Terms of service
Last updated: 24 October 20261. Who we are and what these terms cover
These Terms of Service govern your use of Veracite, a reference-verification service operated by thinkerlab GmbH, Zielstrasse 25, 9050 Appenzell, Switzerland (UID CHE-173.548.694) — "we", "us". They apply to the website veracite.ch, your account and all plans, passes and credit packs.
Purchases are made through our reseller Paddle.com Market Ltd, Judd House, 18–29 Mora Street, London EC1V 8BT, UK, acting as merchant of record. For the purchase itself, Paddle is your contracting party and Paddle's buyer terms apply (paddle.com/legal/checkout-buyer-terms); for the use of the service, these terms apply. Where the two overlap, Paddle's terms govern payment, invoicing and tax, and these terms govern everything else.
2. The service
Veracite checks whether the entries in a bibliography you submit can be found in the scholarly and library databases we query, and reports the result for each reference with a verdict, supporting evidence and, depending on your plan, a downloadable report. The current list of databases is published at veracite.ch/sources.
Veracite reports what was or was not found in the databases queried at the time of your check. A "no reliable match" verdict means we could not find sufficient evidence for the reference in those databases — it is not a statement that the reference is fabricated or that the work does not exist. Coverage of the underlying databases varies by discipline, language and publication type, and the databases themselves may be temporarily unavailable. Veracite is not a plagiarism detector, not an AI-text detector, and does not provide legal or academic advice.
You remain responsible for how you use the results, in particular for any academic-integrity or editorial decision you base on them. We recommend treating verdicts as evidence to be weighed, not as conclusions.
3. Your account
You need an account for most features. You must provide accurate information, keep your credentials confidential, and be at least 16 years old. Your account is personal and may not be shared; seats for teams are not currently offered. You can delete your account at any time in your account settings; deletion is permanent.
4. Plans, credits and fair use
The current plans, prices, monthly allowances, per-check reference limits and report levels are shown on the pricing page. The following mechanics apply:
Subscriptions (Individual, Pro) renew automatically for the billing period you chose until cancelled. You can cancel at any time in your account settings, with effect from the end of the current billing period — no notice period, no reasons required. Unused verifications roll over as described on the pricing page, up to the stated cap.
The Thesis Pass and credit packs are one-time purchases. They do not auto-renew. Credits are valid for 12 months from purchase. Purchased credits that are unused when you cancel a subscription remain usable until they expire.
The Free plan exists so you can evaluate the service. Allowances are enforced per account; creating multiple accounts to circumvent limits is not permitted.
All allowances are subject to fair use: automated mass submission, load testing, scraping, reselling access or systematically extracting our results for a competing service are not permitted. We may apply technical rate limits to keep the service available for everyone.
5. Prices, payment and taxes
The price applicable to your purchase is the one displayed at checkout before you confirm the order. Prices are shown in EUR; applicable VAT or sales tax is calculated and accounted for by Paddle at checkout. Invoices and receipts are issued by Paddle and available through Paddle's buyer portal.
6. Withdrawal and refunds
If you are a consumer in the EU/EEA or the UK, you have a statutory 14-day right of withdrawal for digital services. At checkout you can request that the service begin immediately; in that case, the right of withdrawal expires to the extent the service has been performed, as permitted by law. Details are in our Withdrawal Policy.
Refund requests are handled through Paddle's buyer portal or by writing to us. Statutory rights, including warranty rights, remain unaffected.
7. Your content and our licence to process it
Bibliographies you submit remain yours. You grant us the non-exclusive right to process them solely to provide the service: parsing, querying the databases, generating results and reports, and — only if you explicitly save a verification — storing them per our Privacy Policy. We do not use your submitted text to train AI models and do not share it with third parties beyond the processors named in the Privacy Policy.
You must not submit content you have no right to process or content that contains personal data beyond what bibliographic references ordinarily contain.
8. Reports and intellectual property
Reports generated from your verifications may be used freely by you, including sharing them with clients, supervisors or institutions. Everything else — the Veracite software, design, name and logo — remains our property. Database results quoted in reports originate from the queried databases and are subject to their terms; attribution is included in the report where required.
9. Availability and changes to the service
We operate Veracite with reasonable skill and care but do not promise uninterrupted availability. The service depends on external databases whose availability and content we do not control; their outages may delay or degrade results and never produce a negative verdict. We may maintain, improve or change the service; if a change materially reduces what your paid plan includes, we will inform you in advance and you may cancel with effect from the change.
10. Termination for cause
We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, in particular section 4 (fair use) and section 7 (content), after warning where the violation can be remedied. In case of termination for cause, fees for the current period are not refunded; unused purchased credits are refunded pro rata unless the violation was intentional or grossly negligent.
11. Liability
We are liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, and under any mandatory statutory liability. For slight negligence, our liability is limited to foreseeable damage typical for this kind of contract and capped at the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the event. We are not liable for the content, accuracy or availability of the external databases we query, or for decisions you or third parties base on verification results (section 2). Nothing in this section limits rights that consumer law grants you mandatorily.
12. Changes to these terms
We may amend these terms with effect for the future, for example when the service, the law or our providers change. For material changes we will notify you (in the application or by e-mail) at least 30 days before they take effect; if you do not agree, you may cancel before the effective date. The version in force is always available on this page.
13. Governing law and disputes
These terms are governed by Swiss law, excluding its conflict-of-law rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. Place of jurisdiction is Appenzell, Switzerland. If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of mandatory provisions, or access to the courts, of your country of habitual residence. We are neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.
14. Final provisions
If a provision of these terms is invalid, the remainder stays in effect. These terms are drafted in English; translations are provided for convenience. Contact: info@veracite.ch.