Who we are
Mint is provided by EXCT INC (“we”, “us”), the controller responsible for your personal data. For privacy questions and requests, email support@hellomint.app.
What we collect and why
Your account
No sign-up: no name, email, password or phone number. “Get started” creates an account whose key stays in your iPhone’s Keychain, synced by iCloud Keychain if you use it; our server keeps only a one-way hash of it. The account holds your app language, currency, market country and city, profile answers (budget, weekly hours, interests), plan, scan counts, 18+ confirmation, and when it was created and last used.
What you scan
The photos, links, text, files and notes you send, the object you pick and, if you add it, your location; plus your scan history, saved ideas and ticked plan steps. If you report a result, we keep your reason and comment.
Messages to support
“Contact support” and “Request a feature” in Profile open a letter to us in your mail app, with your account ID and the app and iOS versions under your message, so we can find your account. You send it from your own email address; we use the address and what you write only to answer you and to improve Mint.
Why
We use this data to run scans, keep your history, count free scans, provide Pro, send notifications you allow, answer your messages and keep Mint secure, under our contract with you and our legitimate interests in preventing abuse and improving Mint. We don’t sell your data, show ads or track you across other companies’ apps and websites, and the app has no advertising or analytics SDKs.
AI processing
Our AI model, run for us by a cloud AI provider in Singapore, analyses your scans and receives:
- your photos, reduced to at most 1,568 pixels on the long side (also when Mint suggests objects in them), and the text of the PDFs you attach;
- the text of the pages behind the links you send, which our server opens itself, so the site sees our server rather than you; for a Google Maps link, only the place name the link carries;
- your text, note and picked object;
- your profile answers, market country and city, and app language;
- the scan’s market data: the number and ratings of competitors nearby, or the apps found in the App Store, without your location point.
When you open a scan’s concept details, the model writes them from the scan’s figures and your profile answers; for saved ideas it writes the monthly updates from what changed and how far you are through the plan. It doesn’t receive your account number or IP address. Results are automatic estimates, not decisions about you, and Mint refuses scans whose subject is a person.
Market data
To count competitors on the map, our server sends DataForSEO a search phrase describing the idea, with country, city and language codes, and a map point: your scan’s location rounded to about 100 m, or your profile area rounded to about 1 km. For “Near you” in the feed it sends the centre of a district about 2 km across around your area. To find competing apps, Apple’s App Store search receives a search phrase and your country. Neither receives your photos, files or account details. Pro subscribers’ saved ideas are re-checked on the map monthly.
Location
Approximate, from your IP address
At account creation and whenever you send something to scan, our server looks up your IP address’s country in its own database, sending nothing anywhere. This checks that Mint is available there and presets your market, with an approximate city at account creation; you can change both in Profile. We don’t store your IP address or write it to our logs. To limit abuse, we keep only a keyed one-way hash of the address the account was created from, and short-lived counters keyed by such hashes.
Precise, only when you tap
“Use my location” on a scan attaches your position rounded to about 100 m and saves the surrounding ~1 km area to your profile. “Use my location” in market settings and “Near you” in the feed send it rounded to about 1 km; Apple’s geocoding service names your market city. A saved idea keeps its scan’s point for its monthly checks. There is no background tracking; location can be turned off in iOS Settings.
Photos and files
Mint receives only the photos you take or choose. They are re-encoded on your iPhone and again on our server, which strips location and other metadata, keeping only the colour profile, and kept with the scan while it is in your history or saved as an idea. Attached files, PDFs exactly as sent, are kept only while the scan runs; uploads never sent go after a day. Original file names are kept; attached files are listed under “What you sent”. Photo library access, if you grant it, is used only to show recent photos on the gallery button.
Purchases
Mint Pro is bought and paid for through Apple; we never see your payment details. The app sends our server the transaction Apple signed, and Apple notifies our server of renewals, cancellations and refunds. To unlock Pro we keep, linked to your account, the product, its dates, Apple’s original transaction ID and whether it was a test purchase. Restoring purchases on an iPhone without your account key moves your history and ideas there once Apple’s signed records confirm the subscription. Deleting your data doesn’t cancel a subscription; cancel it in your Apple Account settings.
Scan packs are bought through Apple the same way. We keep each pack’s transaction ID, product and date with your account, and the number of extra scans left; extra scans don’t expire, and they are lost when you delete your data. So that a pack is never credited twice, we then keep only a one-way fingerprint of its transaction, without your account, the transaction ID or the product. A refund takes back the extra scans not yet used; if Apple reverses the refund, they come back.
If you enter a friend’s invite code, we keep which account the code belongs to, and your first month of Mint Pro is free through Apple’s own offer. When your subscription is paid for the first time, your friend earns a free month: we ask Apple to move their next payment a month later. Your friend learns only that a friend subscribed — never who you are. So that each subscription earns a month only once, we keep a one-way fingerprint of it instead of its ID, even after either account is deleted. A refund of that first payment takes the month back while it hasn’t been given yet.
Device check and notifications
Device check
To keep free scans fair, Apple’s DeviceCheck keeps two bits for your iPhone counting the free scans it has used. They survive reinstalling Mint and deleting your data; that is their purpose. Your account stores the app’s DeviceCheck token so our server can read and update them.
Notifications
Only if you allow notifications, the app sends our server its push token, app and iOS version, and language and region, for monthly updates about your saved ideas through Apple’s push service. A notification names the idea and what changed.
Where data is stored
Our server runs on Render, and our database and file storage are on Supabase, both in Frankfurt, Germany. Your files sit in private storage only our server can read.
How long we keep it
- Account, history and saved ideas: until you delete them.
- Deleted scans and ideas: within minutes (a scan saved as an idea stays until the idea goes).
- Attached files: soon after the scan finishes. Uploads never sent: one day.
- Providers’ answers, kept so a retried scan isn’t paid for twice, and scan progress updates: 7 days.
- Apple’s notifications about subscriptions: up to 30 days.
- Messages to support: as long as we need them to answer you and follow up.
- Hashed-address counters: up to 3 days.
- Cached market data, not linked to you: a day to a month; business-type search phrases: up to 6 months.
- Database backups can hold deleted data for a limited time.
Deleting your data
In Profile, “Delete my data” erases your account, scans, ideas, photos and files, and what the app keeps on your iPhone. The account stops working at once; the rest is purged within minutes. “Clear scan history” removes scans not saved as ideas; single scans and ideas can be deleted too. Deleting the app alone deletes nothing on our server. Afterwards, only this remains:
- the DeviceCheck bits at Apple, so a new account on this iPhone gets only the free scans that were left;
- provider cost records, with no link to you;
- the hashed-address counters (up to 3 days) and Apple’s subscription notifications (up to 30 days);
- messages you sent to support, which we delete if you ask;
- shared market data not linked to you, and backups, until they expire.
International transfers
Some providers process data outside the European Economic Area: our AI provider runs the AI model in Singapore. Where the law requires it, we rely on safeguards such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses.
Age
Mint is only for people aged 18 or over, and creating an account requires confirming it. We don’t knowingly collect data from anyone younger. If you believe a minor uses Mint, contact support@hellomint.app.
Your rights
Under the GDPR and similar laws, you can ask for access to your data, its correction or deletion, restriction of or objection to its processing, and a portable copy: email support@hellomint.app. With no login, a letter sent from “Contact support” in Profile carries your account ID, which helps us find your account; we may also ask for details, such as when you made a scan and what it showed. In the app you can edit your profile and delete scans, ideas or everything. You may also complain to a data protection authority where you live or work.
Changes to this policy
We’ll post changes on this page and update the effective date, currently 10 October 2026.