Legal
Terms, Privacy & Refunds
The terms that govern buying and using The One Standard, how your information is handled, how refunds work, and the separate terms for the Practice App. Written plainly. Terms, Privacy and Refunds last updated as dated in each section. The Practice App terms and privacy policy were last updated 4 August 2026.
Part One
Terms of Service
These Terms of Service govern your purchase and use of The One Standard and any related materials, products, and resources (the "Materials") offered through theonestandard.com (the "Site"). The Site and the Materials are provided by Alexander J Coates, trading as The One Standard Development (ABN registered, Australia) ("we", "us", "our"). By purchasing, downloading, or using the Materials, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not purchase or use them.
1. What you are buying
The One Standard is a digital personal and professional development practice delivered as downloadable documents and audio. When you buy, you are purchasing a licence to access and use the Materials for your own development. You are not buying ownership of the Materials themselves. All content remains our intellectual property at all times.
Corporate licensing is different. Where an organisation holds a Corporate Licensing Agreement with us, that agreement governs its licence to the Materials and prevails over these Terms to the extent of any inconsistency.
2. Your licence
On purchase, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable licence to access and use the Materials for your own individual development. You may download, store, and print single copies for your personal use.
The individual program sold on this Site is the Individual Edition, licensed for one person's own use. It does not include the right to facilitate, teach, deliver, or run the program for a team, group, organisation, or any third party.
3. What you may not do
Except as expressly permitted above, you may not: copy, reproduce, resell, redistribute, sublicense, rent, lend, or share the Materials; share your purchased files or access with any other person; upload the Materials to any public or private platform, file-sharing service, or network; use the Materials to train, facilitate, coach, or instruct others; remove or alter any copyright, trademark, or ownership notices; or use the Materials in any way in exchange for payment or other consideration.
4. Facilitation and team use require a separate licence
Running The One Standard with a team, within a workplace, or across an organisation is only permitted under a separate written Corporate Licence Agreement signed by us. The Corporate Licence grants the Team Edition, which is purpose-built for facilitation, together with the deployment rights, and where agreed, the workshop, keynote, and tailored rollout. No right to facilitate or deploy The One Standard for others arises from purchasing the individual program, regardless of how it is used. To enquire about a Corporate Licence, contact us through the Site.
5. Intellectual property
All Materials, including the twelve-step framework, written content, structure, design, audio, and branding, are owned by us and protected by Australian and international copyright and intellectual property law. The name The Standard, The One Standard, the tagline, and the signature quote are our marks. Nothing in these Terms transfers any ownership or rights to you beyond the limited licence granted above. We reserve all rights not expressly granted.
6. Educational disclaimer: results are not guaranteed
The Materials are provided for educational and informational purposes. They are a development practice, not professional advice. We make no guarantee or warranty of any particular result, outcome, improvement, income, performance, or success. Any progress depends on your own effort, circumstances, and consistency. The Materials do not constitute and are not a substitute for professional legal, financial, medical, psychological, or other advice. If you need advice of that kind, consult a suitably qualified professional.
7. Provided "as is"
The Materials and the Site are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose. We do not warrant that the Site will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of harmful components, or that any defects will be corrected.
8. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, and subject to your non-excludable rights under the Australian Consumer Law and any other applicable consumer protection law, our total liability to you arising out of or connected with the Materials or the Site, whether in contract, tort, or otherwise, will not exceed the amount you paid us for the relevant Materials. We will not be liable for any indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or punitive loss, including lost profits, lost data, or lost opportunity.
9. Your statutory rights
Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts, or modifies any consumer guarantee, right, or remedy that you have under the Australian Consumer Law or any other law that cannot lawfully be excluded. Where our goods or services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded, our liability for failing to meet such a guarantee is limited, at our option and to the extent permitted, to resupplying the Materials or paying the cost of resupply.
10. Termination
We may suspend or revoke your licence if you breach these Terms. On revocation, you must stop using and destroy any copies of the Materials in your possession. The provisions concerning intellectual property, disclaimers, and limitation of liability survive termination.
11. Pricing, currency, and payment
Prices are shown in your selected currency. The price displayed at checkout is the price payable, with no hidden fees. Payment is processed securely by our third-party payment providers; we do not store your full card details. Access to purchased Materials is provided after payment is received.
12. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of Queensland, Australia. Disputes are subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Queensland, Australia, without limiting any mandatory consumer protections available to you in your country of residence.
13. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. The version published on the Site at the time of your purchase applies to that purchase. The "last updated" date above shows when these Terms were last revised.
