Terms of Service
Last updated: September 12, 2026
1. Acceptance of Terms
Plain English: using this site means you agree to these rules.
By accessing or using GADGET UP (the "Service"), including generating invention plans, browsing the gallery, or saving builds, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
2. Service Description
GADGET UP is an AI-powered hobby platform. You describe an invention idea; the Service generates a suggested plan that may include a parts list with estimated prices, build steps, wiring, electronics suggestions, firmware code, engineering figures, a safety review, 3D-printing and manufacturing guidance, and an interactive 3D model. The Service currently provides plans and links to third-party retailers. You can reserve a parts kit; that reservation takes no money and creates no obligation on either side. If we ever start shipping kits, these Terms will gain a shipping, returns and product-safety section before the first box goes out.
Everything it produces is generated by artificial intelligence and by automated calculation, and none of it is checked by a person before you see it. Section 3 says exactly which AI models write it, section 3b covers the real-world measurements it estimates for you, and section 3c covers the printing and manufacturing figures. Read those three before you spend money on parts or cut anything.
Most features are paid for with BuildBux, the site's prepaid digital credit, which arrives free, is earned, or comes as the monthly allowance included with a paid subscription — see sections 2b, 2c, and 2d. Two features meter you instead of charging a flat price: the live Bench Chat (section 2g) and optional pay-as-you-go pricing (section 2h).
2b. BuildBux — Prepaid Digital Credits
Plain English: BuildBux are tokens for this site only. They are not money, you cannot cash them out, and they die with the account.
BuildBux are a prepaid digital credit usable only inside GADGET UP. Holding BuildBux gives you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use paid features of the Service — nothing more. You do not own the BuildBux themselves and they are not your property.
BuildBux reach your account in three ways. Free, because we granted them or you earned them. As the monthly allowance included with a paid subscription under section 2c — subscribing buys you a month of the Service, and the BuildBux are what that month gives you, not a separate product you have purchased. Or as a one-time top-up if you have switched on pay-as-you-go pricing under section 2h, which is the only place BuildBux are bought directly.
However they arrive, everything in this section applies to them: they are a licence to use paid features, not property, not money, and not redeemable for cash. A top-up is a completed purchase of a digital credit that is delivered immediately, so it is non-refundable once delivered except for a billing error (section 2c) or where the law says otherwise.
- No cash value. BuildBux are not money, currency, or a deposit. They cannot be redeemed for cash, exchanged, sold, gifted, traded, or transferred to another person or another account, on or off the Service.
- Not a payment instrument. BuildBux are not a gift card, stored-value card, prepaid access product, bank deposit, security, or any money-transmission product, and they may not be used to pay anyone outside the Service.
- What they cost to spend. Building an invention costs 5 BuildBux, and editing a build you already made costs 5 BuildBux. Ordering your own build — the full parts list, the step-by-step instructions, the 1-click parts cart, and the 3D file (STL), emailed to you — costs nothing. You pay to make the thing, not to be told how to build the thing you already paid for. Buying a build somebody else published to the Market costs 4 BuildBux, because you skipped the 5 it would have cost to design one; see the next bullet for where that 4 goes. Two things are metered rather than flat-priced: the live Bench Chat at 1 BuildBux per two minutes of model runtime (section 2g), and optional pay-as-you-go pricing, which replaces the flat 5 per build with a rate based on real token use (section 2h). Pay-as-you-go is off unless you switch it on.
- What you earn. A new account is granted 5 BuildBux, publishing a project earns +1 BuildBux, and someone buying one of your published builds earns you +2 BuildBux — half of the 4 they spend goes to you. Separately, if your balance is below 5 BuildBux when a new month begins, we top it back up to 5. That is a top-up to a floor, not 5 added on top, so an unspent balance cannot be stacked month after month. The welcome grant is once per person, not once per email address — see section 2e. Granted and earned BuildBux are promotional, were never purchased, and are never refundable in any form.
- Publishing and the Market. Publishing a build is optional and free, and it pays you +1 BuildBux when you do it. Once a build is published, other users can buy it for 4 BuildBux; each completed purchase credits you +2 BuildBux automatically, and the other 2 stay with GADGET UP to cover what the engine costs to run. There is no cash payout, no withdrawal, and no exchange: what you earn is BuildBux, which are not money and have no cash value under this section. We may remove a published build, decline to pay a credit for a purchase we believe is self-dealing or fraudulent, or change these rates as described in the last bullet.
- Where the rest come from. A paid subscription drops that plan's BuildBux into your account each month the subscription is active and paid. They are included in the monthly fee, are not priced or sold separately, and stop arriving when the subscription stops.
- They can expire, and on two plans they expire every month. This is a material term, so here it is in one place. On Starter and Starter +, that month's BuildBux are for that month: whatever is unspent when the next monthly payment lands is gone, and it is not added to the new month's allowance. On Pro and Pro Builder +, unused BuildBux roll over and stack month to month for as long as the subscription stays active and paid. Section 2c sets this out in full, including the four situations in which we do not replace a balance even on a plan that does not roll over. Separately, and on every plan, BuildBux exist only inside your account, so they end when the account does: if you ask us to delete your account, or we terminate it for cause under the Forfeiture paragraph of section 2c, any unused BuildBux go with it and are not refunded or converted to anything. Simply ending a subscription does not empty your balance. If you cancel, or a payment fails and the plan lapses, the BuildBux already in your account stay in your account and you can go on spending them as a free account — see "What happens to your BuildBux when a plan ends" in section 2c.
- We can change them. We may change plan prices, the monthly BuildBux each plan includes, earn rates, and spend costs. Price changes work as described in section 2c and only take effect from a future renewal after we tell you. Other material changes will be posted on the pricing page and reflected by the date at the top of this page. Changes are not retroactive to BuildBux you have already spent.
2c. Subscriptions — Monthly Plans, Automatic Renewal, and Cancelling
Plain English: these are monthly plans, not one-time packs. Your card gets charged the same amount on the same date every month, automatically, until you cancel. Cancel in one click, keep the month you already paid for, no partial-month refunds. On Starter and Starter + your BuildBux expire every month — the new month's BuildBux replace what is left instead of stacking on it, and we email you before it happens. On Pro and Pro Builder + they roll over. Whichever plan you are on, cancelling does not empty your balance.
