Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-10-06

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 three cases, all described below: when you buy a plan, when you sign up for our monthly email, 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 three cases, described below, and we keep the lists separately. If you build a plan, we check whether your address is also on one of the others. If it is, for the same start year, we skip the two follow-up reminders, and the monthly email leaves out its line about the SmartTuition plan.

If you arrive by one of our campaign links, such as one we share with school counselors, your browser keeps the link's name until you close the tab. If you give us your email address, we store the link's name with it. We use it only to count which links bring families who sign up for our emails or build a plan.

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 emails that would offer you what you already have (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. Our monthly email (optional)

If you sign up, smarttuition.ai sends you about one email a month about paying for college. Each one covers what's coming up, what's changed, and one thing worth knowing given when your student graduates from high school. Each one also has a short line showing how you can build a customized SmartTuition plan when the time is right. When a deadline or a change affects your family, we may send a short note between emails. In a month with nothing useful to say, we send nothing.

Where you sign up. On a state's page, each college's page, the finder, the “what you can afford” page, the guides and the homepage, once you've told us the year your student starts college. The box shows the words you are agreeing to above the address.

Confirming. When you sign up, we send one email asking you to confirm your address. Until you click it, we send nothing else. If you don't confirm within 7 days, we delete the address.

What we store. Your email address and the year your student starts college. We note the kind of page you signed up on (a college page, say, never which college), the link you arrived by, if any, and the wording you agreed to. We also keep a list of the emails we sent you and the links you clicked in them, so we never send the same email twice.

What we don't do.

• We don't sell, rent or share your address or anything you told us.
• We don't attach what you tell us to a plan. We only check whether the same address bought a plan for the same start year, so the plan line stops offering you something you already have.
• Buying a plan, or asking for anything else, never puts you on this list.

Stopping. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe, which stops everything to your address at once. You can also ask us at any time to delete your address (see Contact). When you unsubscribe, we keep the address and the date you unsubscribed, so that we never write to you again unless you sign up and confirm again.

How long we keep it. We delete your record when your student's fourth year of college ends. We delete the list of emails sent and links clicked after 12 months.

3. Dated reminders (if you signed up before October 21, 2026)

We no longer take new sign-ups for these on the site. If you signed up before October 21, 2026, we send only the dates you were shown when you asked, as described below. We won't move you to the monthly email, and we won't email you to ask. You can sign up for it on the site like anyone.

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

• In the intake form, until October 21, 2026, when you told us you hadn'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 a state's page, each college's page, the finder, the “what you can afford” page and the homepage, before October 6, 2026, once you'd 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 showed the exact dates before it asked for your address, and it never listed 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 listed both with the other dates before you signed 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.
• 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 any address for

• Selling, renting or sharing it. Never: not to advertisers, data brokers, colleges, financial-aid services or anyone else.
• Profiles. We don't keep them.
• Signing you up. Buying a plan never puts your address on either email list. We compare the lists only to stop or change what we send, and to count which of our emails brought a family who built a plan.

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, the dated reminders, and the monthly email if you sign up for it.
• 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 counts of page views, and of two actions: giving us your email address and finishing a plan. If you came from one of our campaign links, each count carries that link's name. 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 and the finder

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.

The college finder asks where you live, your household's income, filing status and size, how much you have saved for college, your parents' credit score, and your student's GPA and test scores. It keeps them in your own browser, the same way, and shares most of them with the “what you can afford” page so you don't type them twice. The “saved for college” choice stays in this tab and is not shared. The rest are sent to us only when the finder looks up prices or works out what a plan saves, and we don't store them. A server may keep a recent answer in memory for a short time, with no name or address. We count that a search happened and nothing more. The boxes you tick about your student, such as free lunch in middle school, foster care or the National Guard, never leave your browser. They last until you close the tab.

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 emails. It lasts 90 days. We use it only to stop or change our emails once you have built a plan, and to count which email brought you. We don't use analytics cookies, advertising cookies, or third-party tracking by default.

Your rights

• Unsubscribe from the monthly email — the link in any email stops it at once, or ask us and we'll delete your record.
• 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.