Why a plain-language guide to Refonte contracts matters in 2026
Every time you agree to teach, mentor, hire, or list a course on an EdTech platform, you are signing a contract. Most people scroll to the bottom, click accept, and hope the platform is not the kind that will surprise them later. That is a bad strategy in general, and it is a particularly bad strategy in EdTech, where contracts touch intellectual property, learner data, revenue flows, and sometimes the reputations of real professionals who show up on video with their real names.
Refonte Learning publishes a family of agreements because we play several roles at once. We recruit instructors and mentors, we take courses on delegation from third-party providers, we screen and place learners into employer engagements, and we handle payments across at least three continents. Each of those flows has its own contract, its own risk profile, and its own set of promises in both directions. If you only ever read the marketing pages, you would not know how any of that fits together.
This article is the plain-language tour. It is a child of our pillar on whether is Refonte Learning legitimate, and it exists to strip out the legalese and explain, in the voice of a working practitioner, what each contract actually says, why it exists, and what it means for the person on the other side of the signature line.
We will walk through the instructor agreement, the course provider agreement (with its delegation, IP, non-circumvention, chargeback, and free-listing sub-clauses), the mentor informed consent form, the candidate and identity verification flow, the orientation confidentiality agreement, the employer services agreement, and the direct-entry route for experienced learners. For each one, we will use the same three-part structure: what it says, why it says it, and what you should watch for. If you are the kind of person who wants to know exactly what you are agreeing to before you agree, this is written for you.
A note on scope. This guide is descriptive, not a substitute for reading the actual signed documents you receive from Refonte Learning, and not a substitute for legal advice on your side. Contract language evolves, and the version you sign in 2026 is the one that governs your relationship with us, not the paraphrase in a blog post. Where a paraphrase and the signed document diverge, the signed document wins. With that caveat in place, here is what our contract family looks like in practice.
The instructor agreement: teaching for Refonte Learning
The instructor agreement is the contract you sign if you apply to teach, tutor, or run cohort sessions on the platform. In plain terms, it says that you will deliver the sessions or content described in your engagement letter, at the quality bar we advertise to learners, and that in exchange we will pay you either a fixed rate per hour of teaching, a fixed rate per cohort, or a revenue share on enrolments, depending on the specific engagement.
Why does the contract exist at all? Because a course platform is, from a learner's perspective, a single brand promise. When someone enrols in an intermediate PyTorch cohort, they are trusting Refonte Learning that the person running the sessions actually knows PyTorch, will show up when scheduled, and will not disappear halfway through the module. The instructor agreement is the mechanism by which that brand promise is backed by an actual commitment from the person on camera.
The clauses that matter most for a working instructor:
- Scope of work: exactly which cohort, which module, how many hours, and what deliverables (recorded lectures, live sessions, graded assignments, office hours).
- Payment terms: rate, currency, invoice cadence, and what triggers payment (usually completion milestones, not enrolment).
- Confidentiality: you agree not to leak learner personal data, unreleased curriculum drafts, or internal pricing.
- IP: teaching material you create specifically for a Refonte engagement is typically licensed to Refonte for the life of that cohort and its recorded replays. Material you brought with you from prior work stays yours.
- Termination: either side can end the engagement with notice, and there is a short list of for-cause termination triggers (missed sessions, safeguarding issues, misrepresentation).
Things to watch for on your side. Read the scope section carefully; the most common source of instructor frustration is a mismatch between what the instructor thought they were signing up for and what the engagement letter actually specified. Ask for clarification in writing before you sign, not after. If you want to apply, you can become an instructor on Refonte Learning through the standard onboarding page, which walks you through the agreement before any signature is requested.
One more point that surprises some applicants: the instructor agreement is separate from the mentor informed consent form. If you are going to do both roles, you will sign both documents, because the risk surface is different for a mentor working one-on-one with a learner than for an instructor delivering a scheduled cohort session.
The course provider agreement: when you bring your own course
Some people do not want to teach live at all. They already have a recorded course, or a curriculum, or a book that has been adapted into a course, and they want Refonte Learning to distribute or co-deliver it. That is the course provider agreement, and it is genuinely different from the instructor agreement because you are contributing a finished asset, not your ongoing time.
The headline commercial terms fall into two broad patterns. In the delegation model, Refonte takes over delivery of your course to our learner base and remits a share of the net revenue back to you. In the listing model, you retain delivery and we simply expose the course to our audience for a smaller referral share. Both models are documented, and the plain-language walkthrough of the split is in our page on the course delegation and revenue split, which lays out exactly which line items are deducted before your share is calculated.
