Terms of Service

01 Who we are

Pathly is operated by Pathly Labs, Inc., a Delaware corporation ("Pathly," "we," "us," "our"), headquartered in South Carolina.

Pathly Labs, Inc. is the successor to Pathly Ltd Co. References to Pathly in earlier versions of these Terms, or in agreements entered into with Pathly Ltd Co, mean Pathly Labs, Inc.

"Services" means the Pathly platform, the website at pathly.com, the application at app.pathly.com, and related features and tools.

02 Accepting these Terms

You accept these Terms by creating an account or by using the Services. If you do not agree with them, do not use Pathly.

If you are accepting on behalf of a practice, school, district, or other organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization.

These Terms incorporate the Privacy Policy and the Cookie Notice.

03 Who can use Pathly

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. Pathly is designed for students in grades 9 through 12.

Pathly is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them or allow them to create accounts. If we learn that someone under 13 has registered, we will delete the account and the information associated with it.

If you are under 18, review these Terms with a parent or guardian before using Pathly. By using the Services you confirm you have their permission.

We may suspend or close accounts that lack required consent or verification.

04 What Pathly is

Pathly helps students explore colleges, careers, courses, and scholarships. It provides personalized recommendations, assessments, planning tools, and conversational guidance, and it gives counselors tools to support the students they work with.

Pathly is a guidance tool. It is not a substitute for a school counselor, an independent counselor, or your own judgment. It does not provide legal, financial, medical, or mental health advice. See Section 16.

05 Your account

• Give us accurate information and keep it current.
• Your account is yours. Do not share your login.
• You are responsible for activity under your account.
• Tell us at security@pathly.com if you think someone else has access to it.

Student accounts belong to students. Your account is not owned by your school, your district, or a counselor. If a school's agreement with Pathly ends, or if a counselor cancels their subscription, your account stays active and you keep your data.

06 Free and paid plans

6.1 The student experience is free

Students are not charged to use Pathly. Assessments, recommendations, roadmaps, and AI guidance are free to students, whether or not their school partners with us and whether or not a counselor subscribes.

Paid subscriptions do not unlock the student experience. They add professional and family tools alongside it.

6.2 What paid plans cover

Each set of plan terms incorporates these Terms. Where they conflict, the plan terms control for that plan.

6.3 No surprise charges

We will not begin charging for something you already have for free. If we introduce a new paid feature, it will be optional and priced before you use it. Any change to the price of an existing subscription comes with at least 30 days' notice and takes effect at your next renewal.

07 How Pathly makes money

Recommendations are never paid placement. Colleges, programs, employers, and training providers cannot buy ranking, position, or enhanced listings in what Pathly shows a student. No third party pays us to be recommended.

If that ever changes, it will be disclosed on this page and in the changelog at least 30 days before it takes effect, and any paid relationship will be labeled everywhere it appears.

08 Your content

"Your content" means what you put into Pathly: profile details, goals, assessment responses, messages, notes, and anything else you create or upload.

You own it. You give Pathly a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to host, store, reproduce, display, and technically modify your content, such as reformatting it for storage or display, solely to operate the Services, provide them to you, and improve them.

That license is not transferable, except to a successor under Section 21.3. It ends when you delete the content or your account, other than copies held in routine backups until they rotate out, and de-identified information that can no longer be linked to you.

You are responsible for making sure your content does not infringe anyone's rights or break the acceptable use rules in Section 10.

09 Our content

The Services, including the software, design, text, graphics, assessments, models, and underlying systems, belong to Pathly or its licensors. You may use them only as these Terms allow. You may not copy, distribute, modify, resell, reverse engineer, or create derivative works from them without our written permission.

Pathly™ and the Pathly logo are trademarks of Pathly Labs, Inc. A registration application is pending before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

Occupational information in Pathly is derived in part from public data sources, including O*NET and CareerOneStop, which carry their own terms of use.

10 Acceptable use

These rules apply to everyone. Breaking them can get an account suspended or closed under Section 15.

If you see something that breaks these rules, tell us at hello@pathly.com. If a child is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services first.

11 AI guidance

Pathly uses AI to generate recommendations and conversational guidance based on what you tell it.

• Suggestions, not determinations. Pathly's AI does not decide anything on your behalf, and it does not admit you anywhere, award anything, or place you in a job.
• It can be wrong. AI systems make mistakes and can produce information that is out of date or inaccurate. Verify anything that matters, especially deadlines, requirements, costs, and eligibility, with the school, program, or provider directly.
• Training. Pathly does not permit its AI providers to train their models on your data, and uses the provider settings and contractual terms available to it to disable training and minimize retention. Pathly does not train models on individual student conversations.

Section 8 of the Counselor DPA describes exactly what is and is not sent to AI providers. The subprocessor list names them.

