Privacy Policy

Effective September 16, 2026

The short version. Mealpenny has no accounts. Your preferences and meal plans are stored on your phone, and planning happens on your phone. The only outside service the app talks to is RevenueCat, which handles subscription status and, if you came from an Apple Ads search ad, which ad campaign led to the install. No ads in the app, no analytics SDKs, no tracking.

This policy covers the Mealpenny mobile app ("Mealpenny", "we", "us"). Mealpenny is intended for users in the United States.

1. Information stored on your device

When you answer the setup questions or use the app, Mealpenny stores the following only on your device:

Your weekly dinner budget, number of adults and kids, and dinners per week
Your ZIP code, if you enter one
Diet preferences, allergies to avoid, foods you skip, maximum cooking time and favorite cuisines
Your current week's dinners, swaps, "Cooked" marks and grocery-list checks
Whether the Sunday reminder is turned on

This information is not sent to us or to anyone else. The recipe library and price estimates are built into the app, and your meal plan is calculated on the device. Your ZIP code is used on the device to look up your U.S. Census region (Northeast, Midwest, South or West) for price estimates.

Like other app data, this information may be included in your device's own backups (for example, an iCloud or computer backup), which are controlled by you and Apple.

2. Subscriptions and RevenueCat

Purchases are made through your Apple ID and processed by Apple. We never see your name, email address, payment card or Apple ID.

To check whether you have an active subscription and to restore purchases, the app uses RevenueCat, a subscription service provider. RevenueCat receives:

A random, anonymous app user ID created by the app (it is not linked to your name, email or contact details)
Your purchase and subscription history for Mealpenny (for example: product, price, currency, purchase and renewal dates, trial status and store transaction identifiers)
Basic technical information needed to handle the request, such as app version, operating system version, country or storefront, and IP address

We use this information to unlock the features you paid for, to restore purchases, to prevent fraud, and to see aggregate subscription reports (such as how many free trials started or converted). RevenueCat processes this data on our behalf under its own privacy policy. We do not use it to identify you or to track you across other companies' apps or websites.

Apple Ads attribution

We advertise Mealpenny with Apple Ads (search ads on the App Store). To see which of our ads lead to subscriptions, the app uses Apple's AdServices framework: on iPhone, the app asks Apple for an attribution token and passes it to RevenueCat, which exchanges it with Apple. If your install came from one of our Apple Ads, Apple returns non-identifying campaign details, such as the campaign, ad group and keyword, and RevenueCat stores them with your anonymous app user ID. If it didn't, Apple returns nothing useful.

This does not use your device's advertising identifier (IDFA), does not require App Tracking Transparency permission, and is not used to track you across other companies' apps or websites. Apple's own Apple Advertising & Privacy page explains what Apple shares with advertisers. We only look at these details in aggregate (for example, trials started per keyword).

3. What Mealpenny does not do

No accounts, sign-in or email collection
No ads shown in the app and no advertising identifiers (IDFA); no App Tracking Transparency prompt
No analytics or crash-reporting SDKs
No tracking across apps or websites, and no data brokers
No location access (a ZIP code is optional and typed by you)
No selling or "sharing" of personal information, as those terms are used in U.S. state privacy laws

4. Notifications and sharing

The optional Sunday reminder is a local notification scheduled on your device. There is no push-notification server. If you use "Share list", your grocery list is passed to the iOS share sheet and goes only where you choose to send it.

5. Deleting your data

In the app: Settings → Reset all data deletes your preferences, meal plans, checks and reminder settings from the device. It does not cancel a subscription.
Delete the app: removing Mealpenny from your device removes everything it stored there.
Subscription records: your subscription is managed by Apple (see how to cancel). If you want us to ask RevenueCat to delete the purchase records tied to your anonymous app user ID, email us with the Apple order ID from your purchase receipt so we can find the record. We may need to keep some records where the law requires it.

6. Children

Mealpenny is a general-audience app for household meal planning and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, consistent with the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). If you believe a child has provided personal information through the app, contact us and we will help delete it.

7. Your rights

Because we do not hold personal information tied to your identity, most requests can be handled directly on your device (section 5). Residents of U.S. states with privacy laws may contact us to ask about or request deletion of any information described in this policy; we will respond as those laws require.

8. Security

Data on your device is protected by your device's security. Communication with RevenueCat uses encrypted connections (HTTPS).

9. Changes

If this policy changes, we will update this page and the effective date above. If a change affects what the app collects, we will also update the app's App Store privacy details.

10. Contact

Questions or requests: support@mealpenny.com

If you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you write. Mail to this address is forwarded by Cloudflare Email Routing to our inbox, and we use it only to answer you.