The course provider agreement is really a bundle of related clauses, each of which we have written a standalone explainer for so nobody is signing something they have not seen unpacked:
- Revenue split and payout mechanics.
- IP ownership of course materials, derivative works, and translated versions. The key principle, which is worth stressing, is that Refonte does not take ownership of your course; we take a defined licence. If you want the long-form version, see IP ownership for course providers.
- Non-circumvention: if a learner discovers your course through Refonte, you agree not to funnel that learner off-platform to a private deal that cuts Refonte out of the transaction. This is not about locking learners in; it is about protecting the acquisition cost we spent to reach them.
- Chargeback allocation: when a learner disputes a payment with their card issuer, someone has to absorb the loss. The chargeback clause defines when it is us and when it is you.
- Free listing: some providers get a promotional listing at zero fee. The free listing clause defines what that means and what it does not mean.
Why each of these exists is worth understanding. The non-circumvention clause, for example, is not a hostile lock-in; it is the standard mechanism that lets us afford to run paid acquisition on behalf of a course we do not own. Without it, we would have no rational reason to promote third-party courses at all, because the economics would only work for our own catalogue. The chargeback allocation is similar: card networks charge real money for disputes, and the clause simply says whoever caused the dispute (usually through a fulfilment failure) is the party who covers it.
Things to watch for on your side. If your course was previously distributed on another platform, check that your existing exclusivity commitments (if any) do not conflict with the Refonte listing terms. And if you are unsure whether the delegation model or the listing model fits your course better, ask before signing; we can walk you through both.
The mentor informed consent form: why mentoring has its own document
Mentoring on Refonte Learning is not the same as teaching a class. A mentor typically works one-on-one or in very small groups, often with a specific learner over a period of weeks, on career transitions, portfolio reviews, or targeted skill gaps. The intimacy of that relationship is exactly why it has its own contract: an informed consent form rather than a generic instructor agreement.
The form spells out three things in plain language. First, what mentoring is: guidance and feedback from an experienced practitioner. Second, what mentoring is not: it is not therapy, not legal advice, not immigration advice, not a guaranteed job offer. Third, what both sides agree to protect: the learner's personal disclosures, the mentor's professional judgement, and the boundaries around session recording and note-sharing.
We wrote a dedicated explainer on mentor informed consent because the form is unusual in EdTech and deserves a plain-language walkthrough. In short, it is modelled on informed consent frameworks from adjacent professional fields, adapted for a career-mentoring context. It exists to make sure both mentor and mentee arrive at the first session with the same understanding of what is on offer and what is out of scope.
What this means practically for a prospective mentor. You will be asked to acknowledge, before your first session, that you understand your scope. If a learner brings you a question that clearly belongs with a lawyer, a doctor, or an immigration adviser, your job is to refer them out, not to improvise. That protects the learner, and it also protects you. The form is short, it is not written in legalese, and the whole point of calling it an informed consent form rather than a service agreement is that we want you to actually read and understand it.
Things to watch for on your side. If your professional background already has a code of conduct (for example, if you are a licensed practitioner in a regulated field), check that our informed consent language is compatible with the obligations you already carry. In almost all cases it is, because the form is designed to be additive rather than replacing anything, but the check is worth ten minutes.
Candidate screening and identity verification: the contracts you sign as a learner or applicant
Learners and job applicants also sign things when they engage with Refonte Learning, and it is worth being just as clear about those as about instructor contracts. Two documents matter here: the candidate screening consent and the identity verification consent.
Candidate screening applies when you are being considered for a placement, a paid engagement, or an internship-style programme that Refonte routes to an employer partner. The consent form covers what checks we may run (references, right-to-work verification where relevant, sometimes technical assessments), how long we retain the results, and who inside Refonte can see them. The plain-language version is in our explainer on candidate screening.
Identity verification is a separate step and applies more broadly. If you are going to be paid by Refonte, receive a credential from us, or be presented to an employer partner as a candidate, we need to verify that you are who you say you are. That is not paranoia; it is a standard requirement across regulated payments, and it is a basic anti-fraud measure that protects everyone else on the platform.
Why the two documents are separate. Screening is about your suitability for a specific opportunity. Identity verification is about establishing that you exist as a legal person and that the person receiving the credential or the payment is the same person who did the work. Some learners go through identity verification and never go through screening, because they are not applying to a placement. Some go through both. Keeping the documents separate lets us apply the right consent to the right situation, and lets you decline one without automatically declining the other.
