Refund Policy

Mateusz Podeszwa, a sole trader operating under the name podeszwa.dev (the “Studio”), provides design, development, and creative services on a project-by-project basis. This Refund Policy forms part of, and should be read alongside, the Studio’s Terms of Service. By engaging the Studio you confirm you have read, understood, and accepted both documents.

1. General principle

The Studio is a single-operator practice. Time committed to your project is time the Studio cannot offer to other clients. For that reason, fees paid for ongoing or completed work are non-refundable save where expressly stated below. The Studio does not operate a satisfaction-based money-back guarantee.

2. Limited fourteen-day cooling-off window

You may request a full refund of fees paid for an engagement within fourteen (14) calendar days of your initial payment, provided that all of the following conditions are met at the time of your request:

1. the first contracted milestone has not been marked “Done” in the client portal;
2. no project deliverables of any kind — including but not limited to drafts, design files, source code, exports, written reports, screenshots, or links to externally hosted assets — have been transmitted, downloaded, or otherwise accessed by you or any party acting on your behalf; and
3. the engagement has not been paused, cancelled, or otherwise interrupted at your request.

Where all three conditions are met, refunds will be processed in full to the original payment method, subject to clause 6 below. Where any condition is not met, the engagement is non-refundable under this clause.

2a. If you are a consumer: your statutory right to cancel

Clause 2 is the Studio’s own policy. It sits on top of, and never instead of, the rights the law gives you. Where the two differ, this clause wins.

You deal as a consumer if you are an individual buying wholly or mainly for purposes outside your trade, business, craft, or profession. If it is in doubt, the Studio treats you as a consumer.

Your right to cancel

Where you engage the Studio as a consumer and the contract was concluded online or otherwise at a distance, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give you a statutory right to cancel within fourteen (14) days, without giving any reason. The period ends fourteen days after the day the contract is concluded, which for an engagement is the day the Studio accepts your brief and activates the gig. That right is not subject to the three conditions in clause 2, and clause 3 does not remove it.

How to cancel

Tell the Studio, before the fourteen days are up, in a clear statement that you have decided to cancel. A message through the client portal or an email to hello@podeszwa.dev is enough. You may use the form below, but you do not have to. To meet the deadline it is enough that you send your message before the period ends.

Model cancellation form (complete and return only if you wish to cancel)

To: Mateusz Podeszwa, trading as podeszwa.dev, hello@podeszwa.dev
I hereby give notice that I cancel my contract for the supply of the following service: [describe it, or give the gig reference]
Ordered on / received on: [date]
Name of consumer: [your name]
Address of consumer: [your address]
Signature (only if sending on paper) and date: […]

What it costs you

Work does not begin during the cancellation period unless you ask for it. If you do ask, the Studio records that request, and confirms it back to you in writing, before starting.

1. If you did not ask the Studio to begin during the fourteen days, you pay nothing, and any money you have paid is returned in full.
2. If you did ask the Studio to begin and then cancel inside the period, you pay a proportionate amount for the work actually carried out up to the moment you told the Studio, measured against the total price of the contract. You do not pay for the rest, and you do not pay any cancellation charge.
3. If the service is fully performed within the fourteen days, having been begun at your express request and with your acknowledgement that you would lose the right to cancel once it was complete, the right to cancel is lost at that point.

Any refund due is made using the same means of payment you used, within fourteen (14) days of the Studio being told you are cancelling. There is no fee for a refund made under this clause, and clause 6 (processing fees) does not apply to it.

What this right does not cover

Digital products bought from the shop are dealt with separately at clause 10, because they are supplied immediately and you are asked to agree to that at checkout.

Nothing in this policy affects your other rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 — in particular that a service must be performed with reasonable care and skill, within a reasonable time, and for a reasonable price where none was agreed, and that digital content must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose, and as described.

