Terms of Service

1. Eligibility & Accounts

• You must be at least 18 years old to independently create an account. Users between 13–17 may use the Platform only under a parent/guardian-created or supervised account, with verifiable parental consent, in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
• Tutors and Students must provide accurate profile information. Tutors are responsible for setting their own availability and package pricing.
• You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity under your account.

2. Trust Score & Platform Exclusivity

• Tutor Trust Score: TutorWave uses an automated Trust Score system to rank tutors on the marketplace. The score is positively affected by punctuality, full session completion, and positive student ratings, and is penalized for late cancellations, early exits, student-reported absences, or attempts to bypass the Platform. Trust Score calculations are proprietary and may be updated from time to time to improve fairness and accuracy.
• Tutor Performance Score: We separately calculate a performance score from a tutor’s student ratings, number of sessions conducted, and total teaching hours. This score is shown on the tutor’s profile only to students whose selected subject matches a subject the tutor teaches, so students can judge a tutor’s track record before booking.
• Platform Exclusivity: To protect the integrity of our payment and attendance-verification system, all communication, scheduling, and video sessions between tutors and students must occur exclusively on TutorWave. This is enforced through the Anti-Bypass Policy in Section 10.
• The ₹99 Trial Session: Students may book a one-time, 15-minute introductory trial session with a participating tutor for ₹99. Trial sessions must be conducted entirely on TutorWave’s built-in TutorMeet video classroom, powered by LiveKit’s real-time video infrastructure; tutors may not offer or request external video links (e.g., Google Meet, Zoom) for trial sessions. A trial session does not automatically enroll a student in a recurring package — enrollment requires a separate, manual purchase.

3. Payments, Fees & Fund Handling

• All payments are processed through Razorpay, an RBI-authorized payment aggregator. TutorWave does not store your card, UPI, or bank details.
• Student Fees: Students pay the package price set by the tutor, plus a standard 2.5% payment gateway fee applied at checkout.
• Package Structure: All packages run on a 4-week (~30 day) cycle. The number of sessions in a package equals the tutor’s weekly recurring availability multiplied by four — for example, one weekly session slot produces a 4-session package, and two weekly slots produce an 8-session package.
• Fund Holding: Payments are held in Razorpay’s regulated escrow infrastructure — never by TutorWave — for the full duration of the package cycle (30 days). At package expiry, TutorWave’s system evaluates every scheduled session against attendance logs (see Section 4) to determine which sessions were validly conducted, and instructs Razorpay to release the tutor’s earnings and any student refunds accordingly.
• Tutor Fees: TutorWave deducts a flat 10% platform service fee from the tutor’s payout for each successfully conducted session.
• Payouts: Tutor payouts are processed entirely through Razorpay — never by manual bank transfer outside Razorpay’s systems, except as described below. Tutors registered for Razorpay Route can view their full payout history directly on Razorpay’s own dashboard, using credentials issued to them by Razorpay. This same payout and fee-breakdown data is also mirrored on the tutor’s TutorWave platform dashboard for convenience. Tutors who have provided only bank account details (and are not registered for Razorpay Route) are paid via a manual transfer processed by a TutorWave administrator; this transfer is still funded from Razorpay’s escrow and is reflected on the tutor’s platform dashboard once completed. In all cases, funds remain secured within Razorpay’s escrow until release — TutorWave does not hold or custody student or tutor funds at any point.
• Reports & Invoices: Tutors can export session, attendance, revenue, and student-analytics reports from their dashboard. These reports may be shared by the tutor with a student’s parent/guardian only, and may not be shared with any other third party. Students can download an invoice for any purchased package directly from their dashboard.

4. Attendance Logging & the 5-Minute Rule

TutorMeet, powered by LiveKit’s real-time video infrastructure, automatically records join, leave, and rejoin timestamps for both parties via server-side session logs. These logs are the definitive source of truth for attendance disputes and payout calculations. A session counts as validly conducted only if the tutor is present and connected in the TutorMeet classroom for at least 5 minutes.

