Terms of service

Acceptance of these terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the ALC Education website and the ALC Academy mobile app (together, the "Service"), operated by ALC EDUCATION LIMITED, trading as ALC Education. In these Terms, "we", "us", "our", and "ALC" mean ALC EDUCATION LIMITED.

By creating an account, subscribing to a course, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not use the Service.

These Terms apply alongside our Privacy Policy, Cookies Policy, and Refunds Policy, which are incorporated into these Terms by reference.

Definitions

• "Service" means the ALC Education website and the ALC Academy mobile app, and the courses, content, and features made available through them.
• "Content" means course videos, lessons, quizzes, articles, and other material we make available through the Service.
• "Course" means a structured programme of Content, such as the Cutting course.
• "Practice Submission" means photos or video you upload of your own haircutting work for review by an Educator.
• "Educator" means a qualified instructor who reviews Practice Submissions and answers questions through the Service.
• "Subscription" means a recurring paid plan (Pro, Salon, or Schools) that grants access to one or more Courses.
• "Team Plan" means a Salon or Schools Subscription under which a team owner assigns access to team members.
• "Account" means the account you create to access the Service.

Eligibility and accounts

You must have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract under the laws of your jurisdiction (generally the age of majority) to subscribe to the Service.

You agree to provide accurate account information and to keep it up to date. You're responsible for keeping your login credentials confidential, and for all activity on your Account. Tell us straight away at if you suspect any unauthorised use of your Account.

Your Account is personal to you. You may hold only one Account, and you must not share it or sell, transfer, or otherwise make it available to anyone else. You must not create an Account by automated means, or open a new Account to evade a suspension or to take unfair advantage of a free trial or promotional offer. On a Team Plan, each seat is for one named team member and must not be shared.

If you have access through a Salon or Schools Team Plan, your team's owner is responsible for managing which team members have access. Your continued access depends on your team's Subscription remaining active.

Subscriptions and billing

We offer Pro (individual), Salon (small team), and Schools (larger teams and training providers) Subscriptions. Each grants access to one or more Courses for as long as the Subscription remains active.

Web Subscriptions are billed through Stripe. App Subscriptions are billed through the Apple App Store or Google Play, in accordance with their own billing terms. Subscriptions renew automatically at the then-current price unless cancelled before the renewal date; we'll give you reasonable notice before any price increase takes effect.

You're responsible for keeping a valid payment method on file. If a payment fails or is reversed, we may retry it, suspend or downgrade your access until it's resolved, or cancel your Subscription. If you start a chargeback or payment dispute that we believe is unwarranted, we may suspend your Account while we look into it, and we may challenge the dispute with evidence of your use of the Service.

On a Team Plan, the team owner manages seats and assigns Courses to team members. Adding or removing a team member doesn't entitle either party to a refund for the current billing period.

If you're a Salon or Schools team customer and personal data of your staff or students is processed through the Service on your behalf, you may be a data controller for that data. Our Data Processing Agreement sets out how we process it as your processor.

Cancellation and refunds

You can cancel your Subscription at any time. When you cancel, you keep full access until the end of the billing period you've already paid for, and your Subscription simply won't renew after that — so you're never charged for time beyond the period you chose.

If you're a consumer based in the UK or the European Economic Area, you may ordinarily have a 14-day right to cancel a contract for digital content without giving a reason. By subscribing, you ask us to begin providing you with immediate access to the Course, and you acknowledge that you lose this cancellation right once we do.

Full details, including how App Store and Play Store purchases are handled, are in our Refunds Policy.

Licence to use the app

We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to access and use the Service for your own personal or professional training purposes, subject to these Terms. This licence ends automatically if your Subscription ends or if we terminate your Account.

App store terms

If you download the ALC Academy app from the Apple App Store or Google Play, your use is also subject to that store's own terms. The following applies, and — for the app obtained from Apple's App Store — takes precedence over anything inconsistent in these Terms.

• These Terms are between you and us only, not with Apple or Google, and we — not Apple or Google — are solely responsible for the app and its Content.
• Apple and Google have no obligation to provide any maintenance or support for the app.
• If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple may refund the purchase price (if any); to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the app.
• We — not Apple or Google — are responsible for addressing any claims relating to the app, including product-liability, legal or regulatory compliance, and consumer-protection claims, and any third-party claim that the app infringes intellectual property rights.
• You confirm that you're not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo, and that you're not on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms as they apply to your use of the app, and Apple has the right to enforce them against you.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Share your Account or login details with anyone, or give others access to Content that isn't meant for them.
• Copy, record, download (except where we expressly allow it), redistribute, sell, sublicense, or publish our Content — the Course videos, lessons, and other material we provide.
• Resell, rent, or otherwise make your access to the Service available to anyone else.
• Use the Service, or any Content, to build, train, or improve a competing product or service, or any machine-learning or artificial intelligence model.
• Circumvent, or attempt to circumvent, access controls, Subscription checks, seat limits, geographic restrictions, or content protection.
• Upload or submit any content that is unlawful or infringing, or that you don't have the right to share.
• Harass, abuse, threaten, or impersonate an Educator or another user.
• Introduce malicious code, or interfere with, disrupt, or place an unreasonable load on the Service or its security.
• Scrape or crawl the Service, or use bots or other automated means to access it or to create Accounts.
• Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to extract the source code of the Service, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by law.
• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose.