Paid plans are not open yet, and until they are, nothing on this site can charge you. Choosing a plan on the pricing page today reserves a place in line and takes no payment method and no money. This section is the agreement that will govern a subscription from the moment they open — it is written first on purpose, because the renewal terms have to be in front of you before you can agree to them, not after.
Paying by hand. Until checkout opens, the one way to start a paid plan is to send us the plan's monthly price directly (for example by Cash App or Venmo) and have us switch it on by hand. That buys one month of that plan at the listed price. It does not renew by itself: we email you before the month ends, and nothing further happens unless you send another payment. Refunds on a hand payment follow "Billing errors" and "Refunds otherwise" below. Hand payments are received by the adult account holder named in the acknowledgement email we send when the plan is switched on.
THIS IS AN AUTOMATICALLY RENEWING SUBSCRIPTION. When you subscribe, you are starting a recurring monthly charge, not making a single purchase. Your payment method is charged the plan price at checkout and then automatically once every month, on the same date each month, for the same amount, with no end date. The subscription renews by itself and keeps renewing until you cancel it. We do not ask you to approve each renewal — that is what subscribing means, and that is what the agreement box at checkout confirms you understand.
The plans. Prices are in U.S. dollars, per month, and exclude any tax that may apply. The billing term is one month. Each plan's BuildBux are delivered on each successful monthly payment — added to your balance on a plan that rolls over, and replacing it on a plan that does not:
- Starter — $4.99 per month, 10 BuildBux per month (about 2 builds). BuildBux expire monthly — they do not roll over.
- Starter + — $9.99 per month, 25 BuildBux per month (about 5 builds) — shown as "MOST POPULAR". BuildBux expire monthly — they do not roll over.
- Pro — $19.99 per month, 45 BuildBux per month (about 9 builds). Unused BuildBux roll over.
- Pro Builder + — $34.99 per month, 100 BuildBux per month (about 20 builds) — shown as "BEST VALUE". Unused BuildBux roll over.
Building an invention costs 5 BuildBux, and ordering your own build — parts list, instructions, Amazon cart, and the 3D file — is free, so "builds" above is simply that plan's monthly BuildBux divided by the 5 a build costs. The price shown at checkout, next to the agreement box, is the price that governs that subscription until we change it under "Price changes" below. Labels such as "MOST POPULAR" and "BEST VALUE" are descriptive names for the plans — they are not promises of savings, value, performance, speed, or results.
How to cancel: one click, and we mean one click. Cancelling is a single action. It takes no phone call, no live chat, no explanation, no reason, no survey, and no screen full of offers to stay. Any of these works, and all of them are equally valid:
- The Cancel link in a subscription email that carries one. Where a billing email includes a Cancel link — the free-month acknowledgement and both free-month reminders always do — it opens a page with one Cancel button on it and no sign-in required, so a lost password can never trap you in a subscription. That is the one-click route. Not every message we send carries that link yet, which is exactly why the next bullet exists and why it is the route we guarantee: replying CANCEL always works, from any message we have ever sent you. (The page asks for that one click rather than cancelling the instant the link is opened, because mail scanners and link previewers automatically fetch every URL in a message, and we are not willing to let a spam filter cancel your plan by accident.)
- Reply to any of those emails with the word CANCEL, or email GadgetUpSupport@gmail.com with the word CANCEL from your account's address.
Cancelling is never harder than signing up was, and it is never in a place signing up was not. Where you cancel by email rather than by button we act within 2 business days, and any request we receive at least 48 hours before your next renewal date stops that renewal. We email you a confirmation either way. This is what the FTC's click-to-cancel rule and California's Automatic Renewal Law require — a simple cancellation mechanism, in the same medium you signed up in, with no retention offer standing between you and the exit — and it is also just how we want to run this.
What cancelling does, and what it does not do. Read this bit, because two things happen and only one of them is instant.
- It stops the next charge, immediately. From the moment you cancel, your card is not charged again. There is no final charge, no notice period, and no "one more month" — if you cancel today, the renewal that was scheduled for next month does not happen.
- It does not end the month you already paid for. Your plan stays active and every perk stays on — the queue priority, Bench Chat access, featuring, STL exports — through the end of the period you paid for. The subscription then ends on what would have been your next renewal date.
- The BuildBux in your account stay yours — during the paid period and after it. Cancelling does not empty your balance on the spot and it does not empty it at the end either. You keep and can spend that month's BuildBux right through the paid period, and whatever is left when the plan ends is still there the next day, on a free account. The plan's perks stop; your balance does not. See "What happens to your BuildBux when a plan ends" below.
- There are no partial-month refunds and no proration. If you cancel one day into a paid month, you keep the rest of that month and you are not refunded for the unused part of it.
- You can come back. Cancelling does not close your account, delete your builds, or take away BuildBux you earned outside the plan. Start a plan again whenever you like.
Rollover — which plans keep unused BuildBux and which do not. People pay for this, so it is written here with no room to argue about it.
- Starter ($4.99) — NO rollover. BuildBux expire monthly. When your next monthly payment succeeds, that month's 10 BuildBux replace what is in your account rather than being added to it. Whatever was unspent is gone at that moment.
- Starter + ($9.99) — NO rollover. BuildBux expire monthly. Same as Starter, with 25. Being the "MOST POPULAR" plan does not change this, and if you have seen rollover listed anywhere as a Starter + perk, this section is the one that governs and rollover is not included.
- Pro ($19.99) — YES, unused BuildBux roll over and stack month to month.
- Pro Builder + ($34.99) — YES, unused BuildBux roll over and stack month to month.
Exactly when a balance is replaced, and the five times it is not. Replacing a balance is the only thing on GADGET UP that takes something away from you, so it happens in one place, under one set of rules, and we would rather over-explain them than have you find them out afterwards. A balance is replaced only at the moment a monthly payment on a non-rollover plan actually succeeds, and never at any other moment. In particular:
- No successful payment, no expiry. A declined card, a payment we are retrying, a cancelled plan, a lapsed plan, or a month where nothing was charged at all cannot empty your balance. The step that takes the old BuildBux away is the same step that pays the new ones in, and it only runs when the money has settled.
