Privacy policy

Last updated October 10, 2026. Use Account & company settings to download your data or delete your account.

Account and launch data

We store your account email, name, and the public profile of a launch you submit: startup name, URL, channel, launch date, and notes. If you turn on anonymous mode, the public page hides the name and URL. The public metrics can still count toward channel medians. Your tagline and notes are not automatically redacted; review them before publishing.

Company research and introductions

Company profiles summarize linked public sources and identify disclosure dates. They do not imply the company has joined Afterlaunch. Your research preferences, saved companies, feedback, experiments, and current challenge are private to your account. Administrators can review company claims, corrections, and introduction reports. Company submissions publish the business description and customer categories after admin approval; your private challenge and contact email are not included.

Introductions require both representatives to opt in. Accepting a request shares the contact email each participant provided with the other participant. Turning off introductions or blocking someone removes that contact from their in-app view; it cannot retract information already seen or copied. Account deletion removes research preferences, claims, and introductions involving your account. Independently researched public company facts remain available; contact us to request a correction or removal. We aggregate saves, useful-match feedback, experiments, and accepted introductions to assess the service. Return-visit dates are recorded only with website analytics permission.

When an administrator approves your company listing, we create share images for it (for example a “now live” card). These images show the listing’s public name, description, sector, customer categories, and link, plus the logo and colour you already chose for your launch company or for an approved advertisement. Logos and colours from advertisements that are pending or were rejected are never used. We record when you first saw the approval message so it is shown only once.

If you subscribe to the Afterlaunch newsletter, we store your email address, where on the site you signed up, and the dates you subscribed, confirmed, or unsubscribed. We send a confirmation email first and only send newsletters after you confirm. You may also choose to share your company name, a short description, and your sector. We use these optional details only to tailor which stories, news, and ideas we send you and to understand our readers in aggregate. They are visible only to Afterlaunch administrators and are never published or sold.

Newsletters are sent from afterlaunchteam@gmail.com through Google’s Gmail service, so Google processes the recipient address and message content to deliver them. Every newsletter includes an unsubscribe link, and supporting mail apps also offer one-click unsubscribe. After you unsubscribe we keep a record marked unsubscribed so we do not email you again; ask us at the address below to delete it entirely. If your Afterlaunch account uses the same email, your newsletter record is included in your data export and deleted when you delete your account.

Free advertising applications

When you apply for a free ad slot, we store the startup name, website, one-line description, logo, card colour, and your contact name and email, plus an optional role, profile link, and note. Administrators use the contact details and note to review your application and contact you about it; they are never shown on the public ad. After approval, the startup name, description, website, logo, and colour appear in the sponsor placements until the free period ends or you withdraw. Deleting your account removes the application.

Connected providers

When you connect Stripe or an analytics tool, we store a restricted key or token encrypted with AES-256-GCM. The sync job decrypts it on the server to read daily totals: visitors, signups, impressions, and new revenue. We process provider responses to calculate aggregates rather than storing customer contact lists or card numbers. Revoke credentials at their provider to stop access immediately. Disconnect integrations in company settings to delete stored credentials and stop future syncs. A provider request already in progress may finish.

Optional payments

Adding, tracking, and publishing a launch is entirely free. Membership plans, advertising, marketplace listings, and boosts are optional paid purchases.

Payments for plans, ads, marketplace listings, and 7-day boosts are processed by Stripe on our account. Stripe receives the payer's name, email, and payment method; we never see or store card numbers. We store the Stripe customer id, the amount, the subscription id, and the subscription status so we can provide the ad or membership, send renewal reminders, and let you cancel.

When you start a recurring purchase we record the automatic renewal terms you were shown: your account id, email, the product, the price and renewal terms, and the time. We keep these consent records for at least three years, including after account deletion, as proof of what you agreed to. Confirmation and renewal reminder emails are sent through Gmail.

If you list a company, we count human views of its public page and clicks on its “Visit website” link per day (running totals only, with no visitor identity or cookies) so Founder Pro members can see their listing analytics. To count a click once per visitor per day, we keep a one-way keyed code of the network address, company and date for about two days; the address itself is never stored. Saved Matchmaker searches are stored with your membership and deleted with your account.