3. Non-refundable circumstances

Subject always to clause 2a where you are a consumer, and for the avoidance of doubt, fees paid in connection with an engagement are non-refundable in (without limitation) any of the following circumstances:

1. the first milestone has been marked “Done” by the Studio in the client portal;
2. any deliverable, draft, or work-in-progress has been provided to you or made accessible to you, regardless of medium, format, or whether you consider it usable;
3. you have downloaded or otherwise accessed final-revision deliverables;
4. you have requested a pause, change of scope, or change of direction that materially alters the original brief;
5. the engagement is cancelled at your request after work has commenced;
6. the engagement is terminated by the Studio for cause under clause 9 of the Terms of Service; or
7. more than fourteen (14) calendar days have elapsed since your initial payment.

4. Free in-scope revisions

The Studio includes complimentary in-scope revisions within each milestone at no additional charge. “In-scope” means refinements consistent with the brief originally agreed for that milestone — copy tweaks, colour adjustments, layout corrections, asset substitutions, and similar.

Out-of-scope changes — including but not limited to redirecting the brief, restructuring multiple milestones, adding new features or sections, replacing the design system, or changing the underlying system architecture — are quoted as additional work prior to commencement and may attract additional fees. The Studio’s good-faith determination of what constitutes “in-scope” is final.

5. How to request a refund

Refund requests must be sent in writing via the client portal’s messaging interface, or by email to the address listed on the Studio’s contact page, and must include:

1. the engagement (gig) reference;
2. the invoice number(s) for which a refund is requested;
3. a written confirmation that no deliverables have been received, downloaded, or accessed; and
4. a written confirmation that the first milestone has not been marked “Done”.

The Studio will respond within five (5) UK working days. Refunds approved under clause 2 will be processed via the original payment provider within ten (10) UK working days of approval. The Studio reserves the right to decline any refund request that does not meet the conditions of clause 2 or that, in the Studio’s reasonable judgment, is made in bad faith.

6. Processing fees

Where a refund is made as a discretionary or goodwill gesture to a business client, and payment was made via Stripe or another third-party provider, the Studio may deduct any non-recoverable processor fees from the refunded amount. The deduction is stated clearly in the refund confirmation.

No deduction is ever made where the refund is one you are entitled to. That includes any refund on a consumer’s statutory cancellation under clause 2a, any refund for a service not performed with reasonable care and skill or digital content that is faulty or not as described, and any refund the Studio owes under clause 2. In those cases you are reimbursed in full, using the same means of payment you used, and the Studio bears its own processor fees.

6a. Subscriptions (hosting and care plans)

1. Subscriptions run on a rolling billing period — weekly, monthly, annual, or another regular interval, in each case exactly as shown on the offer you accepted — and renew automatically until cancelled. The billing period does not change unless you agree to a change.
2. You can cancel at any time, in one step, from your account area or by emailing the Studio. The Studio will never refuse a cancellation. The service then continues to the end of the period you have already paid for and stops.
3. Rolling plans. Unless you agreed a minimum term, your subscription is rolling: on cancellation no further payment is taken, and there is no cancellation fee. This is the default, and it is what applies unless the offer you accepted said otherwise.
4. Minimum-term plans. Some plans are offered for an agreed number of billing periods, normally in exchange for a lower price than the rolling equivalent. Where you accepted a plan of that kind, the offer said so before you agreed to it, and the subscription agreement you accepted sets out what happens if it ends early. You can still cancel whenever you like, but an early exit settlement may then be payable. Where this policy and a subscription agreement you accepted differ on the consequences of ending a minimum term early, that agreement governs, because it is the one written for that plan and shown to you before you took it.
5. What an early exit settlement is. It is a stated share of the fees left on the term you agreed, set out in the agreement before you accept it. It is deliberately less than the full remaining balance, because the Studio no longer has to meet the costs of serving your account once the service stops. It is not a penalty or a fine: it reflects the fact that the Studio arranged its capacity and its costs around the term you committed to, and priced the plan on that basis. The Studio can reduce or waive it, and often does. If you are thinking about cancelling because something has gone wrong or your circumstances have changed, please make contact first: in most cases something can be agreed.
6. Because you keep the service for the rest of the period you paid for, part-period refunds are not given on cancellation. Where the Studio ends the subscription, it refunds any unused whole billing periods paid in advance.
7. A price change never takes effect without your express agreement, on at least 30 days’ notice. If you do not accept it, the subscription simply ends at the close of the period you have paid for.
8. If a renewal payment fails and stays unpaid after the automatic retries, the Studio may suspend the service on notice until payment resumes.
9. Nothing here affects your statutory rights, including your rights as a consumer where the service is not supplied with reasonable care and skill.

