Terms of Service

1. Acceptance

By creating an account, clicking “I agree,” completing onboarding, purchasing a subscription, or otherwise accessing or using PaperTrade Academy (“the Service”), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service and all applicable laws and regulations. If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not use the Service.

These Terms incorporate by reference our Privacy Policy, Simulation Disclaimer, and Competition / Leaderboard Rules. Those documents form part of your agreement with us.

2. Simulation Only — No Real Trading

PaperTrade Academy is a paper trading simulator designed exclusively for educational purposes. No real securities are bought or sold. No real money is deposited, invested, or placed at risk at any time. Simulated balances, gains, and losses exist solely within the platform and have no monetary value. Simulated results do not represent, predict, or guarantee real-world trading performance.

The simulator uses simplifying assumptions that do not fully replicate real markets, including but not limited to simplified execution, omitted or approximated slippage, assumed liquidity, omitted transaction costs (commissions, regulatory fees, spreads, borrow costs, taxes), and the absence of the psychological pressures of risking real capital. See our Simulation Disclaimer for a fuller list.

Simulation outputs are not predictive or indicative of future or real-world performance, and you agree not to rely on simulated data, rankings, achievements, or educational content when making real-world financial decisions.

3. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years of age to create an account and use the Service. By registering, you represent and warrant that you meet this age requirement. We reserve the right to terminate accounts found to be in violation of this requirement.

By using the Service, you further represent and warrant that you are legally capable of entering a binding contract, are not otherwise prohibited from using the Service under applicable law, and that your access to and use of the Service complies with all laws and regulations applicable in your country, state, or other jurisdiction.

4. No Investment Advice

Nothing on this platform constitutes investment advice, a financial recommendation, or a solicitation to buy, sell, or hold any security or financial instrument. All educational content, leaderboard positioning, simulated performance, achievements, and competition outcomes are provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should consult a qualified financial advisor, broker, or other licensed professional before making any real investment decisions.

PaperTrade Academy makes no representation or warranty that use of the Service will improve your trading results, increase your returns, reduce your losses, outperform any market index or benchmark, or produce any particular financial outcome. You agree not to rely on any simulated balance, return, ranking, badge, or other in-platform signal as the basis for a real-world trading or investment decision.

Leaderboards, rankings, and achievements are engagement features only and are not indicators of trading skill, investment aptitude, or future results.

5. User Accounts & Conduct

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and for all activity that occurs under your account. You agree not to:

• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of these Terms.
• Attempt to manipulate leaderboards, rankings, or other competitive features.
• Scrape, harvest, or systematically collect data from the Service without written permission.
• Impersonate another person or entity.
• Transmit any unsolicited commercial communications or engage in any form of abuse.
• Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to extract source code.
• Interfere with infrastructure, uptime, or platform security controls.
• Exploit bugs, errors, vulnerabilities, or unintended mechanics for advantage.
• Use bots, scripts, automation, or coordinated accounts to gain an unfair advantage.
• Circumvent rate limits, feature gates, anti-abuse safeguards, or access controls.

5a. Educational Institution Affiliations

PaperTrade Academy is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or authorized by any university, college, high school, or other educational institution. Any university, school, or educator name, logo, mascot, or affiliation that appears on the Service (including, without limitation, in user profiles, leaderboards, group pages, classroom pages, and competitions) is either (a) used for nominative/identification purposes only, or (b) self-reported by the user and has not been independently verified.

You may not use the Service in a way that implies you, your group, or your class is operated by, endorsed by, or officially affiliated with any institution unless you have that institution’s written authorization. You agree not to upload or display any trademark, logo, or insignia belonging to a third party (including any university or school) that you do not have the right to use. We may remove unauthorized logos, names, or affiliation claims and suspend accounts that repeatedly violate this section.

We may remove, edit, or relabel institution names, logos, mascots, or affiliation claims at our discretion to prevent user confusion, avoid implied endorsement, or comply with trademark and platform integrity requirements.

