Privacy Policy

1. Overview

This Privacy Policy explains how CostRift handles data when you use our service. CostRift helps you compare supplier price lists, see how price changes affect your margins, and explore pricing decisions.

The core rule of the anonymous comparison experience is that your supplier files are processed in your browser. This policy describes the specific circumstances in which CostRift may process or retain data, based on the functionality available today or planned for the service.

2. Anonymous comparison workflow

The anonymous comparison workflow lets you compare previous and current supplier price lists without creating an account. In this workflow:

Your uploaded price-list files are read in your browser, and the comparison and margin calculations run locally on your device.
The raw files are not sent to CostRift servers simply to run the anonymous comparison.
No account is required, and the comparison result can be exported locally as CSV for your own review.

3. Authentication and account data

CostRift supports signing in with an email one-time code (OTP) or with Google. To provide these sign-in options, our authentication provider stores the minimal account and session metadata required to maintain a login relationship, identify you on return visits, and keep sessions secure.

If/when an enabled account feature lets you explicitly save supplier-price history, CostRift may store minimized structured data needed to provide that feature. The current persistence design deliberately excludes storing your raw spreadsheet files on CostRift servers.

When you choose to sign in with Google, CostRift receives the identity information necessary for authentication. We request only minimal Google identity scopes:

openid
email
profile

Specifically:

Google sign-in is used only for authentication and account access.
CostRift does not use Google authentication data for advertising.
CostRift does not sell Google user data.
CostRift does not access Gmail, Drive, Calendar, or Contacts for this authentication flow.
If your Google account email matches an existing CostRift identity and Google confirms the email as verified, the Google account may be linked to that existing identity.
Authentication and account-linking information may be retained as required to maintain your CostRift account and to secure sessions.

5. Categories of data we may process

Identity information used for authentication, such as an email address entered for an OTP or provided by Google sign-in.
Session and authentication metadata required to maintain secure logins (for example, session records).
Google account linkage metadata needed to connect a Google sign-in to your CostRift identity.
Operational and security data, such as IP-based rate-limiting information used to help protect the service from abuse.
Data you voluntarily submit through enabled account features (for example, saved structured supplier-price history).
Billing and subscription metadata, for workspaces on a paid plan — see Section 6 below.
Local browser data required for the comparison experience, which stays on your device.

We do not create advertising profiles, sell personal data, work with data brokers, collect biometric data, track your precise location, store credit-card details, or access your Gmail, Drive, Calendar, or Contacts.

6. Billing and payment data (Stripe)

Paid subscriptions (Pro and Business) are processed by Stripe, our payment processor. When a workspace subscribes to a paid plan, CostRift stores the billing metadata necessary to operate that subscription: the plan and subscription status, Stripe customer and subscription references, and billing lifecycle dates (such as the current billing period and any scheduled cancellation).

CostRift does not store your card number or other raw payment details — Stripe handles that as our payment processor. Stripe's own handling of your payment data is governed by Stripe's own terms and privacy policy.

To choose the billing currency for a new subscription, CostRift reads a country signal derived from your network request (a two-letter country code provided by our infrastructure provider, Cloudflare, at the edge). This is used transiently, at the moment of checkout, only to select which currency you are billed in — it is not stored, not associated with your account, not used for any other purpose, and CostRift does not otherwise record or retain your IP address or precise location.

7. First-party product analytics

CostRift uses limited first-party product analytics to understand how the core product flows are used and to improve the service. This is operated by CostRift itself, not a third-party analytics product.

This product analytics is designed to avoid storing information that could identify you or your business, and to avoid storing the contents of your supplier files. In particular:

It does not store supplier file contents, filenames, SKUs or item descriptions, costs or selling prices, or supplier, workspace, and saved-history identifiers.
It does not store account identity such as your email address or name.
It does not create an analytics-specific visitor identifier or fingerprint, and it does not set an analytics cookie.
It does not use browser storage such as localStorage or sessionStorage to identify you for these analytics.

What it records is limited, coarse information about product usage — for example that a comparison or the saved-history view was opened, that a step in the comparison flow was reached, or a rough size range for a comparison — together with the internal page path that a first-party link into the product was followed from.

As noted above, request IP information may be processed briefly to protect the service from abuse; it is not written into these product-analytics records.

Separately from the first-party analytics above, CostRift can use Google Analytics to understand how the product and site are used. It is optional and off by default:

Google Analytics is only loaded after you accept it. Until then, CostRift makes no Google Analytics request and sets no Google Analytics cookie.
If you accept, Google Analytics may use analytics storage (including cookies) to measure usage. CostRift enables analytics storage only; it does not enable advertising storage, advertising personalization, or Google Ads features through this integration.
CostRift does not send your name, email address, Google account details, or internal identifiers such as workspace, supplier, or saved-history IDs to Google Analytics, and it does not attach a logged-in identity. Page addresses are sent without their query string.
You can decline analytics, or change your choice at any time using “Privacy choices” in the footer. Declining does not limit your use of CostRift.

Your analytics choice is stored only in your browser on this device. Google acts as our analytics provider and processes this data on our behalf; Google’s own handling of analytics data is governed by Google’s terms and policies.

9. Services that help us operate

CostRift relies on a small number of service providers to run and secure the service:

Google — optional Google sign-in (authentication).
Google Analytics — optional, consent-based product and site usage analytics (see section 8).
Stripe — payment processing for paid subscriptions (see section 6).
Resend — delivery of email one-time codes.
Neon — database infrastructure.
Railway — application hosting.
Cloudflare — DNS, proxying, and delivery/security.

Each provider processes data only as needed to provide the corresponding function.

10. Supplier files processed locally

For the anonymous comparison workflow, supplier price-list files are processed in your browser and the raw files are not sent to CostRift servers simply to run the comparison. Future explicitly enabled save/history features may involve structured account data, but raw supplier files are not stored on CostRift servers.

11. Retention and deletion

Data is retained only as long as needed for the operation of the service, to maintain accounts, and to keep sessions and accounts secure. When account deletion mechanisms are available for you, data may be deleted or anonymized according to those mechanisms.

Raw first-party product-analytics events are kept for up to 90 days and are then removed automatically.

12. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards appropriate to the data we handle. No method of transmission or storage is absolutely secure, and we do not guarantee absolute security. We do not claim certifications such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, or LGPD certification.

13. Your rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, applicable privacy laws may give you rights with respect to personal data, such as access, correction, or deletion. We will honor such rights to the extent applicable law requires.

14. International use

CostRift is intended as an international service. We do not write this policy for a single country; data may be processed in locations where our infrastructure and service providers operate, subject to applicable law.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the effective date above and make the updated policy available through the service.

16. Contact

For privacy questions, contact CostRift at [email protected].