- Never inside a period you already paid for. If two payments land less than 20 days apart — most often because you changed plan mid-month — the second one is added, not substituted. Upgrading on the 5th does not delete what you bought on the 1st.
- Never below the free floor. Whatever else happens, a replaced balance is never left lower than the 5 BuildBux a free account would have. Paying us can never leave you worse off than not paying us.
- BuildBux you bought outright are never expired by this. A pay-as-you-go top-up under section 2h is a purchase of a credit, not part of a monthly allowance, and a renewal does not take it back.
- We tell you first. If you are on Starter or Starter + and you are holding unused BuildBux, we email you before the replacement, about ten days ahead, with the date and the number. That email is a notice, not an offer, and we send it once per month at most.
Every replacement is recorded with the balance before, the amount that expired, and the balance after. If we ever get one wrong, email GadgetUpSupport@gmail.com and we put the BuildBux back from that record — we do not ask you to prove what your balance was.
What happens to your BuildBux when a plan ends. Rollover, where you have it, is a feature of the plan and stops when the plan does: once the subscription ends, no new monthly BuildBux arrive and nothing rolls anywhere. But ending a subscription does not empty your account. If you cancel and the paid period runs out, or a payment fails and the plan lapses, the BuildBux already in your account — rolled over or not — stay there and remain spendable on a free account. We do not zero a balance for cancelling, and we would rather say so in the contract than leave you guessing. BuildBux still are not money, still have no cash value, and still cannot be refunded, cashed out, or transferred (section 2b), and they do end with the account itself if you delete it or we terminate it for cause under Forfeiture below.
Free accounts, and accounts whose plan has ended, work the simpler way: there is nothing to roll over, and instead, if your balance is under 5 BuildBux when a new month begins, we top it back up to 5. That is a top-up to a floor, not an addition, so it cannot be stacked either. That floor applies to every account that is not on founder access, so it is also the safety net underneath the paid plans.
What the paid plans actually get you, described honestly. Beyond the monthly BuildBux: (1) Bench Chat, on Starter + and above. The live build chat described in section 2g is available on Starter +, Pro, and Pro Builder +, and to accounts with unlimited access. It is not included with the Starter plan or with free accounts. Bench Chat is still metered at 1 BuildBux per two minutes of model runtime on every plan that has it — the plan unlocks the feature, it does not make the chat free. (2) Queue priority when the engine is busy. When more builds are running at once than the engine comfortably handles, requests are ordered by plan — higher plans wait less than lower ones, and Pro Builder + is not held back at all. The Starter plan sits at the same level as free accounts and does not include a queue advantage. This affects your place in line only. It is not a promise of any particular speed, generation time, throughput, uptime, or guaranteed availability, and when the engine is not busy nobody is waiting and priority changes nothing. (3) Rollover on Pro and Pro Builder +, as described above; Starter and Starter + do not have it. (4) Featured placement in the Market for Pro Builder +, which is NOT switched on and is not part of what you are paying for today. We are saying that here rather than letting you infer it: the Market currently lists every published build in the order it was published, with no plan-based promotion of any kind, and there is no Pro Builder badge on listings. If we ever switch featuring on it will be editorial, applied at our discretion, and never a guarantee of visibility, ranking, traffic, views, or sales — and we will say so on the pricing page before we start describing it as a perk. Do not subscribe to Pro Builder + for featuring. Subscribe to it for the 100 BuildBux, the rollover, and the top of the queue, all three of which are real today. (5) STL files without ordering, on Pro and Pro Builder +. The 3D print file already comes free with any build you order, on every plan and on free accounts; what Pro and Pro Builder + add is the ability to export the STL for a build you have not ordered. Perks depend on your subscription being active and paid, and end when it ends.
Price changes. We may change plan prices or the BuildBux a plan includes. If we do, we will email the address on your account, and post it on the pricing page, at least 30 days before the change takes effect, telling you the new price, when it starts, and how to cancel. A new price only ever applies from a renewal that happens after that notice — we will never charge you a higher amount for a month you were not told about first. If you do not want the new price, cancel before the effective date; staying subscribed past it means you accept it. Where the law where you live requires your fresh consent to a price increase, we will get that consent instead.
Billing errors. If a charge looks wrong — a duplicate, a charge after you cancelled, the wrong plan, or an amount you do not recognise — email GadgetUpSupport@gmail.com within 60 days of the charge appearing on your statement. Tell us the date, the amount, and the email on the account. We will investigate and refund anything that was genuinely charged in error. This window is our own service promise; it does not shorten or replace any longer right you have under law or with your card issuer.
Refunds otherwise. Apart from billing errors and anything the law requires, monthly fees are non-refundable once charged, because the month's BuildBux and perks are delivered as soon as the payment succeeds. Nothing here removes a statutory cancellation, cooling-off, or consumer-protection right you have where you live; where such a right applies, it wins.
Failed payments. If a renewal payment is declined or reversed, we may retry it, and we may pause or end your subscription and its perks until payment succeeds. BuildBux already spent are not clawed back, but BuildBux credited for a month whose payment was reversed may be removed.
Forfeiture. If we suspend or terminate your account for cause — violating these Terms, abusing the AI engine, fraud, or a payment chargeback — the subscription ends and any unused BuildBux in that account, whether they came from a plan, a grant, or were earned, are forfeited without refund.
Who takes the payment. Payments and recurring charges are processed by Square, a third-party payment processor, under its own terms and privacy policy. We never receive or store your full card details; Square holds the payment method used for your renewals. You must be the cardholder or have the cardholder's permission to subscribe, and if you are under 18 you must have a parent or guardian's permission before starting any subscription.
