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Terms of Use

Effective 3 October 2026 · Version 2026-10

Who these terms are between

These terms are an agreement between you and Budget Bird Limited ("we" or "us"), a small New Zealand company run by Harry Cosslett (company number 7198873, NZBN 9429047206724, 1264 Fergusson Drive, Upper Hutt 5018). They apply to everyone who uses Budget Bird: teachers with an account, students playing in a class, and anyone visiting the site.

If your school buys a school licence, the Budget Bird for Schools licence terms below apply too. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle information.

What Budget Bird is

Budget Bird is a classroom game for Years 7–13 about how New Zealand's government budget works. Teachers run a class, and students play in teams. Run New Zealand is free for every classroom, and you can run as many classes as you like. A Budget Bird for Schools licence adds more for the whole school.

It's an educational tool. The figures come from published New Zealand Budget data, but the game is a simplified model. It isn't a forecast, and it isn't financial or policy advice.

Teacher accounts

  • Teacher accounts are for teachers and other school staff. Please don't create one for a student.
  • Keep your login to yourself. You're responsible for anything done through your account.
  • Give us accurate details. Use your school email address if you want to be covered by your school's licence.

Running a class

Students join with a class code and a team name. They don't create accounts, and we don't ask them for personal details. As the teacher, you're in charge of your class while it plays. Please:

  • ask students to use made-up team names and to keep personal details out of their reflection answers;
  • only share your class code with your class;
  • use Budget Bird under the same supervision you'd give any classroom activity.

Students: play fair, choose a team name that's kind, and don't type your real name or anyone else's.

Fair use

Everyone using Budget Bird agrees not to:

  • use it to collect personal information about students;
  • post anything offensive, hurtful or unlawful in team names, class names or questions;
  • try to disrupt the service, get into parts of it you're not meant to, or read other classes' data;
  • copy, scrape or reverse-engineer the software, or resell or rebrand it as your own;
  • break the law or infringe anyone else's rights.

Your content and ours

Teachers' content (class names and the questions you write) stays yours. Students' content (team names and reflection answers) belongs to the students who wrote it.

You give us permission to store, process and show this content so we can run Budget Bird for you: showing results to the teacher, building reports, and helping when you ask for support. You also let us combine class results into anonymous New Zealand-wide averages (which never include names or answers), and use them to improve the game.

Budget Bird itself stays ours: the software, the game, the artwork and the written material. You're welcome to use and copy our lesson plans and printables for teaching at your school. Please don't sell them or publish them as your own.

If you send us feedback or ideas, we may use them to improve Budget Bird without owing you anything. We're always grateful for them, though.

Availability and changes to the service

We work hard to keep Budget Bird running smoothly, but we can't promise it will always be available or free of errors. Before a lesson that depends on it, it's worth checking it's working.

We'll keep improving Budget Bird, so features will change over time. If a change significantly reduces something a school has paid for, we'll email the school.

Liability

Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under New Zealand law that can't be excluded, including under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and the Fair Trading Act 1986.

If you're getting Budget Bird for the purposes of a business (as a school buying a licence is), you agree that:

  • the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 doesn't apply (section 43);
  • sections 9, 12A and 13 of the Fair Trading Act 1986 don't apply (section 5D);
  • this is fair and reasonable.

These exclusions apply only as far as the law allows.

As far as the law allows, we aren't liable for indirect or consequential loss, such as lost time, lost data or lost profit. Our total liability for all claims is limited to the greater of:

  • what you paid us in the 12 months before the claim;
  • NZ$100.

Closing an account

You can stop using Budget Bird at any time, and ask us to close your teacher account. If an account breaks these terms, we may suspend or close it, and we'll tell you why.

Changes and law

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we'll update the date and version at the top and email account holders before the change takes effect. These terms are governed by New Zealand law, and the New Zealand courts have jurisdiction.

Questions: harry@budgetbird.co.nz, or see our contact page.

Budget Bird for Schools licence

This section is the agreement a school accepts when it buys a Budget Bird for Schools licence (version 2026-10). It sits alongside the terms above. If the two ever conflict, this section wins for anything to do with the licence.

Who agrees, and who's covered

The person who ticks "I agree" confirms they're authorised to buy the licence for the school and to bind the school to these terms. The licence is between Budget Bird Limited and the school.

The licence covers one school. It includes every teacher at the school whose verified email address is either:

  • on the school's email domain, for example @yourschool.school.nz; or
  • on the school's list of individual addresses.

Email us to add a teacher who uses a different address. We can't use a personal email domain such as Gmail as a school's domain.

What the licence includes

  • Student reflections and the full New Zealand comparisons in every class report.
  • Class summaries and decision exports.
  • School-wide history and insights.
  • My Money, when it launches (planned for 2027), at no extra cost for as long as the licence is active.

Free stays free. Run New Zealand and the free version of the class report stay free for every classroom, whether or not the school has a licence.

Price, GST and payment

The licence costs NZ$399 plus GST per school per year (NZ$458.85 including GST), unless we've agreed a different price with the school in writing. We issue tax invoices with our GST number, 127-764-174.

The school can pay in one of two ways.

  • Card. Pay through Stripe's secure checkout. The licence starts once the payment goes through.
  • Invoice. We email an invoice to the school's accounts address, and the licence starts straight away. The invoice is due within 20 days, and you can add a purchase order number.

If an invoice isn't paid

If an invoice is still unpaid 20 days after it's issued, the licence is suspended. The school's teachers go back to the free plan, and their classes and reports stay safe.

Paying the invoice restores the licence for the rest of the year. Or the school can buy a new licence at any time. The unpaid licence is then closed and its invoice cancelled, so the school is never billed twice.

Renewal, cancelling and resuming

The licence runs for a year and renews automatically each year, using the same payment method, until it's cancelled. We'll email a reminder about 30 days before each renewal. If the price is changing, we'll say so in that reminder, before you're charged.

Any covered teacher can cancel the renewal at any time from the Account page. The licence stays active until the end of the year already paid for, and then the school moves to the free plan. Changed your mind? Turn renewal back on any time before the year ends.

Refunds

If the school isn't happy, tell us within 30 days of buying or renewing and we'll refund that year's fee in full. After 30 days we don't give part-year refunds; the licence runs to the end of the year that's been paid for.

This doesn't affect any rights the school has under New Zealand law.

The school's data

Classes and reports belong to the teachers who ran them, and stay in their teacher accounts whether or not the school has a licence. If the licence ends, the licence features are switched off, but nothing is deleted. Everything comes back if the school renews.

We keep gameplay data and use it, without names, to improve Budget Bird, as described in our Privacy Policy. People at the school can ask to see or correct the personal information we hold about them, and teachers can ask us to close their accounts.

Changes to the licence terms

If we change these licence terms, the new version applies from the school's next renewal, and we'll tell the school before then. While a year is running, the version the school agreed to stays in place, unless the law requires a change sooner.

Questions about the licence, invoices or purchase orders: harry@budgetbird.co.nz.