14. Contact
Questions about these Terms can be sent to alex@theonestandard.com.
Part Two
Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how Alexander J Coates, trading as The One Standard Development ("we", "us", "our"), collects, uses, discloses, and protects your personal information when you use theonestandard.com. We handle personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, and we apply equivalent care for visitors in the European Union, United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Last updated 27 June 2026.
1. What we collect
We collect only what we need. This includes: the email address you provide when you request a free resource or join our list; the name, email, company, and message details you provide through our contact or corporate enquiry forms; details necessary to process a purchase, handled by our payment providers; and basic technical information your browser sends automatically, such as general location by timezone, used to display your local currency.
2. How we use it
We use your personal information to: deliver the free resources or purchases you request; send the email series or updates you signed up for; respond to your enquiries personally; process and support your orders; and meet our legal obligations. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for others' advertising.
3. Consent and marketing
When you sign up, you consent to receive the relevant emails. Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link, and you can opt out at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect anything we did before you withdrew it.
4. Third parties who process your data
We use trusted third-party services to run the business, and your information may be processed by them only to provide their service to us. These include our email platform (MailerLite), our enquiry-form processor (Formspree), our payment provider (Stripe), our website host (Hostinger), and our secure file-delivery network (Cloudflare). Some of these providers operate servers outside Australia, including in the United States and the European Union, which means your information may be processed overseas. We take reasonable steps to ensure these providers protect your information to a comparable standard.
5. How we protect it
We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect your personal information from misuse, loss, and unauthorised access. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we limit access to your information and only keep it as long as needed for the purposes above or as required by law.
6. Your rights
You may request access to the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to object to or restrict certain processing, and to data portability. To make any request, email alex@theonestandard.com and we will respond within a reasonable time. You also have the right to complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, or to your local data protection authority.
7. Cookies and tracking
This Site does not set advertising or tracking cookies. It uses only what is necessary to remember your currency choice and to make the signup forms work. It does not build advertising profiles of you.
8. Children
The Site and the Materials are intended for adults and are not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
9. Changes to this Policy
We may update this Policy from time to time. The "last updated" date shows when it was last revised. Material changes will be reflected on this page.
10. Contact
For any privacy question or request, contact alex@theonestandard.com.
Part Three
Refund Policy
We want you to be confident in your purchase. This Refund Policy explains how refunds work for digital products bought through theonestandard.com. Last updated 20 July 2026.
1. Our 30-day guarantee
Every digital product sold through this Site, including the 12-Step Program, the personal tools, and the Practitioner Bundle, comes with a 30-day refund guarantee. If your purchase isn't right for you, email alex@theonestandard.com within 30 days and we will refund you in full. No drawn-out process.
This policy applies to individual digital products bought through the Site. Corporate licences are governed by the Corporate Licensing Agreement, which sets out its own payment and refund terms.
2. How to request a refund
Send an email to alex@theonestandard.com within the refund window with the product name, your date of purchase, and the email address used to buy. We will process approved refunds to your original payment method, normally within five business days.
3. The nature of digital products
Because the Materials are digital and delivered immediately, your right to a refund is governed by this policy together with your non-excludable rights under the Australian Consumer Law and any consumer protection law that applies where you live. If you are a consumer in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you have a statutory right to withdraw from a distance contract within 14 days. We do not ask you to waive that right. Our 30-day guarantee is longer than the statutory period and is offered in addition to it, so whichever applies to you, you have at least 30 days to change your mind. To withdraw or request a refund, email alex@theonestandard.com and we will action it.
4. Your consumer guarantees
Nothing in this policy limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law or other applicable law. If the Materials are faulty, not as described, or fail to meet a consumer guarantee, you are entitled to a remedy regardless of the 30-day window.
5. Corporate licences
Corporate Licences are handled individually under a separate signed agreement, and their refund and cancellation terms are set out in that agreement rather than this policy.
6. Contact
Any question about a refund can be sent to alex@theonestandard.com.
Part Four
Practice App Terms of Use
These terms apply to The One Standard Practice App at app.theonestandard.com (the "App"), operated by Alexander J Coates, trading as The One Standard Development. They sit alongside the Terms of Service above, which continue to apply to anything you buy from theonestandard.com. Where the two differ in relation to the App, these terms apply. Last updated 4 August 2026.
1. What the App is
The App is the practice layer of The One Standard. It takes you through the twelve steps one week at a time, with a starting diagnostic, a weekly step worked through four moves, a daily check-in, weekend reflections, monthly reviews, and a week-thirteen close-out. When you complete a full cycle you earn a credential. The practice then begins again at Step 1, measured against the baseline you set at the start.
