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Privacy Policy

Effective 19 October 2026

The short version. Mealpenny, on the web and in the iPhone app, stores your planning answers and weeks on our servers so they're there when you come back. Planning needs a free account, and you sign in with Google, or with Apple in the iPhone app; we keep only your email address and that provider's user ID. No ads, no tracking across sites, pseudonymous usage stats you can turn off, and we don't sell or share your information. Three optional text boxes send what you type to an AI provider, Anthropic, to read it. Download or delete everything from Settings.

This policy covers the Mealpenny website at mealpenny.com and the Mealpenny iPhone app ("Mealpenny", "we", "us"), operated by Gitesh Shastri. Contact: support@mealpenny.com. This version is for users in the United States.

1. What we store

Your plans

We store your answers and your weeks on our servers, under your account.

  • Your weekly dinner budget, household size, and ZIP code if you enter one
  • Foods to skip, maximum cooking time, and the "Anything else?" note if you write one
  • Your week's dinners, swaps, "Cooked" marks and grocery-list checks

Your ZIP code is used only to pick your price region. We choose the United States or India from the country your connection comes from, and remember a country you pick in a cookie and on your account.

Your taste and dinner feedback

If you answer the optional "Your taste" questions, we store your answers (cuisines and proteins you love or avoid, spice level, whether kids eat with you, cooking confidence and equipment), what you write in "Dinners your household always loves" and "Tell us about your household", and what we read from that text (matching recipes, cuisines, proteins and ingredients). When you mark a dinner cooked and answer "Make it again?", we store your answer for that recipe. We use all of this only to choose and explain your dinners. It is included in Download my data and removed by Delete account. You can change your answers and remove favorites in Settings → Your taste.

Your account

  • You sign in with Google, or with Apple in the iPhone app. Google shares your Google email address and a Google user ID with us; Apple shares your email address (a private relay address if you choose "Hide My Email") and an Apple user ID. We store only the email and the ID, to identify your account. We don't receive your password, and we don't store your name or photo. For Sign in with Apple we also keep an encrypted Apple token, used only to revoke the sign-in when you delete your account.
  • Your saved weeks and plan defaults
  • A sign-in session, stored as a one-way hash, that keeps you logged in for up to 30 days

Usage counts

We count simple product events in our own database (for example, "planned a week" or "opened the grocery list") to see what works. Our server also sends a pseudonymous copy of these events to Mixpanel (see below): a random-looking ID, the event name, the page type and your country, never your email, what you type or the prices you enter. You can turn this off in Settings → Privacy. There are no advertising pixels or tracking scripts in your browser, and no advertising SDKs in the iPhone app. Our servers keep short technical logs (route, status, timing) without IP addresses or what you typed. If you use Mealpenny without signing in, we keep a salted one-way hash of your IP address (never the IP itself) with your guest id and how many AI requests it made that day, to prevent abuse of the free AI features. These records are deleted after 30 days.

2. AI features (Anthropic)

Three optional features use Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, PBC, which processes the text on our behalf:

  • "Anything else?" on the planning form: the note you type is sent to Anthropic to turn it into filters (like "no mushrooms").
  • "Ask about this recipe": your question and that recipe's ingredients and steps are sent to Anthropic to write one short answer.
  • "Your taste": the two optional text boxes ("Dinners your household always loves" and "Tell us about your household") are sent to Anthropic to match them to our recipes and ingredients. Your quiz answers and dinner ratings are never sent; they're used by our own planner.

We send only that text, never your email or account id. Anthropic does not use API data to train models; Anthropic may retain inputs and outputs for up to 30 days for trust and safety, then deletes them. We record only how many AI requests were made and their cost, not what you wrote. If you don't use these boxes, nothing is sent to Anthropic. Answers are written by AI and can be wrong.

3. Service providers

  • Amazon Web Services (US) hosts the site and its database in the United States.
  • Amazon Web Services (Amazon SES) delivers our emails (waitlist confirmations, and reminders if you turn them on).
  • Cloudflare provides DNS and content delivery for the site, and forwards mail sent to our support address to our inbox.
  • Google signs you in. It shares your Google email address and a Google user ID with us.
  • Apple signs you in when you choose Sign in with Apple in the iPhone app. It shares your email address (or a private relay address) and an Apple user ID with us; when you delete your account, we ask Apple to revoke the sign-in.
  • Mixpanel (product analytics, United States) receives pseudonymous IDs and usage events only, from our server. Turn it off in Settings → Privacy.
  • Anthropic (AI) processes the text you send to the AI features (section 2).

4. Waitlist

If you join the waitlist to hear when Mealpenny is available in your country, we store your email address, the date and your country, ask you to confirm it, and then send you one email when it's ready. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link.

5. What Mealpenny does not do

  • No ads and no advertising or tracking cookies
  • No session recording, and no analytics scripts in your browser (pseudonymous usage events go to Mixpanel from our server; you can turn it off)
  • No selling or "sharing" of personal information, as those terms are used in U.S. state privacy laws
  • No location access (a ZIP code is optional and typed by you)

6. Your choices: download and delete

  • Download your data: Settings → Download my data gives you a JSON file of your account, weeks and defaults.
  • Delete your account: Settings → Delete account deletes your account, weeks and defaults right away.
  • Requests: email support@mealpenny.com for anything else. We answer within 30 days.

7. Children

Mealpenny is a general-audience service for household meal planning and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

8. Security

Connections use HTTPS. Session tokens are stored only as one-way hashes, and sign-in attempts are rate-limited.

9. Visitors in the UK and EU

Mealpenny is built for the US and India, but if you use it from the UK or the EU:

  • Who is responsible: Gitesh Shastri, the operator of Mealpenny, is the controller of your personal data.
  • Legal bases: we use your data to provide the service you asked for (contract), to keep the service secure (legitimate interest), and, where it applies, for the optional AI features with your consent, which you can withdraw by not using them.
  • International transfers: your data is stored and processed in the United States (Amazon Web Services, US East region us-east-1) and by the other providers listed in section 3, including Anthropic and Mixpanel in the United States.
  • Your rights (GDPR and UK GDPR): access (Settings → Download my data, or ask us), rectification (change your answers and defaults in Settings), erasure (Settings → Delete account), portability (the download is a JSON file), and objection to processing based on legitimate interests (turn off usage stats in Settings → Privacy, or ask us). You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) or to the data protection supervisory authority in your EU country.
  • We don't send usage events to Mixpanel for visitors from the UK, the EU/EEA or Switzerland.
  • Contact: support@mealpenny.com

10. Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the effective date above. For material changes we'll also tell account holders by email.

11. Contact

Gitesh Shastri · Contact: support@mealpenny.com. Mail to this address is forwarded by Cloudflare Email Routing to our inbox, and we use it only to answer you.