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LegalTerms of Service
The plain-language agreement for using Houtos Labs and The Grader, written the way we grade: straight, with nothing buried. The free grade is live. The paid products described here have not launched, and this page says so every time it describes one.
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Nothing on this site can be bought today. The free grade is live and costs nothing. The paid products described below (the $50 Deep Report, $50 consultation refills and the $295 development scope) have not launched. There is no checkout on this site, no page on it can take a payment, and no payment has ever been processed. Every price on this page is an indication of intended pricing, not an offer to sell. Development work is arranged over email and invoiced directly.
Where a heading below carries a "Not live yet" mark, that section describes what will apply when paid products launch. None of it applies yet. We kept those sections separate on purpose, so nothing in them can be mistaken for a description of what is running now. This is a plain-language summary, written to be understood rather than to hide things. It is informational and does not constitute legal advice, and the final terms are subject to review by qualified counsel. By using The Grader you agree to the version of these terms in force at the time of use.
Agreement to these terms
These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and Houtos Labs ("Houtos Labs," "we," "us," or "our") covering your access to and use of the Houtos Labs website at houtoslabs.com, The Grader website-audit tool, and the paid products described below (together, the "Service"). If you use the Service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you are authorized to bind that organization, and "you" includes that organization.
If you do not agree with these Terms, do not use the Service. Your continued use after a change to these Terms means you accept the updated version.
What the service is
The Grader evaluates a website you submit and returns a measured grade across performance, accessibility, SEO and AEO, security and privacy, trust and compliance, and reputation, together with a prioritized, plain-language fix list. The Service is planned in four forms: three one-time, and one optional subscription. One of them is live today; the other three have not launched and cannot be bought.
- The free grade ($0), live now. A real, measured grade across the six lenses plus the top fixes. It is useful on its own, and nothing is held hostage to force an upgrade. This is the whole of the Service you can use today, and it costs nothing.
- The $50 Deep Report (one-time, per scan). Not live yet A planned pay-after-the-free-grade upgrade that would unlock the full per-issue detail, copy-paste fixes, a 90-day remediation roadmap, a competitor deep-dive, a full WCAG 2.2 audit with business-risk framing, a personalized site snapshot, an "Ask this report" consultation assistant, and a downloadable PDF plus a private shareable link. The $50 would be a one-time charge, not a subscription, and it would become a credit toward a build (see § 05). It is not on sale, and the figure is indicative rather than an offer to sell.
- The $295 development scope (one-time). Not live yet A planned separate, one-time service fee that would open an evaluation/scope call and a fresh consultation allowance: the bridge from a report to a full development engagement with Houtos Labs. It is not on sale either. Today, that conversation simply starts over email at no charge.
- The Monthly Report ($24.99 per month, or $199 per year), the one planned product that would recur. Not live yet A planned optional monitoring subscription that would re-grade your site on a schedule and show you what changed, offered only after a Deep Report. Unlike everything above, it would renew automatically until you cancelled it. It is not on sale, and we have not published its full terms yet: how renewal, cancellation and failed payments would work, and what would happen to a period you had already paid for. It cannot be bought until those terms are published.
How accuracy is labeled. Every finding is labeled Measured (verified by running real tools against your live site) or Estimated (a confidence-aware value used only where a direct measurement is not yet available). Payment will never convert an estimated signal into a measured one. We never present an estimate as a verified scan.
The nature of an AI-generated report Not live yet
This section describes the Deep Report, which has not launched. When it does, the report narrative and the in-report "Ask this report" assistant will be generated by an artificial-intelligence model working from signals gathered about your site. AI-generated content can be incomplete, can misjudge context, and can occasionally be wrong. You will be responsible for reviewing every recommendation and verifying any suggested change against your own live code, configuration and business needs before you act on it. Sample reports published on this site are illustrations of that format, not a report about your site.
The "Ask this report" assistant will be bound to your report's own data. It will not browse the web and will not invent findings; when a question falls outside the report's scope, it is built to say so rather than guess. Copy-paste fix snippets are suggested patterns: starting points to verify and adapt, not drop-in solutions you can apply without checking.
