Fair Use Policy

Last updated: 26 April 2026

This Fair Use Policy ("Policy") supplements our Terms of Service and applies to all Organisations and Users of the Ask.School platform (the "Service"). It is designed to ensure that resources are shared fairly and that every school receives a reliable, high-quality experience.

1. Purpose

Ask.School relies on third-party AI infrastructure (including OpenAI) to power chatbot responses. These resources carry real per-use costs and finite capacity. This Policy sets out reasonable usage expectations so that no single Organisation's usage adversely affects the service quality available to others.

2. What "Fair Use" Means

Fair use means using the Service in a manner consistent with its intended purpose — providing AI-powered information to students, parents, and staff of your educational institution — and within the limits of your subscription plan.

We do not impose hard message caps on most plans. Instead, we monitor usage patterns and reserve the right to contact Organisations whose consumption significantly exceeds normal levels for their plan tier.

3. Subscription Plan Limits

Each subscription tier includes a monthly allocation of AI usage. Allocations are measured in AI tokens, which reflect the computational cost of generating chatbot responses. Indicative limits are shown on your subscription plan and may include:

• AI messages per month — the number of chatbot responses generated across all of an Organisation's chatbots
• Documents and storage — the total number of documents and file storage capacity available
• Chatbot count — the number of active chatbots an Organisation may deploy simultaneously
• Calendar feeds — the number of ICS or XML/SOCS calendar feeds that can be connected

Specific limits for each plan are detailed in your subscription agreement and on the billing page within the Service.

4. What Constitutes Excessive Use

The following patterns are considered outside fair use, regardless of plan tier:

• Automated or scripted access that sends high volumes of messages without genuine human interaction (e.g., bots, scrapers, or load testing against production)
• Systematically using the Service for purposes unrelated to the Organisation's educational activities
• Sharing chatbot access credentials or embed codes with third parties outside your institution to artificially increase usage
• Deliberately crafting prompts designed to consume disproportionate AI resources (e.g., extremely long inputs, recursive prompt patterns)
• Reselling, sublicensing, or white-labelling the Service without written agreement

5. Rate Limiting

To protect service quality for all users, the Service applies rate limits at multiple levels:

• Per-session limits — individual chat sessions may be rate-limited to prevent misuse by a single end user
• Per-organisation limits — API requests and AI messages are subject to per-minute and per-hour rate limits based on your plan tier
• Global limits — during periods of high demand, we may temporarily reduce throughput to maintain stability

If you encounter rate limiting during normal use, it is typically temporary. If it persists, please contact support to discuss your usage needs.

6. Monitoring and Notifications

We monitor aggregate usage patterns to maintain service quality. Individual chat content is also scanned by our automated safeguarding and PII guardrails — see the Privacy Policy and Acceptable Use Policy for how that works.

If your Organisation approaches or exceeds the fair use threshold for your plan, we will:

1. Notify you by email at least 7 days before taking any action, explaining the usage concern
2. Work with you to understand whether the usage reflects a genuine need that could be addressed by upgrading your plan
3. Only restrict service as a last resort, if usage continues to significantly exceed fair use limits after notification

7. Consequences of Exceeding Fair Use

Where usage materially exceeds the limits for your plan tier and is not resolved through the notification process above, we may:

• Temporarily reduce the rate at which AI responses are generated for your Organisation
• Ask you to upgrade to a plan that better matches your usage
• In extreme cases, suspend AI response generation until the next billing period, while maintaining access to your dashboard, documents, and settings

We will not delete your data or permanently terminate your account solely for exceeding fair use limits. Permanent suspension is reserved for deliberate, repeated abuse as described in our Terms of Service.

8. Free Plan

The Free plan is intended for evaluation purposes and small-scale use. It is subject to stricter usage limits, including:

• A fixed monthly cap on AI messages
• Reduced rate limits compared to paid plans
• Limited document storage capacity

Once the Free plan's monthly AI message allocation is exhausted, chatbots will display a friendly message directing end users to contact the school directly. Dashboard access and document management remain available. Usage resets at the start of each calendar month.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. If we make material changes that affect your usage, we will provide at least 30 days' notice via email. Continued use of the Service after the notice period constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.

10. Questions

If you have questions about this Policy or believe your usage needs exceed your current plan, please contact us:

• Support — [email protected]
• Sales / plan upgrades — [email protected]