Terms of Use

1. Agreement

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of Journal Impact Forecast (the “Service”), operated by Waka Iwata (“we,” “us,” or “our”).

By creating an account, purchasing an Annual Subscription, or using the Service, you agree to these Terms, the Refund Policy, the Privacy Policy, and the Disclaimer.

You must have the legal capacity to enter into this agreement under the law applicable to you.

2. The Service

Journal Impact Forecast provides independent journal-level impact estimates, forecasts, rankings, trends, and related information based on publicly available bibliographic, citation, and publisher information.

The Service is an independent, unofficial decision-support tool. It does not provide official journal metrics or professional, legal, financial, employment, or career advice.

“Current Edition” and “Forecast Edition” refer only to the year or version of the data. They are not separate products and do not provide permanent access to a particular edition.

During an active Annual Subscription, you may access the current paid features, the latest available edition, and updates released during your paid term. We do not guarantee that past editions will remain available after an edition transition.

3. Individual accounts

The Annual Subscription is for one individual researcher.

Journal Impact Forecast is intended for professional and scholarly research use by individual researchers. It is not marketed primarily for personal, family, or household use.

You may use your personal account for your own research, research planning, and journal submission decisions, including when you are affiliated with a university, hospital, company, or other organization.

The Service does not provide institutional, laboratory, departmental, library, or multi-user subscriptions.

You must not share your account or login credentials with another person.

You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for activity conducted through your account.

4. Annual Subscription and payment

The Annual Subscription costs US$49 per year.

US$49 is charged when you first purchase the subscription and again at each annual renewal unless you cancel before the renewal charge is processed. Each successful payment ordinarily provides one year of paid access.

Your next scheduled renewal date and expected renewal amount are displayed in your Account.

Applicable taxes, if any, will be displayed at Stripe Checkout before you confirm the purchase. You are responsible for internet charges and any foreign exchange, international transaction, or other fees charged by your card issuer or payment provider.

Payments and subscription billing are processed by Stripe. We do not receive or store your complete card number.

5. Automatic renewal

The Annual Subscription renews automatically each year until canceled.

Approximately 30 days before a scheduled renewal, we will send an email stating the renewal date, expected charge, cancellation method, and a link to your Account.

If the subscription price changes, existing subscribers will be notified before the renewal at which the new price will apply. You may cancel before that renewal.

Where mandatory law in your country or region provides different renewal, notice, cancellation, cooling-off, or refund rights, those rights will apply.

6. Failed payments

If a payment fails, Stripe may retry the payment.

Paid access may continue temporarily while payment is retried. If payment is not completed, we may suspend or end paid access.

The timing and number of payment retries may vary and are not guaranteed.

7. Cancellation and account deletion

You may cancel the Annual Subscription through Account → Manage subscription.

To prevent renewal, cancellation must be completed before the renewal charge is processed. After cancellation, paid access continues until the end of the paid term. Cancellation does not ordinarily result in a refund.

Deleting your account cancels automatic renewal and ends your access to the Service. Account deletion does not create a right to a refund unless required by the Refund Policy or applicable law.

8. Refunds

Payments are subject to the Refund Policy.

Ordinary cancellation, accidental purchase, non-use, or forgetting to cancel before renewal does not ordinarily qualify for a refund. Mandatory rights available under applicable consumer law remain unaffected.

9. Service communications

We may send emails necessary to operate the Service, including purchase confirmations, renewal reminders, payment notices, security notices, important legal or service changes, and responses to support requests.

We do not send third-party advertising emails. We will not send promotional newsletters unless you separately request or consent to them.

10. Permitted use

We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and view the Service during your permitted access period.

You may use the information as a reference for your own research, research planning, and journal submission decisions.

11. Prohibited use

Except with our prior written permission or where mandatory law expressly provides otherwise, you must not:

• share your account or login credentials;
• provide access to colleagues, institutions, clients, or other third parties;
• publish, reproduce, quote, transmit, or publicly share paid data, forecasts, rankings, or screenshots;
• redistribute, resell, sublicense, or create a database from the Service;
• use the Service or its data to build or operate a competing product, dataset, model, or service;
• scrape, crawl, automate access, perform bulk extraction, or use automated collection tools;
• bypass access restrictions, paywalls, technical protections, or usage limits;
• misrepresent forecasts or scores as official metrics or as endorsed by a third party; or
• use the Service unlawfully or interfere with its security or operation.

12. Intellectual property

The Service, including its design, text, software, forecasts, scores, rankings, selection, organization, and presentation of information, is owned by us or used under applicable rights.

The Annual Subscription provides access only. It does not transfer ownership of the Service, its data, or any intellectual property.

Third-party names, journal titles, publisher information, trademarks, and source data remain the property of their respective owners.

13. Service changes and availability

We may update the data, methodology, models, scores, rankings, features, and presentation of the Service to maintain or improve it.

We may temporarily suspend the Service for maintenance, security, technical problems, or other reasonable operational needs.

If we permanently discontinue the Service and cannot provide access for the remainder of a paid term, we will either continue access through that term or refund the unused portion as described in the Refund Policy.

14. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate an account where we reasonably determine that the user has materially violated these Terms, shared an account, attempted automated or bulk extraction, bypassed access controls, or threatened the security or operation of the Service.

Where reasonably possible, we will provide notice and an opportunity to correct the violation. Immediate suspension may be used where necessary to protect the Service, other users, or our legal rights.

Nothing in this section limits rights or remedies that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

15. Disclaimer

Forecasts, scores, rankings, signals, trends, and APC information are estimates and may be incomplete, delayed, or inaccurate.

The separate Disclaimer forms part of these Terms. You remain responsible for verifying relevant information and making your own submission, publication, research, and financial decisions.

16. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for intentional misconduct, gross negligence, death or personal injury where such liability cannot be limited, or any other liability that cannot legally be excluded or limited.

Where we are liable for ordinary negligence and applicable law allows a limitation, our aggregate liability arising from the Service will not exceed the amount you paid for the Annual Subscription during the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses resulting from reliance on forecasts, submission decisions, publication outcomes, research evaluation, career decisions, or APC and other publication costs.

Mandatory consumer rights remain unaffected.

17. Changes to these Terms

We may make minor or administrative changes by posting an updated version on the Service.

Material changes concerning price, automatic renewal, refunds, permitted use, or important user rights will be communicated by email or a prominent notice before they take effect.

We will not apply a material adverse change retroactively to a paid term that began before the change took effect, unless required by law or necessary for security.

18. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of Japan.

Subject to any mandatory consumer right to bring a claim in another court, the Yokohama District Court, Sagamihara Branch, or the Sagamihara Summary Court, as applicable, will have exclusive jurisdiction in the first instance over disputes arising from the Service or these Terms.

Nothing in these Terms deprives a consumer of mandatory protection available under the law of their country or region of residence.

19. Contact

Operator: Waka Iwata

Service: Journal Impact Forecast

Email: support@journalimpactforecast.com

Our business address is available without delay upon request sent to the email address above.