Terms of Service

Last updated: May 12, 2026

1. Who we are

Beacon is built by Rachel Gubin Affiliate Consulting, Inc., doing business as Beacon Helps, a company based in the United States. These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and Rachel Gubin Affiliate Consulting, Inc., doing business as Beacon Helps (“Beacon Helps,” “Beacon,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). “You” means the person using Beacon — typically a college student.

By creating an account or using Beacon, you agree to these Terms. If you don’t agree, don’t use Beacon.

2. Who can use Beacon

To use Beacon, you must:

• Be at least 18 years old, OR
• Be between 13 and 17 and use Beacon with the involvement of a parent or legal guardian.
• Be a current college/university student or prospective student preparing for college.
• Have authority to share your school account information with Beacon. Connecting Beacon to Canvas means you authorize Beacon to read your academic records on your behalf.
• Comply with your school’s policies. Some schools restrict how third-party tools can access student data. If your school’s policies prohibit using a tool like Beacon, you should not use Beacon.

We don’t knowingly let anyone under 13 use Beacon. If we discover an under-13 account, we close it and delete the data.

3. What Beacon does

Beacon is an academic operating system. We help students with ADHD and executive dysfunction stay on top of their coursework by:

• Showing your assignments and deadlines from Canvas in one place
• Sending notifications when deadlines are approaching (push and optional SMS)
• Surfacing key syllabus information (grading policies, late penalties, attendance rules)
• Helping you book testing center slots and email professors about accommodations
• Generating AI-powered suggestions about what to work on next

Beacon is a tool to support your work, not a substitute for your work. It does not submit assignments for you, take exams for you, or replace direct communication with your professors.

4. Your account

Creating an account

You can create a Beacon account using your email address (via magic link) or your Google account. You’re responsible for the security of your sign-in credentials. If someone else gains access to your Google account or email, they may be able to access your Beacon account. We’re not liable for unauthorized access caused by compromised sign-in credentials outside our system.

Keeping your account information accurate

You agree to provide accurate, current information when you sign up and to keep it updated. This includes your school, your phone number (if you opt in to SMS), and your contact information.

One account per person

Beacon accounts are for individual use. You may not share your account with others or let someone else use it on your behalf.

5. AI-generated content — what it is and isn’t

Beacon uses artificial intelligence (Anthropic’s Claude) to:

• Read your syllabi and extract grading policies, deadlines, and rules
• Analyze your assignment list and suggest what to work on
• Parse class schedule photos into structured schedule data

These features have limitations you should understand:

• AI can be wrong. It may misread a syllabus, miscategorize an assignment, or recommend the wrong priority. Always verify important information (especially due dates and grading rules) against Canvas and your actual syllabus.
• Beacon’s recommendations are suggestions, not instructions. The “do this now” prompts on your dashboard are based on patterns and heuristics; they’re not personalized academic advice and they’re not based on knowledge of your specific situation beyond what Beacon can see in Canvas.
• Beacon doesn’t know everything Canvas knows. If a professor posts an update in a Canvas announcement that Beacon can’t see, the recommendations may be out of date. Check Canvas directly for the latest information.
• Beacon doesn’t replace academic advisors, disability services, or your professors. It complements them. For decisions that materially affect your academic standing (withdrawing from a course, requesting incompletes, formal accommodation requests), talk to the human professionals at your school.

6. Notifications

When you create an account, Beacon may send you:

• Push notifications (if you grant notification permission) about closing deadlines, missed assignments, and important system events.
• Magic-link emails for sign-in.
• System emails about account events (deletion confirmations, security notices).

You can adjust push notification preferences in app settings, but some critical system notifications (like sign-in links) cannot be turned off as long as you have an active account.

If you opt in to SMS notifications, you agree to receive SMS messages about your enrolled coursework — deadline alerts, system status, and similar. Standard message and data rates from your carrier apply. You can opt out at any time by replying STOP to any SMS message. Opting out of SMS doesn’t affect your ability to use the rest of Beacon.

7. Connecting your Canvas account

To do its job, Beacon needs to read data from your school’s Canvas account. You can connect via:

• Personal access token — a string you generate inside Canvas that grants Beacon read-only access.
• ICS calendar feed — a public-but-unguessable URL from Canvas that exposes your calendar data.

You authorize Beacon to use these credentials to access your academic data. If you disconnect Canvas, Beacon stops syncing new data. Previously synced data remains in your account until you delete it (see Section 11).

We will never modify your Canvas account, submit work on your behalf, or post anything to Canvas. Beacon’s Canvas access is read-only.

8. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use Beacon for any unlawful purpose, including academic fraud or violating your school’s academic integrity policy
• Use Beacon to circumvent your school’s policies on third-party tools
• Attempt to access another user’s data
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract Beacon’s source code
• Use Beacon to harass, harm, or impersonate anyone
• Send spam or unwanted messages through Beacon’s messaging features (e.g., the professor email composer)
• Probe, scan, or test Beacon’s infrastructure for vulnerabilities without our written permission
• Use automated systems (bots, scrapers, etc.) to interact with Beacon
• Use Beacon in any way that could damage, overburden, or impair our infrastructure

If you violate these rules, we may suspend or terminate your account. For serious violations (especially security-related), we may also report them to law enforcement.

9. Content you create

Beacon doesn’t host user-generated content in the typical sense (you’re not posting publicly on Beacon). But you do create some content:

• Accommodations text you enter in settings
• Testing center contact info you save
• Outgoing emails you compose in Beacon and send via your email client
• Class schedule photos you upload for parsing

You retain ownership of all content you create. By using Beacon’s features to process this content (e.g., having Claude read a schedule photo), you grant Beacon a limited license to use it for the purpose of providing the feature. We don’t claim ownership and we don’t use your content for any purpose other than running Beacon for you.