Your auto-renewal rights under state law. Several U.S. states — including California, whose Automatic Renewal Law is the strictest — require that automatic-renewal terms be disclosed clearly and conspicuously before you pay, that you give affirmative consent to those terms specifically, that you get an acknowledgement you can keep, and that cancelling online is easy. We have written this section and the checkout to meet those rules: the renewal terms, price, frequency, and cancellation policy appear next to the agreement box before any payment is taken; the box is unticked until you tick it; and we email you an acknowledgement containing the auto-renewal terms, the cancellation policy, and how to cancel, in a form you can save. Nothing in these Terms limits any right an automatic-renewal or consumer-protection law gives you, and where such a law conflicts with these Terms, the law wins.
2d. The Agreement Box at Checkout (Clickwrap)
Plain English: ticking the box is your signature. It means yes to these Terms and yes to being charged every month until you cancel.
Before you can start a subscription, you must tick the agreement box shown at checkout. It is unticked by default, it is required, and there is no way to subscribe without it. The box sits next to the plan name, the monthly price, and the statement that the plan is a monthly subscription that renews automatically until you cancel.
Ticking that box and continuing to payment does three things at once:
- It forms a binding contract. You accept these Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy, and they become a binding agreement between you and GADGET UP. It counts as your electronic signature, and you agree it is as enforceable as a signature on paper.
- It is your affirmative consent to the auto-renewal terms specifically — not just to these Terms generally. You are confirming that you have read and understood that this is a monthly subscription, that the amount shown will be charged every month on the same date automatically, that it continues with no end date until you cancel, and that cancelling works as described in section 2c.
- It authorises the recurring charge. You authorise GADGET UP and Square to charge your chosen payment method the plan price, automatically, every month, until you cancel. That authorisation stays in force for each renewal and ends when the subscription ends.
We keep a record of the plan, price, and terms shown to you and the moment you ticked the box, and that record is available to you on request with the auto-renewal terms, the cancellation policy, and how to cancel. You can withdraw your authorisation for future charges at any time by cancelling under section 2c; withdrawing it does not undo charges already made for months already provided.
2e. One Account Per Person, and How Free BuildBux Are Protected
Plain English: one account each. Making extra accounts to collect the free 5 BuildBux over and over is cheating, and we can hold back or take back that free credit. Anything you actually paid for is safe, and a person will read your appeal.
One account per person. You may hold one GADGET UP account. Creating or using more than one account — a second email address, a plus-address, a spare device, a friend's details, or anyone else's name — in order to collect the welcome grant, a referral reward, a promo code, or any other free BuildBux more than once is a breach of these Terms.
What we may do about it. Where our checks indicate that an account is a duplicate or that free credit is being farmed, we may reduce or withhold the welcome grant and any other promotional credit on that account, reverse promotional credit already granted, refuse a referral reward or a promo code, and close duplicate accounts while keeping the oldest one. We may do this without notice, and doing it once does not stop us doing it again.
What is actually happening today, as opposed to what we are allowed to do. Everything in this section is a right we reserve. At the moment we are not using it: every signup receives the full welcome grant whatever the checks score, the checks only raise a flag for a person to look at, and even if we do switch reduction on, the smallest grant any account can receive is 2 BuildBux rather than none. Section 4 of the Privacy Policy says the same thing and is the page that will change first if this does.
Some of this is decided automatically. To decide whether a new account should receive free credit, we run automated checks on the registration details you give us and on signals taken from the request itself — your IP address, the approximate country, region, and city that address maps to, and a device signal. The result of those checks may be that free credit is reduced, withheld, or reversed, and no person necessarily reviews that outcome before it takes effect. The Privacy Policy sets out exactly what is collected for this, why, and how long each item is kept.
You can appeal to a human, and you should. Automated checks get things wrong. Several classmates on one school network, or a family sharing one home connection, look identical from the outside — that is normal here and it is not fraud. If free credit was withheld or reversed and you think that is wrong, email GadgetUpSupport@gmail.com with the word APPEAL and your username, from the address on your account. A person reads it, replies, and puts the credit back where the check got it wrong. Appealing is free, there is no limit on how often you may appeal, and appealing never counts against you.
Promotional credit is a gift, not a purchase. The welcome grant, the monthly top-up to the free floor, referral rewards, promo-code credit, and BuildBux earned by publishing or by someone ordering your build are all promotional. You never paid for them, they have no cash value, they are not refundable in any form, and we may withhold, reduce, or reverse them for abuse of these Terms.
What an anti-fraud flag can never touch: anything you paid for. We are stating this plainly because taking away something you paid money for is a completely different matter from declining to hand out a gift. An anti-fraud flag about free credit does not cancel your subscription, does not stop your plan's monthly BuildBux from arriving, does not remove BuildBux already delivered for a month you paid for, and does not take back builds you already ordered or published. Paid subscription benefits are affected only by the subscription rules in section 2c — cancellation, failed payment, and forfeiture on termination for cause — and never by an automated anti-fraud decision about free credit on its own. If a paid benefit disappears and an anti-fraud flag is the reason, that is our mistake: email us and we will restore it.
Deliberate, repeated fraud is the one exception, and it takes a person. Nothing above prevents us from ending an account for cause under the Forfeiture paragraph of section 2c where someone deliberately and repeatedly defrauds the Service or charges back a payment. That is a decision a human makes and tells you about in writing, not something an automated flag does by itself, and it is appealable to the same address.
2f. Your Account — Accurate Information, What Is Public, and Keeping It Secure
Plain English: register with your real details, pick a password nobody can guess, keep it to yourself, and sign out on school computers. Your username is public on the Market. Your full name and email are not. What happens under your login counts as you.
- Accurate registration information. The name, username, and email address you register with must be accurate, current, and yours. Do not register using another person's name, email, or identity, and do not choose a username that impersonates another person or GADGET UP itself. We may refuse, change, or reclaim a username, and we may suspend an account we believe was registered with false information — not least because false details are how duplicate accounts get built (section 2e).
- Your username is public. Your full name and your email address are not. Your username (3 to 20 characters) is the byline on everything you publish to the Market, and anyone using the site can see it. Choose it on that basis, and do not put your address, your school, your phone number, or anything else you would not want a stranger to read into it. Your real name and your email address are never displayed on the Market, never shown on a published build, and never given to another user.
