Last updated: 25 May 2026

Terms of Service

Welcome to SlimSirkel. These Terms set out the rules for using our website, our quiz app, and the practice content we publish. They form a binding agreement between you and SlimSirkel. If you don't accept them, please don't sign up or use the service.

1. About these Terms

These Terms apply whenever you visit our website, create an account, or use the SlimSirkel app — whether you pay for access or use the trial. By signing up, ticking the acceptance box, or simply continuing to use the service, you confirm that you have read these Terms and that you agree to them.

We may update these Terms from time to time. If a change materially affects you (for example, a price increase or a meaningful restriction of features), we'll let you know by email or with a notice in the app at least 30 days before it takes effect. If you keep using SlimSirkel after the change date, you accept the updated Terms. Older versions are kept on request.

2. Who we are

SlimSirkel is a South African online practice service operated by Johannes AM Basson, a sole proprietor trading as SlimSirkel. Where we say "we", "us" or "SlimSirkel" in these Terms, we mean that sole proprietorship. Where we say "you", we mean the person reading these Terms — usually a parent or guardian, sometimes an adult learner, and (with parental consent) a child learner.

Operator details
Name: Johannes AM Basson (sole proprietor)
Trading as: SlimSirkel
Business address: to be published shortly
Country of operation: South Africa
Support email: support@slimsirkel.co.za

3. What SlimSirkel does

SlimSirkel is an online practice tool for South African school grades. We publish multiple-choice and short-answer questions across the major CAPS-aligned subjects, in Afrikaans and English, organised by grade, subject and term. Learners work through the questions in their own time; parents track progress through their dashboard.

SlimSirkel is a practice aid, not a tutoring service or a substitute for the school classroom. We don't offer formal assessment, and we don't promise a particular academic outcome — see Section 15.

4. Parent and learner accounts

Accounts on SlimSirkel come in two flavours:

Parent (or guardian) account. The adult who signs up, pays for the subscription, and manages one or more learner seats. Parents must be at least 18 years old.
Learner account. A child seat created and assigned by a parent. The learner signs in with a username chosen by the parent; their progress is visible to the parent.

Each account is for one person. You're responsible for keeping your login details safe and for everything that happens under your account. Please tell us straight away if you suspect someone else has accessed it. Accounts are personal — you may not transfer, sell or share them, and you may not use SlimSirkel to provide a paid service to your own clients (a tutor, school or learning centre wanting to use the platform with their pupils must contact us first for a separate arrangement).

Some learner profile fields — such as the school, province or class — can only be changed once every 30 days. This is to keep the leaderboards and reports honest. If you need an exception (for example, a genuine school move), contact us and we'll help.

SlimSirkel is intended for use by children with their parent or guardian's involvement. Under South African law (the Children's Act 38 of 2005 and POPIA), a child under 18 needs the consent of a competent person — usually a parent or legal guardian — to enter into a contract or have personal information processed.

When you create a learner seat, you confirm that you are the parent or guardian of that learner, that you give consent on their behalf, and that you accept these Terms for them. We rely on that confirmation. If consent has not actually been given, that's between the parent and the person who used their details — we take no responsibility for it.

6. Access, fees and payment

Most of SlimSirkel sits behind a paid plan. Access is sold per learner seat as a once-off payment that grants 12 months of access from the date the seat is activated. Access does not auto-renew — when the 12 months end, you'll need to buy another seat to continue. The current price is shown on our pricing page before you commit to anything. Prices include VAT where applicable, and are quoted in South African rand.

Payments are handled by PayFast (Payfast (Pty) Ltd), our payment gateway. When you pay, you also accept PayFast's terms for that transaction. We don't store your full card number — PayFast does that on our behalf. We are not responsible for any fees your bank or PayFast may charge you separately (overdraft, cross-border, currency conversion, etc.).

If a payment fails or is reversed, access to the paid features will be paused until the payment has cleared.

We may change the price of new seats from time to time. A price change will not apply to a seat you have already paid for — that seat keeps its existing 12-month access.

