Budgether Privacy Policy

Effective October 14, 2026

The short version

What Budgether stores

Your profile is the name, emoji and color you pick when you set up the app, and with Premium, a photo instead of the emoji if you choose one. There's no email address or password. The profile is kept on your iPhone, and a copy goes into every budget you belong to so the other members know who you are. Photos you choose for your profile or a budget are cropped to a small square and saved without their location or any other details from the camera.

Each budget holds:

• its name, icon (an emoji, or a photo with Premium), color theme and currency, and the monthly income and savings goal you enter
• categories with their monthly limits
• every expense and income entry, with its amount, category, note and date, and who added it
• recurring bills (due dates, usual amounts, reminder settings, and whether each one autopays)
• the last 300 changes, so members can see who did what and when
• each member's name, emoji or photo, and color, the date they joined, what they're allowed to do, and when they last had the app open

Your settings, like your theme, the themes you make yourself, your Home layout and the app icon you've picked, stay on your iPhone and aren't synced. Everyone picks their own theme, even in a shared budget.

Where it's kept

Budgether saves your budgets on your iPhone and syncs them through iCloud, using Apple's CloudKit, so you need to be signed in to iCloud to use the app. Budgets you create are stored in your iCloud account and count toward your storage there. One that someone shares with you stays in their iCloud.

Apple holds iCloud data under its own privacy policy. I have no access to your iCloud data.

Widgets, Live Activities, Control Center controls and Siri show a short summary of your budgets (what's left, upcoming bills, recent changes) that the app keeps on your iPhone for them. It never leaves the phone.

Shared budgets and invite codes

Sharing works through iCloud. Members can see everything in the budget, including the income, limits, expenses, notes, bills and history. What they can change depends on the role the owner gives them, from co-owner to view only. They also see each member's name and avatar, and who has had the app open in the last few minutes.

When you make an invite code, Budgether saves a small record in its public iCloud database, named after the code. The record holds only the date and an iCloud link to the shared budget, with no names. It has to be public so that someone who isn't a member yet can find the budget from the code.

Joining doesn't need your approval. Anyone who enters the code becomes a member straight away, with whatever role the owner picked for new people, and codes don't expire. Give yours only to people you'd trust with a spare key. Deleting the budget deletes its code.

Invite records are visible to me in Apple's developer tools. They contain no names, and I don't use them for anything.

Notifications

Bill reminders, budget alerts, updates about other members' changes, the monthly summary and the evening check-in are all created on your iPhone from the budgets stored there. When someone changes a shared budget, iCloud sends the app a silent signal to fetch the change, and the app writes any notification itself.

You can turn each kind on or off in Budgether under Settings › Notifications, or turn them all off in the iOS Settings app.

Purchases

Premium is sold through the App Store, and Apple takes care of payment. I never see your card details or your Apple Account. The app only asks the App Store whether you have Premium. Apple's sales reports don't tell me who bought it.

Problem reports

If you choose Report a problem (in Settings, from the Home Screen quick action, or by shaking your iPhone), Budgether prepares a report on your iPhone and opens Mail or the share sheet so you can send it yourself. Nothing is sent automatically.

A report contains your message exactly as you wrote it, plus tech details: the app and iOS version, your iPhone model, language and region format, whether you use iCloud or demo mode and Premium, a few settings (such as notifications and sounds), counts (such as how many budgets, categories and bills you have), the last 50 screens and actions in the app (such as "opened Bills"), and crash reports from iOS. Tech details never include the names of budgets, categories, bills or people, amounts, notes, emoji, invite codes or your location; error messages have those replaced with placeholders.

Only if you turn them on for that report does it also include a copy of your current budget (with its names, amounts, notes and members) or a screenshot. Both start off every time, and See exactly what's sent shows everything before you send it. If you email it, I also get your email address, which I use only to reply. I use reports only to fix problems and improve Budgether, and I delete them once they've done their job.

Support mode (in Settings) is off unless you turn it on, and it turns itself off after 7 days. While it's on, Budgether keeps a more detailed log of the same kind of tech details: screens and actions, syncing, purchase and reminder steps, errors (with names and amounts replaced) and any moment the app stopped responding. The log stays on your iPhone. It only leaves it if you share it yourself or send a report while support mode is on, and turning support mode off deletes it.

What I don't collect

Apart from the invite records described above and problem reports you choose to send, nothing you put into Budgether is stored anywhere I can see, and I don't sell or pass on anything. The app has no ads, analytics, tracking or third-party SDKs. Notifications are the only permission it asks for; it never asks for access to your location, contacts, photo library or camera.

Like every developer, I get anonymous numbers from Apple, such as download counts, plus crash reports from people who have chosen to share them with app developers in their iPhone's settings.

Deleting your data

To delete a budget you own, open Settings › Budget settings and tap Delete budget. It's removed from iCloud and from every member's phone, and its invite code stops working. This can't be undone.

For a budget someone shared with you, the same button says Leave budget. Leaving takes the budget off your phone and ends your access. What you added stays in the budget, and so does your name in its history.

Erase data on this device, at the bottom of Settings, removes your profile and budgets from the iPhone you're holding. Budgets you own stay in iCloud, and you're still a member of the ones shared with you. To remove everything, delete each budget you own, leave the others, and then delete the app. Anything left over in iCloud can be removed in iOS Settings › your name › iCloud › Manage Account Storage.

Children

Budgether isn't directed at children under 13, and it never asks anyone for their age, email address or phone number.

Changes to this policy

If I change this policy, I'll post the new version on this page and update the date at the top.

Contact

Questions about privacy: contact@barnhillsoftware.com. For help with the app, see Budgether Support.

Budgether is made by Ryan Barnhill · Barnhill Software