- Two ways to sign in. You can set a password, or you can have us email you a six-digit code and sign in with that — the code is good for 10 minutes and works once. Accounts created before passwords existed on this site can still sign in with the emailed code. Whichever you use, you must be able to receive email at the address on the account: that address is how a lost password is recovered, and it is the only way.
- Your password is yours to protect. If your account has a password, choosing a good one — at least 10 characters, and not one of the obvious ones — and keeping it private is your responsibility. Do not reuse a password from another site, do not share it with anyone, do not let another person use your account, and do not use anyone else's. We will never ask you for your password — not by email, not on the site, not ever. Treat any message that does as fraudulent and tell us about it.
- Passwords are stored hashed. We store a salted one-way hash of your password, never the password itself, so nobody at GADGET UP can read it and a stolen copy of our data does not reveal it. Section 3 of the Privacy Policy gives the exact method. That protects the password we hold; it cannot protect an account whose password you also use on a site that has been breached.
- Repeated wrong passwords pause password sign-in, not your account. After 8 failed password attempts within 15 minutes, password sign-in on that account pauses for 15 minutes. The emailed code keeps working throughout, so the real owner of the address is never locked out — the person who is stopped is the one who cannot read your inbox.
- You are responsible for what happens under your account. BuildBux spent, builds published, orders placed, and subscriptions started through your account are treated as done by you. Sign out when you are finished on a shared, school, or library computer.
- Tell us straight away if something is wrong. If you think someone else has your password or has used your account, email GadgetUpSupport@gmail.com immediately. We can end the sessions on the account and help you back in. The sooner you tell us, the more we can do about it.
2g. Bench Chat — Metered by Model Runtime, and Exactly How the Meter Works
Plain English: Bench Chat costs 1 BuildBux for every two minutes the AI actually spends thinking. Reading, typing and leaving the tab open cost nothing. Anything less than a full two minutes is free, a failed answer is free, and it can never take you below zero.
What it is. Bench Chat is a chat attached to one specific build. It is given that build's real parts list, real wiring, real steps, real firmware and real engineering numbers before you type anything, so it can answer questions about the machine in front of you rather than guessing. It is available on the Starter +, Pro, and Pro Builder + plans and to accounts with unlimited access; it is not part of the free tier or the Starter plan. Because the chat can quote the wiring and the parts, it sits behind the same paid door as the rest of the build package.
The price, stated exactly. 1 BuildBux per two minutes of model runtime. "Model runtime" means the time an AI request is actually in flight — the seconds the model is generating your answer. It is not wall-clock time and it is not how long the chat window is open.
How runtime is measured. Our server starts a clock the moment it sends your question to the AI model and stops it the moment that model's answer finishes arriving. It counts in milliseconds, on our side, per question, and it adds those up across the session. Nothing else is counted: not the time you spend reading or typing, not the time the page spends loading, not any part of the request that happens before or after the model itself is working. If a request never produces an answer, its clock is discarded rather than added.
- Idle time is free. Reading an answer, typing a question, thinking, walking away, or leaving the tab open all night costs nothing. The meter only runs while a model is producing text for you.
- We round down, always. The runtime adds up across the session, and one BuildBux is charged each time that running total passes another whole two minutes. Anything left over that has not reached a full two minutes is never charged. A short session that only ever runs 90 seconds of model time is free.
- A failed or interrupted answer is free. If a request errors, times out, or is stopped before it produces a reply, its time is not billed.
- One answer is capped. A single reply can never meter more than 90 seconds, whatever happens upstream.
- You cannot overdraw. Before every question, the model's own deadline is set to the time your balance can still pay for, so it is stopped before the money runs out. Your balance cannot go negative, and if a timing race ever created a shortfall we could not collect, we write it off rather than charge you for it.
- You need at least 1 BuildBux to open a session, and when the balance runs out mid-session the chat says so and stops instead of continuing on credit.
- The meter is visible while you use it. The chat shows the rate, the model time metered so far, the BuildBux charged so far, and how long is left before the next one. Nothing is charged that is not on that readout.
- Sessions expire. A chat session is kept for 6 hours from the last message and then deleted; the expiry is pushed out each time you send a message, so an active session never dies mid-conversation.
What Bench Chat is not. It is generated by AI, subject to section 3 in full, and it is not engineering, electrical, or safety advice. A pin number, a voltage, or a step it gives you must be verified before you act on it, exactly like the rest of a generated plan. Charges for model runtime already spent are not refundable on the ground that an answer was wrong, incomplete, or not what you hoped for — that is the nature of an AI answer and it is why the rate is metered by the minute rather than sold as a guaranteed result. If the chat is broken rather than merely unhelpful, email us and we will put the BuildBux back.
2h. Pay-As-You-Go Pricing (Optional) and Auto Top-Up
Plain English: instead of a flat 5 BuildBux a build, you can pay for exactly what the AI actually used. It needs a card on file. It is OFF unless you switch it on, and switching it on does not let anything charge your card — that is a second, separate switch you also have to turn on yourself.
Read this first: pay-as-you-go is NOT switched on right now, so nothing in this section is doing anything to your account today. There is no way to turn it on, no card can be held for it, and no automatic charge of any kind can happen. This section is written in advance and in full because it describes the only thing on GADGET UP that would ever let a computer charge a card, and a rule like that belongs in the Terms before the feature exists rather than after. While it is off, every build costs the flat 5 BuildBux described in section 2b. If we switch it on, it arrives switched OFF for you, exactly as described below, and we will say so on the pricing page.
Flat pricing is the default and always stays available. Pay-as-you-go is opt-in, it is off until you turn it on, it never turns itself on, and you can switch back to flat pricing at any time.
The rate, stated exactly. On pay-as-you-go a build costs 1 BuildBux per 10,000 tokens sent to the engine and 1 BuildBux per 7,000 tokens the engine writes back. A "token" is the unit AI providers bill in — roughly three quarters of a word. We use the real token counts the AI provider reports for your build; we do not estimate them and we do not round them up.