6. Subscriptions & Billing

For a dedicated plain-language summary of our billing, trial, cancellation, and auto-renewal disclosures, see our Billing & Subscription Terms.

6.1 Automatic Renewal — Clear & Conspicuous Disclosure

Certain features of the Service (“Premium”) require a paid subscription. Before you are charged, you will see and must affirmatively accept the price, billing cadence, and cancellation terms in an on-screen consent step. By completing that step and checkout, you authorize PaperTrade Academy to charge your payment method on a recurring basis at the price and cadence disclosed at checkout (currently $9.99 USD per month for Premium, or $4.99 USD per month for verified Student Premium) until you cancel. Payment is processed by our payment processor (Stripe). Recurring charges will continue automatically, without further action on your part, until cancellation.

6.2 Free Trials & Introductory Offers

If you accept a free trial or introductory offer, your payment method will be automatically charged the then-current subscription price at the end of the trial or introductory period unless you cancel before the period ends. The length of any trial and the date of your first paid charge will be disclosed at checkout. Only eligible, first-time subscribers may receive a trial.

6.3 Cancellation — Unconditional & Online

You may cancel your subscription at any time and for any reason, online, through Settings → Subscription (the “Manage Subscription” button opens the Stripe Customer Portal) or by emailing support@papertradeacademy.com. We do not require you to call a phone number, mail a letter, or take any other step beyond the online cancellation flow. There are no cancellation fees. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you retain Premium access until that time.

6.4 Price Changes & Notice

We may change subscription prices prospectively. Any price change will be communicated by email and/or in-app notice at least 30 days before it takes effect, and you will have an opportunity to cancel before the new price applies. Continuing a subscription after a price change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the new price.

6.5 Refunds

Except where otherwise required by applicable law, we do not offer refunds for partial billing periods, unused time, or features that are temporarily unavailable. If you believe you were charged in error, contact support@papertradeacademy.com within 30 days of the charge and we will review it in good faith. Nothing in this section limits any non-waivable refund, cancellation, or chargeback rights you may have under applicable consumer-protection law (including, without limitation, the California Automatic Renewal Law and similar state-level statutes).

6.6 Confirmation & Recordkeeping

After your first successful charge, we will send a confirmation email summarizing your subscription price, billing cadence, next charge date, and how to cancel. We retain a record of your affirmative consent (checkbox, timestamp, and version) for as long as your subscription is active and for a reasonable period thereafter to demonstrate compliance with applicable auto-renewal laws.

6.7 Educator Premium Grant

From time to time we may extend Premium-tier access to educators without charge (the “Educator Premium Grant”), for example to educators who bring a threshold number of .edu-verified students onto the platform. Grants are not a purchase and not a subscription: no recurring charge is authorized, no billing is initiated, and no payment obligation is created by the grant itself. Grants are non-transferable, may be revoked or not renewed at our discretion (including for inactivity, Terms breach, or changes to the eligibility rules), and do not create an employment, agency, or sponsorship relationship between you and PaperTrade Academy. If the aggregate value of a grant is reportable under applicable tax law, you are solely responsible for any resulting tax or reporting obligations; PaperTrade Academy does not provide tax advice.

Educator Premium Grants are promotional or educational benefits only and do not constitute wages, compensation, endorsement consideration, or employment benefits.

7. Intellectual Property

The Service and its original content (excluding user-generated content), features, and functionality are and will remain the exclusive property of PaperTrade Academy and its licensors. Our trademarks and trade dress may not be used in connection with any product or service without prior written consent.

Educational content, lesson materials, and platform design are protected by copyright. You may access and use this content solely for your personal, non-commercial educational use within the Service.

7a. User-Generated Content License

If you submit, post, upload, or otherwise make content available through the Service (“User Content”), you retain ownership of your User Content but grant PaperTrade Academy a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, display, perform, distribute, and modify that User Content solely as reasonably necessary to operate, provide, maintain, secure, improve, and promote the Service.