You’re responsible for ensuring that content you upload doesn’t violate anyone else’s rights. For example, if a class schedule photo contains other students’ names, you should consider their privacy before uploading. Beacon’s privacy practices for this content are described in our Privacy Policy.

10. Free use and future pricing

Beacon is currently free to use. We may introduce paid tiers in the future. When that happens:

• Existing accounts will be given clear notice about pricing changes before any charge is made.
• We will never automatically convert a free account into a paid account without your explicit consent.
• Free features that you currently use will remain free for a reasonable transition period.

If you’ve been invited into a school-paid pilot or institutional license, the institution’s contract with Beacon governs the terms of that arrangement, and you continue to be subject to these Terms for your individual use.

11. Account deletion and termination

Deleting your account

You can delete your Beacon account at any time from app settings. When you initiate deletion:

• We enter a 30-day grace period during which you can change your mind by signing back in
• After 30 days, your data is permanently erased from our active databases (the specifics are detailed in our Privacy Policy)
• Database backups may retain residual data for an additional 30 days before rotation
• SMS consent records (if you opted in) are anonymized but retained as required by carrier compliance

Account suspension or termination by Beacon

We may suspend or terminate your account if:

• You violate these Terms
• We have a good-faith reason to believe your account has been compromised
• Beacon Helps is legally required to do so
• You haven’t used the account in an extended period (we’ll send notice first)
• We’re discontinuing Beacon as a service (see Section 16)

In most cases we’ll give you notice and a chance to resolve the issue before termination. For serious violations or legal emergencies, we may act first and notify you afterward.

After termination, you lose access to the account and the data it contained. If termination is initiated by us due to your violation of these Terms, you may not create a new Beacon account without our written permission.

12. Service availability — no guarantees

Beacon is provided “as is” and “as available.” We work hard to keep it running reliably, but we don’t promise:

• That Beacon will always be available without interruption
• That Beacon will be free of bugs or errors
• That Beacon’s recommendations or syllabus analyses will be accurate or complete
• That data will be synced from Canvas in real-time (sync intervals vary)
• That third-party services Beacon depends on (Canvas, Twilio, Anthropic, Apple, Google, Railway) will always be available

If Beacon is down or impaired, your responsibility for your coursework doesn’t pause. Always have a fallback (the actual Canvas app or website) you can rely on.

13. Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

BEACON IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT BEACON WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, OPERATE WITHOUT INTERRUPTION, BE SECURE, OR BE ERROR-FREE.

WE DO NOT WARRANT THE ACCURACY OR RELIABILITY OF AI-GENERATED CONTENT (see Section 5).

WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ACADEMIC CONSEQUENCES (missed deadlines, failed assignments, course outcomes) ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF BEACON. Your academic success and obligations remain your own responsibility.

Some jurisdictions don’t allow exclusion of certain warranties, so portions of the above may not apply to you.

14. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

BEACON HELPS, ITS OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES — INCLUDING LOST GRADES, LOST OPPORTUNITIES, LOST DATA, OR EMOTIONAL DISTRESS — ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF BEACON.

OUR TOTAL CUMULATIVE LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF BEACON IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID BEACON IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM, OR (B) $100 USD.

These limitations apply regardless of the legal theory (contract, tort, statute, or otherwise) and even if we knew or should have known that damages were possible.

Some jurisdictions don’t allow limitations on certain damages, so portions of the above may not apply to you.

15. Indemnification

You agree to defend and indemnify Beacon Helps and its officers, employees, and agents from any claim, demand, loss, liability, or expense (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising from:

• Your use of Beacon in violation of these Terms
• Your violation of any law or third-party right
• Content you upload or send through Beacon (including emails composed in Beacon)

We’ll let you know promptly if we receive a claim covered by this provision.

16. Changes to Beacon

Beacon is evolving. We may add, change, or remove features at any time. For significant changes that materially affect how you use Beacon, we’ll provide reasonable notice (typically via email and in-app notification).

We may also discontinue Beacon entirely. If we do, we’ll provide at least 60 days’ notice and a way to export your data before shutdown.

17. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we’ll notify you by email and via in-app notification before the changes take effect. The “Last updated” date at the top of these Terms tells you when the current version was published.

If you continue using Beacon after a Terms change takes effect, you accept the new Terms. If you don’t accept them, you can delete your account before they take effect.

18. Governing law and dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.

Informal resolution first

Before filing any formal legal action, you agree to first try to resolve the dispute with us informally by emailing support@beaconhelps.com with a description of the dispute. We agree to do the same with you. We’ll work together in good faith for at least 30 days before either side escalates.

Arbitration

If informal resolution fails, any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of Beacon will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. The arbitration will take place in Delaware (or remotely by agreement). The arbitrator’s award is final and may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Carve-outs from arbitration

You may bring claims in small-claims court instead of arbitration if they qualify. Either party may seek injunctive relief in court for intellectual property, security, or unauthorized use disputes that require immediate intervention. Class actions and class arbitrations are not permitted under this section — disputes must be resolved on an individual basis.

If you don’t want to be bound by the arbitration provision, you may opt out by emailing support@beaconhelps.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms. Your opt-out doesn’t affect any other part of these Terms.

19. General

Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the rest of the Terms remain in effect.

No waiver

If we don’t enforce a provision of these Terms in one instance, we haven’t waived our right to enforce it in the future.

Entire agreement

These Terms (together with our Privacy Policy) are the entire agreement between you and Beacon Helps regarding your use of Beacon. They replace any prior agreements or understandings.

Assignment

You may not transfer your account or your rights under these Terms to anyone else without our written consent. We may transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

20. Contact

For questions about these Terms or any other issue with Beacon:

support@beaconhelps.com

We respond within 30 days, usually much faster.