Referral Program Terms

Last Updated: June 14, 2026

Invite another family to STEMBuddy. When their child files their first Field Report, you each get $20 in account credit toward your subscription. It’s a thank-you for helping another kid learn to think like a scientist — not a paid gig.

1. Who can refer

• You must be a parent or guardian with a STEMBuddy account, and your household must have filed at least one Field Report (your own child has completed a real investigation). We surface the invite option once you’re there.
• The program is for families with a child in our age band (8–12).

2. Who counts as a referred family

• A new parent/guardian who creates their own STEMBuddy account using your invite link, and who wasn’t already a STEMBuddy user. Existing accounts don’t count.
• One reward per unique invited family. You can’t earn repeatedly for the same household.

3. How you earn the reward

The reward is activation-based, not signup-based. It unlocks when the invited family’s child files their first Field Report — a real, completed investigation. A signup alone doesn’t earn it.

The invited family has 30 days from creating their account to file that first Field Report. After 30 days the pending reward expires.

4. The reward

• $20 in account credit for you, and $20 for the family you invited — applied to your STEMBuddy subscription.
• It applies automatically — there’s no code to enter. If you’re a paying subscriber it reduces your next invoice; if you’re in a free/beta period, it’s held and applied to your first paid invoice.
• Promotional account credit only. It has no cash value, can’t be withdrawn or transferred, and isn’t redeemable for anything other than STEMBuddy subscription charges.

5. Limits

• Up to 3 rewarded referrals per household per year (up to $60 in credit) at launch. Beyond that, you can keep inviting — invited families still get their credit — but additional inviter rewards don’t accrue until the next year.
• One reward per unique invited family (see §2).

6. What doesn’t qualify

The reward exists to bring in real families. These don’t earn credit, and may cost you credit you’ve already earned or your place in the program:

• Referring yourself — a second account for the same household, payment method, or person.
• Fake, duplicate, or throwaway accounts, or any account that doesn’t represent a real family using STEMBuddy.
• Spamming your link, posting it to coupon/deal/reward sites, or paying to advertise it.
• Selling, buying, or transferring invite links or codes.

We may withhold, reverse, or void credits, and disqualify accounts, for abuse, fraud, or violations of these terms or our Terms of Service.

7. Credit terms

• Promotional account credit — no cash value; non-transferable; not redeemable for cash, points, or other credits.
• No expiration during the friends-&-family launch. If we ever set an expiration on referral credit, we’ll disclose it clearly when the credit is granted (in your account), not only here.
• Not necessarily combinable with other offers or promotions.
• Invite links are for personal, non-commercial sharing with people you actually know.
• If you share your link publicly, disclose that you get a reward. This program is for private sharing with people you know. If you ever post your link somewhere public, you must say you receive credit when someone joins — that disclosure is required whenever you have a reward at stake.

8. Your child’s privacy (COPPA)

STEMBuddy is parent-first. Both you and the family you invite create and hold the account as the parent/guardian. We only ever email the parent, never a child, and no child’s personal information is shared between families through this program. The invite carries no information about any child.

9. Our rights

We may change, pause, or end the referral program — or update these terms — at any time, including the reward amount, the cap, the window, and what qualifies; those changes apply going forward. Credit you’ve already earned stays yours and will be honored — the only exception is credit connected to abuse, fraud, or a §6 violation, which we may reverse. We decide eligibility and abuse questions in good faith.

10. Questions

Reply to your invite email or reach us at support@stembuddy.app — a real human reads every message.