7. Trial mode

SlimSirkel offers a free trial mode. In trial mode, only Term 1 of each subject is available, and daily session limits apply. We may change or end the trial at any time without notice. The trial does not require payment details and does not auto-convert to a paid subscription.

8. Cancellation

Each seat is a once-off purchase that gives 12 months of access and does not auto-renew, so there is nothing recurring to cancel. You can stop using the service or close your account from your parent dashboard at any time. Closing the account does not retroactively refund any seat you've already paid for.

SlimSirkel is a digital service that becomes available the moment a seat is activated, and the content can be consumed straight away. Fees already paid are therefore non-refundable, except as set out in Section 9 below or where a refund is specifically required by law.

9. Refunds

Because SlimSirkel is a digital service that is delivered the moment a seat is activated, fees are generally non-refundable. We do, however, offer the following goodwill refund options on top of any rights you have under the South African Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (CPA) and the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 (ECT Act).

Try before you buy. Our free trial covers Term 1 of every subject. We strongly encourage parents to use the trial to decide whether SlimSirkel suits their learner before paying for a seat.
7-day satisfaction window. If you change your mind within 7 days of activating a seat and the learner on that seat has answered fewer than 20 questions on the paid content, we will refund the full seat fee. Email support@slimsirkel.co.za from the parent account, with the PayFast reference, and we'll process the refund to your original payment method.
Technical or service failure. If a seat cannot be used because of a fault on our side that we are unable to resolve within a reasonable time, you may request a pro-rata refund of the unused portion of the 12-month access period.
Duplicate or mistaken purchases. If you bought the same seat twice, or paid for the wrong grade, contact us within 30 days. If the seat has not been materially used, we'll refund or transfer it.
Service discontinued by us. If we permanently shut SlimSirkel down before your 12 months are up, we will refund the unused portion of any active seats on a pro-rata basis.
Outside these cases, seats remain non-refundable, because the content is delivered digitally and is available to consume immediately from activation.

How to request a refund. Email support@slimsirkel.co.za from the email address on your parent account, and include your PayFast reference and a short explanation. We aim to respond within 5 business days. Approved refunds are returned via PayFast to your original payment method and can take 5–10 working days to reflect, depending on your bank.

Nothing in this section limits any rights you have under the CPA, the ECT Act, or other applicable South African law.

10. Acceptable use

SlimSirkel is for personal, non-commercial use by registered parents and their learners. When you use it, you agree not to:

copy, scrape, republish or resell our questions, explanations or other content, in whole or in part;
share your account login with anyone other than the parent and their assigned learners;
use SlimSirkel to provide a paid tutoring or coaching service to third parties, unless we've agreed that in writing;
upload anything false, defamatory, obscene, hateful, or otherwise unlawful (including in usernames or report messages);
try to break, probe, reverse-engineer or interfere with the service, its security, or other users' accounts;
use bots, crawlers, or automated tools to interact with the service beyond what a normal browser does;
use SlimSirkel in a way that violates South African law or any applicable export, sanctions or competition rules.

We rely on this section to keep the platform fair for everyone. If you breach it, we may warn you, restrict features, or close your account — see Section 18.

11. Content and intellectual property

Everything you see on SlimSirkel — the questions, answers, explanations, illustrations, brand marks, layouts, code, and the platform itself — is owned by us or licensed to us, and is protected by South African and international intellectual property law.

Your subscription gives you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the service while it lasts. It does not transfer ownership of any content to you, and it doesn't let you use the material outside SlimSirkel. Screenshots for your own learner's reference are fine; redistribution, classroom packs, or commercial re-use are not.

If you give us feedback, suggestions or corrections, we may use them without owing you anything in return.

12. Third-party logins

SlimSirkel lets parents sign in with Google. When you do, Google's own terms and privacy policy apply to that part of the flow. We only receive the information Google says we may receive (your email, name, and avatar). You can revoke that connection at any time from your Google account settings.

13. Communication and privacy

We'll mostly communicate with you by email — for account confirmations, billing notices, important changes to the service, and the occasional product update. You can opt out of marketing emails from the unsubscribe link in those emails or from your account settings; you can't opt out of essential transactional emails while you have an active account.