- We bill to a thousandth of a BuildBux and always round DOWN. Any fraction of a thousandth is free. Amounts below a whole BuildBux are carried forward and only come out of your balance once they add up to a whole one.
- A typical build lands near 1.8 BuildBux instead of the flat 5. A large or complicated one costs more. That is the trade, and it is why this is optional rather than the default.
- No single build can ever bill you more than 10 BuildBux, whatever happens. Anything past that is on us.
- What is never billed: anything a free model wrote; any model that lost an internal race and was cut off before finishing; caching we do to save ourselves money; and any build we could not finish. You are not charged for our architecture, only for the work that produced your build.
- You can read the meter. Your own ledger — every build, its token counts, what it cost, and what was actually taken from your balance — is available to you at any time, on request or in your account. Nothing is billed that is not on it.
- If we cannot collect, we write it off. A finished build is never turned into a failure over money and we never chase a shortfall.
A card on file is required. Pay-as-you-go means there has to be something to pay with, so you cannot switch it on without a valid card. Your card is held by Square under its own terms and privacy policy. GADGET UP never sees, stores, or transmits your card number or security code — we hold only a customer reference, a card reference, the card brand, the last four digits, and the expiry month and year Square returns so we can warn you before a card expires.
Turning pay-as-you-go on does not authorise any charge. This is the important one and it is deliberate. Switching to pay-as-you-go changes how your BuildBux are counted. It does not give anything permission to charge your card. If your BuildBux run out with auto top-up off, builds simply stop until you top up by hand. Nothing is charged.
Auto top-up is a separate switch, and it is the only thing on GADGET UP that lets a computer charge your card while you are not watching. It is off by default. Turning it on requires its own screen, its own tick box, and your choice of two numbers: the top-up amount and your monthly ceiling. You give that authorisation knowingly or not at all.
- What it does. When your BuildBux run too low to start a build, and only then, we charge your card the one amount you picked, once, and the build goes ahead. Current amounts are $3.00 for 6 BuildBux, $6.00 for 13, $12.00 for 27, and $25.00 for 60.
- It is a one-time charge, not a subscription. Nothing renews, no schedule is set, and no future date exists. Section 2c does not apply to it.
- Your monthly ceiling is a hard stop, not a warning. You set it (the default is $10; the range is $1 to $100). Once your auto top-ups in a calendar month reach it, we stop. We do not charge one cent past it, we do not ask you to raise it mid-build, and pay-as-you-go builds pause until the month rolls over or you raise the ceiling yourself. Stopping is the behaviour. Charging past your ceiling is not.
- Lowering your ceiling takes effect instantly and needs nothing from you. Raising it asks for the authorisation box again, because raising it increases how much a computer may charge without asking.
- The other brakes, all of them ours and none of them optional: at most one auto charge every 10 minutes; at most 3 auto charges a day and 12 a month; and two declined charges in a row switch auto top-up off by itself until you turn it back on.
- Every charge emails you a receipt the moment it happens — the amount, the BuildBux, the card brand and last four digits, the date, the payment reference, how much of your monthly ceiling you have used, and a one-click link to switch it off. Not a summary at the end of the month. Receipts are billing notices, so they arrive even if you have unsubscribed from everything else.
- If a charge fails, we stop. We tell you, we do not run the build, and we never build first and collect later.
How to turn it off. One click, at any time, including while a build is running — from your account, or from the one-click link in any receipt. There is no confirmation screen, no offer to stay, and nothing to explain. You can switch off auto top-up on its own and stay on pay-as-you-go, or switch pay-as-you-go off entirely and return to flat pricing. If you switch it off during a build, that build is free. We would rather hand you a build than argue about whether your click landed before the tokens did.
Age. If you are under 18 you must have a parent or guardian's permission before you turn on auto top-up, and you must be the cardholder or have the cardholder's permission. This is a standing authorisation to charge a card; do not give it on somebody else's card without asking them.
Availability. Pay-as-you-go is a feature we can switch on, off, or change. Where it is not switched on, flat pricing applies and nothing in this section does anything. Changes to the rate work exactly like price changes in section 2c: notice first, future builds only, never retroactive.
3. AI Content Disclosure — and Which Models Actually Run
Plain English: a machine wrote your plan, and here is exactly which machine. Machines make mistakes. Nobody checks your plan before you see it.
This is an AI product and we are telling you so up front. Every plan, parts list, price estimate, difficulty rating, time estimate, wiring diagram, build step, firmware file, 3D model, safety review, and chat answer on GADGET UP is generated by artificial intelligence, assisted by automated calculation. No human being reviews your build before it reaches you. Output may be incomplete, outdated, or simply wrong. It is an estimate and a starting point, not verified engineering.
Which models write your build:
- Paid plans design on Claude Opus 5 once they open, made by Anthropic, the strongest engine we have; until then every build runs on the free engines below.
- Free accounts run Nemotron 3 Ultra and Kimi K3, made by NVIDIA and Moonshot AI and reached through NVIDIA NIM, with OpenRouter as a backup route. Both are asked at once and whichever answers first is the one you get. We say plainly that these are genuinely strong models rather than pretending the free tier is crippled.
- On a paid build, more than one model may run at the same time and the first good answer wins. Other models may also handle specific stages — screening a request for safety, reviewing a design, or writing firmware.
- A paying account is never quietly moved to a weaker engine to save us money. That is a rule, not a courtesy. What we cannot promise is that one specific model produces one specific build: if a provider is down, rate-limited, or errors mid-build, we finish your build on another model rather than failing it and taking your BuildBux for nothing.
- We may change which models we use as better ones ship. The current answer is always on the pricing page.
What we do not claim. GADGET UP makes no performance claim and no guarantee that any generated design will work, fit, be safe, be buildable, be original, or be fit for any purpose. We do not claim any accuracy rate. Where we describe an engine as better, we mean it produces better designs in our own judgement — not that its output is correct. You must independently verify every part, price, measurement, wiring connection, step, and safety consideration before acting on any plan.
Your idea text goes to an AI provider. To generate a plan or a chat answer, what you type is sent to the model provider running that request. Keep it about gadgets: never type passwords, financial details, medical information, or anyone's personal information into the idea box or Bench Chat. The Privacy Policy names every provider involved.
