Privacy Policy

Last updated: 18 October 2026

Mealconomy (“Mealconomy”, “we”, “us”) builds a budget meal-planning service available on the web and as iOS/Android apps (together, the “Service”). This policy explains what we collect when you use the Service, why, who we share it with, and how you can access, correct, or delete it.

We are the data controller for the personal data described below. If you have questions this page doesn’t answer, contact us at privacy@mealconomy.app.

Information we collect

Account information

• Email address and name — required to create an account.
• Password — stored as a salted hash; we never store or can see your plaintext password.
• If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile photo from Google to create or match your account. We do not receive your Google password.

Household and meal-planning data

Mealconomy is built around a household: the people you plan meals for, your grocery budget, and where you shop. This includes:

• Household name, country/region, and preferred currency.
• Household member profiles you create — names, age group, and any dietary preferences, allergies, or disliked ingredients you choose to record for them. Allergy and dietary information is sensitive; we use it only to filter meal suggestions for that household and never for advertising or profiling.
• Your grocery budget, generated meal plans, pantry contents, and shopping lists.

Meal plans and pricing are generated automatically from this data and from our ingredient-pricing database. They are estimates — see the Disclaimers section of our Terms of Service for how we handle dietary and allergy exclusions.

Receipt photos (optional, Premium)

If you use receipt scanning, we store the photo you upload and process it (ourselves or through a third-party OCR service) to extract item names, quantities, and prices, which you can then review and correct before anything is saved to your shopping history.

Payment and subscription status

We never see or store your card number. On the web, checkout and billing are handled by Paddle, our merchant of record. On iOS and Android, purchases are handled by Apple/Google and verified through RevenueCat. We store only the resulting subscription status (plan, renewal date, and billing provider).

Device and usage data

• Standard request metadata (IP address, browser/device type, timestamps) for security, rate-limiting, and debugging.
• A push-notification token (mobile only), if you enable notifications, used solely to deliver reminders you’ve asked for (e.g. items expiring soon).
• First-party product analytics (e.g. which features are used) to improve the Service. We do not use third-party advertising trackers, and the mobile apps contain no ad SDKs.
• If you report a bug or crash, our error-monitoring tool (Sentry) may capture a stack trace and basic device information for that event.

How we use your information

We use the data above to:

• Provide the Service — generate meal plans, price ingredients, build shopping lists, and run the account and household you set up.
• Process payments and manage your subscription.
• Send service notifications you’ve opted into (push/email), and respond when you contact support.
• Maintain security, prevent abuse, and debug problems.
• Improve the Service using aggregated, first-party usage analytics.

Where GDPR applies, our legal bases are: performance of a contract (running the account you created), legitimate interests (security, debugging, product analytics), consent (push notifications, and processing allergy/dietary data you choose to enter), and legal obligation (tax and billing records).

Who we share it with

We don’t sell your personal data. We share it only with the service providers that help us run Mealconomy, each bound by a data-processing agreement:

• Cloud hosting and storage (servers, databases, receipt photo storage).
• Paddle (web payments) and RevenueCat (mobile in-app purchase verification).
• Google (sign-in, if you choose to use it).
• Our OCR provider (receipt text extraction, Premium feature).
• Sentry (crash/error reporting).
• Email/push delivery providers, to send notifications you’ve opted into.

We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of Mealconomy, our users, or the public.

International transfers

Mealconomy is available globally and our infrastructure and service providers may process data outside your country of residence, including in the United States and the European Economic Area. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards (such as Standard Contractual Clauses) for these transfers.

Data retention and deletion

We keep your data for as long as your account is active, so the Service keeps working. You can delete your account at any time from Settings → Delete account in the app, or the equivalent page on the web. Deleting your account permanently removes your user record and every household you own, including meal plans, pantry data, shopping lists, and receipt photos. This is immediate and cannot be undone — we do not currently offer a data export or a recovery/grace period, and we keep no backup copy beyond what’s needed briefly for routine database backups, which age out on their own schedule.

Billing records may be retained longer where we’re required to by tax or accounting law.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct inaccurate data (most of this is editable directly in the app).
• Delete your data (see above).
• Object to or restrict certain processing, or withdraw consent.
• Receive a copy of your data in a portable format.
• (California residents) know what categories of personal information we collect and request their deletion, as described above — we do not sell personal information.

To exercise any of these, email privacy@mealconomy.app. If you’re in the EEA/UK, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

Children’s privacy

The Service is not directed at children, and account holders must meet the minimum age in our Terms of Service. A household member profile may represent a child (e.g. to plan their meals and record their allergies), but children do not hold accounts themselves — that data is entered and controlled by the adult account holder.

Cookies (web)

The web app uses only strictly-necessary cookies — a session cookie and a matching CSRF-protection cookie — to keep you signed in securely. We don’t use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. This marketing site uses no cookies.

Security

We use industry-standard measures — encryption in transit, hashed passwords, and access controls — to protect your data. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we can’t guarantee absolute security.

Changes to this policy

If we make material changes, we’ll update the date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you in the app or by email.

Contact us

Mealconomy
privacy@mealconomy.app