How we handle personal information is set out in our Privacy Policy. By using SlimSirkel, you agree to that Policy as well as these Terms. We process personal information in line with POPIA (Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013) and, where applicable, the GDPR.

14. Service availability and changes

We work hard to keep SlimSirkel up and running, but we can't promise 100% uptime. The service may be unavailable from time to time for maintenance, upgrades, or reasons beyond our control. Wherever we can, we'll plan downtime for off-peak hours and tell you in advance.

We may also add, change, or remove features. If we remove a feature that meaningfully reduces what you're paying for, we'll give you at least 30 days' notice so you can cancel before the change takes effect.

15. No educational guarantee

SlimSirkel is a practice tool. We aim for content that is accurate and CAPS-aligned, but we don't guarantee that every question is free of errors, perfectly worded, or up to date with the latest curriculum amendments. If you spot something wrong, please use the in-app "report a question" button and we'll review it.

We do not promise that SlimSirkel will improve a learner's marks, pass rate, or class ranking. Outcomes depend on far more than a practice app. To the maximum extent allowed by law, we provide the service "as is" and "as available", without any warranties beyond those that may not be excluded under the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) or other applicable law.

16. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any liability that we are not allowed to limit by law — for example, liability for fraud, intentional misconduct, or harm caused to a consumer in the way the CPA describes. Subject to that:

we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses — including lost time, lost data, lost opportunity, or harm to academic outcomes — arising from your use of (or inability to use) the service;
our total liability to you, in contract, in delict, or otherwise, is capped at the total amount you have paid us for the service in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

We are not liable for losses caused by problems outside our reasonable control — internet outages, third-party platform failures, malware introduced by other parties, or your own device and connection.

17. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify SlimSirkel — and our directors, employees, and contractors — against any third-party claim, fine, or loss that arises out of your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the service, or your violation of any applicable law. This includes reasonable legal costs.

18. Suspension and termination

You can close your account at any time from the parent dashboard. Closing the account ends the subscription and removes the learner seats; we keep certain records (like payment audit logs) for as long as the law requires.

We may suspend or close an account, with or without notice, if:

you have materially breached these Terms;
your payment has failed and stays unpaid after a reasonable grace period;
we reasonably believe the account is being used to harm SlimSirkel or its users;
we are required to do so by law or by a regulator.

On termination, your right to use the service stops immediately. Sections that should reasonably survive termination — including intellectual property, limitation of liability, indemnity, and disputes — continue to apply.

19. Force majeure

Neither party is in breach of these Terms because of a failure or delay caused by something genuinely outside its reasonable control — for example, natural disasters, load-shedding beyond ordinary levels, a pandemic, war, sabotage, government action, internet backbone outages, or the failure of a critical upstream provider. Payment obligations are an exception: those still need to be met.

20. Disputes and governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. If something goes wrong, please email us first — most problems can be sorted out quickly that way.

If we can't resolve a dispute by talking, the dispute will be finally settled by arbitration in Cape Town under the rules of the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa (AFSA), before a single arbitrator agreed by the parties (or, failing agreement within 14 days, appointed by AFSA). The arbitration is confidential and the award is final and binding. Nothing in this section stops either party from seeking urgent interim relief from a competent South African court.

21. General provisions

Whole agreement. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any pricing pages or order forms, are the whole agreement between you and us about SlimSirkel. They supersede any earlier discussion or representation.
No waiver. If we don't enforce a right at one point, that doesn't mean we've given it up.
Severability. If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, the rest still applies.
Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms without our written consent. We may transfer ours to a successor entity (for example, on a sale of the business) without your consent, provided your rights are not materially reduced.
Notices. We'll send you notices by email to the address on your account. You can send us notices by email to the address in Section 22. Either side can change its notice address by giving the other 7 days' notice.
Independence. These Terms don't create a partnership, joint venture, or employment relationship between us.

22. How to contact us

For support, questions about these Terms, or complaints, email us at support@slimsirkel.co.za.

We aim to acknowledge emails within two business days and resolve most queries within seven.