Terms of Service

Last Updated: August 15, 2026

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a contract between you and PendarLabs LLC (“Pendar,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), a Virginia limited liability company, concerning your use of pendar.ai, our research web application, our ChatGPT / Codex plugin and MCP tools, and related services (collectively, the “Services”).

By creating an account, accessing the Services, purchasing credits, or connecting Pendar through ChatGPT or another MCP client, you agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

1. Eligibility

• You must be at least 13 years old.
• If you are under the age of majority where you live, a parent or guardian must agree to these Terms on your behalf.
• You must provide accurate registration information and keep it updated.

2. The Services

Pendar is an AI-assisted research platform. Depending on your account and credits, the Services may include:

• Scholarly search and paper discovery
• Deep research and literature analysis
• Claim checking and report / writing assistance
• PDF upload, library, and document analysis
• Chat history and saved research artifacts
• ChatGPT / Codex / MCP tools such as citation verification, literature survey, and citation-impact analysis
• Optional Research Briefing or similar subscription products we offer from time to time

Features, pricing, and credit costs may change. We may modify, suspend, or discontinue parts of the Services with reasonable notice when practical.

3. Accounts and credentials

• You are responsible for activity under your account, including use by anyone you allow to access it.
• Keep passwords, MCP API keys, and OAuth-connected clients confidential. Notify us promptly of unauthorized use.
• Do not share, sell, or publicly post API keys or access tokens.
• Google sign-in and ChatGPT / MCP OAuth, if used, are subject to those providers’ terms as well as ours.
• Disconnecting ChatGPT or revoking a key stops new tool calls; it does not automatically delete your Pendar account or stored research.

4. Credits, purchases, and subscriptions

• Many features consume prepaid credits. Costs are shown in the product or on our pricing pages.
• New accounts may receive a one-time signup credit grant. Purchased credit packs are one-time payments.
• Unless we state otherwise at purchase, purchased credits do not expire, are non-transferable, and have no cash value.
• You cannot start a metered action if your balance cannot cover its cost.
• Some products (for example Research Briefing) may be billed as a separate subscription that renews until canceled.
• Payments are processed by third parties such as Stripe. Fees are generally non-refundable except where required by law. If a purchase is refunded, we may remove the corresponding credits.
• We may change prices or credit costs with notice; credits already in your balance remain available under the then-current rules for spending them.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Violate law or others’ rights (including copyright and privacy)
• Upload malware or attempt to break into, disrupt, or overload the Services
• Scrape, harvest, or systematically extract data beyond normal interactive use, or bypass credit limits or security controls
• Reverse engineer the Services except where applicable law allows
• Misrepresent your identity or affiliation, or use the Services to generate deceptive scholarly citations
• Resell access to the Services or use them to build a competing bulk literature index by automated extraction
• Use the Services for any purpose that is illegal or abusive

We may suspend or terminate access for violations, abuse, or unpaid / fraudulent activity.

6. Your content and our license to operate

• You retain rights to content you upload or create (PDFs, notes, prompts, saved work), subject to third-party rights in any material you did not create.
• You grant PendarLabs LLC a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive license to host, process, transmit, and display that content solely as needed to provide and secure the Services, including sending necessary inputs to subprocessors (for example AI and literature APIs).
• You represent that you have the rights needed to use and upload your content.
• Bibliographic results and paper metadata come from third-party indexes and publishers; we do not claim ownership of those underlying works.

7. AI and research disclaimers

• The Services are research tools, not professional legal, medical, financial, or other licensed advice.
• AI outputs and literature analytics can be incomplete, outdated, or wrong (including incorrect, mismatched, or missing citations).
• You must independently verify information before relying on it, citing it, publishing it, or submitting academic or professional work.
• You are responsible for following your institution’s academic integrity and disclosure rules.
• The Services are provided “as is” and “as available.” We do not warrant uninterrupted service, perfect accuracy, or fitness for a particular purpose, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

8. Third-party services

The Services depend on third parties (for example OpenAI, Anthropic, academic literature APIs, web search providers, Google, Stripe, and cloud hosting). Their terms and availability are outside our full control. Your use of ChatGPT as a client is also governed by OpenAI’s terms.

9. Intellectual property

• The Pendar software, design, branding, and documentation are owned by PendarLabs LLC or its licensors.
• We grant you a limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Services as allowed by these Terms.
• You may not copy, modify, or create derivative works of the platform except as expressly permitted.
• Subject to third-party rights and these Terms, we do not claim ownership of AI-generated outputs produced for you; you may use them, but they come without accuracy warranties.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• PendarLabs LLC and its members, officers, and contractors are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, data, or opportunities.
• Our total liability for any claim relating to the Services will not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid to us for the Services in the twelve (12) months before the claim or (b) fifty U.S. dollars (US $50).
• Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations; in those cases, our liability is limited to the maximum extent allowed.

11. Indemnification

You will defend and indemnify PendarLabs LLC against claims, damages, and reasonable legal fees arising from your content, your use of the Services, or your violation of these Terms or applicable law.

12. Termination

• You may stop using the Services and request account closure at any time.
• We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or that create risk to the Services or other users.
• Unused credits are generally not refundable on termination, except where required by law.
• Sections that by nature should survive (including IP, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnity, and governing law) survive termination.

13. Changes

We may update these Terms by posting a revised version at https://pendar.ai/terms/ and updating the “Last Updated” date. Material changes may also be communicated by email or in-product notice. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

14. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Courts located in Virginia will have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes, except that we may seek injunctive relief in any jurisdiction to protect our IP or the security of the Services. Before filing a claim, please contact us to attempt an informal resolution.

15. Miscellaneous

• These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and PendarLabs LLC regarding the Services.
• If a provision is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.
• Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver.
• You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, sale, or reorganization.