We may remove or restrict User Content that violates these Terms or applicable law. We are not obligated to archive, retain, or provide ongoing access to any User Content, and User Content may be deleted upon account closure or at our discretion.

8. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Service is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis without any warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of harmful components.

Without limiting the foregoing, we make no warranty regarding the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, reliability, availability, or correctness of any market data, educational content, simulator output, rankings, analytics, alerts, or other information displayed by the Service.

9. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, PaperTrade Academy and its officers, directors, employees, and agents shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, data, or goodwill, arising out of or in connection with your use of the Service. Our aggregate liability to you for any claim arising from these Terms shall not exceed the amount you paid us in the twelve months preceding the claim.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for losses arising from your reliance on simulated data, educational materials, rankings, or other in-platform information, including trading decisions, opportunity costs, or other financial, investment, or decision-based damages.

10. Account Termination

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Service at our discretion, with or without notice, for conduct that we believe violates these Terms or is harmful to other users, us, third parties, or the integrity of the Service. Upon termination, your right to use the Service will immediately cease.

10a. Survival

Any provisions of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including without limitation Sections 7 (Intellectual Property), 8 (Disclaimer of Warranties), 9 (Limitation of Liability), 12 (Governing Law), and 14 (Dispute Resolution).

11. Changes to Terms

We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. When we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date above and provide notice by email and/or in-app notice before those changes become effective.

For major updates, we may require you to re-accept the revised Terms through an affirmative click-through step before continued access to some or all features. If we do not require re-acceptance, your continued use of the Service after the effective date of revised Terms constitutes acceptance of those revised Terms.

12. Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Delaware, except where applicable consumer-protection law in your jurisdiction of residence expressly requires the application of local law or local courts.

Nothing in these Terms limits any rights you may have under mandatory consumer protection laws applicable in your jurisdiction, including California (CCPA/CPRA), the European Union (GDPR), or the United Kingdom (UK GDPR).

12a. Permitted Jurisdictions

The Service is operated from the United States and is designed primarily for residents of the United States. We make no representation that the Service or its content is appropriate or available for use in any other location. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws.

Residents of the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, and Switzerland: international data transfers are governed by the transfer safeguards described in our Privacy Policy, including Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), the UK IDTA or UK Addendum, and related contractual processor commitments. Please review Privacy Policy §17 (International Transfers) for current transfer details and your rights.

You represent and warrant that your use of the Service does not violate any applicable export controls, sanctions programs, or gambling/competition laws in your jurisdiction. Paid subscriptions, competitions, and promotional features may be limited or unavailable in certain jurisdictions; we reserve the right to decline service where prohibited.

13. Data Accuracy & Market Data Disclaimer

Market data, quotes, charts, and simulator inputs may be delayed, incomplete, inaccurate, unavailable, or subject to correction without notice. Data may be provided by third-party vendors and is furnished on an “as is” basis.

We do not guarantee the correctness, completeness, timeliness, or availability of any data feed, simulated execution output, or calculated performance metric. Your use of market data and simulation output remains subject to any applicable third-party vendor license terms.

14. Dispute Resolution

For U.S. users, any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by final and binding individual arbitration, except that either party may bring an individual claim in small claims court where qualified.

Arbitration will be administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its applicable consumer rules, and judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction. The arbitration will take place in Delaware unless the parties agree to remote proceedings or another location.

You and PaperTrade Academy agree that each may bring claims only in an individual capacity and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, consolidated, collective, or representative proceeding, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

15. Enforcement & Platform Integrity

We may investigate suspected violations of these Terms, platform abuse, fraud, security incidents, or other misconduct. We may request information, remove or restrict content, suspend features, or suspend/terminate accounts where we determine action is necessary to protect users, the Service, or third parties.

We are not required to monitor all activity on the Service, but we reserve the right to monitor, review, and enforce these Terms at our discretion.

16. Contact

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us at support@papertradeacademy.com.