If you vote or comment, we store your vote and comment with your account so we can show totals, let you change or remove them, and count progress toward free ad days. Comments are public and show your name; vote totals are public but individual votes are not. Deleting your account deletes your votes and comments.

On Free and Starter we record which company profiles you opened each week so we can apply your weekly allowance; we keep these records for a few weeks and they're deleted with your account. If you list a company for sale, the name, description, asking price, and details you enter are published on the marketplace once approved, and buyers can contact you at your account email; we keep the listing until you end it or delete your account.

A signed cookie keeps you logged in for 14 days. The site is hosted on Vercel, the database is Firebase Firestore, and email is sent through Google Gmail. We do not sell personal information.

Website and outreach measurement

If you open a founder's invite link, we set a cookie for up to 30 days that holds only their invite code, so a new account you create can be credited to them. We then record that your account was invited by them and, once your company listing is approved, the date and company. The inviter sees only how many invited founders joined and were approved, not who you are. Afterlaunch no longer offers referral codes for purchases; we keep a pseudonymous record of past referrals and any commission and payout records for financial reconciliation.

With your permission, we collect page paths, link and button clicks, referring domains, random browser and visit identifiers, and campaign attribution. When enabled, PostHog processes these events to report page views, returning browsers, referrals, and sponsor link clicks. Vercel Web Analytics also processes consented page views, with query strings removed and private messaging, buyer, and admin pages excluded. The PostHog browser identifier persists in local storage until cleared; declining analytics clears PostHog tracking persistence. We do not collect form contents, passwords, raw IP addresses, or session recordings for analytics. You can decline or change your choice through Cookie settings in the footer. We respect Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control for website analytics.

Invitations may contain a unique image and measured links associated with the recipient and campaign. Loading the image or following a link records an engagement signal; mail privacy services and security scanners can produce these signals automatically. With analytics permission, we may associate a subsequent visit and new account with that invitation. Account creation is recorded as part of providing the service. Reports are private to Afterlaunch administrators, and measurement data is stored in Firebase and, for consented website events, PostHog. Advertisers may receive aggregate reports, never individual browsing histories. Reply to an invitation or contact akshatrside@gmail.com to stop outreach or request removal of your campaign data.

Public listing activity

The weekly leaderboard shows listed companies with their number of page views in the last 7 days and their listing date. These are totals for the company only and never identify visitors. The “Featured on Afterlaunch” badge image that companies embed on their sites is served without cookies, and we don't use it to track people who view those sites.

Storage, retention, and requests

We use account data to sign you in, launch data to provide receipts and comparisons, billing data to fulfill optional purchases, and newsletter data to send and tailor the newsletter you asked for. Firebase, Vercel, Google (Gmail), connected analytics providers, and Stripe process the data needed to provide those services. Public receipts can be viewed, copied, or indexed by others.

Data is retained while needed to operate your account, published receipts, and purchases. Your dashboard supports receipt removal and unpublishing. Account & company settings supports company updates, data export, integration disconnection, and company or account deletion. Account deletion also cancels Afterlaunch subscriptions. If you previously posted in founder discussions, export still includes those records and account deletion still removes your posts, replies, votes, and reports. Contact akshatrside@gmail.com for help. We may need to verify account ownership; billing records may need to be retained for applicable obligations. Removing a receipt cannot remove copies held by others.

Your rights

Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in the EU and UK, or California and other US state privacy laws), you may have the right to access, correct, download, or delete your personal information, to object to or restrict some uses, and to withdraw consent. You can do most of this yourself in Account & company settings, or email us. We don't sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we won't treat you differently for exercising your rights. We may need to verify your identity first, and we'll respond within the time the law requires. If you're in the EU or UK you can also complain to your local data protection authority.

Security, transfers, and children

We use encryption in transit, encrypt connected credentials at rest, limit administrator access, and use reputable providers, but no service is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal information, we'll notify you as the law requires. Afterlaunch is run from the United States and our providers may process data in the US and other countries; where required we rely on appropriate safeguards for those transfers. Afterlaunch is for adults building businesses and isn't directed to children. We don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16, and we'll delete it if we learn we have.

We will update this page when our data practices change, and change the date at the top. For material changes we'll also notify signed-in users. Contact us if anything about your data or a connected account is unclear.