Refund and Cancellation Policy

How to cancel, when you get money back, and what happens to your credits. This page forms part of our Terms of Service, and sits alongside the Academy Privacy Note.

Last updated: 1 November 2026. Version 1.1.

1. How to cancel

Use Cancel membership in your account, or email noleen@ladybugz.co.za from the email address on your account and say you want to cancel. You do not have to give a reason.

We will confirm in writing within 2 working days and tell you the exact date your access ends. If you do not get that confirmation, chase us. Either it went to your spam folder or we never got your message, and we would rather you check than assume.

Cancelling stops the next payment. It does not close your account. Your account stays open so you can still read your past results and use any top up credits you have bought, unless you also ask us to close it.

2. Monthly plans: Academy and Growth

• You can cancel at any time.
• There is no cancellation fee and no notice period.
• Your plan runs to the end of the month you have already paid for. You keep full access, and your credits for that month, until then.
• We do not refund part of a month that has started.
• You will not be charged again.

Example. You joined Academy on 10 March and cancel on 22 March. You keep Academy until 9 April. You are not charged on 10 April.

3. Your first seven days

We want to be straight with you about what the law says here, and then tell you what we actually do.

What the law says

The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act gives you seven days to cancel most things you buy online, without giving a reason and without a penalty. The seven days run from the day the agreement is made. That right does not cover a service that has already started with your agreement. Our scans, tracking runs and coaching tools start the moment you ask them to, so the seven day right often falls away as soon as you start using the service.

What we do anyway

If you have done any of those three, the service has genuinely been delivered, so we cannot refund it. In that case we cancel your plan from that day, you keep access to the end of the month you paid for, and nothing further is charged.

The seven day promise is available once per account, on your first paid subscription. If you bought a scan first and the R95 came off your first month, the refund is the amount you actually paid, not the full plan price.

There is one more case. If we did not give you all the information the law requires before you bought, or did not give you a fair chance to check your order, correct a mistake and back out before paying, the law gives you 14 days from receiving the service to cancel. We work hard never to be in that position. The right is yours either way.

Where the law requires a cooling off refund, we pay it within 30 days of your cancellation, as the Act requires.

4. Yearly plans

A yearly plan runs for a set 12 months: Academy at R3,289 or Growth at R9,889. You pay for 11 months and get 12. All prices are in South African rand. LadyBugz is not registered for VAT, so there is nothing to add.

Because it is a set period, cancelling early works differently from a monthly plan. Here is exactly how.

4.1 Cancelling during the year

You can cancel at any time by giving us 20 business days notice in writing. Email is fine. Business days means Monday to Friday, not counting South African public holidays.

The yearly price is a discount we give on the understanding that you stay for the full 12 months. So when you leave early, we charge the months you actually had at the normal monthly price and refund what is left.

How we work it out. We count every month you have had, including the 20 business day notice period, and charge each one at the normal monthly rate (R299 for Academy, R899 for Growth). A part month counts as a whole month. We subtract that total from what you paid and refund the difference. If the total comes to more than you paid, there is nothing to refund, and we will not ask you for more.

This is the only cancellation charge on a yearly plan. There is no separate penalty, no admin fee, and nothing is deducted for credits you used inside your allowance.

4.2 When your year ends

• Between 40 and 80 business days before your year ends, we will email you to say it is coming up, tell you about anything that is changing, and remind you of your choices.
• If you do nothing, your plan carries on month to month at the normal monthly price, and you can cancel at any time under section 2.
• If you want another full year, you can renew and keep the yearly price.
• If you want it to stop on the end date, just tell us.

4.3 A note on who this applies to

The 20 business day cancellation right in the Consumer Protection Act is given to individuals, and not to every kind of company. We apply the same deal to every customer, whether you buy as a person or as a company, so you do not have to work out which one you are.

5. The R95 AI visibility scan

• It starts straight away. As soon as your payment goes through, the scan is queued and runs. There is normally no window in which to stop it, and we say so at checkout before you pay.
• Once your result is ready, the scan has been delivered. You have your score, your area scores, your full fix list and your top three content opportunities, and you can open them again whenever you like. We do not refund it.
• If the scan fails: if something goes wrong on our side and you do not get a usable result, we run it again at no cost, or refund the R95 in full if you prefer.
• The scan is a once off purchase. There is nothing to cancel and nothing renews.

If you join Academy or Growth within 30 days of your scan, the R95 comes off your first month. If you then cancel, the refund rules above apply to what you actually paid. The R95 is not refunded twice.

6. Top up credits

Top ups are bought separately from a plan.

• If you have not used any of a top up, tell us within seven days of buying it and we refund it in full.
• Once you have started spending a top up, we do not refund the rest. Credits have no cash value and we do not buy them back.
• Top up credits last one year from the day you buy them, and they survive cancelling a plan as long as your account stays open. If the law gives you longer than a year, the law wins.

7. What happens to your credits when you cancel

8. Changing plans

• Academy to Growth takes effect immediately and starts a fresh Growth month that day at the full Growth price. We do not split the month or refund the days you had left on Academy. Your unused Academy credits carry over, within Growth's rollover cap. We show you this on the upgrade screen before you confirm.
• Growth to Academy takes effect on your next renewal date, so you keep Growth for the month you have paid for. Email us and we will arrange it.

9. When we refund you, and how

• Refunds go back to the card or account you paid from, through Paystack. We cannot pay a refund to a different person or account.
• We send the refund within 10 working days of agreeing it, and within 30 days in every case. Your bank usually takes a further 5 to 10 working days to show it.
• Refunds are in South African rand, for the rand amount you paid. If your bank converted the payment into another currency, the amount you see back may differ slightly because of exchange rates and your bank's fees. We cannot control that.

10. If we cancel or change something

• If we close your account for a reason that is not your fault, we refund the unused part of anything you have paid in advance.
• If we take away something you are actually paying for, we will tell you. If you are not happy, you can cancel and we refund the unused part of what you paid in advance.
• If one of the AI engines we promised becomes unavailable for a long stretch and we cannot replace it, the same applies.
• If we suspend or close your account because of unpaid bills or a breach of our terms, we do not refund.

11. Please talk to us before you ask your bank to reverse a charge

If a charge looks wrong, email us first. We would much rather sort it out ourselves, and faster. Asking your bank to reverse a charge takes weeks, costs us a fee, and may mean we have to pause your account while the bank investigates.

12. If you are not happy with how we handled this

Email noleen@ladybugz.co.za and ask for it to be looked at again. If we still cannot agree, you can take it to the National Consumer Commission, and you can go to court, although the Consumer Protection Act asks you to use the complaint routes first. Nothing on this page takes away any right the law gives you.