12 Counselors and schools

12.1 Connecting a counselor

A student can connect a counselor to their account. Connecting is the student's choice, and it can be undone at any time from account settings. When a student disconnects a counselor, that counselor's access ends immediately.

12.2 What a connected counselor sees

A counselor sees progress and engagement signals, assessment scores, saved careers, goals, and roadmap status.

A counselor never sees a student's conversations with Pathly's AI. Not transcripts, not individual messages, not the topics discussed. Engagement summaries shown to counselors are generated from metadata such as message counts and assessment completion, and the system that writes them does not read conversation content. A student can choose to share a specific excerpt, but that is always a manual act by the student.

12.3 Academic data a counselor can enter

A connected counselor can enter a self-reported GPA and standardized test scores on a student's profile. Anything a counselor enters belongs to the student's account: the student can see it, change it, and delete it. A student's correction stands, and Pathly will not restore a counselor-entered value over it.

Pathly does not receive official transcripts or verified score reports.

12.4 School-linked accounts

If your account is linked to a school, district, or organization, that organization's agreement with Pathly governs what its staff can access, and the organization is responsible for any notices or consents its own policies and applicable law require. Section 12.2 applies to school counselors exactly as it applies to independent counselors.

13 Privacy

The Privacy Policy explains what Pathly collects, how it is used, who it is shared with, and how long it is kept. The data inventory lists every field. The subprocessor list names every third party that touches it.

Pathly is built to FERPA standards and is designed to support COPPA, PPRA, and applicable state student privacy requirements.

14 Availability and changes

We aim to keep Pathly running continuously, but we cannot promise uninterrupted access. Maintenance, updates, and outages happen.

We may add, change, or remove features. Where a change materially reduces functionality you rely on, we will give reasonable notice when it is feasible to do so.

15 Ending your account

You can delete your account at any time from account settings, or by writing to privacy@pathly.com. There is a 15-day grace period during which you can restore it. After that, your data is permanently deleted on the timelines in the data inventory.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these Terms, creates a security or safety risk, or where the law requires it. Where it is safe and lawful to do so, we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond first.

Sections 8 (as to the license for backups and de-identified data), 9, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 21 survive the end of your account.

16 Disclaimers

The Services are provided as is and as available. To the fullest extent the law allows, Pathly disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

Pathly is not a professional adviser. It does not provide legal, financial, medical, psychological, or licensed counseling services, and it is not a mental health or crisis service. If you are in crisis or need mental health support, contact a licensed professional or a crisis line in your area. In the United States you can call or text 988.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

17 Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Pathly and its officers, directors, employees, and affiliates are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost data, lost profits, or lost opportunity.

Pathly's total liability for all claims relating to the Services is limited to the greater of one hundred dollars ($100) or the amount you paid Pathly in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim.

These limits do not apply to Pathly's gross negligence or willful misconduct, or to anything else the law does not permit to be limited. Some jurisdictions do not allow these limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

18 Indemnification

If you use Pathly on behalf of an organization, or in connection with a business or professional practice, you agree to defend and indemnify Pathly against claims, losses, and reasonable costs arising from your content, your use of the Services, or your breach of these Terms.

This section does not apply to students using Pathly for their own personal educational planning.

19 Disputes and governing law

19.1 Talk to us first

Most problems can be sorted out quickly. Before filing anything, write to legal@pathly.com describing the issue and what you want. We will work with you in good faith for 60 days.

19.2 Mediation

If that does not resolve it, both sides agree to attempt non-binding mediation in South Carolina before filing suit, splitting the mediator's fee.

19.3 Courts

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of South Carolina, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Disputes will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in South Carolina, and both parties consent to their jurisdiction.

Pathly does not require arbitration and does not ask you to waive your right to participate in a class action.

20 Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For a change that materially reduces your rights, we will give at least 30 days' notice by email and on this page before it takes effect. Continued use after the effective date is acceptance. Other changes, such as clarifications and contact updates, take effect on posting.

Every version is dated and kept in the archive. Every change is listed in the changelog.

If you do not accept a material change, you can delete your account before it takes effect. If you hold a paid subscription, you can cancel and receive a pro-rata refund of prepaid, unused fees.

21 General

21.1 Entire agreement

These Terms, together with the documents they incorporate and any plan terms that apply to you, are the entire agreement between you and Pathly about the Services.

21.2 Severability and waiver

If any provision is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it.

21.3 Assignment

You may not assign these Terms. Pathly may assign them to an affiliate or to a successor in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. If that happens, we will notify users before any transfer of personal information, as described in the Privacy Policy.

21.4 Notices

We send notices to the email address on your account. You send notices to legal@pathly.com and, where a written notice is required, to the mailing address in Section 22.

21.5 Accessibility

Pathly works toward WCAG 2.1 Level AA. If you hit a barrier, tell us at hello@pathly.com and we will help you get what you need and fix the underlying problem.

22 Contact