Terms of service

Agreement

By using PDF Hound, you agree to these terms and the privacy policy. If you use the service for an organization, you confirm that you are authorized to agree on its behalf. If you do not agree, do not upload a document or purchase remediation.

Service scope

PDF Hound audits supported PDF files for accessibility barriers, explains the findings, and may offer a paid fix for items within the scope shown before payment. A completed fix may include a tagged PDF, a record of changes, unresolved items, and validation evidence.

The self-serve workflow supports digital and scanned PDFs in English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, and Dutch. OCR is used to recover text from eligible scanned pages. Safe AcroForms are supported: PDF Hound can add or repair screen-reader labels and form-field reading order while preserving field values and allowed behavior.

Free audits cover documents up to 25 pages. Signed-in customers who have purchased page credits can audit documents up to 200 pages. Every upload is checked against the active limit before paid OCR or remediation begins, and the audit result and checkout screen control the scope for that document.

PDF Hound declines unreadable or invalid PDFs, password-protected files, files above the active page limit, pages that exceed safety limits, confirmed material use of unsupported document languages, scans whose text cannot be recovered reliably, and PDFs whose words are drawn as shapes instead of text. Forms are declined when they contain XFA, an applied digital signature, an unsafe action, an unsupported control, or another feature that cannot be preserved safely. Complex visual design, contrast, source-dependent data, uncertain language evidence, and high-risk interpretation may be audited but held out of self-serve remediation for source-file or specialist review.

The visual intake screen evaluates whether visible pages contain meaningful content the accessibility service can process. It does not judge a document's viewpoint or reject medical, legal, political, religious, advocacy, news, or other sensitive material merely because of its subject.

Your responsibilities

You confirm that you own the document or have permission to upload and process it. You are responsible for the document's content, keeping a source copy, protecting account and capability links, and reviewing the delivered result before publishing or relying on it.

Do not use PDF Hound to upload unlawful content, infringe another person's rights, distribute malware, probe or disrupt the service, bypass usage limits, or process information when you lack the required consent or authority.

Automated processing

PDF Hound uses deterministic PDF tools and AI-assisted analysis to inspect structure, recover reading order, draft image descriptions, make supported fixes, and run automated checks. Automated results can be incomplete or wrong. The customer review identifies what changed and what still needs judgment; it is not independent specialist QA.

Prices, payment, and credits

The audit is free. When a fix is available, PDF Hound shows the page count, rate, and total before checkout, and clearly labels any scope that is still an estimate. Payment is processed by Stripe. Prices are in US dollars (USD). PDF Hound does not collect sales tax, VAT, GST, or any similar tax: the price displayed at checkout is the price for that purchase, and you are responsible for any tax due in your jurisdiction.

Purchases are represented in the service as page credits so a balance can be applied to a fix and returned when appropriate. Credits do not expire. If PDF Hound discontinues the service, unused credits are refunded to the original payment method. Credits are not transferable and are not redeemable for cash except as described in these terms; they may be tied to a signed-in account or a guest claim code stored in your browser. Keep guest claim and review links private because possession can provide access to the related balance or document workflow.

If a payment is reversed or disputed with the card issuer, the wallet that received the credits is placed on hold until the reversal has been reviewed. Credits from a reversed payment are removed.

Review, download, and credit returns

When the fix is ready, look at the fixed reading experience, the check results, and anything left to look at before you download. Downloading the completed PDF or its report is how you accept the result, and the download dialog says so. Downloading closes the in-product credit-return window.

You may ask for your credits back before you download. Direct download links do not release the completed PDF or Accessibility Improvement Report until you confirm the download. If PDF Hound cannot complete the required checks for a purchased fix, the related page credits are returned. Returned credits are not cash refunds and remain available for another eligible document.

File availability

Free-audit PDFs and generated files are automatically removed from the active service after 30 days. Paid files remain active while you are still looking at the result or your credits are on their way back; downloading the result or a completed credit return starts a fresh 30-day retention period. Downloaded results remain downloadable during that period; results whose credits came back do not. Associated workflow records may also expire or stop working when an active file is removed. Download and keep any result you need before the applicable period ends. PDF Hound is not a permanent document archive.

Encrypted, access-restricted disaster-recovery backups may retain a document copy for up to 35 additional days after active deletion. These copies are not available through PDF Hound, are used only for disaster recovery, and are retention-swept before restored data returns to service.

Ownership and permission to process

You retain your rights in the documents you upload. You give PDF Hound and its service providers a limited permission to host, copy, analyze, modify, and transmit the document only as needed to provide, secure, and support the service. This permission ends when the related data is deleted, except for longer-lived operational records described in the privacy policy.

PDF Hound owns the service, its software, interface, branding, and general methods. These terms do not transfer ownership of your source document to PDF Hound.

Important limitations

PDF Hound provides accessibility improvements and validation evidence, not legal advice, legal certification, or a guarantee that a document conforms to every law, standard, assistive technology, or user need. Accessibility obligations depend on context and jurisdiction. You remain responsible for deciding whether the result is suitable for your use.

PDF Hound does not certify documents, for regulated industries or for anyone else, and no industry is excluded from using it. For legal, medical, regulated financial or employment, essential government, high-stakes educational assessment, or other consequential publication, use an appropriately governed review process and test the exact final file that will be distributed.

To the extent permitted by law, the service is provided without implied warranties and PDF Hound is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or lost-profit damages. PDF Hound's total liability for a paid document workflow will not exceed the amount you paid for that workflow. Some jurisdictions do not allow every exclusion or limit, so those limits apply only to the extent permitted.

Availability and changes

We may change, pause, or discontinue a feature to maintain security, reliability, or product quality. We may suspend access for misuse or a material breach of these terms. We may also update these terms; the date at the top will change when a revision is published. Continued use after an update means you accept the revised terms.