Refund escrow and trial extension service for SaaS buyers

Someone signs up for an AI writing tool, hits the paywall on day two of their 'free' trial, upgrades because they need to test a specific feature, and then discovers the feature is mediocre or missing entirely. The vendor offers no refunds — a complaint that appears verbatim across these reviews — and the buyer is out $50–$100 with nothing to show for it.

This problem persists structurally because the SaaS vendor captures payment before the evaluation is complete, and refund policies are entirely at their discretion. Chargebacks through credit cards are possible but adversarial and damaging to credit. There's no neutral third party standing between 'I need to test this properly' and 'I just paid and it's not what I expected.'

The actual complaint isn't just 'I want a longer trial' — it's 'I don't trust this vendor enough to hand over my card without protection.' Several reviewers explicitly connect the short trial to the no-refund policy, treating them as a single trap. What's needed is a way to pay but hold the vendor accountable for delivering a usable evaluation window — not just 7 calendar days, but 7 days of actual meaningful use.

This is a business because the dynamic recurs every time a buyer evaluates a new SaaS tool, not just AI writing. But AI writing tools are a particularly good wedge because the market is crowded, tools proliferate constantly, and buyers are making evaluation decisions every few months as the landscape shifts.

What to build

Build a payment intermediary where the buyer's subscription charge is held in escrow for a defined evaluation period (14 or 30 days), released to the vendor only after the buyer confirms satisfaction or disputes specific feature gaps against the vendor's published feature list.

Where to start

Launch as a browser extension that activates on checkout pages of the top 20 AI writing tools, letting buyers self-enroll in escrow terms and signaling to vendors via chargeback rates that there's a real demand for protected trials.

The hard part

Vendors have to voluntarily integrate or accept this payment method, which means early traction depends on buyer-side demand being loud enough to pressure vendors — a classic chicken-and-egg where the leverage only appears at scale.

How it makes money

Take a small percentage fee (1–2%) from the escrowed transaction, paid by the buyer; vendors who formally partner get a lower rate and a 'satisfaction guaranteed' badge they can display on their pricing page.