Acceptance and refunds at Devin, Hermes Agent (Nous Portal) and dealwork (checked October 2026)

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Published 2026-10-29

Author: Talomnia team

Who checks the work, what happens if it's wrong, and when you get money back: Devin, Hermes Agent and dealwork compared from their public terms.

The three handle a bad result in different ways. Devin bills for usage and leaves checking the output to you; payments are non-refundable outside a few listed cases. Hermes Agent's public docs describe spend caps but say nothing about refunds. dealwork holds your money in escrow until you approve, allows revisions, and auto-approves after 24 hours of silence.

Why compare acceptance, not price?

A pricing page tells you what you pay. Acceptance and refund terms tell you what happens when the work is wrong, and that is the part that costs you when a project goes sideways.

We read only public pages and quote them exactly. Everything below was checked on 22 October 2026. Nous Portal's account terms sit behind a sign-in and were not reviewed, so Hermes Agent is covered from its public documentation only.

Devin: you pay for usage, you check the output

Devin, from Cognition, is sold as a subscription plus usage. On its pricing page, Pro is "$20 per month", Max is "$200 per month" and Teams is "$80 /month for team plan + $40/mo per full dev seat". Beyond the included usage, "you can purchase extra usage which is consumed at API pricing". Enterprise usage is "priced per the customer's Enterprise order form".

Checking the result is on you. The Platform Terms (section 8.2) say: "It is your responsibility to evaluate whether Output is appropriate for your use case (including where human review is appropriate)." The Enterprise Terms (2.4) say the same about the customer. None of the pages we checked describes an acceptance step, a review window or revision rounds.

What Devin offers instead is spend control. Admins can set "default session spending limits"; when an organisation hits its limit, "new work billed to it is blocked", and members can press "Request more". The usage docs add that "Devin does not consume any usage while sleeping."

On refunds, the general rule in the Platform Terms (5.3) is: "Except as expressly provided in these Terms or where required by law, all payments are non-refundable." The listed exceptions are:

a refund "before using the subscription if you change your mind" (desktop usage docs);
a pro rata refund if Cognition ends your subscription for a reason other than a violation (7.2); if there was a violation, "you will not be entitled to any refund";
in the quota FAQ, you can "request a refund of your unspent extra usage balance at any time" and, on annual plans, "a refund for all remaining months".

For the desktop app, "If a message is unsuccessful, prompt credits will not be consumed."

One older line gets quoted a lot. In the release notes dated December 24, 2024, about sessions that got stuck, Cognition wrote "we're happy to refund your ACUs if they do!" That was a note from December 2024, not a current policy.

Disputes over fees go in writing "no later than 10 business days following the date on which such fee is paid" (5.4). Enterprise customers must raise an invoice dispute no later than the payment due date (5.2). For other disputes, the parties first try "to settle any Dispute within 30 days", then go to binding arbitration (11.1).

Hermes Agent (Nous Portal): spend caps, no public refund terms

"Hermes Agent is free and open source under the MIT license. Model providers and optional hosted services have their own pricing," says its site. The paid side is Nous Portal. The public site lists Plus at $20 per month with "$22.00 monthly credits" and a "$10.00 rollover cap", Super at $100 per month with a "$50.00 rollover cap", and Ultra at $200 per month with a "$100.00 rollover cap". Through the portal, usage is "billed against your Nous subscription instead of one credit balance per lab."

The billing docs describe controls, not acceptance. The command-line tool can show "Monthly spend cap reached". If you cancel, "your plan stays active until the end of the billing period, then it cancels", and upgrades are prorated. Since version v0.22.3, the agent can also show the price of a tool call when an MCP server declares one, and a per-chat spending limit.

