The band guarantee, in full

Your plan carries a guaranteed band: the lower of your starting assessment plus 1.0 and your target band, never higher than 9.0. If the overall band on your official IELTS result is below your guaranteed band, you can claim a refund of what you paid, less a 15% administration and bank charge. An official result equal to your guaranteed band means the guarantee was kept. It is measured on the overall band, never a single skill.

Worked examples: start at 5.5 with a target of 7.5 and your guaranteed band is 6.5 — the promise is a full band, no more. Start at 6.0 with a target of 6.5 and it is 6.5 — your target is the lower bar. Start at 7.0 with a target of 6.5 and it is still 6.5 — you are already there, and the promise is that you hold it. If you have not set a target band, your guaranteed band is your starting assessment plus 1.0.

Your target band is yours to change freely during the first 30 days of your plan. After that it is fixed: your guaranteed band is set from it and does not change, whatever happens to your plans afterwards.

• Purchasers of the 3-month plan only. The monthly subscription has no fixed term, so there is no defensible period to measure over, and it is not covered.
• One claim per person.
• If you move from the monthly plan to the 3-month plan, the guarantee comes with it. It starts at the upgrade, not at your original monthly purchase, and it measures from a starting assessment taken at that point.
• Your starting assessment — all four skills — must be taken before your plan begins. It is the baseline the guarantee measures from: without one there is nothing to compare your official result to, and nothing to claim. There is no separate deadline beyond that — we will not refuse a claim over the date you took it.

Every one of these is recorded in your account as you go.

• Complete the starting assessment across all four skills.
• Complete daily lessons on at least 60% of the days in your plan — about 55 lessons on a 3-month plan. We work your own figure out from your own plan dates and show it to you on the claim screen, so you never have to calculate it yourself.
• Sit both full mock tests.
• Sit the official IELTS test within 30 days of the plan ending.

• Submit within 30 days of receiving your official result. That window runs after the one above, so your claim can still be lodged well after your plan has finished.
• Provide your official IELTS Test Report Form, or a verifiable online result, showing the test date and your band scores.
• The name on the result must match the account holder.
• We respond within 14 days. A person reviews every claim — this is the one part of BandAI that is not automated, on purpose.

You start a claim at /guarantee/claim, which shows you where you stand against every condition above, with your own numbers, before it asks you for anything.

• The amount you paid for the 3-month plan, less a 15% administration and bank charge, returned to the original payment method. Worked examples: $68 paid becomes $57.80 refunded; $99 paid becomes $84.15.
• The deduction is calculated from the amount actually charged to you, never from a list price.
• Access ends when the refund is issued.

The 15% covers payment processing, which we do not get back when we refund you, and the administration of the claim. It is why we say “improve or claim a refund” and never “money back” — the refund is not the full amount, and saying otherwise would be a false claim.

• Monthly subscriptions, and add-ons — including an extra month added to the end of a 3-month plan. An extra month is a separate one-off purchase: it is not refundable and it does not move the guarantee's deadline.
• Institutional and batch purchases, which are governed by their own agreement.
• Accounts found to be shared, resold, or automated.
• A test you sat before your starting assessment.
• Claims where the study requirement in section 3 was not met.
• Anything outside the claim window.

• Starting assessment — the diagnostic you complete when you join. It is held apart from your ongoing band calculations so the baseline cannot drift.
• Daily lesson completed — a lesson day recorded as complete in your account.
• Official result — the result issued by the IELTS test partner, not any band estimate shown inside BandAI.
• Overall band — the Overall band printed on your Test Report Form.
• Target band — the overall band you set yourself in the product. Freely changeable during the first 30 days of your plan; fixed thereafter.
• Guaranteed band — the lower of your starting assessment plus 1.0 and your target band, never higher than 9.0; your starting assessment plus 1.0 if you have not set a target band. Set when the target locks, and fixed from then on.

This guarantee is in addition to any rights you have by law. It does not replace them.