Refund Policy
When we refund, how much, and how quickly — written so you can hold us to it.
Last revised
The short version: if the work does not match the brief we quoted on, we fix it. If we cannot fix it, we refund it. You should not be paying for something you cannot use.
The free trial
There is nothing to refund. The trial is free, takes no card, and creates no obligation. If the standard is not what you need, that is a useful answer and it cost you nothing.
If the work does not match the brief
Tell us what is wrong and we will correct it. Revisions against the original brief are included, not billed. There is no cap on reasonable revisions to bring work in line with what was agreed.
If we cannot bring it in line with the brief, you get a full refund for the affected images or items. We do not require you to accept work you cannot use.
If you cancel work in progress
| When you cancel | What you pay |
|---|---|
| Before we start | Nothing. Any deposit is returned in full. |
| Part way through a batch | Only the items completed, at the quoted rate. We deliver them. |
| After delivery | The full quoted amount, subject to the brief-match guarantee above. |
Retainers and subscriptions
Retainers run monthly and can be canceled with 30 days' notice. We do not refund part-months already worked, and we do not bill for a month after your notice period ends. Unused capacity rolls over one month; it does not accumulate indefinitely and it is not refundable in cash.
What we do not refund
We would rather be specific than vague:
- Work delivered to the agreed brief that you later decided you wanted differently. We will re-quote the change.
- Delays caused by source files that were never supplied, or supplied unusable after we flagged them.
- Third-party costs already committed on your instruction — stock licenses, fonts, print.
How to ask
Email hello@mediascaleup.com with your project reference and what is wrong. We aim to respond within two working days and to settle any agreed refund within 10 working days, back to the original payment method.
Your statutory rights
Nothing in this policy reduces your statutory rights. If you are a consumer rather than a business, you may have additional cancellation rights under distance selling rules, and this policy does not override them.
The order things happen in
Redo first, refund second. That is not a way of avoiding refunds — it is that a redo is almost always what you actually want. You did not set out to get your money back; you set out to get the work.
- Tell us what is wrong, specifically. "The cut-out has a halo on the left edge" is actionable in ten minutes. "It does not look right" costs a round trip for both of us.
- We fix it. Inside the agreed brief, at no charge, normally within one business day.
- If the fix does not land, we try once more, with a different person on it. Sometimes the problem is that whoever did it first has stopped being able to see it.
- If it still is not right, you get your money back for the part that is not right. Not a credit note, not a voucher — the money, by the route it arrived.
When you get a full refund
- We did not deliver what the written scope said we would.
- We missed an agreed deadline by our own fault and the work is no longer useful to you.
- The work is defective in a way we cannot correct within a reasonable number of attempts.
- You canceled before we started work.
When you get a partial refund
- Part of a batch is defective and the rest is fine. You are refunded for the defective part rather than the whole invoice.
- You cancel mid-project. You pay for work done and committed; the balance comes back.
- The scope shrinks after work has started on the part being removed.
When you do not get a refund, and why
Stated plainly, because a refund policy that hides its exclusions is not a policy.
- You changed your mind about the brief. Work done correctly to an agreed brief has been delivered. A new brief is new work, and we will quote it.
- The source material could not support the result. Where we told you before starting that a file was too damaged, too low-resolution or too badly recorded to rescue, and you asked us to try anyway, the attempt is chargeable. We will always tell you this in writing first, and we would rather talk you out of it.
- A third party rejected it for a reason outside the brief. If a marketplace rejects an image for a specification nobody gave us, that is a scope conversation rather than a refund. If it was in the brief and we missed it, that is our problem and it is refundable.
- A business outcome did not materialise. Nobody can guarantee a ranking, a conversion rate or a sales figure, and we do not charge for one.
How to ask, and how long it takes
Email us with the invoice reference and what is wrong. You will get a reply from a person within one business day, and a decision within five. Approved refunds are issued within ten business days by the original payment method — card refunds then take whatever your bank takes, which is usually another three to five days and is out of our hands.
Chargebacks
If you are a US client, you have a right to dispute a card charge with your bank, and nothing here removes it. We would ask you to email us first — not to talk you out of anything, but because a chargeback takes six to eleven weeks to resolve and an email usually takes an afternoon. If we have got something wrong, you will get a faster answer from us than from your issuer.
The free trial
There is nothing to refund on the free trial, because there is nothing to pay. No card is taken, no subscription starts, and declining to go further afterward has no cost and requires no notice. That is the whole arrangement.