Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-09-18

SmartTuition.ai is designed to be useful without identifying you. We don't require an account, we don't ask for your name or contact info to generate a plan, and we don't sell, rent, or share data with anyone. We keep an email address in only two cases, both described below: when you buy a plan, and when you ask for dated reminders. This page describes exactly what we do and don't do with the information you provide.

What we collect by default (no identifying information)

To generate your plan, we collect and store:

• Information you enter in the intake form: student's enrollment year, school, family income, savings, 529 balance, preferences. None of these fields is your name, email, phone, or any other personal identifier.
• The plan we generate, stored under a randomly-generated anonymous plan ID (e.g. STA-AB12-CD34) — your plan's URL is the only way to retrieve it.
• Standard server logs (IP address, user agent) for security and abuse prevention. These are retained for 30 days and not joined to plan data.

We do not infer your identity from this data. Your IP address isn't linked to your plan ID in our database.

Your email address

An email address is the only thing we keep that could identify you. We keep one in two cases, described below, and we keep the two lists separately. If you build a plan, we check whether your address is also on the reminder list. If it is, for the same start year, we skip the two follow-up reminders.

1. The email address on your plan

Where it comes from

When you pay by card, Stripe asks for your email address for the receipt. We keep that address with your plan. If your plan was free with a code, you never reach checkout, so your plan page offers to take an address instead. That one is optional.

What we use it for

We write to you only about your plan:

• when it's ready, with a link to it and a PDF
• if something goes wrong while we build it
• if we find a mistake in it, with a link to the corrected plan and what changed

We also use it to stop reminder emails you no longer need (see below). Nothing else.

How long we keep it

We delete it automatically 12 months after we receive it, whether or not we ever wrote to you. To delete it sooner, use the link in the email that tells you your plan is ready, or email us at support@smarttuition.ai.

2. Dated reminders (optional)

We offer to email you on the dates that decide financial aid:

• In the intake form, when you tell us you haven't received your financial aid award letter yet: one email the following March, when letters have gone out, so you can build a plan with your real numbers.
• On the “what you can afford” page, the homepage and each college's page, once you've told us the year your student starts college: one email on each date on the aid clock that is still ahead — when the tax year that decides your aid begins and when it has a month left, when the FAFSA for your year opens, and when award letters have landed. The page lists the exact dates before it asks for your address, and it never lists more than four.

In both cases, we may follow up twice more that spring: around April 15, when many colleges' decision deadlines are two weeks away, and around May 5, after most families have chosen. The page lists both with the other dates before you sign up. We skip them if you build a plan (see below).

What we store if you ask

Your email address, the year your student starts college, and the dates to write to you. That is the whole record. We deliberately do not attach your school, your income, your savings, or anything else from the page or the form — the messages don't mention them, so they don't need them. We don't attach it to a plan. We only check whether the same address is on a plan, as described below.

What we send

• Only the messages you saw listed when you asked — one per date, on that date. Each says what the date is and why it matters, and links back to the site.
• We skip the two follow-ups once you build a plan for the same start year. We know you built one in either of two ways. The address on your plan matches the one you gave us for reminders. Or you reached checkout from a link in one of our emails. We note only that you built a plan and when, never which plan.
• Nothing else, ever: no confirmation email, no follow-up sequence, no marketing.
• Every message includes a one-click unsubscribe, which stops every remaining message to that address at once. Before then, you can ask us to remove your address at any time and we'll delete it — see Contact below.

How long we keep it

Each date's record is deleted about a month after that message is sent — we keep it that long only so the unsubscribe link keeps working. If a message is never sent, its record is deleted about a month after the date it was scheduled for. We never schedule a message more than four years out, so that is the longest we could hold an address, and only if you asked for a date that far ahead. When you unsubscribe, we keep a note of that for six months so a typo or a stranger can't sign you back up; after that it's gone.

What we won't use either address for

• Marketing — we don't send promotional email.
• Newsletters — we don't have one.
• Sale, rental, or sharing with anyone — never. Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not to colleges, not to financial-aid services, not to anyone.
• Cross-product profiling — we don't maintain user profiles.
• Unrequested re-engagement — we won't email you to come back unless you specifically asked us to. The dated reminders above are the only messages of that kind we ever send, and only if you asked for them.
• Signing you up. Buying a plan never puts your address on the reminder list. We compare the two lists only to stop reminders.

Plan data retention

We keep your plan and what you entered for it with no end date, so the link you saved keeps working. To delete your plan permanently, email us its plan ID.

Third parties

We use the following third-party services to operate the site:

• Anthropic — for plan generation. Plan inputs are sent to Anthropic's Claude API at generation time. Anthropic's data-handling policies apply to that processing.
• Turso (LibSQL) — database hosting.
• Vercel — application hosting.
• Resend — sends our email: the emails about your plan, and the dated reminders if you ask for them.
• Stripe — payment processing for the $99 plan. Your card details go directly to Stripe; we never receive or store them. Stripe also gives us the email address you paid with. We use it to send you your plan and to stop reminder emails you no longer need, and we delete it after 12 months.
• Vercel Web Analytics — anonymous, cookieless page-view counts. It does not use cookies or track you across sites, and is not joined to your plan data.
• College Scorecard (US Department of Education) — public school cost data. We send school names, not your personal info.

We've picked these vendors because they meet baseline privacy standards, but inclusion isn't an endorsement of their full policies. You can review each one's privacy policy on their respective sites.

Your details on the “what you can afford” page

The figures you enter there — start year, state, income, savings, what you could borrow, the schools you are weighing — are kept in your own browser so the page can show you your standing, your line and your schools together. They are never stored on our servers: they are sent only when a section computes, and nothing is written. By default they last until you close the tab; tick “remember these on this device” and they stay in your browser until you clear them, which the page lets you do with one click. The payment-plan intake reads the same details to save you typing them again; what it holds is stored only when you submit a plan, as described above. On a shared computer, clear them when you are done.

Cookies

We use only essential cookies needed for the site to function (e.g., session state during plan generation), plus one first-party cookie set when you arrive from a link in one of our reminder emails — it lives 90 days and is used only to stop the follow-up reminders once you have built a plan. We don't use analytics cookies, advertising cookies, or third-party tracking by default.

Your rights

• Unsubscribe from the dated reminders — use the link in any of the emails (it stops all of them at once), or ask us any time before then and we'll delete your address.
• Delete the email address on your plan at any time — use the link in the email that tells you your plan is ready, or email us.
• Delete your plan — contact us with your plan ID and we'll remove it from our records within 30 days.
• Get a copy of your data — your plan's link already gives you this. If we have an email address on your plan, email us and we'll confirm what we store.

Children's privacy

The site is intended for use by parents and adult students. We don't knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe we have, contact us and we'll delete it.

Changes

When we change this policy, we update the date at the top. A change applies only to information we collect after it.

Contact

For privacy questions or data-deletion requests, email us at support@smarttuition.ai.

SmartTuition.ai provides educational financial planning tools, not professional financial advice.