The App is not a replacement for the twelve-step program. The program carries the fuller teaching behind each step, including the step overviews, the recommended reading, and the audio series, and buying it is what unlocks the full practice inside the App.
2. Two separate products
The 12-Step Program is a one-off purchase and is permanent. It gives you every document as a download to keep and print, the full twelve-step practice inside the App, and a library in the App holding those same documents, readable or downloadable at any time. It does not expire and it does not renew.
The App tools are a separate subscription, and they are optional. They add the daily check-in, weekend reflections, monthly and annual reviews, progress across cycles, re-measurement against your original baseline, and daily phone reminders. The practice itself works without them.
The paper tools are separate one-off purchases, delivered by email as downloads. They do the same job as the App tools in printed form, for people who would rather write by hand. They are never delivered through the App and never appear in its library, and no purchase, subscription or corporate licence puts them there.
The first two steps in the App are free. The practice documents are never free.
3. Your account
You need an account to use the App. You must give an email address you control, keep your password secure, and not share your account with anyone else. One account is for one person, and you are responsible for what happens under yours. You must be at least 18 years old to create an account.
At sign-up you accept these terms and the Practice App Privacy Policy by ticking a box. We record the date, the time, and the version you accepted. Consent to reminder emails is a separate tick box and is never bundled with this one.
4. What you write stays yours
Everything you write in the App belongs to you. Your writing is visible to you alone. It is not visible to other members, not to your employer, not to a facilitator, and it is never used for marketing, advertising, profiling, or to train any system. This is enforced by database-level access controls, not by policy alone. How it is stored and handled is set out in the Practice App Privacy Policy below.
5. The credential
Completing all twelve steps issues you a credential with its own permanent identifier. It checks nothing else: not your subscription, not your payment status. It remains verifiable whether or not you hold an active subscription, and it is never withdrawn for non-payment. You download your certificate from the App. Nothing is posted or emailed, and the App does not produce physical certificates. Later cycles are recorded against the same credential as renewals.
Your credential is private by default. Nothing about it appears publicly until you choose to make it public, and you can make it private again at any time with immediate effect. When public, the verification page shows exactly five things: the credential ID, your name, the program version, the issuer, and your completion date. It never shows your email address or anything you have written.
If you ask us to delete everything, the credential and its public verification record are deleted too, and any verification link you have shared will stop working. Please consider this before sharing a link with an employer.
The credential attests to completion of The One Standard practice. It is not a qualification, an accreditation by any external body, or a licence to teach, facilitate, or sell The One Standard to others. Facilitating the practice for a team requires a corporate licence.
6. Subscriptions, and what happens if one ends
The first two steps are free. Continuing beyond them requires a subscription, monthly or annual, at the price shown to you at the time of purchase. You can pause, change your card, or cancel at any time through the payment provider’s own billing portal.
If a subscription ends, you stop being able to add new writing in the tools. Nothing you have already written is removed. Your account, your entries and your progress are untouched, you can still export everything, and you can resubscribe whenever you like. If you own the practice, it remains yours permanently and you can keep working the twelve steps without any subscription.
Your credential is not affected by any of this. It is permanent, and it stays verifiable whether or not you hold a subscription. You can export everything at any time, active or not, and we recommend exporting if you intend to stop.
7. Payment
Card details never reach the App. Payment is handled entirely by our payment provider’s hosted checkout and billing portal. We never see or store your card number.
Access is granted automatically when payment clears, matched on the email address you pay with. A full refund removes that access automatically. A partial refund is treated as a price adjustment and leaves access in place. Refunding one of the three document-only products changes nothing in the App, because those products never granted App access.
The 12-Step Program and the paper tools are one-off purchases and carry a 30-day money-back guarantee. App tool subscriptions can be cancelled at any time and are governed by the Refund Policy above together with your non-excludable rights under the Australian Consumer Law.
8. If your access comes through your employer
Where your organisation holds a corporate licence, your App access is funded by that licence for as long as it runs. Your account and everything in it remain yours. Your employer cannot read what you write, cannot request it through the App, and no export exists that would produce it. A facilitator at your organisation can see your progress only: the week you have reached, steps completed, and when you were last active.
When a corporate licence ends, the company-funded access ends. Your account is not deleted and your writing is not handed to your employer. It was never the company's to delete. You keep your account, you can export everything, and you may buy the practice or subscribe personally to carry on. Your credential is permanent and is not affected.
