API Terms of Use

1. Your license

While you follow these terms, CardGrader.AI grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to call the CardGrader.AI API (including the MCP server) and to display the results it returns (grades, subgrades such as centering, corners, edges and surface, identifications, prices and analysis, together "Results") to users of your own app, website or service. Commercial use is allowed, including apps that charge subscriptions or per-scan fees. No separate commercial license is needed for normal pay-as-you-go use. For high volume or custom needs, contact support@cardgrader.ai about a written agreement.

2. Attribution

• Wherever Results are shown, display the credit "Grading by CardGrader.AI" (or "Powered by CardGrader.AI") with a link to https://cardgrader.ai. In an app, a tappable credit on the results screen meets this.
• If your product has a public website or landing page that describes the grading feature, include the same credit there with a standard (followed) link to https://cardgrader.ai.
• Do not remove, obscure or alter the credit, and do not imply that CardGrader.AI endorses your product beyond this credit.

3. How Results must be presented

• Results are AI estimates. Present them as estimates, not as official, certified or guaranteed grades or values.
• Do not state or suggest that Results come from, or are endorsed by, PSA, BGS, CGC, SGC or any other grading company. CardGrader.AI is not affiliated with them.
• Show your users a short disclaimer near Results, for example: "Estimated grade from CardGrader.AI. Not an official grade from any grading company."

4. What you may not do

• Resell, sublicense or give third parties direct access to the API or your API key. Your users may only receive Results through your product.
• Use the API, Results or our website to train, fine-tune, evaluate or build a competing card grading, identification or pricing model or service.
• Store and redistribute Results as a dataset, or scrape, crawl or bulk-download our website or API beyond normal use of your product.
• Reverse engineer, probe or work around rate limits, credit metering or security.
• Submit images you do not have the right to use, or content that is unlawful or not a trading card image.

5. Credits, pricing and limits

API pricing is listed on our API pricing page. Commercial monthly subscriptions cover AI condition grading only. The front and back of one card together use one grade. Identification, value estimates and market analysis are excluded and require separately purchased prepaid API credits.

Subscriptions renew automatically each month until canceled. An allowance is available only for its paid billing period; unused grades do not roll over. Cancel through Manage billing at any time to stop future renewal; access continues through the paid period. Plan changes take effect at renewal. Failed grading requests restore the grade to the original billing period. Completed grades are nonrefundable except where applicable law requires otherwise.

New commercial API accounts may start a seven-day trial after completing Stripe checkout with a payment method and accepting these terms. During that trial, grading has no grade-count cap; identification and other services are excluded. The selected monthly subscription is charged automatically at the end of the trial unless you cancel before the trial deadline. Cancel through Manage billing or the API before that deadline to avoid the first charge. Trial access ends at the deadline and does not continue without successful subscription payment. One trial per API account; repeat registrations to obtain more trials are prohibited. Normal request rate limits and one-card-at-a-time processing apply during the trial. Trial use does not reduce a later paid monthly allowance.

Subscription prices may change. We will notify you at your billing or API account contact email at least 14 days before a change to your subscription price takes effect, or earlier where applicable law requires. You may cancel before the new price takes effect. Published prices for future prepaid credit-pack purchases may change at any time; a price change does not remove credits already purchased. Prepaid credits and subscription grades are separate balances and are not interchangeable.

Keep your contact email current. Rate limits and reasonable traffic controls apply to protect service availability for all customers. An AI grade is a condition estimate, not professional certification, authentication or a guarantee of resale value.

6. Your users and their images

• You are responsible for your product, your users and your relationship with them, including your own terms, privacy policy, billing, refunds and support.
• Your privacy policy must tell your users that card images they submit are sent to CardGrader.AI for analysis. The API data policy explains endpoint-specific image handling, retained records and privacy requests.
• We process submitted images and Results to provide the API, and may use them to operate, secure and improve our service, as described in our Terms of Service. Do not send personal information other than card images.

7. API keys

Keep your API key secret and call the API from your own servers, never from code shipped inside an app. You are responsible for all usage under your key. Tell us at support@cardgrader.ai right away if a key is exposed so we can replace it.

8. Availability and changes

The API is provided "as is" and "as available," with no uptime guarantee. We may change, version or retire endpoints and fields. Where practical we will give advance notice for changes that break existing integrations.

9. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

We make no warranty that Results are accurate, complete or fit for any purpose, and you are responsible for how you use them. To the maximum extent permitted by law, CardGrader.AI is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or lost-profit damages, and our total liability for any claim relating to the API is limited to the amount you paid us for API credits and API subscriptions in the 3 months before the claim.

10. Indemnity

You will defend and indemnify CardGrader.AI against claims arising from your product, your users, the images you submit, or your breach of these terms.

11. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the API at any time. We may suspend or end your access, with notice where practical, if you break these terms, if your use puts the service or other customers at risk, or if we discontinue the API. When access ends, you must stop calling the API and stop showing new Results.

12. Publicity

We may name your product as a CardGrader.AI API customer. Tell us at support@cardgrader.ai if you would rather we did not.

13. Governing law and changes

These API Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, and disputes are resolved as set out in our Terms of Service. We may update these API Terms; material changes will be posted here and sent to the contact email on your key at least 30 days before they take effect. Continuing to use the API after that means you accept the updated terms.