Terms of use

Please read these terms before using Degree Margins. By creating an account you agree to them. They sit alongside our privacy notice, which explains how we handle your personal data. Nothing in these terms affects your legal rights as a consumer.

1. Who we are

Degree Margins is provided by ProtocolDock ("we", "us"). ProtocolDock is the party you contract with and the party that takes payment. You can contact us at hello@degreemargins.com.

2. What Degree Margins is

Degree Margins is an online notebook and learning companion for university students, with a separate notebook for each degree subject. It includes teaching pages, study tools and space for your own notes, files and books. Subjects marked "early access" have the full notebook, but their subject-specific tools are still being built and are added over time.

The teaching pages are written to support your learning. They are general educational material, not professional, legal, medical or clinical advice, and they do not replace your course, your lecturers or your university's guidance. We work hard to keep them accurate, but if something looks wrong, check it against your reading and tell us.

3. Your account

• You must be at least 16 and give accurate details when you sign up.
• Your account is for you alone. Keep your password private and do not share your account.
• Tell us straight away if you think someone else has used your account.
• One account works for every subject; each subject has its own separate notebook.

4. Free trials

The first time you open a subject you get a free trial of 14 days for that subject. No card is needed and nothing is charged when it ends. Each account gets one trial per subject. When a trial ends, your notebook is kept and you can still sign in and export it, but you need a plan to keep using the subject.

5. Plans, prices and payment

• Current plans and prices are shown on the pricing page in pounds sterling. The price you pay is the one shown when you subscribe.
• Payments are taken by ProtocolDock through Stripe, monthly or yearly in advance, depending on the plan you choose.
• Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each period until you cancel. We will show the renewal date in your account.
• If we change the price of a plan, we will tell you at least 30 days before the change applies to your subscription, and you can cancel before it does.
• If a payment fails, Stripe will try again for a short time. If it still fails, access to paid subjects stops until payment is made; your notebooks are kept.

6. Cancelling, and your right to a refund

Cancelling: you can cancel at any time from your account page ("Manage billing"). Cancelling stops the next renewal. You keep access until the end of the period you have paid for.

14-day cooling-off period: under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, you can cancel a new subscription within 14 days of first paying and receive a full refund of that first payment. Email hello@degreemargins.com or cancel from your account and let us know you want a refund. Refunds are made to the card you paid with within 14 days of your request.

After that: payments for periods that have started, including renewals, are not normally refunded, except where the service was faulty or not as described (see section 11), or where the law gives you a right to a refund.

6a. Course books (digital downloads)

• Course books are PDF files you buy once, in pounds sterling, from the course books page. They are not a subscription and do not renew.
• When payment succeeds the book is added to your account page, where you can download it. You may download it again whenever you need to, so please keep your own copy as well.
• Right to cancel: the PDF is supplied to you immediately. Before you pay we ask you to confirm that you want this and that you lose your 14-day right to cancel once you begin to download it (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, regulation 37).
• Faults: if the file is corrupt, incomplete or not the book described, tell us at hello@degreemargins.com and we will replace it or refund you, whether or not you have downloaded it.
• Your licence: a course book is for your own personal study. You may print it and keep copies for your own use, but you must not share, lend, sell, upload or publish it, or let anyone else use your account to download it. We may withdraw access if this is breached. If a payment is refunded, access to the book ends.

7. Referring friends

• Your account has a personal invite link, code and QR code. Someone who signs up using one of them for the first time is a referred friend, and gets the extra trial days shown when they sign up.
• When a referred friend qualifies, as described on your account page (normally when they first start a paid plan), you earn the free time shown there, usually one month. If you pay by card, your next payment is moved back by that time; otherwise free access to every subject is added to your account.
• There is a limit on how many rewards you can earn in a period, shown on your account page. Referrals beyond the limit still count but are not rewarded. Rewards have no cash value and cannot be transferred.
• You must not refer yourself, create accounts to earn rewards, pay others to sign up, or send invitations as spam. Only invite people you know and who would welcome it. We may withhold or remove rewards, and close accounts, where the programme is misused.
• If a referred friend receives a refund of their first payment, a reward earned from it may be removed.
• We may change or end the programme at any time. Rewards already applied will be honoured unless they were earned by misuse.

