Privacy Policy

Petal is built to hold as little as possible. There is no bank connection, no credit check and no data broker involved. Concretely, we handle:

• Account details: your email address and the display name you enter. If you sign in with Google or Apple we receive your email, name and provider account ID only.
• Budget content you type in: planned income and expenses, dates and recurrence, categories, sinking funds, debts and balances, goals, accounts, ledger entries and your settings.
• Files you choose to import: CSV files and statement screenshots you upload for the import feature.
• Technical basics needed to run the service: authentication tokens, timestamps, and error diagnostics.
• Aggregate usage and ad performance counts on the free tier, for example how often a banner was seen or tapped. These are counts, never your transaction contents.

Signed out, your budget is stored only in your own browser's local storage on that device. Signed in, the same data is also saved to Petal's cloud database so you can use Petal on more than one device and recover it if you lose your phone. Cloud rows are locked to your user ID. No other Petal user can read them.

Our lawful bases, where GDPR/UK GDPR applies, are: performance of a contract (running the app you asked for), consent (advertising choices and optional AI features), and legitimate interests (keeping the service secure and working).

We keep your data for as long as your account exists. Deleting your data in Settings removes your budget from this device and your cloud backup. Backups and diagnostic logs age out within 30 days.

Premium AI features send only what is needed for the request (a snapshot of the relevant figures, or the file you uploaded for import) to a third-party AI model provider. It is not used to train models, and uploaded files are not retained by Petal after the extraction is reviewed.

The free tier is supported by inline banner cards. Petal never shows pop-ups, interstitials or overlay ads.

No ad network request is made until you choose an option on the ad consent card. Choose personalised ads and the network may set cookies or similar identifiers to tailor what you see. Choose non-personalised and only generic ads are requested. Choose no ad network and a Petal promo card is shown instead. You can change this at any time in Settings, and Premium removes ads entirely.

Banner impression and tap counts may be sent to the analytics destination configured by the app owner (for example PostHog, Google Analytics or Plausible) as ad_impression and ad_click events, tagged with the slot name and your consent choice. No budget figures are included, and nothing is sent while your consent choice is still unset or set to off.

Petal itself sets no advertising cookies. We use local storage to hold your budget, your theme and your consent choice, plus a session cookie for sign-in. These are strictly necessary for the app to work.

We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising beyond the ad choice you make above.

We use a small set of processors to run the service: a hosting and database provider, an authentication provider, an AI model provider for Premium features, an advertising network on the free tier, and an analytics provider for aggregate usage. Each may process data in countries outside your own under standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards. We may also disclose data where the law genuinely requires it.

You can access, correct, export or delete your data yourself at any time. Settings has a portable JSON data package, a CSV export and a guided account-data deletion flow.

Depending on where you live you may also have rights to restrict or object to processing, to data portability, to withdraw consent, and to complain to your data protection authority.

To exercise a right that the in-app controls do not cover, contact the app owner using the address on the Help page. We respond within 30 days.

Petal is not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

If we change what we collect or why, the date at the top of this page changes and material changes are surfaced in the app before they take effect.