Terms of service for researchers

These terms apply when you use myUsersInsight (“the platform”) to run studies. If you don’t agree with them, please don’t use the platform. Our Privacy policy explains how we handle your information.

• You must be at least 18 years old.
• You must give accurate, complete information and follow the laws that apply to you.
• For now, you must be based in Ghana.

• One email address is one account, as either a participant or a researcher. Don’t create more than one account for yourself.
• Keep your information up to date and your password to yourself. You are responsible for what happens in your account.
• Tell us straight away at hello@myusersinsight.com if you think someone else is using your account.

• Describe each study accurately, including what participants will do, how long it takes, the reward and who can take part.
• Run lawful, ethical research. Treat participants with respect and follow the attendance rules the app shows. Don’t ask for passwords, payment details or other sensitive information you don’t need.
• Surveys: you can accept or reject each response until it’s paid, 24 hours after it’s sent. Reject only responses you can’t use, and choose the reason honestly: the participant sees it, and a rejection counts against them. We may review rejections a participant disputes and reverse them, and pause teams that reject responses unfairly. Once you reject a response, you can no longer see its answers or use them: they leave your summary, findings and downloads.
• You may use recordings, transcripts and insights from your studies for your own research. Don’t publish a participant’s name, face or voice without their permission.
• Survey findings links and downloads (slides, PDF): anyone with the link or the file can read the findings you put in the report, including quotes from participants’ written answers (never their names). Share them only with people who need them, and turn the link off when they no longer do.
• You are responsible for how your team uses participants’ information, in line with our Privacy policy and the data protection law that applies to you.

• Payments are processed by Paystack. You pay by card or mobile money in Paystack’s own payment window, so we never see your full card number. If you close that window after approving a mobile money prompt on your phone, the payment still goes through.
• You pay for a study at checkout, before it goes live. Checkout shows the full amount before you pay.
• You choose each study’s reward per participant. It can’t be less than our standard rate (GHS 80 per 30 minutes for calls and quick tests, GHS 10 a task and GHS 5 a question for task tests, GHS 2 a choice or rating question and GHS 4 a written question for surveys) or more than GHS 2,000 per person. Once the study is live you can raise it but never lower it: everyone not paid yet gets the new amount, and you pay the difference for them (less money the study already holds) plus the service charge. In a task test each step pays its share of the reward, and calls that run over are paid at the same rate per minute.
• We add a 30% service charge on top of participant rewards, at checkout and when you add funds. It pays for running the service (calls, recordings, transcripts and hosting) and the fees our payment provider charges to take your payment and pay participants. It never comes out of participants’ rewards, and it isn’t used to pay sessions.
• We pay participants on your behalf from what you paid, following the attendance rules the app shows.
• Calls that run over are paid from the same money. If what’s left can’t pay for the next session, the study pauses: participants can’t book or start until you add funds. Adding funds resumes the same study; the amount is shown before you pay and stays with that study.
• When a study ends and its sessions and payments are final, money it didn’t use (unused spots, no-shows, unpaid minutes, rejected survey responses) is refunded to you automatically, to the card or mobile money you paid with (startup programme credit goes back to your startup fund). The service charge isn’t refunded. If our team later lowers a payment after a report, the difference is refunded too. You can report a session until its payment is due (a day after it ends); a report holds that payment once, until our team decides.

• Early-stage startups can apply for study credit and time without the service charge. One application per team at a time. We read every application, may ask for a short call, and decide who joins; we don’t have to accept everyone or give a reason.
• If you’re accepted, we tell you how much credit you have and when it runs out. Credit pays participant rewards (and any service charge) at checkout. It isn’t money: you can’t withdraw it, transfer it or exchange it for cash, and what you don’t use by the date shown expires.
• While your service charge is waived, checkout shows no charge on your studies. After the date we give you, the usual 30% applies.
• Using credit is your choice at checkout. A study paid with credit goes live as soon as you publish it, like any other study.
• When a study paid with credit ends, money it didn’t use goes back to your credit first, up to the credit it used, as long as your credit hasn’t run out. The same applies when a participant’s payment is lowered after the study ended. Anything else is refunded as usual.
• Credit can’t pay people connected to your team: someone who shares a phone or mobile money number with a member of your team can’t apply to a study paid with credit.
• In return, you run your study within 30 days and let us publish a short case study about what you learned. We write it with you, and you approve it before it goes out.
• We may end the programme or your place in it, for example if credit is misused, but participants who already took part are still paid.

• You get an invite link to share with other researchers.
• When a researcher who joined through your link runs their first paid study and it ends, you earn study credit worth 5% of what that study paid participants in cash (not counting startup or referral credit, or money refunded), up to GHS 250. Only a study that paid the service charge counts, and they need to run it within 12 months of joining.
• There’s no limit on how many researchers you invite or how many earn you credit.
• They have to open your link and sign up within 30 days. An account that already existed doesn’t count, and you can’t invite yourself.
• An invite doesn’t count if you and the researcher have ever had the same phone or mobile money number, join the same team, use the same work email domain (for example both @yourcompany.com; Gmail and the like don’t count), or paid with the same card. If these checks turn down a real colleague from another company, contact us and our team can allow it. We can undo an invite that breaks these rules: you see why, and if you already spent its credit, that amount comes off credit you earn later.
• Referral credit comes off at checkout automatically, after any startup programme credit and before your card or mobile money. It isn’t money: you can’t withdraw it, transfer it or exchange it for cash. It lasts 12 months from the last time you earned some.
• Money a study paid with referral credit doesn’t use goes back to your referral credit, never as cash.

• Be respectful and professional with participants and our team.
• Don’t break the law, harass anyone, or share content that is hateful, sexual or harmful.
• Don’t try to break, overload or get around the security of the platform.

We may pause, block or close an account that breaks these terms, and hold payments while we look into a problem. We’ll tell you why unless the law stops us. A blocked account can’t log in until we unblock it; we email you when we block or unblock it.

If we block your account and you’re the only member of your team, your team’s live studies close to new participants. Sessions already booked stay booked, and we contact those participants. If you have teammates, they keep their access and studies.

You can stop using myUsersInsight at any time and delete your account in Account settings once your team has no session booked and no participant waiting to be paid. We delete it 3 days later, and you can keep it by logging in before then. You can also ask us at hello@myusersinsight.com. Participants who already took part in your studies are still paid.

We work to keep myUsersInsight running and your information safe, but we can’t promise the platform will always be available or free of mistakes. As far as the law allows, we aren’t responsible for indirect losses, and our total responsibility to you is limited to what you paid us in the three months before the problem. Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have by law.

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we’ll tell you in the app or by email before the change applies. Using the platform after that means you accept the new terms.

These terms are governed by the laws of Ghana. If we disagree, we’ll first try to settle it by talking, then through mediation, before either of us goes to the courts of Ghana.

Questions about these terms: email hello@myusersinsight.com.