Acceptable use
You agree to use the Service lawfully and only as intended. You will not:
- Submit a URL you do not own or otherwise have permission to have evaluated, or use the Service to scan a site in a way that violates that site's terms or the law;
- Attempt to overload, disrupt, probe, or circumvent the Service, its rate limits, its bot-protection, or its security controls;
- Use the Service to attack, surveil, or gain unauthorized access to any system, or to evaluate internal, private, or non-public addresses;
- Scrape, resell, sublicense, or commercially redistribute the Service or its output except as expressly permitted here;
- Reverse-engineer, copy, or build a competing product from the Service or its underlying engine;
- Misrepresent a report's findings (for example, presenting an estimated figure as a verified result, or stripping the measured/estimated labels and disclaimers); or
- Upload or transmit anything unlawful, infringing, malicious, or that violates another person's rights.
We may rate-limit, suspend, or terminate access that we reasonably believe breaches these Terms or threatens the Service or its users.
Payment, credits and refunds (when paid products launch) Not live yet
Paid products are not yet available for purchase. Card checkout is not live, no page on this site can take a payment, and no payment has ever been processed through it. Nothing in this section applies yet. When paid products launch, charges will be handled by a third-party payment processor via hosted checkout, so we will never see or store your full card details. All prices are quoted in US dollars. The $50 Deep Report, any $50 refill, and the $295 development scope would each be a one-time charge, with no recurring billing and no auto-renewal. One planned product is different: the Monthly Report would be a subscription that renews until you cancel it, and it would keep a payment method on file so that it could renew. We have not published its full terms yet, and it cannot be bought until we do. Until checkout is live, any pricing shown on this site is an indication of intended pricing and is not an offer to sell.
The rest of this section is the policy we intend to operate once that happens. Sales would be final, and the $50 would not be refundable for cash. Instead, the $50 paid for a Deep Report would become a $50 credit toward a future development engagement with Houtos Labs, a credit we would track and honor. Full details (including how $50 refills would stack credit, the single shared 90-day window, and the non-creditable nature of the $295 scope fee) are in our Credits policy, which forms part of these Terms and carries the same "not launched" status as this section.
Consumers in some regions (for example, the EU and UK) may have statutory cancellation rights for digital services. Those rights are not removed by anything above: if and when you ever pay us, contact us and we will honor applicable law. Since no one has been charged, there is at present nothing to cancel and no receipt to produce.
Intellectual property
Ours. The Service (including The Grader, its grading engine and methodology, the site design, code, text, graphics, logos, and the "We don't guess. We grade." brand) is owned by Houtos Labs and protected by intellectual-property law. These Terms grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Service and to use the report we generate for you for your own internal business purposes. No other rights are granted by implication.
Yours. You retain ownership of the website you submit and of any content you provide. By submitting a URL or content, you grant us the limited license needed to fetch, evaluate, snapshot, and process it in order to deliver the Service to you, and to operate and improve the Service consistent with our Privacy Policy Accessibility statement.
Your report. The free grade you run today is yours to keep and share. When the Deep Report launches, the report we generate for you will likewise be yours to download, keep, and share via the tools we provide, subject to payment. In either case you may not remove our branding, the measured/estimated labels, or the disclaimers, and you may not resell a report as a standalone product.
Disclaimers (not professional or legal advice)
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement, to the fullest extent permitted by law. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any grade, finding, or projected score lift will be achieved.
This assessment does not constitute legal advice. Litigation-risk figures are illustrative estimates of general business risk, not a prediction about your specific situation. Consult qualified legal counsel.
Reports (including accessibility, privacy, security, and compliance findings) are provided for informational purposes and are not professional, legal, accessibility-compliance, security, or financial advice. A grade is not a certification, an audit opinion, or a guarantee of compliance with the ADA, WCAG, GDPR, or any law, standard, or regulation. For decisions that carry legal or regulatory weight, consult a qualified professional.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Houtos Labs and its founder, personnel, and suppliers will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or business, arising out of or relating to your use of (or inability to use) the Service, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of the amount you actually paid us for the Service in the three (3) months before the claim or US $50. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you; in that case our liability is limited to the smallest amount permitted by law.
Changes, termination and governing law
We may update the Service and these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by the "Last updated" date above, and your continued use after a change means you accept it. We may suspend or terminate access for breach of these Terms; the sections that by their nature should survive termination (intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, and these miscellaneous terms) will survive.
These Terms are governed by the laws of [governing-law jurisdiction to be confirmed by Houtos Labs], without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and the courts of that jurisdiction will have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes, except where mandatory consumer-protection law gives you the right to bring a claim in your home jurisdiction. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect.
Contact
For questions about these Terms, contact Houtos Labs through the channels listed on our contact page or at our primary domain, houtoslabs.com. See also our Privacy Policy and Credits policy.
Note
This is a plain-language summary; final terms are subject to counsel review. It is informational and not legal advice.