Buy one, give one: terms

Version 5, 17 October 2026. Mintnib is operated by Lucas Rey. Contact: hello@mintnib.com.

What the scheme is

Every Mintnib Pro bought through our own website checkout, and every copy of The ESAT Move Register bought there, adds one free place to a pool, at our cost. A free place is Mintnib Pro until the student's sitting, given free. The pool gives free places to students who could not otherwise cover the cost of Pro.

We issue the codes ourselves. No money goes to any school or charity, and we are not a charity.

A purchase that is refunded is taken back out of the pool. Purchases made through the App Store, Google Play or Amazon do not add to the pool.

Who a free place is for

A free place is for a student who could not otherwise cover the cost of Pro. That is established in one of three ways:

1. A teacher at a UK state (non-fee-paying) school or college asks for codes and declares that the students the codes are for could not otherwise cover the cost of Pro. That is the teacher's judgement: we ask nothing about the students and keep nothing about them.
2. A student asks for one themselves and ticks "I can't cover the cost of Pro". That includes a student who gets a bursary, EMA or free meals. We do not ask which, or why, and we never ask for documents.
3. A student on free school meals, the 16-19 Bursary, or the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) emails us with proof. These places are always granted, even when the pool is empty.

How a school asks

1. A teacher asks on the Mintnib Pro page with the school's name, their work email address, and how many places (1 to 30), confirms that the school is a state school, declares that the students these codes are for could not otherwise cover the cost of Pro, and accepts these terms.
2. A request is filled at once and the codes are emailed to the teacher when all of these hold: the email address is the school's own (ending .sch.uk), the request is for 5 places or fewer, the pool holds enough, today's limit of 30 codes across all schools is not passed, and that school has not been sent codes in the last 30 days.
3. Any other request is checked by hand and answered by email. A request that cannot be filled because the pool is empty waits until it can be.
4. The teacher gives one code to each student they choose, among the students the declaration covers.

No information about any student is asked for or kept when a school asks. We keep the teacher's request (school name, email address, number, the declaration, the version of these terms accepted, and the codes sent) to answer it and to show the scheme is run as described, and delete it after two years.

How a student asks

1. On the Mintnib Pro page, the student gives their email address and their school or college ("Home educated" and "Studying outside the UK" are fine), and ticks "I can't cover the cost of Pro". Nothing else is asked.
2. Whatever we find about the address, the page shows the same answer. What happens is emailed to the address given: the code, the date by which it will come, or why to ask again. So nobody else can use the form to learn whether a student asked.
3. One free place per email address for each exam in each admissions year (1 September to 31 August).
4. Requests through this form queue when the pool is empty and are filled oldest first as purchases come in; if the pool has not filled a request within 7 days, we fund the place ourselves, and the email gives you the date. That date is 7 days after you asked, or later only when 10 places a day are already promised for each day before it. If the pool fills sooner, the place comes sooner. A place we fund ourselves is never taken from the pool, so it does not reduce what purchases give.
5. So that the pool reaches as many students as it can, and the school route is never starved, this route has two kinds of limit. Limits that only DELAY a request (it is saved and given its date, as in point 4): - at most 10 places a day through this route; - at most a quarter of the places the pool holds in a calendar month, and always at least one (places we fund ourselves are not counted in this). Limits that turn a request away, unsaved, with a request to ask again: - more than 3 requests in a day from one network: the page says to try again tomorrow; - more than 2 requests in a day from one network that would have to wait: the email says to ask again tomorrow; - a second request from one browser within 30 days: the page says so; - 300 requests already waiting: the email says to ask again in a few days.
6. A place that we grant directly to a student on a bursary, EMA or free meals, on proof by email to hello@mintnib.com, is always granted, even when the pool is empty. From this version, proof sent by email is deleted once it has been checked.
7. We never contact the student's school.

We keep the student's email address and the school or college they typed, the version of these terms in force, the code sent, and the date of any email we send about the request, to send the code and to keep to one place per student. The email address and school are deleted when the admissions year ends (after 31 August), once any request still waiting has been granted. The network limit uses a counter that is not stored with the request and lapses within the day. The browser limit is a small first-party cookie, set only when a request is accepted, which lasts 30 days and holds nothing about the student.

The codes

1. Each code works once.
2. A code works for 90 days from the day it is sent. A code not used in that time goes back into the pool, once.
3. A student makes a free account on the Mintnib Pro page, enters the code and chooses their sitting.
4. The code opens Mintnib Pro in full, the same Pro a buyer gets, until the day after that sitting. There is no checkout and no card.

What a free place is worth

It is the same Pro a student would buy. Its price depends on how long it runs, so its value changes through the year; the current value, worked out from today's price, is shown on mintnib.com/give/.

The figures we publish

• Issued: codes sent that have been used or are still valid (a code that expires unused goes back to the pool), plus bursary places granted, plus places we fund ourselves when the pool is empty.
• Redeemed: places students have opened with a code, plus bursary places granted.

The figures are counted from our records once a day, never typed in, and the page shows the date they were taken.

We keep a full record of every place added to the pool and every place that left it. The number of places added by purchases, and the number waiting in the pool, are not published, but we give them on request: email hello@mintnib.com and we answer within five working days.

Changes

Version 5 (17 October 2026): the product is now called Mintnib Pro, and a free place is the free Pro the scheme gives; nothing else changes.

Version 4 (14 October 2026): contact address changed; nothing else.

Version 3 (11 October 2026) lets a student ask for a free pass themselves, with one tick and no documents, promises the pass within 7 days (later only when many are waiting), and says how that route is limited; a bursary pass on proof by email is still always granted. Version 2 (11 October 2026) said who a free pass is for and added the teacher's declaration. Version 1 (11 October 2026) named the two routes only.

If these terms change, the new version is published here with its date and number. A request is handled under the version in force when it was made.