8. Your content

• You own the notes and files you create. You give us permission to store, copy, process and display them only so far as we need to provide the service to you, including making backups.
• Your notebooks are private. We do not share your content with other users unless you choose to share a note.
• Sharing notes. You can create a link to a read-only copy of a note. Anyone with the link can read it, and signed-in users can save their own copy, so only share what you are happy for others to read and keep. Shared copies never include images or attached files. By sharing, you give other users permission to read and keep a copy for their own study. Do not share lecture slides, other people's copyright material, or anything confidential. You can stop sharing at any time; copies already saved by others remain theirs. We may remove shared notes that break these terms.
• You are responsible for what you upload. Only import books, articles and files that you are entitled to use, such as ebooks you have bought that are not copy-protected. Imported books are for your own private study and must not be shared.
• Do not upload anything unlawful, anything that infringes someone else's rights, malware, or identifiable confidential information about patients, service users, clients or research participants.
• You can export your notebooks at any time as Markdown or JSON, and we recommend keeping your own copies of anything important.

9. Academic integrity

Degree Margins is designed to help you learn, organise and revise. It does not write assessed work for you, and neither should any tool you connect to it. Follow your university's rules on assessed work, referencing and the use of AI tools. If you use the optional AI assistant, you are responsible for checking anything it produces and for how you use it.

10. Acceptable use

You must not:

• try to access other people's accounts or notebooks, or parts of the service you are not meant to reach;
• probe, scan or test the service for vulnerabilities, or interfere with its operation, without our written permission;
• copy the teaching pages, templates or tools in bulk, or scrape them with automated tools, to republish or resell them;
• resell or sublicense access to Degree Margins;
• use the service to harass anyone or to break the law;
• send friends anything you do not have the right to share, such as lecture slides your university does not allow you to pass on, other people's work, or personal or confidential information (for example details from a placement);
• use friend requests or chats to send spam, advertising or unwanted contact.

Friends' chats are private between the two people in them. If someone sends you something that breaks these rules, block them and use Report on the message: the report comes to us with the message attached. We may remove content, restrict features or close accounts that break these rules.

If you find a security problem, please tell us at hello@degreemargins.com so we can fix it.

11. Our promises about the service

We will provide the service with reasonable care and skill, and as described on our website. If it is faulty, tell us and we will try to fix it. If we cannot fix a significant fault within a reasonable time, you may be entitled to a refund for the affected period under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

We aim to keep Degree Margins available at all times, but there may be interruptions for maintenance, updates or problems outside our control. We keep regular backups, but we cannot guarantee that every item can always be recovered, which is why exports are available to you at any time.

We may improve, change or withdraw features. If we make a change that significantly reduces what you have paid for, we will tell you in advance and you may cancel and receive a refund for any period you have paid for but not received.

12. Our liability to you

If we break these terms or fail to use reasonable care and skill, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result. We are not responsible for loss that was not foreseeable, for loss caused by events outside our reasonable control, or for business losses (the service is for personal study).

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law, including your statutory rights as a consumer. Otherwise, our total liability to you is limited to the amount you have paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

13. Suspending or closing accounts

You can close your account at any time by emailing hello@degreemargins.com; we will delete it as described in the privacy notice. We may suspend or close an account if it is used in serious or repeated breach of these terms, to protect other users or the service, or where the law requires. Unless the reason makes it inappropriate, we will tell you first, give you a chance to put things right, and let you export your notebooks. If we close your account without good reason, we will refund any period you have paid for but not used.

14. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, for example when we add features or when the law changes. We will show the date of the latest version below, and tell you about significant changes by email or when you next sign in, at least 30 days before they apply to a subscription you have already paid for. If you do not agree to a change, you can cancel before it takes effect.

15. Complaints

If something goes wrong, please contact us at hello@degreemargins.com. We aim to reply within five working days and to resolve complaints fairly and quickly.

16. Law and courts

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. You can bring legal proceedings in the courts of England and Wales; if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring proceedings in your local courts.

Last updated 19 October 2026.