Privacy Policy

Budget by Hand is built to be private. We never connect to your bank and never ask for your bank credentials. We don't sell your data, we don't run ad networks, and the budgeting information you enter stays in your own private account. This page explains, plainly, what we collect and why.

Budget by Hand ("we", "us") is a personal budgeting web app operated from the European Union. You can reach us at hello@budgetbyhand.com. For privacy questions, that's the fastest way to get a human.

We keep data collection to the minimum needed to run the app:

• Account details. When you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile photo from Google to create your account.
• Your budgeting data. The transactions, categories, goals, and settings you enter. This is the core of the service and is stored in your own private space.
• Usage analytics — only if you allow it. Privacy-friendly, EU-hosted product analytics (PostHog), and deliberately almost nothing: a page view, that you signed in, that a transaction was added (and whether it was typed, scanned or imported), and that you joined the waitlist. That is the complete list. Nothing starts until you choose "Allow" on the banner: decline and no analytics cookie or identifier is written at all. We never record sessions, we do not use automatic click-tracking, we never send your transactions, amounts, merchants or category names, and we identify you only by an opaque account id — not your email address.
• Emails you give us. If you join the waitlist or ask to hear about a new feature, we store that email so we can contact you about it. Nothing else.

• We never link to your bank or ask for online-banking logins.
• We never sell, rent, or trade your personal data.
• We never run third-party advertising or ad-tracking networks.

Your account and budgeting data are stored in Google Cloud Firestore(Firebase). Access is locked to your account by security rules — other users cannot read your data. Analytics are processed by PostHog on their EU infrastructure. There is no payment processor involved, because there is nothing to pay for — we never ask for and never hold card details.

We use the minimum needed, and we split it into two kinds. Essentialstorage runs without asking — your sign-in session so you stay logged in, your language and display preferences, and an offline copy of your own budget so the app works without a connection. Analytics storage is optional and off until you allow it on the banner. No advertising cookies, ever.

Changed your mind? Clearing this site's data in your browser resets the choice and the banner will ask again.

You can view and edit your data any time inside the app. You can export or delete your data, and you can ask us to delete your account entirely — email hello@budgetbyhand.com. If you're in the EU/EEA or UK, you have rights under the GDPR (access, correction, deletion, portability, and objection); we honour them.

Budget by Hand is not directed at children under 16, and we don't knowingly collect their data.

If we update this policy, we'll change the date above and, for material changes, do our best to let you know in the app. Continuing to use Budget by Hand after a change means you accept the updated policy.