None of this stops you sharing your own Practice Submissions, results, or achievements — your own work is yours to share.

If you breach this section, we may suspend or terminate your access as described in "Suspension and termination" below.

Intellectual property

All Content, together with our software, trademarks, logos, and the design and "look and feel" of the Service, is owned by us or our licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. Except for the limited licence granted in these Terms, we reserve all rights, and nothing in these Terms transfers any intellectual property rights to you.

In particular, you must not:

• Copy, reproduce, distribute, sell, sublicense, publicly display, or create derivative works from our Content, except as these Terms expressly allow.
• Remove, obscure, or alter any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary notice.
• Frame, mirror, or scrape any part of the Service, or extract Content for use outside the Service.
• Use our Content or the Service to develop, train, or improve a competing product or service, or any machine-learning or artificial intelligence model.
• Use our name, trademarks, or logos without our prior written consent.

If you send us feedback, suggestions, or ideas about the Service, you agree we may use them freely, without any restriction or obligation to you.

User content

You retain ownership of the Practice Submissions you upload. By submitting them, you grant us a licence to use, store, and display them to review your progress, provide feedback, and improve the Service, including de-identified use, where practicable, for quality assurance and to train our Educators.

You're responsible for making sure you have the right to submit any Practice Submission. Where your work is shown on another person — for example a client or model — you confirm that they've agreed to be photographed or filmed and to have that image submitted to us as a Practice Submission. You must not submit content that is unlawful, infringing, obscene, or offensive.

We may review, refuse, or remove any Practice Submission or other user content at our discretion — in particular where we believe it breaches these Terms — though we're not obliged to monitor content. We don't guarantee to store or back up your Practice Submissions, so please keep your own copies of anything important to you.

Changes to the Service

We're always improving the Service, so we may add, change, or remove Courses, lessons, and features from time to time. Where a change is significant and within our control, we'll give you reasonable notice. We won't be liable for changing or discontinuing any part of the Service, but if a change materially reduces a Course you've paid for, your statutory rights as a consumer aren't affected.

Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available." We don't guarantee it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure.

Course Content is provided for training purposes. It does not constitute professional advice, and we don't guarantee any particular outcome, qualification, or employment result from completing a Course.

You're responsible for practising any technique safely and in accordance with any equipment manufacturer's instructions and applicable health and safety requirements.

If you're a consumer, nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights, including your right to a remedy if Content is faulty, not as described, or not of satisfactory quality.

Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all liability for indirect or consequential loss.

Our total liability to you for any claim arising from your use of the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under the law of England and Wales.

Indemnity

If you breach these Terms or misuse the Service — and you're using it other than as a consumer, for example as a Salon or Schools team customer — you agree to reimburse us for the reasonable loss, cost, or expense that directly results, including anything arising from content you submit. This applies only to losses caused by your breach or misuse, and nothing in this section limits or affects the statutory rights you have as a consumer.

Suspension and termination

You can end these Terms at any time by cancelling your Subscription and, if you wish, deleting your Account in Settings.

We may suspend or restrict your access to, or terminate, your Account or these Terms if: you breach these Terms (including our Acceptable use and Intellectual property sections); you don't pay a fee when it's due, or reverse a payment; we reasonably suspect fraud, unauthorised use, or misuse of the Service; or we're required to by law.

Where a breach is serious, or where we reasonably suspect fraud or misuse, we may suspend or terminate immediately and without prior notice, including while we investigate. We'll let you know where we're able to, unless the law prevents us.

If we terminate your Account because you've breached these Terms, you won't be entitled to a refund of fees for the current billing period, and we may decline to provide the Service to you again in the future. On a Team Plan, we may suspend or remove an individual team member without affecting the rest of the team, or act at the team owner's level where the breach is theirs.

When these Terms or your Account end, your right to access the Service and your licence to the Content stop immediately. Sections that by their nature should survive — including Intellectual property, User content, Disclaimers, Limitation of liability, and Indemnity — continue to apply. See our Privacy Policy for how we handle your data afterwards.

Complaints and dispute resolution

If you have a complaint, please contact us first at — we'll always try to resolve it quickly and fairly. If we can't resolve it between us and you're a consumer, you may be able to use an independent alternative dispute resolution (ADR) service; using ADR is optional, and nothing here affects your right to bring a claim in court.

Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from these Terms, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer protection rights you have in your country of residence.

Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we'll notify you (for example, by email or an in-app notice) before they take effect. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.

General

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, Cookies Policy, and Refunds Policy, make up the entire agreement between you and us about your use of the Service, and replace any earlier agreement.

If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full effect.

If we don't enforce a right under these Terms straight away, that isn't a waiver — we can still enforce it later.

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms to another organisation, for example as part of a business sale or reorganisation; this won't affect your rights under these Terms. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms without our consent.

We're not responsible for any failure or delay in providing the Service that's caused by events outside our reasonable control.

We'll usually contact you by email or through an in-app notice. You can reach us using the details below.

Contact us

Questions about these Terms? Contact us at , or by post at 1 Blackmans Yard, 44a Cheshire Street, London, England, E2 6EQ.