• Student No-Show: If a tutor joins on time and remains available for at least 5 minutes, but the student does not join, the session is marked a Student No-Show. The tutor is credited in full for the session, and no refund is issued to the student.
• Early Tutor Drop-Off (Abnormal Duration): If a tutor is present for less than 5 minutes, or exits significantly before the scheduled session end without the student’s consent, the session is flagged as Abnormal Duration / Missed. This pauses the tutor’s payout for that session, prompts a student review, applies a Trust Score penalty, and triggers the Make-Up Class and Refund process described in Section 5.
• Make-Up Classes: If a session is flagged as missed under this Section, the tutor may schedule an official Make-Up (Extra) Class to deliver that session before the package’s 4-week cycle expires. A make-up class is subject to the same 5-minute attendance rule as any other session.
• Live Engagement Tools & Points: During a TutorMeet session, tutors may run live polls and Q&A. Student participation (poll votes, questions asked, and upvotes) earns points shown on a live leaderboard visible to other participants in that session, as described in our Privacy Policy.
• Tutor Moderator Controls: Tutors (and administrators) may mute an individual participant or all participants, remove a participant from the session, lock a session to new entrants, manage a waiting room to admit participants, and organize students into breakout rooms during a live TutorMeet session.

5. Cancellations & Refunds

• Missed Session: If a session is flagged as a Tutor No-Show or Abnormal Duration under Section 4, the student is eligible for a pro-rated refund for that single session (base package price divided by the total number of promised sessions) — unless the tutor schedules and successfully delivers a Make-Up Class for that session before the package expires, in which case no refund is issued for it.
• Package-End Evaluation: Refund eligibility for a package is finalized at the end of its 4-week cycle, once every scheduled session has been evaluated against the 5-minute attendance rule and any make-up classes have been accounted for.
• Refund Method: All approved refunds are processed by Razorpay directly back to the student’s original payment method (source card/UPI/bank account), subject to standard bank/network processing times. TutorWave does not restrict refunds to platform credit and does not operate a stored-value wallet.
• Student Cancellations: Sessions missed by the student without the minimum cancellation notice specified in the tutor’s package terms are non-refundable.
• Expired or Unused Sessions: Sessions remaining in a package at its 4-week expiry that were not used due to the student’s own unavailability or inaction are non-refundable.

6. TutorChat

• TutorChat, TutorWave’s in-platform messaging tool, is built on real-time Socket.IO infrastructure. It supports one-to-one messaging between a tutor and a student, as well as tutor-created group/class chats for a batch of students taking the same course.
• Only tutors can start a new conversation, create a group, manage group membership, or pin a message. A tutor can only search for and message students who have purchased one of their subjects — not the wider student base. Once a tutor starts a conversation, the student can reply; students cannot independently search for or initiate a chat with a tutor or another student.
• Group chat visibility: In a tutor-created group/class chat, messages, shared files, and participant names are visible to every member of that group — including other enrolled students in the same batch, not TutorWave staff alone.
• Tutors and students may share text messages, voice recordings, emoji reactions, PDFs, images, and video files through TutorChat, and can see typing indicators, read receipts, and message-edit history, and search for messages within a conversation. All shared content remains subject to the same Anti-Bypass Policy in Section 10 — chat and file content may not be used to share personal contact details, direct payment handles, or third-party video links.
• PDFs shared to a class chat automatically surface in each enrolled student’s dashboard as study material. Images, videos, and voice recordings shared in TutorChat are visible within the chat itself but are not surfaced separately on the student dashboard.
• Any participant may delete a message or shared file (text, voice recording, image, video, or PDF) from a conversation at any time. Once deleted, it is removed from the conversation for all participants; a brief operational backup copy may persist for a limited period before final removal.
• Tutors are responsible for the accuracy and legality of any material they upload or share via TutorChat, including that it does not infringe any third party’s intellectual property rights (see Section 12).
• TutorChat is separate from the live TutorMeet classroom. Files shared via TutorChat are stored so the platform can function (e.g., so a PDF keeps appearing on a student’s dashboard); this is distinct from — and does not change — Section 11’s policy that live session audio/video is never recorded, saved, or stored.
• Message and file content sent through TutorChat is subject to automated DLP filtering described in Section 10, and may be retained for the period described in our Privacy Policy for dispute resolution, moderation, and safety purposes.