3b. Sizes and Measurements We Estimate For You
Plain English: if you do not give us a measurement, we guess one from a reference table or from the AI. A guess is labelled as a guess. Measure the real thing before you cut, drill, or print.
A design has to be sized against something real — the shelf it mounts on, the bottle it grips, the car it bolts to. Where you have not given us a measurement, the Service works one out, and it does that in one of four ways, in this order:
- Measured — you typed a real dimension. Yours always wins, and nothing overrides it.
- Reference — a standard published size from our own table (a soda can, a tennis ball, a sheet of A4).
- Scale maths — you said 1/10 scale, so we divided a full-size object by ten.
- Assumed — none of the above applied and the AI estimated it. This is a guess.
Every build tells you which of those four it used, and an assumed dimension is labelled on the page as an assumption rather than presented as a fact. That labelling is the whole point: a wrong size that is visible is a five-second fix, and a wrong size that is hidden is a ruined part.
Reference and assumed dimensions are not measurements of your object. Real objects vary by brand, model, year, and country. Measure the actual object with an actual ruler before you cut, drill, print, order, or commit to anything. We are not liable for material, filament, parts, or time wasted on a part built to a dimension you did not check, and "the site said it was 12 cm" is not a substitute for measuring it.
3c. 3D Printing and Manufacturing Guidance Is an Estimate, Not a Certified Plan
Plain English: print times, costs, strength numbers, slicer settings and "will it fit on my bed" are calculated estimates. They are a good starting point. They are not a guarantee, and no engineer signed them off.
The Service produces manufacturing guidance: suggested materials, a suggested process (FDM, resin, laser cutting, CNC, sheet metal, injection moulding), printer-specific settings, layer heights and temperatures, splitting a part that is too big for your bed, estimated print time, estimated material use, estimated cost, and engineering figures such as mass, strength, torque, battery runtime and tip-over angle.
- All of it is calculated from published data and standard formulas, not from testing your part on your machine. Real results depend on your printer's condition and calibration, your filament and how dry it is, your slicer and its version, ambient temperature, humidity, and how the part is oriented. Expect real print times, material use, and costs to differ.
- Strength and load figures are estimates and are not a structural certification. A printed part is weaker across its layers than along them, and a figure produced here has not been proof-loaded, safety-factored for your use, or reviewed by a qualified engineer. Do not rely on any figure from this Service for anything that carries a person, holds a load above a person, restrains a moving object, or would injure somebody if it snapped.
- Slicer profiles and settings are a starting point, and they carry an honesty grade. Where a profile imports cleanly into a particular slicer we say so; where the settings must be typed in by hand, we say that too. Check every setting against your own machine before you print, and never run a temperature your printer or filament is not rated for.
- Prices and lead times move. Material costs, part prices, and service-bureau lead times are estimates from our own tables and from AI output. They are not quotes, not offers, and not binding on us or on any retailer or manufacturer.
- Your machine is your responsibility. 3D printers, resin, lasers, and power tools burn, cut, and give off fumes. Follow your manufacturer's instructions and safety guidance over anything this Service tells you. Resin and laser cutting need proper ventilation and eye protection. If our guidance conflicts with your machine's manual, the manual wins.
4. Assumption of Risk
Plain English: you build at your own risk. Tools are sharp, electricity bites.
Building physical devices involves inherent risks, including injury from tools, electricity, batteries, moving parts, water, and heights. In particular: lithium (LiPo) batteries can catch fire if punctured, over-charged or charged unattended, so charge them in a fireproof bag and never leave them; propellers and blades spin fast enough to cut; launchers of any kind must never be pointed at a person or animal and need eye protection; lasers above Class 1 can permanently damage eyes; mains voltage can kill and is not for anyone under 18 without a licensed adult; drones and RC aircraft are subject to FAA registration and local rules, which you must check before flying. A safety rating on a plan is a starting point, not a certification. You voluntarily assume all risks arising from your use of any plan generated by the Service. You are solely responsible for your builds, including how they are constructed, powered, and used. Minors must have adult supervision when building. To the maximum extent permitted by law, you release GADGET UP and its operator from any and all claims arising out of or related to your use of generated plans or anything you build from them.
4b. What You Build Is Yours, and It Is Your Responsibility
Plain English: we hand you a plan. What you make with it, and what it does once it exists, is on you.
The Service produces design suggestions and reference information. It does not manufacture, assemble, inspect, test, certify, or supervise anything. We never see what you actually build. Accordingly, and to the fullest extent permitted by law:
- You are the builder and the responsible party. You decide what to build, whether to build it, what parts to buy, how to assemble it, and how, where and by whom it is used. Every one of those decisions is yours alone.
- You are solely responsible for any harm that results — to yourself, to any other person, to animals, or to property — from a device you build, modify, operate, store, sell, lend, give away, or leave where someone else can reach it.
- Generated plans are unverified. They are produced automatically and may contain errors, omissions, unsafe instructions, incorrect parts, incorrect wiring, incorrect measurements, or advice that is wrong for your situation. You must independently review and verify every plan before acting on it, and you must not follow any instruction you do not understand or cannot carry out safely.
- Get qualified help where it matters. Anything involving mains or household electricity, lithium batteries, high current, heat, fire, pressure, chemicals, structural loads, heights, vehicles, medical use, or use by or around children should be reviewed by a qualified adult or licensed professional before you build or operate it. If you are under 18, you must have permission and supervision from a parent or guardian.
- Legal compliance is yours. You are responsible for ensuring anything you build, own, use or distribute complies with all applicable laws, regulations, codes, school rules, and property rules where you are. Laws differ by country, state and city; we make no representation that any generated design is legal, permitted, or safe where you live.
- No automated screening is perfect. The Service applies automated filters to block certain categories of request, but these filters are limited, can be circumvented, and may fail. Their existence does not mean any particular output is safe, lawful, or appropriate, and it does not transfer responsibility for your build to us. You must not use the Service to design anything intended to injure a person or animal, or anything unlawful.
