Refund and Cancellation Policy
What happens to money already paid when an engagement is cancelled, stopped or disputed — case by case, with timelines.
This policy sets out what happens to money already paid to Canopus IT Solutions when work is cancelled, stopped or disputed. It covers what is refundable case by case, what is not, how to request a refund, the currency and method it is returned by, and how long each step takes.
1. What this policy covers
Canopus IT Solutions Private Limited ("Canopus", "we", "us") is a software engineering company registered in India. We sell professional services — software builds, engineering teams, marketing retainers — not licences or downloadable products. There is no trial period and no auto-renewal; every engagement runs against a signed statement of work.
A refund here is therefore not the return of goods. It settles an account where paid-for effort has, or has not, already been performed. Where this policy and your statement of work differ, the statement of work wins. Read it with our payment terms, service delivery policy and terms of service.
2. What is refundable, case by case
| What you paid for | What happens to it |
|---|---|
| Discovery, handed over | Not refundable — you keep the specification |
| Discovery, stopped part-way | Days not yet worked refunded |
| Kick-off tranche, before work starts | Refunded in full |
| Kick-off tranche, after work starts | Balance after timesheeted effort |
| Milestone accepted in writing | Not refundable |
| Milestone never accepted | Refunded in full |
| Month worked, T&M or dedicated team | Not refundable — billed in arrears |
| Retainer month paid ahead, not started | Refunded in full |
| Duplicate or incorrect payment | Refunded in full |
Scroll the table sideways for the full detail.
Paid discovery
Discovery produces a fixed written estimate, a scope and architecture document, a costed plan and usually a clickable prototype. You own it and can take it elsewhere, which is why the fee stands once it is handed over: what you bought has been delivered and you keep it. Stop before handover and we refund the unworked days.
The kick-off tranche
Fixed price typically bills 30% at kick-off, then milestone payments against agreed deliverables and a final tranche on acceptance. The kick-off tranche reserves named engineers and pays for environment, repository and pipeline setup. Cancel before the agreed start date and it returns in full; after that we refund the balance once effort spent is deducted, on a timesheet by person and task.
Milestones already accepted
Acceptance is a written sign-off against criteria in the statement of work, and the point after which a milestone payment stops being refundable. Reject a deliverable inside the review window and we fix it rather than refund it. If we cannot reach acceptance inside the remedy period agreed at rejection, you cancel that milestone and we refund it in full.
T&M, dedicated teams and retainers
These months are invoiced in arrears against timesheets, so an invoice covers hours already logged, and a timesheet error is credited on the next invoice rather than refunded. On a retainer paid ahead, a month not yet started is refunded in full; a month under way is charged in full, because the capacity was held for you.
3. What we do not refund
- Discovery deliverables already handed over
- Milestones accepted in writing
- Hours already worked and timesheeted
- A dedicated-team or retainer month already under way
- Third-party costs already committed for you: cloud spend, licences, domains, app-store fees, paid media already served — that money has left our account and carries its own invoice line
- Work delivered to specification where your priorities later changed
- A retainer month in which the agreed marketing deliverables were produced. Results depend on your offer, market and budget as well as our execution — which is why we don't take marketing retainers under roughly $2,000 a month
4. How to request a refund
Email [email protected] with "Refund request" in the subject line, and include:
- The invoice number, date, amount and currency
- The engagement or statement of work it relates to
- What went wrong, in your own words, and the outcome you want
We acknowledge within one business day and decide in writing within five business days. If we need something to decide, we ask inside those five days and the clock restarts when you reply. If we decline, you get the reason and the clause it rests on. You can escalate through our grievance redressal process, and nothing here removes rights you hold under the law governing your contract.
5. How an approved refund is paid back
Refunds go to the original payment method, in the original currency of the invoice. Pay a USD invoice by card and you get USD back to that card.
The currency rule protects you, not us: we invoice in USD, GBP, EUR, AED or INR, and refunding in another currency would hand you an exchange difference you never agreed to, since the refund-date rate is not the payment-date rate. We also do not refund to a different card, account or party from the one that paid — an anti-fraud control as much as an accounting one. If the original method has closed, we ask your bank to confirm that in writing and settle to an account in the same entity's name.
6. Timelines, and the half we don't control
Once approved, we release the refund within 3 business days. That part is ours and we hold to it.
What follows is not. Money then takes 5–7 working days on Indian payment rails and 5–10 business days for international card refunds, depending on your issuing bank; a transfer clears in a comparable window, though intermediary banks add days. You get the refund reference the day we release it, so you can chase your bank directly.
7. Fees and exchange movement
- Processing fees on the refund: we bear them. Nothing is deducted at our end; there is no administration or cancellation fee.
- Your bank's charges: a receiving or intermediary bank may levy its own charge on an inbound transfer. That sits between you and your bank — we can neither prevent nor reimburse it.
- Exchange movement: we return the invoice amount in the invoice currency, so we apply no conversion. If your bank billed the original payment in your home currency, its rate on the refund date may differ, so the amount arriving can differ slightly from what left. That gap is your bank's conversion, not our deduction.
8. Cancelling an engagement
Either side can cancel with 30 days' written notice and no penalty. There is no exit fee and no minimum term beyond the statement of work. On time-and-materials and dedicated-team work the notice period is worked and billed; on fixed price, notice takes effect at the end of the current milestone.
Up to the effective date we invoice work performed but not yet billed, third-party costs already committed for you, and the balance of any accepted milestone. Nothing past that date is invoiced. Notice periods by model are on our engagement models page.
We cancel from our side rarely, and only for a stated reason: an invoice materially overdue after we raised it, or a request outside what we agreed. You get the same 30 days and the same handover.
9. Work in progress at cancellation
Within 10 business days of the effective date you receive source code and infrastructure in your own repository and cloud account, credentials transferred to your named administrator, runbook and design files, and a written status of what is finished, part-finished and outstanding.
IP in work you have paid for is yours on the day you cancel. Work performed but not yet invoiced is invoiced, and IP transfers when that invoice clears. We do not withhold code or credentials you have paid for as leverage in a disagreement.
10. Chargebacks and disputes
Contact us before filing a chargeback. Most disputes we see are an invoice line nobody recognised or a milestone someone believed was cancelled — both fixable in a day by email. A chargeback takes weeks and freezes the money while it runs.
If you do file one, we respond inside the card scheme's window with the evidence it asks for: the signed master services agreement and statement of work, the invoice, acceptance sign-offs, timesheets, commit and deployment records, the email trail. Filing a dispute does not end the conversation, and we do not suspend an active project while one is open.
11. Contact
Refund requests, cancellation notices and questions about this page: [email protected], the form on our contact page, or +91 817 979 7732. An engineer replies within one business day.
We update this policy when our commercial practice changes; the date at the top reflects the current version. Changes affecting a live engagement go to that client directly.