UnderstandMyCert

Terms of Service

Last updated July 19, 2026

Please read these Terms of Service (“Terms”) carefully. They are a binding agreement between you and UnderstandMyCert, operated by Understand My Policy, Inc. (“UnderstandMyCert,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), governing your access to and use of understandmycert.com and any related services, tools, and features (together, the “Service”).

By creating an account, running the pre-screener, uploading a document, purchasing a checklist or subscription, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. What UnderstandMyCert is, and what it is not

UnderstandMyCert is an educational certification-preparation tool. It explains, in plain language, the published requirements of small-business certification programs, such as SDVOSB/VetCert, WOSB/EDWOSB, WBENC, and NMSDC. Each requirement is cited to its official source (the CFR section, SBA page, or program handbook) and marked with the date we last verified it. It helps you understand those requirements, gather the documents that prove them, and organize your own application. We prepare, you file.

The Service is not advice, and we are not your representative. This is the most important thing in these Terms, so we state it plainly:

  • UnderstandMyCert does not provide legal advice, and is not a law firm or a substitute for a licensed attorney. Explaining what a published rule says is not the same as advising you how the rule applies to your specific facts. Questions like whether your particular ownership structure, trust, buy-sell agreement, or operating history satisfies a requirement are legal questions; consult an attorney for them.
  • UnderstandMyCert does not provide accounting, tax, or financial advice, and is not a CPA firm or financial advisor.
  • UnderstandMyCert is not a consultant, application preparer, or filing agent. We never file on your behalf, never sign anything for you, never take power of attorney, and never ask for or accept your credentials for SAM.gov, certify.sba.gov, VetCert, WBENC, NMSDC, a state UCP, or any other government or certifier portal. You, and only you, submit your application, and you are solely responsible for everything in it.
  • UnderstandMyCert is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Transportation, any other government agency, WBENC, NMSDC, or any certifying body. Program names and trademarks belong to their owners and are used only to identify the programs we explain.
  • UnderstandMyCert does not determine your eligibility and does not guarantee any outcome. The free pre-screener and any “appears to meet” indications are preliminary, educational assessments based on your answers and published rules, not eligibility determinations. Only the certifying body decides. A complete checklist does not mean an approved application.

What the Service does: it tells you what the published requirements say, where they say it, and which documents typically prove them. It also gives you a place to organize your own preparation. Any decision to apply, any representation you make to a certifier or agency, and any filing you submit are your own, made at your own discretion and risk.

2. Rules change, and our checklists follow the rules, with a lag

Certification requirements come from regulations, agency pages, and certifier handbooks that change. We show a last-verified date on every requirement, re-check records older than 90 days, and flag changed rules openly rather than silently patching them. But there can be a gap between a rule changing and our checklist reflecting it, and some programs (for example, 8(a) during a pending rule change) may be marked as guidance-only or on hold precisely because the rules are moving.

The official source always governs, not our summary of it. Before you file, verify anything that matters against the current official source we link to, and against the certifier’s own instructions.

3. AI-generated and editorially prepared content, and its limits

The Service combines editorially prepared requirement summaries with AI-assisted features that read your answers and documents, map requirements to documents, and generate explanations. AI systems can make mistakes. Extractions can be wrong, mappings can be imperfect, and explanations can miss nuance a licensed professional would catch.

Treat every output as a starting point for your own preparation, not as a determination of your eligibility, your obligations, or the sufficiency of your application. We do not warrant that any output is accurate, complete, current, or fit for any particular purpose.

4. Your responsibility for truthful filings

Applications to certification programs are made under penalty of law; false statements in federal certification applications can carry civil and criminal consequences. You are solely responsible for the truth, accuracy, and completeness of everything you submit to any certifier or agency. Do not use the Service to prepare an application you know to be inaccurate, and do not rely on the Service to catch misstatements in your own information, it works from what you give it.

5. Eligibility and your account

You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract to use the Service. You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you provide, for keeping your account credentials secure, and for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us promptly at support@understandmycert.com if you suspect unauthorized use.

Where your documents include information about other people (co-owners, officers, or family members), you represent that you have the right and permission to upload them and that doing so does not violate anyone’s rights.

6. Your documents and content

You keep all ownership of the documents and information you upload (“Your Content”). You grant us a limited license to store, process, and analyze Your Content solely to provide the Service to you, to build your checklist, map documents to requirements, and provide the features you use.

You are responsible for what you upload. You agree not to upload:

  • documents you do not have the right to share;
  • content that is unlawful, infringing, or that contains someone else’s confidential information without permission;
  • correspondence protected by attorney-client privilege. We recommend that you do not upload privileged attorney communications, because uploading privileged material to a third-party service can affect that privilege. If you choose to upload such material, you do so at your own discretion and accept any consequences of doing so;
  • login credentials for any government or certifier portal. We will never ask for them.

