Legal
Privacy policy
Last updated 8 November 2026. Spendly is made by Taprobana Studios (Sri Lanka).
The short version
- Spendly turns the payment alerts you already get into a clear picture of your spending. Your entries stay on your phone, in an encrypted database.
- Spendly does not connect to your bank, does not read your SMS inbox, and has no ads, tracking or analytics.
- Data leaves your phone only when you choose: approving example alerts to set up a source, signing in with Google, adding an expense to a split group, or making a backup to your own Google Drive.
- We never sell your data.
- You can delete your account from inside the app at any time.
What stays on your phone
These are stored only on your phone, in a database encrypted with a key protected by the Android Keystore:
- Your entries: amount, currency, date, shop or source name, category, notes, reference, and the balance if the alert had one.
- The original text of alerts that match a source you set up, so you can check an entry against it. Alerts Spendly can't read are deleted after 30 days.
- Your sources, message styles, rules, categories, tags, labels, budgets and settings.
Spendly is free to use for the first month. After that, turning alerts into entries automatically needs Spendly Premium. Until you unlock it, alerts from your sources are still kept but are not turned into entries: they wait, encrypted on your phone, for up to 90 days, and are added automatically if you unlock Premium. After 90 days they are deleted. Entries you already have, and entries you add by hand, are never locked or removed.
Spendly reads payment alerts through Android's notification access, which you turn on yourself. Android lets an app with this access see every notification. Spendly looks at the app that sent each notification first and drops the ones from other apps without reading them. It only keeps alerts from your messages app, or from an app you add as a source, and only from senders you have set up. Spendly does not use the SMS permission.
What can leave your phone, and only if you choose
Example alerts, to set up a source
When you ask Spendly to learn a new kind of alert, it shows you exactly which example texts will be sent and asks for your approval. Only those texts are sent, over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, to Spendly's server, which passes them to Google Cloud Vertex AI to write a pattern that reads that kind of alert. The server does not store the texts or write them to its logs. Google processes them under its Cloud terms. Please remove names and account numbers from examples before approving them.
Signing in with Google (optional)
Signing in uses Firebase Authentication. We receive your Google account's name, email address and a unique account id. They are used to sign you in, to show your name, and so you can be invited to groups. Signing in is only needed for Google Drive backups, split groups and future payment features. Spendly works fully without it.
Split groups (optional)
If you create or join a group, Spendly stores this in Google Cloud Firestore:
- the group's name and currency, its invite code, and its members' display names;
- for each expense you add: a short description, the amount, the date, who paid and each person's share;
- payments recorded between members;
- if you invite someone by email: their email address, the group name and your name, until they accept, decline, or the invitation is removed.
Everyone in a group can see what is in it. Nothing else is stored: never the alert text, references, balances, account numbers, categories, tags or your other entries. Only members can read a group's data.
Premium purchases (optional)
Premium is sold through Google Play, using RevenueCat to confirm what you have bought. RevenueCat receives your purchase details from Google Play, an app user id (an anonymous id, or your account id if you are signed in) and basic device information, and it records when you first used the app so the free month is counted correctly, even if you reinstall. We never see your card or payment details: Google Play handles them.
When you use automatic setup, Spendly's server asks RevenueCat, using that user id, whether you are in your free month or have Premium. Nothing else about you is sent for this.
Google Drive backup (optional)
A backup is encrypted on your phone with a passphrase only you know, then saved in a hidden app folder in your own Google Drive. Spendly's developers cannot read it, and Spendly cannot see anything else in your Drive. Backups never include the original alert text. You can also save a backup as a file on your phone instead.
What we do not do
- No advertising, no analytics or tracking tools, and no selling or renting of data.
- No connection to your bank or any bank app, and no bank login.
- No reading of your SMS inbox, contacts, location, photos or other apps.
Technical data handled by Google
When you use sign-in, groups, Drive backup, purchases or the alert-pattern service, Google's services (Firebase, Google Cloud and Google Play) and RevenueCat process technical information such as your IP address, device and app version, and an installation identifier, to run the service. See Google's privacy policy and the Firebase privacy information.
How long data is kept
- On your phone: until you delete it. Entries you delete wait 30 days in "Recently deleted", then are removed.
- Groups: until members delete the expenses, leave, or the group is deleted. A group with nobody left is deleted.
- Invitations: until accepted, declined or removed.
- Your Drive backup: until you replace or remove it.
- Alerts waiting for Premium: up to 90 days on your phone, then deleted.
- Purchase records: kept by Google Play and RevenueCat for as long as their terms and tax or accounting rules require.
- Spendly's server: keeps nothing from the example alerts you send.
Your choices, and deleting your data
- Delete your account in the app: Profile, then Delete account. This removes your Spendly account, removes you from every group, removes your invitations, and removes your Drive backup if Spendly can reach it. Details and options are on the account deletion page, including how to ask us to delete your account if you no longer have the app.
- Expenses you added to a group stay for the other members, without your name, because they are part of everyone's balances. Ask the group to delete them first if you want them gone.
- Data on your phone is yours to remove: uninstall Spendly or clear its storage.
- Alert access can be turned off any time in Android's notification access settings.
- A subscription is cancelled in Google Play (Google Play, then Payments and subscriptions). Premium stays until the end of the period you paid for.
Security
The database on your phone is encrypted, with its key protected by the Android Keystore. Connections to Spendly's server and to Google are encrypted. Group data is protected by access rules so only members can read it. Backups are encrypted with a key made from your passphrase (PBKDF2 and AES-256-GCM). No system is perfectly secure, so please choose a strong passphrase and keep it safe: Spendly cannot recover it.
Children
Spendly is not designed for children under 13 (or the minimum age in your country), and we do not knowingly collect their information.
Where data is processed
Google's servers that run sign-in, groups and the pattern service may be in other countries than yours.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will update the date above and tell you in the app.
Contact
Taprobana Studios, Sri Lanka. Questions or requests: taprobanastudios@gmail.com.