Things to watch for on your side. Read the retention periods. You have the right, under both GDPR and comparable regimes, to ask what data we hold about you and to request deletion within the limits of any legal obligations to retain records. The consent forms tell you how to make that request, and the request path is a real one that reaches a real person, not a black-hole email address.
Orientation confidentiality: the short agreement before your first day
Before you start any substantive engagement with Refonte Learning, whether as instructor, mentor, learner in a placement track, or partner, there is a short orientation session and a short confidentiality agreement to go with it. It is genuinely short, usually a single page.
The reason it exists is boring but important. During orientation you will see internal documents (draft curricula, unreleased pricing, partner names) that we do not want circulating in public. The orientation confidentiality agreement says, in one paragraph, that you will not screenshot the orientation deck and post it to social media, and that if you leave the engagement you do not walk out with the internal materials.
It does not restrict you from talking about your experience with Refonte in general terms. You can absolutely tell a friend that you took a course, taught a cohort, or mentored a learner. What you cannot do is republish our internal working documents. That distinction, between talking about your experience and republishing our materials, is the whole point of the document.
Things to watch for on your side. If you are a working journalist or a researcher and you specifically need to reference internal materials for a legitimate purpose, tell us before you sign, and we will negotiate a carve-out. We have done this before, and it is not a strange request.
The employer services agreement: hiring from Refonte Learning
When a company wants to hire from our learner pool, sponsor a cohort, or run a customised training programme for its own staff, the contract that governs that relationship is the employer services agreement. It is the most commercial of the documents in this family, because it is a business-to-business contract and it is negotiated rather than clicked through.
The core commitments are straightforward. Refonte agrees to deliver a defined service, which might be candidate presentation, cohort sponsorship, custom training, or a combination. The employer agrees to pay the agreed fees on the agreed schedule. Both sides agree to a set of protections around candidate data, learner data, and (where relevant) any curriculum that the employer contributes to.
A full plain-language walkthrough sits in our page on the employer services agreement, and it goes through the negotiable clauses one by one. The parts that most often need negotiation are the exclusivity period on candidate presentations, the placement fee triggers, and the data-processing addendum that has to align with the employer's own regime (GDPR in the EU and UK, various state-level regimes in the US, and so on).
One clause that deserves special attention is the replacement guarantee. When we place a candidate and the placement does not work out within a defined window, we replace the candidate at no additional fee, subject to sensible conditions. That clause exists because we want employers to try our pipeline without carrying all of the risk of a first-time engagement.
Things to watch for on the employer side. Bring your standard data-processing addendum to the conversation early; harmonising it with ours takes a few rounds and it is much easier to do before the first cohort starts than after. And be honest about your hiring bar; the replacement guarantee works best when both sides have calibrated expectations, and it works badly when the employer is hoping we will do something the market cannot do.
Direct-entry route: the contract when you skip the standard track
Not every learner starts at the beginning. Some come to Refonte Learning with meaningful prior experience and want to skip directly into the advanced modules, the mentoring pool, or the placement pipeline. The direct-entry route has its own short agreement, mostly because it changes what we are and are not evaluating on your behalf.
The standard learner track includes a lot of built-in evaluation. Instructors see your work, mentors see your progression, and by the time you reach a placement conversation there is a documented trail. Direct entry compresses or skips that, so the agreement makes explicit what you are attesting to and what we are (and are not) certifying. The plain-language walkthrough is in our page on direct entry.
What this means for you. If you come in through direct entry, you are attesting that your existing experience actually matches what you claimed, and you are accepting that we did not run you through the standard evaluation flow. If a later reference check finds that the attestation was inflated, the direct-entry contract lets us unwind the engagement without complicated dispute. That is not us being suspicious; it is us being clear.
Things to watch for on your side. Direct entry works best when you have public evidence of your work: shipped projects, open-source contributions, published writing, or verifiable employment history. If your evidence is largely private or under NDA, the direct-entry route is still available, but the initial cohort or engagement will lean more heavily on live evaluation than it would for someone with a rich public trail.
What is common across all Refonte contracts
Across this whole family of documents, there are patterns that repeat, and they are worth calling out because they tell you something about how Refonte Learning thinks about its counterparties.
Every contract has a defined scope. We do not use catch-all language that lets us silently expand what we can ask of you. If your instructor engagement is for a specific cohort, that is what the contract says, and if we want to talk to you about a second cohort we come back with a new engagement letter rather than assuming the first one covers it.
