Terms & cancellation rights

These terms cover buying CIA Council Pro, the paid subscription described on the CIA Council page. They are written to be read, not to trap you. If anything here is unclear, email hello@consultancyinaction.com before you buy and we will explain it.

The free downloads are not covered by the purchase sections. CIA Council Basic and the CIA SkillBank cost nothing, involve no contract for payment, and you may stop using them at any time. Only the licence and disclaimer sections below apply to them.

1. Who you are buying from

Consultancy in Action is a trading name of Consultancy in Action Ltd.
Registered in England and Wales · Company number 17388810.
Registered office: 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, United Kingdom, WC2H 9JQ.
Contact: hello@consultancyinaction.com — a human reads it.

2. What you are buying

CIA Council Pro is digital content supplied by download, sold as a recurring subscription. It includes everything in the free Basic bundle plus the automation described on the product page: the Workflow engine, the run scaffolding and state ledger, the report renderer, the self-improvement loop and the engine test suite.

It is a tool you run yourself, on your own machine, against your own AI agent. It is not a service we perform for you, not advice, and not a guarantee of any particular decision, outcome or result. The product page is deliberately explicit that the Council's confidence figures are uncalibrated and that no proof exists it makes better decisions — please read that section before buying.

3. Price and payment

The price and billing frequency are shown on the product page and at checkout before you pay. The price shown is the total payable. Consultancy in Action is not VAT registered, so no VAT is chargeable.

Payment is taken by our payment provider. We never see or store your card details. The subscription renews automatically at the frequency shown until you cancel it.

4. Your 14-day cancellation right (the cooling-off period)

Because you are buying at a distance as a consumer, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give you a 14-day right to cancel, starting the day after the contract is made. You do not need to give a reason.

There is one important exception, and it applies to this product. For digital content downloaded rather than supplied on a disc, you lose that 14-day right once the download begins — but only if you have expressly asked for it to begin straight away and acknowledged that you are giving up the right to cancel. So at checkout we ask you to tick a box confirming both. That tick is what allows us to send your download link immediately.

• If you tick it, your link is sent as soon as payment clears, and the 14-day cancellation right no longer applies to that content. Everything in section 6 and section 7 still does.
• If you would rather keep the 14-day right, do not tick it — email hello@consultancyinaction.com instead and we will hold your access until the 14 days have passed, or arrange the purchase another way. You are not required to give up a statutory right in order to buy from us.

If you cancel within the 14 days having not received the download, we refund you in full within 14 days of being told, using the same payment method you used.

How to cancel within the 14 days

Just tell us plainly — an email to hello@consultancyinaction.com saying you are cancelling is enough. You may use the wording below if you prefer, but you do not have to.

5. Cancelling the subscription (any time)

Separately from the 14-day right, you can cancel the recurring subscription whenever you like, through the customer-portal link in your receipt, or by emailing hello@consultancyinaction.com. There is no cancellation fee and no notice period.

When you cancel, you keep access until the end of the period you have already paid for, and we do not bill you again. We do not refund part-periods for time you have already had — the subscription was supplied for that period. Your download link stops working when the subscription ends; anything you have already downloaded is yours to keep and keep using under section 8.

6. Refunds

If CIA Council Pro does not do what the product page says it does, tell us and we will refund you in full — that is your legal right, not a favour, and we would rather return your money than argue about it. Email hello@consultancyinaction.com from the address you bought with.

We do not offer refunds simply because a Council run reached a conclusion you disagreed with. The Verdict is an analysis you are meant to argue with; disagreeing with one is the product working, not failing.

7. If something is faulty or not as described

Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, digital content must be of satisfactory quality, fit for its purpose, and as described. If it is not, you are entitled to a repair or replacement and, where that is not possible or does not fix it, a full or partial refund. If our product damages your device or data because we failed to take reasonable care, you may be entitled to a repair or compensation. Nothing in these terms removes those rights.

8. Licence and acceptable use

Your subscription licenses the Pro bundle for use by you and your own organisation, including on your clients' work. Please do not redistribute, resell, republish or open-source the Pro files, or share your download link publicly. The free Basic bundle may be shared freely and unchanged.

We may improve the bundle over time; while your subscription is active, the same link gives you the updated version.

9. Availability and honest limits

The Council is slow and expensive by design — a run takes between roughly 25 minutes and several hours and consumes a large amount of your AI provider's capacity. Those costs are yours and are not included in the subscription. We do not control your AI provider, and we cannot guarantee the Council will complete a run on any particular plan or within any particular window. The measured figures on the product page are the honest ones we have.

10. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. The version that applies to your purchase is the one in force when you bought, and we will not change the price or billing frequency of an existing subscription without telling you first and giving you the chance to cancel.

11. Complaints and disputes

Email hello@consultancyinaction.com and we will respond. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and you can bring proceedings in the courts of England and Wales; if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may also bring proceedings there. This does not affect your rights as a consumer.

See also our privacy notice and the CIA Council product page.