How we grade a document
A grade is arithmetic, not an opinion we form and then justify. Every clause we find is scored by its category weight times its severity, the total is capped at 100, and the letter follows fixed bands. The same document always produces the same grade.
The three steps
- Find the clauses. A model reads the document and reports only clauses that materially affect an ordinary person, each with a verbatim quote of 25 words or fewer so you can find it yourself.
- Score each clause. Score = category weight × severity, where severity is 3 for high risk, 1.5 for medium and 0.4 for low.
- Add up and band. The clause scores are summed, capped at 100, and the letter comes from the bands below. This arithmetic runs in our code, not in a model.
Category weights
Weights reflect how much a category costs you when it goes against you. They are fixed and published here.
| Category | Weight | The question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Forced arbitration | 5 | Can I sue them? |
| Class action waiver | 5 | Can I join a class action? |
| Selling and sharing data | 4.5 | Do they sell my data? |
| Licence to your content | 4 | Do they own what I post? |
| Automatic renewal | 4 | Does it renew on its own? |
| Deadline to complain | 3.5 | How long do I have to act? |
| Price changes | 3.5 | Can they raise the price? |
| Changes without notice | 3 | Can they change the deal? |
| Limits on their liability | 3 | What if they cause harm? |
| Account termination | 3 | Can they close my account? |
| Tracking and profiling | 3 | How closely am I tracked? |
| How long data is kept | 2.5 | How long do they keep it? |
| Transfer to third parties | 2.5 | Who else gets my data? |
| Governing law and venue | 2 | Whose courts decide? |
| Refunds and cancellation | 2.5 | Can I get my money back? |
| Age restrictions | 1.5 | Who is allowed to use it? |
| Other notable terms | 2 | What else should I know? |
Grade bands
| Grade | Score | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Grade A | 0–14 | Unusually fair. Few surprises. |
| Grade B | 15–29 | Ordinary terms with a couple of things to watch. |
| Grade C | 30–49 | Several clauses work against you. |
| Grade D | 50–69 | Heavily one-sided. Read the actions. |
| Grade F | 70–100 | Among the most aggressive terms we see. |
What a grade is not
A grade is our opinion, formed by applying the published formula above to clauses we quote in full. It is not a statement that a company has broken the law, and it is not legal advice. Terms that are ordinary for an industry can still grade poorly here, because we grade from the reader's side of the table.
When we are unsure
Clauses we are less certain about are marked low confidence on the page. We would rather show you the quote and admit the ambiguity than round it off into false certainty.
How often we re-read
Every document is re-fetched on a schedule — the most-read daily, the middle weekly, the long tail monthly. We compare a hash of the text first and only re-read the document with a model when the text has actually changed. Every page shows the date it was last read, and each document has a change history.