, machinery, pressure equipment, legal filings, tax or financial statements, or that is otherwise critical, must be reviewed and approved by a suitably qualified and licensed professional.
• We do not give engineering, architectural, legal, tax, accounting, financial, career or other professional advice through the Service, and nothing in the Service creates a professional relationship between you and us.
• Templates and sample content, including sample quotations, invoices, reports and CV designs, are examples. Do not assume that they satisfy any legal, contractual, regulatory or institutional requirement.

20. Third-party services and links

The Service may use or link to services provided by other people, such as payment providers, hosting providers, email services, fonts and external websites. Those services are not under our control. We are not responsible for them, and your use of them is under their own terms. A link or reference does not mean that we endorse a third party.

21. Availability and changes

We work to keep the Service available, but we do not promise that it will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or free of errors. The Service may be unavailable because of maintenance, updates, faults, internet or power problems, third-party failures, security events or causes beyond our control. We may change, suspend or stop all or part of the Service, temporarily or permanently, at any time and with or without notice, though we will try to give notice of major changes where we reasonably can.

We are not liable to you or anyone else for any change, suspension or stopping of the Service, except that if we permanently stop a paid Plan before it ends, we may, at our discretion, offer you a fair remedy.

22. Suspension and ending

You may stop using the Service at any time and may ask us to close your account by writing to MKVConsultingOfficial@gmail.com.

We may suspend, limit or end your access, remove Content, or close your account, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe that you have breached these Terms, that you are using the Service in a way that harms us, other users or others, that you are trying to abuse free access, that a payment was reversed or disputed, that the law requires it, or that it is needed to keep the Service safe. Where reasonable, and unless it would be unsafe or unlawful, we will try to tell you why.

When your access ends, your right to use the Service ends at once. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should continue, including those on ownership, payments, disclaimers, limits on liability, indemnity and governing law, will continue to apply.

23. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent that the law allows, the Service, all Output, templates and Content are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied or statutory, including warranties of accuracy, reliability, completeness, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, quiet enjoyment, title and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the Service will meet your requirements, that Output will be correct or suitable for any purpose, that defects will be fixed, that the Service or the servers that make it available are free of viruses or other harmful components, or that your saved Content will never be lost or corrupted. Any advice or information, whether spoken or written, that you get from us or through the Service does not create a warranty that is not stated in these Terms.

Some places do not allow some of these exclusions. In those places, they apply only as far as the law permits.

24. Limit of liability

To the fullest extent that the law allows, FreeBench, MKV Consulting, and our directors, officers, employees, contributors, partners, licensors and service providers will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive loss or damage, or for any loss of profits, revenue, business, contracts, goodwill, anticipated savings, data or Content, or for any cost of replacement, arising out of or connected with the Service or these Terms, whatever the cause or theory, even if we were told that such loss was possible.

To the fullest extent that the law allows, our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or connected with the Service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of the total amount that you paid to us for the Service in the three months before the event that gave rise to the claim, and ten thousand naira.

We are not liable for loss or damage that results from your reliance on Output, from your failure to check it, from work that you or others carried out, built or approved using Output, or from the acts of other people, including payment providers and other third parties.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law, such as liability for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence where that law applies.

25. Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless FreeBench, MKV Consulting and our directors, officers, employees, contributors, partners, licensors and service providers from and against any claims, demands, losses, liabilities, damages, costs and expenses, including reasonable legal fees, that arise out of or relate to Your Content, your use of the Service, your use of Output, your breach of these Terms or of the law, or your infringement of any right of another person. We may take over the defence of any matter that you are meant to cover, at your cost, and you will cooperate with us.

26. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information. By using the Service, you acknowledge that we handle information as it describes.

27. Notices and electronic communication

You agree that we may communicate with you by electronic means, including by email to the address on your account, by notices in the Service, and by posting on the site, and that these communications satisfy any legal requirement that they be in writing. Notices to us must be sent to MKVConsultingOfficial@gmail.com. A notice by email is treated as received on the next business day after it is sent, unless an error message shows that it was not delivered.

28. Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will post the updated Terms with a new date at the top, and for material changes we will take reasonable steps to tell you, for example by a notice in the Service or an email. A change applies from its effective date. If you keep using the Service after that date, you accept the changed Terms. If you do not accept them, you must stop using the Service. A change does not affect a payment that has already been made, for the period that you paid for, except where the law or a security need requires it.

29. Governing law and disputes

These Terms and any dispute or claim connected with them or with the Service are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, without regard to rules about conflict of laws.

We encourage you to contact us first at MKVConsultingOfficial@gmail.com so that we can try to settle any concern informally. If we cannot settle it within a reasonable time, the courts of Nigeria will have exclusive authority to decide it, and you and we agree to submit to them. Nothing stops either of us from asking a court for urgent relief to protect rights or to stop misuse of the Service.

To the extent that the law allows, any claim that you bring against us must be started within one year after the cause of the claim arose, or it is barred.

30. Events outside our control

We are not responsible for any failure or delay in meeting our duties under these Terms that is caused by events outside our reasonable control, including natural disasters, fire, flood, power or communications failures, internet or network outages, failure of third-party providers, war, terrorism, civil unrest, strikes, government action, changes in law, or attacks on our systems.

31. General

• Whole agreement. These Terms and the documents they refer to are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service and replace any earlier understanding about it.
• Severability. If any part of these Terms is found invalid or cannot be enforced, that part will be limited or removed to the smallest extent needed, and the rest will continue in force.
• No waiver. If we do not enforce a right or a provision, that is not a waiver of it, and a waiver is effective only if it is written and signed by us.
• Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or duties under these Terms without our written consent. We may transfer ours, in whole or in part, including in connection with a merger, sale or reorganisation.
• No partnership. Nothing in these Terms makes you and us partners, agents, joint venturers or employer and employee.
• Third parties. Except as stated for our affiliates and service providers, no one else has a right to enforce these Terms.
• Headings and language. Headings are for convenience only. These Terms are written in English, and if they are translated, the English text prevails.

32. Contact us

If you have a question about these Terms, a problem with a payment, or a request about your account, please write to us.

• Email: MKVConsultingOfficial@gmail.com
• Operator: MKV Consulting, operating FreeBench
• Please include the email address on your account and, for payments, your payment reference, so that we can help you quickly.