How we handle, protect, and retain Your Content is described in our Privacy Policy, which is part of these Terms.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  • use the Service for any unlawful purpose, including preparing filings you know to be false;
  • resell the Service or its checklists as your own consulting, legal, or application-preparation service, or represent our output as a professional opinion or an eligibility determination;
  • attempt to make the Service produce output it is designed to refuse, or attempt to circumvent, disable, or probe the Service’s guardrails, refusal behavior, or security;
  • upload malware, scrape or harvest data, reverse-engineer the Service, or use it to build a competing product;
  • misrepresent your identity, your ownership structure, or your eligibility characteristics.

We may suspend or terminate access for conduct that violates these Terms or that we reasonably believe risks harm to the Service, to us, or to others.

8. Purchases, plans, and billing

The Service offers a free pre-screener and paid features. Current tiers, features, and prices are shown on the site and may change as the Service develops. Paid offerings may include one-time purchases (such as a single-program checklist or multi-program bundle) and subscriptions (such as annual renewal tracking).

Promotional pricing. Some prices may be shown as time-limited launch pricing against a struck-through regular price. When a launch window ends, the regular price applies going forward. We do not display fake or permanent “discounts.”

Payments are processed by our payment provider, Stripe. By purchasing, you authorize the applicable charge and any recurring charge for subscriptions.

Renewals and cancellation. Subscriptions (such as renewal tracking) renew automatically at the then-current price until you cancel. You may cancel anytime; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and you keep access until then. We do not provide prorated refunds for partial periods unless required by law.

Refunds. If something goes wrong with a purchase, contact us at support@understandmycert.com and we will work with you in good faith. Except where required by law or expressly stated at checkout, purchases are non-refundable. For the avoidance of doubt: a certification denial is not a defect in the Service and is not grounds for a refund. We prepare, you file, and the certifier decides.

Price changes. We may change prices and plan features. For subscriptions, we will give you notice before a change affects your next renewal, and the change will not apply to a term you have already paid for.

9. Intellectual property

The Service, including its software, design, text, the structure and wording of our checklists, requirement summaries, and explanations, and our name and logo, belongs to Understand My Policy, Inc. and is protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Service for preparing your own business’s applications. You may keep and use the checklists and organized materials you generate for your own business, but you may not resell them or the Service.

The underlying regulations and government publications we cite are public materials; our summaries, organization, and presentation of them are ours. Third-party program names and marks (SBA, VetCert, WOSB, WBENC, NMSDC, and others) belong to their respective owners.

10. Third-party services and sources

The Service relies on third parties (for example, hosting, authentication, payment, email, and AI providers) and links to official sources such as the CFR, SBA pages, and certifier handbooks. We are not responsible for third-party services or content, and we do not control the official sources we cite. They can change without notice, and the certifier’s current published requirements and instructions control over anything we display.

11. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

WITHOUT LIMITING SECTION 1, WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT ANY CHECKLIST, REQUIREMENT SUMMARY, DOCUMENT MAPPING, SCREENER RESULT, OR OTHER OUTPUT IS ACCURATE, COMPLETE, CURRENT, OR SUITABLE FOR ANY DECISION OR FILING. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT YOU ARE OR WILL BE FOUND ELIGIBLE FOR ANY PROGRAM, THAT ANY APPLICATION WILL BE APPROVED, OR THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE. THE OFFICIAL REGULATIONS AND THE CERTIFIER’S PUBLISHED REQUIREMENTS AND DETERMINATIONS CONTROL OVER ANYTHING THE SERVICE TELLS YOU.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of the above may not apply to you.

12. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, UNDERSTANDMYCERT, UNDERSTAND MY POLICY, INC., AND ITS OWNER WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, CONTRACTS, CONTRACT OPPORTUNITIES, OR CERTIFICATIONS, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF (OR INABILITY TO USE) THE SERVICE, ANY FILING YOU MAKE, OR ANY DECISION YOU MAKE BASED ON THE SERVICE, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100).

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless UnderstandMyCert, Understand My Policy, Inc., and its owner from any claims, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your misuse of the Service, your violation of these Terms, your uploading of content you did not have the right to upload, any filing or representation you make to a certifier or agency, or any decision you or a third party made in reliance on the Service.

14. Changes to the Service and to these Terms

We may modify or discontinue features of the Service at any time, including adding, pausing, or removing coverage of specific certification programs as their rules change. We may also update these Terms. When we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date and, where appropriate, provide additional notice. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect means you accept the revised Terms.

15. Termination

You may stop using the Service and ask us to close your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms or if we discontinue the Service. On termination, the license granted to you ends. Sections that by their nature should survive, including ownership, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and dispute terms, survive termination. How we handle and delete your data is described in the Privacy Policy.

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You agree that the state and federal courts located in Florida have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute that is not otherwise resolved, and you consent to venue there. Nothing here prevents either party from seeking relief in small-claims court where available.

17. Miscellaneous

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any terms shown at checkout, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Contact us at support@understandmycert.com.

UnderstandMyCert is an educational certification-prep tool. We are not a law firm, not consultants, and not affiliated with the SBA, any government agency, WBENC, or NMSDC. We explain the published requirements and cite our sources; you prepare and file your own application, and only the certifier decides. No outcome is guaranteed.