7. AI Session Notes

• After a session is completed, a tutor may upload a PDF document (one per session) summarizing or supporting what was taught.
• AI session notes are generated solely from this tutor-uploaded PDF — never from session audio or video. Our system produces a written summary of the PDF and a set of practice questions based on it.
• The tutor reviews and may edit the AI-generated questions before publishing the notes. Notes are only visible to students once the tutor publishes them.
• Once published, enrolled students can read the AI-generated notes, answer the practice questions, and access the original uploaded PDF.
• Tutors remain responsible for the accuracy of the underlying PDF and any questions they edit or approve before publishing, consistent with Section 12.

8. Profile & Data Visibility

• Students only see tutors relevant to them: a student can browse and view the profile of a tutor only where the tutor teaches a subject the student has selected. Tutors are not shown to students outside their taught subjects.
• Verification documents stay private: a tutor’s identity documents and educational verification documents are used only for internal verification and are never displayed on a public profile or disclosed to students.
• A tutor’s Trust Score and Performance Score (Section 2) are shown on their profile only to students matched by subject, to help those students judge the tutor before booking.
• Tutors only see their own enrolled students: a tutor can view the profile of a student only after that student enrolls in one of the tutor’s subjects. Visible details are limited to the student’s name, class, email, phone number, guardian name, address, date of birth, and the enrolled subject. Tutors cannot see students who are not enrolled with them.

9. Administrator Access

Authorized TutorWave personnel may access account, verification, session, attendance, and payment records solely as necessary to operate the Platform, investigate policy violations, resolve disputes, and comply with legal obligations. Internal access is not a substitute for the visibility limits in Section 8, which govern what tutors and students can see about each other.

10. Strict Anti-Bypass Policy

Users are strictly prohibited from sharing personal contact information (phone numbers, email, WhatsApp), direct payment handles (UPI IDs, bank details), or third-party video conferencing links in Platform chats or sessions. TutorWave employs automated chat filtering (DLP) to detect and block such content. If a student and tutor agree to conduct classes or process payments outside TutorWave, all Platform protections are immediately voided — including eligibility for refunds and Trust Score protections. Verified bypass attempts will result in immediate suspension of the offending account(s) and forfeiture of the tutor’s pending payouts.

11. Live Sessions — No Recording

TutorWave’s TutorMeet classroom, powered by LiveKit’s real-time video infrastructure, is a real-time, live video/audio communication tool only. TutorWave does not record, save, or store any session audio or video, and does not generate transcripts, notes, or any other derived content from your sessions. Users are also prohibited from independently recording sessions (via screen recording, third-party tools, or otherwise) without the express consent of the other party, in accordance with applicable privacy law.

The TutorMeet classroom also includes TutorBoard, a live collaborative whiteboard synced in real time over Socket.IO. The tutor has host controls to draw, edit, and clear the board; students have view-only access during the session. Whiteboard content is never saved, recorded, or stored — it exists only for the duration of the live session, the same as session audio and video, and is subject to the same no-independent-recording rule above.

12. Intellectual Property, Contractors & Liability

• TutorWave retains all rights to the Platform, including its software, branding, and Trust Score algorithm. Tutors retain ownership of original teaching materials they upload, but grant TutorWave a limited license to host and display them for Platform operation.
• Tutors are independent contractors, not employees, agents, or partners of TutorWave, and are solely responsible for their own tax obligations, professional conduct, and compliance with applicable law.
• TutorWave may suspend or terminate any account for violation of these Terms, with or without prior notice where warranted by risk of harm or fraud. Users may close their account at any time via Profile Settings, subject to the data retention terms in our Privacy Policy.
• To the maximum extent permitted by law, TutorWave’s total liability arising from your use of the Platform shall not exceed the amount you paid to TutorWave in the three (3) months preceding the claim. TutorWave is not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, or for the conduct, quality of instruction, or reliability of independent tutors, nor for delays or failures caused by third-party infrastructure (Razorpay, LiveKit, cloud hosting, internet connectivity) outside our control.
• You agree to indemnify and hold TutorWave harmless from claims, damages, or expenses arising from your breach of these Terms, your violation of applicable law, or disputes between you and another user of the Platform.