9. What you may not do
You may not share your account, attempt to access another person’s data, copy or redistribute the App’s content, use the App or its content to build a competing product, misrepresent a credential you have not earned, or interfere with the security of the service. Any of these may result in your access being ended.
10. Availability
We aim to keep the App available and working, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. The App may be unavailable during maintenance, or because of failures in services we rely on. Your data is exportable at any time, and we encourage you to keep your own copy of anything you would be sorry to lose.
11. This is a development practice, not therapy
The App invites honest self-reflection, and some of what you write may touch on difficult things. The One Standard is a personal and professional development practice. It is not counselling, therapy, psychological treatment, or medical advice, and it is not a crisis service. Nothing in it should be relied on as a substitute for professional help.
If you are struggling with your mental health, please speak to your doctor or a qualified professional. In Australia, Lifeline is available on 13 11 14 at any hour. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 000.
12. Results are not guaranteed
What you get out of the practice depends on what you put in, and on circumstances outside our control. We make no promise of any particular outcome, personally or professionally.
13. Intellectual property
The One Standard, its twelve-step structure, its written content, the credential system, and all associated material remain the property of Alexander J Coates. Your account gives you the right to use the App for your own development. It transfers no ownership.
14. Ending your account
You can export everything, or delete everything, from Settings at any time without contacting us. Deleting everything is permanent and includes your credential and its public verification record. We may end access where these terms are seriously or repeatedly breached.
15. Liability and your rights
To the extent permitted by law, our liability in connection with the App is limited to the amount you have paid for it. Nothing here excludes rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law or other laws that cannot be excluded.
16. Changes
We may update these terms as the App develops. The date above shows when they were last revised, and material changes will be notified in the App or by email.
17. Governing law and contact
These terms are governed by the laws of Queensland, Australia. Questions can be sent to alex@theonestandard.com.
Part Five
Practice App Privacy Policy
This policy explains how we handle your personal information in The One Standard Practice App at app.theonestandard.com. It sits alongside the Privacy Policy above, which covers theonestandard.com. We handle personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, and we apply equivalent care for members in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Last updated 4 August 2026.
1. What the App stores
Your account. Your email address, which is how you sign in and how we send account emails and any reminder emails you have asked for. Your name, which appears in the App and on your certificate. A record of the date, time, and version of the Terms and this Policy you accepted at sign-up. We never see or store your password: it is handled entirely by our authentication provider and held only as a cryptographic hash.
Your practice. This is the personal part, and we treat it as sensitive. It includes your starting diagnostic scores, your written responses to each step, your weekly intentions, your daily check-ins, your weekend reflections, your monthly reviews, and your close-out review.
Your progress. Your cycle number, current week, steps completed, check-in dates, and streak.
Your credential. Once earned: the credential identifier, your name, the date issued, and any renewals from later cycles.
Payments and access. Your payment provider’s customer and subscription identifiers, your plan, its status and renewal date, and which of the two products you hold.
Phone reminders, if you switch them on. An anonymous device endpoint, encryption keys, your device’s timezone, and the date a reminder was last sent. These are removed automatically if you revoke permission or uninstall the App.
Corporate membership, if you join through an employer. Which organisation you belong to, your role, and whether your facilitator has marked you as still taking part.
A purchase made before you have an account. If you buy on the website without an app account, we hold your purchase against the email address you paid with, together with what was bought and the date, so the purchase can be honoured. It is released and marked as claimed the moment an account with that address is confirmed. It holds no practice content and no payment details, no member can read it, and it is not used for marketing or sent to our email provider. If the purchase is refunded before it is claimed, the held record is removed.
We do not collect card details in the App, government identifiers, location data, contacts, photographs, or advertising profiles. We do not use third-party analytics or advertising trackers, and the only cookie in normal use is the one that keeps you signed in.
2. Who can see what you write
You alone. Your writing is not visible to other members, not to your employer, not to a facilitator, and it is never used for marketing, advertising, profiling, or to train any system. This is enforced by database-level access controls, not by policy alone. Your writing is never public, never included in your credential, never sent to our email provider, and never written into server logs. We access it only where genuinely necessary to operate or repair the service.
3. The Team Culture Audit is anonymous by construction
If your organisation runs a Team Culture Audit, your responses carry no identity whatsoever. They are stored with no link to the person who gave them: there is no user identifier on the record at all. A separate record notes only that a person completed the audit, so that nobody is asked twice and a response rate can be reported. The two records cannot be joined. It is not that we choose not to look. It is structurally impossible.
A report is also withheld until at least 70% of the team has responded, so no individual can be inferred from a small sample.