- You release us. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you release GADGET UP, its owners, operators and contributors from all claims, demands, damages and causes of action, known and unknown, arising out of or relating to anything you build, attempt to build, or do with information obtained from the Service.
This section is in addition to, and does not limit, the Assumption of Risk, No Warranty, Limitation of Liability and Indemnification sections. Nothing in these Terms excludes any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, and some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
5. No Warranty
The Service is provided "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure.
6. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, GADGET UP and its operator shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, property, or personal injury, arising out of or relating to the Service or anything built from its output, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. Where liability cannot be fully excluded, total aggregate liability is limited to the greater of the amount in U.S. dollars you actually paid us in the past twelve months or ten U.S. dollars. BuildBux are not money, so any claim measured in BuildBux is valued at the dollar price you actually paid for them, and BuildBux that were granted or earned rather than bought are valued at zero.
7. Indemnification
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless GADGET UP and its operator from any claims, damages, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable attorney fees) arising from your use of the Service, your builds, or your violation of these Terms.
8. Acceptable Use and Restricted Content
Plain English: no weapons, nothing to hurt or spy on people. The floor refuses that work.
You may not use the Service to design, request, or build: real weapons or accessories for real weapons (firearms, crossbows, bows, tasers, or anything meant to fire metal, sharp or heavy projectiles at people); explosive, incendiary, or projectile devices intended to harm; devices for drug use; devices for stalking, spying on, or tracking people without consent; safety-critical medical, automotive, or aviation components; or anything illegal where you live. Sports launchers, foam and water blasters, and paintball or airsoft accessories are allowed and are treated as sports equipment, subject to section 4. Automated scraping or abuse of the AI engine is prohibited. You also may not hold more than one account, use another person's account, or register with false details in order to collect free BuildBux more than once — see section 2e for exactly what happens if you do. We may refuse, filter, or block any request at our discretion.
8b. Emails We Send, and How to Stop Them
Plain English: we only email you about your own builds and your account. Reply "stop spam" and we stop.
When you create an account you give us an email address. We use it to send you the build instructions and parts lists for the builds you order, order or reservation confirmations, and occasional notices about your account or the Service (for example, when a feature you asked to be notified about goes live). Emails come from GadgetUpSupport@gmail.com.
Opting out. Every message we send includes both of these, and either one works:
- Reply to the email with "stop spam" — no return emails will be sent to you from that address.
- Use the one-click unsubscribe link in the message, or visit our unsubscribe page at any time.
Unsubscribing stops all marketing and update email from us. Your account, your BuildBux balance, and your saved builds are unaffected — you can still use the Service and read your build lists on the site. We do not sell, rent, or share your email address with anyone, and we do not send advertising for other companies.
One exception, and it is in your favour. If you have a paid subscription, we still have to send you the messages that go with it: the acknowledgement of your subscription and its auto-renewal terms, receipts, notices of a price change before it takes effect, failed-payment notices, and your cancellation confirmation. These are billing notices, not marketing, the law requires several of them, and unsubscribing does not switch them off. They stop when your subscription ends.
9. Not Professional Advice
Nothing on the Service is professional engineering, electrical, legal, financial, or safety advice. For anything that could affect the safety of people or property, consult a qualified professional.
10. Age Requirement
The Service is intended for users age 13 and older. If you are under 13, you may not use the Service. If you are under 18, you must have a parent or guardian's permission, and builds require adult supervision.
11. User Content and Intellectual Property
You retain ownership of the invention ideas you submit. By submitting an idea you grant GADGET UP a non-exclusive license to process it to generate your plan. Generated plans are provided for your personal, non-commercial hobby use.
Publishing to the Market. Publishing is your choice and nothing is published unless you publish it. When you do, you grant GADGET UP a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, display, and distribute that build on the Service, and to let other users buy it for 4 BuildBux under section 2b — for which you are credited +2 BuildBux per purchase. Your username is shown publicly on anything you publish. You may unpublish a build at any time; unpublishing stops new purchases but does not reach back into copies already bought, and BuildBux already credited to you are yours. You must only publish builds you actually made on this Service, and you must not publish anything that breaks section 8. A buyer receives a personal, non-transferable licence to use the bought build for their own hobby projects; they may not republish it, resell it, or claim it as their own. The publisher warrants they made the build on this Service and have the right to publish it. We may remove a published build at our discretion, including on a copyright complaint.
The GADGET UP name, design, and site content belong to its operator. If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, send a DMCA takedown notice to GadgetUpSupport@gmail.com with the work identified, the location of the material, your contact information, and a good-faith statement.
Affiliate links. Parts links may point to Amazon. When our Amazon Associates tag is switched on, GADGET UP earns a commission on qualifying purchases made through those links. It costs you nothing extra, it never changes which parts get picked, and every parts cart that carries the tag says so next to the link.
12. Dispute Resolution — Arbitration and Class Action Waiver
Plain English: if we ever have a serious disagreement, we each agree to settle it one-on-one with an arbitrator, not in a class action.
Any dispute arising out of these Terms or the Service that cannot be resolved informally shall be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, rather than in court, except that either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court. GADGET UP pays any arbitration filing fee above the small-claims filing fee. YOU AND GADGET UP EACH WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION. You may opt out of this arbitration provision by emailing GadgetUpSupport@gmail.com within 30 days of first using the Service.
13. Governing Law and Severability
These Terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the operator's state of residence, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions stay in full force.
14. Changes and Termination
We may change these Terms at any time, for any reason, without asking you first. We may also change, limit, suspend, or discontinue the Service or any part of it at any time. When we change these Terms we update the date at the top of this page, and the version published here is the one that applies. It is your responsibility to check this page; continuing to use GADGET UP after a change means you accept the changed Terms. If you do not accept them, stop using the Service and close your account. Two carve-outs. A change to the price of a subscription you are already on does not take effect until the notice period in section 2c has run, so a price rise can never be applied to you without warning. And a change to the pay-as-you-go rate in section 2h applies only to builds you run after we tell you, never to ones already billed.
15. Contact
Questions about these Terms: GadgetUpSupport@gmail.com