Terms of Use

TheStudySwap lets students buy, sell, trade, and share study materials and school gear with each other. By creating an account or using the site, you agree to these terms. If you don’t agree, please don’t use TheStudySwap.

1. Your account

• Sign up with an email address and a password you keep private. You’re responsible for everything that happens under your account.
• Choose your school when you create an account. Amador Valley High School is the only school available at the moment.
• Your public name starts as “Student” plus a short code. You can change your display name and school on your profile page.
• Sign-in is protected by a security check, to keep bots out.
• Use one account, and keep your details accurate.
• We may suspend or close accounts that break these terms. We can also ban an account, which locks it and hides everything it has posted.

2. What you can list

Physical items (books, calculators, and lab gear) can be listed free, for trade, or for a price agreed between students. Photos of these items are optional but encouraged, and they must show the real item.

Digital study materials (PDFs such as study guides, notes, and practice sets) must be your own original work, or something you have the legal right to share. Before a PDF can be listed, you must tick a declaration that you made it or have the right to sell it.

You can’t list or upload:

• scanned or copied textbooks, prep books, or other material you don’t have the right to share,
• real exam questions or answers, stolen tests, or anything meant to help someone cheat,
• anything illegal, dangerous, hateful, sexual, or harassing, or anything that shares someone else’s personal information,
• files that contain malicious code. Every PDF is scanned automatically, and a flagged file can’t be published.

Listing limits apply to keep the site fair: up to 10 new listings per student per day.

3. Review before publishing

We review every PDF before it goes live. We may approve it, change its price to a price we consider fair (never below $2 for a paid pack), or reject it with a reason. A rejected PDF isn’t published, and you can delete it. The first page of each PDF is shown as a preview with a watermark. Review doesn’t mean we have checked every fact in a pack, and it doesn’t guarantee that a pack is accurate or complete.

4. Money, fees, and payouts

• Master Study Packs are paid PDFs priced from $2, with no maximum. Payments are taken by Stripe, our payment processor.
• TheStudySwap keeps a platform fee of 20% of each pack sale, with a 50¢ minimum. The seller receives the rest.
• Payouts are held for 7 days after each sale, or 14 days for a seller’s first three sales. This protects buyers if a pack is refunded. After the hold ends, the seller’s share is paid to their bank through Stripe.
• Sellers must set up a payout account with Stripe and agree to Stripe’s terms. Stripe may ask for identity and bank details.
• Physical items aren’t paid for through TheStudySwap. Those deals happen directly between students, and we aren’t a party to them.
• Premium is an optional $8-a-month subscription, billed by Stripe. You can cancel at any time, and it stays active until the end of the month you paid for. Partly used months aren’t refunded. Premium doesn’t change what buyers pay, or how listings are ranked.

5. Buying, downloading, and refunds

When you buy or download a PDF, you get a personal copy for your own study. Every copy has a footer that names the account it was given to and a unique code. The code is recorded with the download, so a copy that is shared or posted can be traced back to the account it came from. You may not share, resell, upload, or post a copy, and you may not remove the footer. If a pack is faulty or not as described, you can report it within 7 days of buying, and we may refund you. How refunds work is explained on our refunds page.

6. Ratings, reviews, and reports

Only students who have downloaded or bought a pack can rate it, one rating per student. Ratings and written reviews must be honest and respectful. Anyone can report a listing, a message, or a pack. We may hide content that has been reported several times, pending a check.

7. Messages

Chat with sellers and buyers inside TheStudySwap. Messages that try to share email addresses or phone numbers are blocked, and message limits apply to stop spam. Don’t harass anyone, and don’t use messages to pressure, threaten, or scam people.

8. Ideas, news, and feedback

You can post ideas and vote on them on the Ideas board. By posting an idea, you give us permission to use it to improve TheStudySwap, without paying you. Please don’t post anything you don’t want shared publicly, since ideas and their votes are visible to other students.

9. Copyright

If you believe something on TheStudySwap infringes your copyright, contact us at saarth7412@gmail.com with the listing, your name, and why you believe it is infringing. If we agree, we will remove it and may suspend the account that posted it.

10. Safety and meetups

Meet in a public place, such as school, during the day, and tell a trusted adult where you’re going. TheStudySwap doesn’t inspect physical items, and we aren’t responsible for the quality of items traded directly between students.

11. Ending your use

You can stop using TheStudySwap at any time. We may suspend or end your access if you break these terms or harm other students. Money already paid for a completed pack isn’t returned after the 7-day problem window, except as our refund policy says.

12. Liability

TheStudySwap is provided as it is. To the extent the law allows, we aren’t liable for losses that come from using the site, from items traded between students, or from the content of study materials. Nothing here limits any rights you have that can’t be limited by law.

13. Changes and contact

We may update these terms. When we do, we’ll change the date at the top of this page, and continuing to use TheStudySwap means you accept the changes. Questions about these terms? Contact saarth7412@gmail.com.

14. Seller pages and search

Each student with a listing has a public seller page showing their display name, school, when they joined, their average rating, and their active listings. Students can search for sellers by name, and only students with active listings appear in search. Don’t use seller pages or search to harass people or to contact them outside the platform.

15. Testing and announcements

Some features are still being tested. While payments are in testing, no real money is charged. We may make listings free for a set period, and we announce those periods on the site with a banner. Features can change, and we post updates in the News section.