4. Where your information is held
Your account and all of your practice content are stored in a database hosted in Sydney, Australia, on Supabase, who process it on our behalf and under our instructions. Backups are kept in the same Australian region.
Unsaved drafts stay on your own device while you type, and are cleared when you save and when you sign out. Your browser may also keep a copy of pages you have already visited. You need an internet connection to sign in and to save anything you write.
5. Who else receives information, and what they receive
Nothing outside this list receives any personal information.
Supabase holds the database and sign-in, in Sydney, Australia.
Vercel serves the App through a global content delivery network and keeps standard web server logs, including IP address, pages requested, and timestamps. These may be processed overseas.
Stripe receives your name, email, and payment details, and only when you buy or subscribe. Card details go directly to Stripe. The App never sees or stores them. Stripe is overseas.
MailerLite receives your email address, name, current cycle number, current week number, chosen reminder time, and last check-in date, and only if you opt in to reminder emails. MailerLite stores this in the European Union. This is an overseas disclosure of your personal information, and by opting in you consent to it. We never send anything you have written to MailerLite. If you do not consent, your address is never sent to them at all, not even in passing while you change an unrelated setting.
MailerSend receives your email address and the contents of account emails, such as confirming your address or resetting your password. MailerSend is overseas.
Browser push services operated by Google, Mozilla, or Apple depending on your browser receive an anonymous device endpoint and the encrypted contents of a notification, and only if you switch on phone reminders. These are overseas.
Discord and Healthchecks.io receive operational alerts only: event names, status codes, counts, and error messages. They receive no personal information of any kind. These services are built so that no member’s writing, name, or email address can reach them. Both are overseas.
LinkedIn receives nothing automatically, and only what you post yourself if you choose to share your own public credential link.
6. Consent, and what is separate from what
Buying a product is not consent to be emailed reminders. An email address given at purchase is used to honour that purchase and nothing else.
Accepting the Terms and this Policy is a tick box at sign-up, and the account cannot be created without it. Reminder emails are a separate tick box, off by default, and never bundled with the Terms. Phone reminders are an explicit opt-in in Settings, plus your browser’s own permission prompt. Public credential visibility is opt-in and revocable at any time. All of them are off unless you turn them on.
7. What you can do, without asking us
Export everything. One click in Settings produces a complete file of all your data across every cycle.
Delete everything. Permanent deletion of all your data across all cycles, from Settings. This includes your credential and its public verification record, so any verification link you have shared will stop working. Please consider that before you delete.
Withdraw email consent. A toggle in Settings, plus an unsubscribe link in every email.
Come back after cancelling. An ended subscription stops new writing in the tools. It removes nothing you have already written, and you can resume whenever you like.
You can also view and correct your information in the App, or ask us for help at alex@theonestandard.com.
8. Deletion and backups
When you delete, the data is removed from the live database immediately. Our database provider keeps encrypted daily backups for seven days in the same Australian region, so a copy may remain in those backups for up to seven days before it ages out. We do not restore backups to recover deleted member data.
9. If your access comes through your employer
Your writing is not your employer’s to read or to delete. A facilitator at your organisation can see progress only: the week you have reached, steps completed, and when you were last active. There is no export that would produce your written words to an employer.
When a corporate licence ends, your writing is still not your employer’s. It is not handed over and it is not deleted at their request. Your account stays, and you may buy the practice or subscribe personally to continue.
Organisation-level data, meaning the organisation record, the seat and roster links, and audit results and reports, is also kept for six months after the licence ends and is then deleted. A company may request earlier deletion of its own audit data at any time.
10. How long we keep it
Your practice content is kept until you delete it or close your account. Ending a subscription does not delete anything, and owning the practice keeps your access permanently.
There is one exception. If you hold no subscription, do not own the practice, and are not covered by an active corporate licence, and that has been the case for six months, your practice content is deleted. Your certificate is kept. You can export everything at any point before that.
Your account details are kept while your account exists. Your credential is a permanent record and is kept until you ask for it to be erased.
11. Security
Access is protected by authentication and by database-level controls that isolate each person’s data. Connections are encrypted, and we have tested these protections against realistic attempts to bypass them. No system is perfectly secure. If a data breach occurred that was likely to cause you serious harm, we would notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by law.
12. What we do not do
No advertising and no advertising trackers. No third-party analytics. No cookies beyond the sign-in session. Your reflections are never used for marketing, profiling, or training any system. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with anyone not named in this policy.
13. Children
The App is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from children.
14. Changes and contact
We may update this policy as the App develops. The date above shows when it was last revised. Questions, requests, or complaints can be sent to alex@theonestandard.com. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.