Acceptance, revisions, refunds and disputes are not stated in the public Hermes Agent documentation. If those matter to you, ask Nous Research for its current terms in writing before you buy.

dealwork: escrow until you approve

dealwork is a marketplace where clients order work from providers, including AI agents. The money moves first: "Clients fund work into escrow before it starts," say the Terms (section 3, dated July 15, 2026). The fee is in section 4: "10% per contract, and 3% when both the client and the provider are AI agents."

You check the work. "Clients review each delivery and can approve it or request revisions within the contract's revision allowance" (section 5). The Terms give no number of rounds. dealwork's home page FAQ says you can "request revisions (up to 10 rounds) or open a dispute", and its documentation for agents says "max 10". So it's up to 10 rounds, per dealwork's FAQ.

Silence counts. The Terms say: "If a client neither approves nor responds within the review window shown on the contract, the contract may auto-complete to protect the provider." The length is only in the documentation for agents (version 1.6.5): "If you don't respond within 24 hours, the contract auto-approves." That's 24 hours, according to dealwork's documentation for agents.

If you disagree, you can open a dispute "while the contract is in review". The outcome can be "releasing escrow to the provider, refunding the client, or splitting the amount". Refunds go back to your wallet balance and can be withdrawn; in dealwork's words, "a refund is real money back, not locked credit". Dispute decisions "are final within the platform; they do not limit rights you may have under applicable law."

The home page puts it more simply: "Pay only when you approve" and "If it doesn't meet the criteria, you don't pay". That's the marketing line. The Terms also allow a split in a dispute and auto-completion when the client is silent, so read the Terms before you rely on the slogan.

Side by side

The table puts the three answers next to each other. "Not stated" means we didn't find the point on the public pages listed in the sources.

	Devin (Cognition)	Hermes Agent / Nous Portal (public docs)	dealwork
What you pay for	Subscription plus usage (extra usage at API pricing)	Subscription credits (rollover caps $10, $50, $100)	A contract per job, funded into escrow
Who checks the result	You ("your responsibility to evaluate")	Not stated	You approve each delivery
Revision rounds	Not stated	Not stated	Up to 10 (FAQ)
If you say nothing	No acceptance step	Not stated	Auto-approves after 24 hours (agent docs)
Refunds	Non-refundable except listed cases	Not stated in public docs	To your wallet, withdrawable, after a dispute
Disputes	Fee dispute within 10 business days; then arbitration	Not stated in public docs	Platform decides; final within the platform
Terms date	Platform June 30, 2026; Enterprise June 8, 2026	Not stated	July 15, 2026
Checked	22 October 2026	22 October 2026	22 October 2026

What to ask any AI-agent vendor before you pay

The three cases give five questions worth asking anyone who sells agent work or agent tools:

Who decides that the work is done: you, the vendor, or the platform?
How long do you have to check it, and what does silence mean?
How many revision rounds are included?
What is refundable, and in what form: back to your card, to a wallet, or as credit?
Who settles a dispute, and how fast?

"Not stated" is an answer too. If a vendor's pages don't cover one of these, ask for it in writing before you pay. Each of these questions is easier to settle when you've written acceptance criteria before the work starts. The same questions come up on freelance platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr and Contra. For the wider market, see the overview of AI-agent marketplaces in 2026.

Sources

Questions

Can I get a refund from Devin?

Devin's terms say payments are non-refundable except where the terms or law say otherwise. Its docs list refunds before you use a subscription, for unspent extra usage balance, for the remaining months of an annual plan, and pro rata if Cognition ends your subscription for a reason other than a violation (checked October 2026).

What happens on dealwork if I don't approve the work?

The contract can auto-complete. dealwork's documentation for agents says contracts auto-approve after 24 hours without a response; the Terms refer to the review window shown on the contract.

How many revisions does dealwork allow?

Up to 10 rounds, according to dealwork's FAQ and agent docs; the Terms say revisions are limited by each contract's revision allowance.

Does Hermes Agent (Nous Portal) offer refunds?

Hermes Agent's public documentation doesn't state a refund policy; ask Nous Research for its current terms before buying.