Refund & Cancellation Policy

This policy covers every payment flow on UpNxtWork:

• Student plan upgrades
• Startup plan upgrades
• Paid project payments from a business to a student, which UpNxtWork coordinates

It does not cover Free or stipend-based projects, or any of our relationship-based features — mentorship matching, recruiter job postings, alumni referrals, or investor interest requests — which are free to use today and have no associated payment to refund. If that changes for any of these features in the future, we'll update this policy before any charge is introduced, not after.

As of this policy's last update, UpNxtWork does not have a payment gateway integrated into the platform. Every payment — plan upgrades and Paid project payouts alike — is coordinated directly by our team via WhatsApp or email, and settled outside the platform (typically by bank transfer or UPI). We do not collect or store any card, UPI, or bank account details through the website itself.

Because no payment gateway holds funds in escrow today, the safeguards in this policy work differently than they will once a gateway is live (Section 3): a Paid project's payment is only requested from the startup after both admin confirmation and startup approval of the completed work, which is itself the safeguard against paying for undelivered work.

We're planning to integrate Cashfree to process Paid project payments and plan upgrades directly through the platform. This section describes how refunds and cancellations will work once that integration is live — we'll announce the exact date on the platform and update the badge at the top of this page when it happens.

• Escrow-style holding: for a Paid project, the startup's payment will be collected and held by Cashfree at the point the student is matched, and released in full to the student only once the startup approves the completed work and our team confirms it. This removes the current dependency on manual coordination for the hold itself.
• Supported payment methods: UPI, debit/credit cards, and net banking, through Cashfree's standard checkout.
• No card data stored by us: Cashfree is a PCI-DSS compliant payment processor; your card or bank details are entered directly into Cashfree's secure checkout and never pass through or get stored on UpNxtWork's own servers.
• Refund timelines: once a refund is approved (see Section 6 for when that happens), Cashfree typically credits the amount back to your original payment method within 5–7 business days, depending on your bank. This is Cashfree's standard timeline, not something we control directly.
• Gateway fees: any payment gateway processing fee is shown at checkout and never deducted from the student's payment.

Until this integration is live, Section 2 (manual process) is what actually applies.

Student plan upgrades are arranged manually and paid outside the platform today (through Cashfree, once live). If you upgrade and are not satisfied within 7 days of upgrading, contact support@upnxtwork.com for a full refund, provided you have not exceeded your free-tier application limits using the upgraded plan's additional capacity. If you have used the upgraded capacity, we'll still review your request individually — email us and explain the situation.

Same window and process as student upgrades: refundable in full within 7 days of upgrading, provided no projects have been posted using the upgraded plan's additional capacity. If you've posted using the extra capacity, email us and we'll review the specific situation rather than apply a blanket rule.

For Paid projects, the business sets the project cost (at least ₹5,000) at the time the project is posted. Payment is due from the startup only once the project is both admin-confirmed and startup-approved as complete. Because payment is coordinated manually today (Section 2) rather than held in escrow:

• If a project is cancelled before completion, no payment is due from the startup, and the student is not charged any fee.
• If a dispute arises about whether delivered work meets the agreed scope, email support@upnxtwork.com. Our team manually reviews the submission against the original project brief before any payment is finalized — we don't take either side's word for it alone.
• UpNxtWork keeps no part of a Paid project payment. The full amount goes to the student.
• Once our payment gateway is live (Section 3), a startup's funds will sit in escrow from the point of matching, which further protects both sides — the student knows the money exists before starting, and the startup knows it's only released on approval.

UpNxtWork does not take a percentage of Paid projects. On a completed Paid project, 100% of the project cost goes to the student. Businesses pay UpNxtWork only for their plan (see the Pricing page), which covers project matching, admin review of every brief and submission, dispute handling, and certificate issuance. There are no hidden fees.

Most of this policy doesn't apply to Free and stipend-based projects. Any stipend arrangement is agreed and paid directly between the student and the startup — UpNxtWork facilitates the match and admin review of the project brief, but is not a party to that payment and does not mediate stipend disputes the way we do for Paid project disputes in Section 6.

• Cancelling a plan upgrade: email support@upnxtwork.com — see Sections 4 and 5 for the refund window.
• A startup withdrawing a posted project: contact our team before any student is matched, and the listing is simply removed with nothing owed on either side. If a student has already been matched, see Section 6 for how an in-progress cancellation is handled.
• A student withdrawing an application: you can withdraw an application you haven't yet been matched on directly from your dashboard, any time, at no cost.

Every refund request is reviewed personally by our team — we aim to respond within 2 business days of receiving it. Once a refund is approved: today, the money is returned manually (typically by bank transfer or UPI) within 5 business days of approval; once our payment gateway is live (Section 3), it'll be refunded through Cashfree directly to your original payment method, usually within 5–7 business days per Cashfree's own processing timeline.

Once a Paid project payment has been released to the student following business-approved, admin-confirmed delivery, it is not refundable, except where we determine there was fraud, a platform error, or a clear breach of our Terms of Service by the other party that we failed to catch during review. Decisions on these exceptions are made by our team after reviewing the specific situation, not automatically.

If you disagree with a refund decision after our team has reviewed it, you can ask for a second review by replying to our decision email with any additional context. If it still can't be resolved, this policy is governed by the laws of India, with courts in Maharashtra having jurisdiction — the same governing law and jurisdiction as our Terms of Service, which this policy should be read alongside.

Email support@upnxtwork.com with your account email, which plan/project the request relates to, and a description of the issue. Every request is reviewed personally, not by an automated system — expect a response within 2 business days.

support@upnxtwork.com or WhatsApp +91 84848 55106. For data-related grievances, contact our Grievance Officer, Harsh Aade (Founder), as described in our Privacy Policy.