6b. Consultation calls

Booked calls may be rescheduled or cancelled free of charge on the notice stated in the terms you accepted at booking — usually at least 48 hours. Inside that window, or if you do not attend, the session is charged in full, because the time was reserved for you and cannot be re-booked. Where a cancellation is caused by something outside your reasonable control, the Studio will offer an alternative time.

7. Disputes and chargebacks

The Studio would always rather sort a problem out directly, and asks that you raise it under clause 5 before going to your bank or card issuer. In almost every case that is faster for you as well.

Your right to ask your bank or card issuer for a chargeback is yours, and this policy does not take it away, restrict it, or penalise you for using it. Nothing here requires you to exhaust the Studio’s own procedure first, and raising a chargeback is not by itself a breach of anything.

Where a business client raises a chargeback or third-party payment dispute in bad faith — that is, in respect of work it has accepted, or without first putting the complaint to the Studio — the Studio may treat that as a material breach of the Terms of Service, suspend work on notice, withhold unreleased deliverables, and assert its intellectual-property and contractual rights. This paragraph does not apply where you deal as a consumer.

Where the sum charged back is genuinely owed, it remains owed, and the Studio may recover it as a debt. That is true of any client, and it is a separate matter from whether raising the dispute was itself wrongful.

8. Variation of this policy

The Studio may revise this Refund Policy at any time. Revisions take effect for engagements commenced after the revision date. Engagements already in progress at the time of revision continue under the policy in force at their initial-payment date.

9. Governing law

This Refund Policy is governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction over any dispute arising from or in connection with it.

If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the law of the part of the United Kingdom you live in, and you may bring proceedings in your local courts. The Studio will only bring proceedings against a consumer where that consumer lives. Clause 20 of the Terms of Service says the same thing and governs if the two ever differ.

10. Digital products (Field Supply shop)

This clause applies to digital content purchased from the Studio’s shop (“Field Supply”) — downloadable files such as templates, presets, code kits, wallpapers, courses, and e-books — and, for those purchases, prevails over clauses 2 and 3 above.

1. Immediate supply; cancellation right waived. Shop purchases are supplied immediately — the download is available the moment payment completes. Before you can pay, checkout asks you to tick a box confirming that you want the files straight away and that you understand this ends your fourteen (14) day right to cancel. That is your express consent and acknowledgement under regulation 37(1)(b) of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. We record the exact wording you agreed to and the time you agreed to it, and repeat both back to you in your order confirmation email. If you do not tick it, we cannot start the download — and your cancellation right is untouched.
2. All sales final. Accordingly, all shop sales are final and non-refundable. Digital files cannot be returned once delivered.
3. Statutory rights unaffected. Nothing in this clause limits your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 where digital content is faulty, not as described, or not of satisfactory quality — in those cases you are entitled to the remedies the law provides (repair or replacement, and where those fail, a price reduction or refund).
4. Goodwill. The Studio may, at its sole discretion, offer a refund or replacement outside these terms. Any such refund is processed via Stripe to the original payment method and does not waive this clause for future purchases.
5. Chargebacks. Clause 7 applies equally to shop purchases.