Every contract has an explicit exit. Either party can end most engagements with notice, and the notice periods are short and symmetric. We do not have hidden multi-year commitments in learner contracts, and we do not have surprise renewal auto-triggers.
Every contract identifies the legal counterparty clearly. The entity you are contracting with is Refonte Infini Infiniment Grand, a French SAS registered under SIREN 949 841 605, publicly viewable at https://data.inpi.fr/entreprises/949841605. Our operational office address for correspondence is 1 Poulton Close, Dover, Kent, United Kingdom, CT17 0HL. Both pieces of information appear on the signature blocks so there is no confusion about who you are dealing with.
Every contract has a plain-language public explainer, of which this article is the top-level index. We believe that a contract you did not read is not really a contract in any meaningful sense; it is a trap you have not sprung yet. Publishing the explainers is our way of making sure the people who sign our documents actually know what they signed.
Every contract points at the same dispute-resolution mechanism. First step is a direct conversation with your named contact at Refonte. Second step is escalation to a senior operations lead. Third step is formal dispute resolution under the law of the SAS's home jurisdiction. Most disagreements are settled at step one, which is the honest reason we structure it that way; the later steps exist because they have to, not because we expect to use them.
How the contracts fit together in a real engagement
It helps to see how these documents interact in a concrete scenario. Take a mid-career data engineer who wants to teach a Snowflake and dbt cohort on Refonte, and who also has an existing recorded course on dimensional modelling that they would like us to distribute.
That person signs the instructor agreement for the live cohort, and the course provider agreement for the recorded course. Those are two separate documents because the risk profiles are different: the live cohort involves ongoing time commitments and safeguarding considerations, while the recorded course involves IP licensing and revenue splits. Bundling them into a single mega-contract would obscure exactly the distinctions that matter.
Before either agreement is countersigned, they go through identity verification, so that the payments we send them go to a verified legal person, not an anonymous handle. They sign the short orientation confidentiality agreement before their first internal walkthrough. If, later, we invite them to mentor learners one-on-one, they sign the mentor informed consent form as an additional, separate document.
On the other side of the platform, an employer partner who wants to sponsor that cohort signs an employer services agreement covering the sponsorship terms, the branding rights, and the data-processing addendum. If they also want to interview graduates for open roles, the same employer services agreement covers the candidate presentation flow, and the graduates who consent to be presented sign the candidate screening consent as a separate step.
At no point in that flow does anyone sign a document they cannot read a plain-language version of. That is the whole design goal.
Independent verification: how to check any of this yourself
Everything in this article is meant to be verifiable, not taken on faith. If you want to check that Refonte Learning is a real operating business before signing anything, we published a specific guide on how to verify Refonte independently, which walks through the public registries, the cross-platform social presence, and the office address, and shows you the exact URLs to use.
The short version, for people who just want the pointers now. The SAS is on the French INPI registry at https://data.inpi.fr/entreprises/949841605 and on the public data.gouv.fr business directory at https://annuaire-entreprises.data.gouv.fr/entreprise/refonte-infini-infiniment-grand-949841605. The office address, 1 Poulton Close, Dover, Kent, CT17 0HL, is consistently listed on our Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, YouTube, Trustpilot, and X presence, which is the sort of NAP consistency that a fake operation cannot fake at scale over time. If any of that stops matching what you see in the contract you are being asked to sign, that is a signal, and you should ask.
The reason we invest in this level of transparency is that we want the people who sign our contracts to sign them because they understand and agree, not because they gave up trying to figure out who they were dealing with. Contracts that are signed grudgingly are contracts that generate disputes later. Contracts that are signed clearly are contracts that hold up.
Closing: read the contract, ask the question, then sign
If there is one habit worth taking away from this guide, it is this: read the contract you are being asked to sign, and if a clause does not make sense in plain language, ask before signing rather than after. We publish plain-language explainers for every contract in the Refonte Learning family precisely because we want that question to be easy to ask.
We would rather answer a hundred small questions during onboarding than argue over a misunderstanding after the money has started moving. That is not a marketing line; it is what running a multi-jurisdiction training and placement platform has taught us. Contracts do not exist to trap people. They exist to make expectations mutual, and mutual expectations only work if both sides actually understood what they agreed to.
If you are ready to teach, mentor, or advise, the next practical step is to become an instructor on Refonte Learning. The application flow will show you the relevant contract before any signature is requested, and there is a named human on our side who will answer specific questions about specific clauses. That is the whole point of writing the contracts in plain language, and the whole point of writing this guide.