Privacy Policy

01 Who we are

MarginMate Ltd ("MarginMate", "we", "us") is a company based in the Isle of Man. We build and operate the MarginMate app — business management software for trades businesses — and we publish the website at marginmateltd.com.

MarginMate Ltd is the data controller responsible for the personal information described in this policy. Our privacy point of contact is support@marginmateltd.com; you can use that address for any privacy question or request.

02 What this policy covers

This policy covers the MarginMate mobile app (including the version distributed on Google Play) and this website. It does not cover other companies' websites or services that we link to, such as Facebook — those have their own privacy policies.

One distinction matters if you use the app to run your business. Information about you and your MarginMate account is information we control and are responsible for. The business records you put into the app — your customers, their addresses, your quotes, jobs and invoices — remain yours. We hold and process that content on your behalf so the app can work for you, and we do not use it for our own purposes.

03 Information we collect

When you use this website

• Your email address, if you submit the beta access form. That is the only field we store from the form.
• Basic technical information that any web server records when a page is requested: IP address, browser and device type, the pages requested and the date and time. Our hosting provider handles this for security, abuse prevention and reliability.

This website does not use advertising cookies or third-party tracking pixels. Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your IP address is visible to Google when a page loads.

When you use the MarginMate app

• Account information — your name, business name, email address, the credentials you use to sign in, and your contact preferences.
• Business records you enter — customers and their contact details, quotes and estimates, jobs, invoices and payments, materials, labour rates, expenses, VAT figures, notes and any photos or files you attach to a job.
• Job and site addresses you enter, which are used to show jobs on a map and to group work by location. If a feature needs your device's own location, the app asks for your permission first, and you can withdraw that permission at any time in your device settings.
• Device and diagnostic information — device model, operating system version, app version, and crash and error reports, so we can fix faults and keep the app stable.
• Subscription and payment status. If you subscribe through an app store, the store handles the payment; we receive the status of the subscription, not your full card details.
• Support correspondence — the messages you send us and our replies.

We do not collect health data, biometric data, contacts, call logs, SMS messages or your photo library. We only access the camera or files when you choose to attach something to a job.

04 How we use your information

• To create and run your account and to provide the features you have signed up for, including producing quotes, invoices, VAT figures and reports from the data you enter.
• To keep your data available and in sync across the devices you sign in on.
• To answer your questions and provide support.
• To keep the service secure — detecting and preventing fraud, abuse and unauthorised access.
• To fix problems and improve the app, using diagnostic and crash information.
• To send you service messages you need to receive, such as billing notices, security alerts and important changes to the app.
• To tell you about the beta and launch, if you asked us to by joining the waitlist. Every such email includes a way to opt out.
• To meet our legal, accounting and tax obligations.

We do not sell your personal information, we do not use it for advertising or profiling, and we do not share your business records with other MarginMate customers.

05 Our legal bases

Isle of Man data protection law (which applies the GDPR standard) requires us to have a legal basis for using your personal information. Ours are:

• Performance of a contract — providing the app and your account to you.
• Legitimate interests — keeping the service secure and reliable, fixing faults, and improving the product, balanced against your rights.
• Consent — beta and launch emails, and any permission-based feature such as device location. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• Legal obligation — where we must keep records or respond to a lawful request.

06 Who we share information with

We share personal information only with organisations that help us run MarginMate, and only as far as they need it to do that job. They are contractually required to protect it and may not use it for their own purposes. They currently include:

• Netlify — hosting for this website and the database that stores beta signup email addresses.
• Cloud hosting and database providers — the infrastructure that stores and serves your app data.
• Google — Google Fonts serves the fonts on this website; Google Play distributes the Android app and provides us with aggregate, non-identifying installation and crash statistics.
• Email delivery providers — for the service and waitlist emails we send.
• Professional advisers — such as our accountants and lawyers, where required.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it, to protect our rights or someone's safety, or in connection with a sale or reorganisation of our business — in which case the buyer would be bound by this policy or give you notice before anything changed.

07 How we keep information secure

• All traffic between your device and our servers is encrypted in transit using HTTPS/TLS.
• Data is stored on managed infrastructure from established providers, with encryption at rest.
• Passwords are stored using one-way hashing; we never store them in a readable form and we cannot see them.
• Access to production systems and customer data is restricted to the small number of people who need it, and is protected by strong authentication.
• We take regular backups so your records can be restored, and we keep our software and dependencies up to date.

No system can be guaranteed completely secure, but we take these measures seriously and review them as the product grows. If you believe your account has been compromised, or you have found a security issue, please email support@marginmateltd.com and we will respond promptly.

08 How long we keep information

• Beta waitlist email addresses — kept until launch and for up to 12 months afterwards, or until you ask us to remove you, whichever comes first.
• Account information and business records — kept for as long as your account is open. If you close or delete your account, see the next section.
• Diagnostic and crash logs — kept for up to 12 months, then deleted.
• Server access logs — kept for a short period, typically no more than 90 days.
• Billing and tax records — kept for as long as Isle of Man law requires us to keep financial records, currently up to six years, even after an account is deleted.

Where we must keep something for legal, accounting, security or fraud-prevention reasons, we keep only the minimum necessary and we do not use it for anything else.

09 Deleting your account and data

You can ask us to delete your MarginMate account and the data associated with it at any time. Deleting your account deletes your data — we do not simply deactivate or freeze it.

If you only want to be removed from our beta waitlist or mailing list, email the same address and ask to be removed; no account deletion is needed.

10 Your privacy rights

Subject to the conditions in applicable data protection law, you have the right to:

• Ask what personal information we hold about you and get a copy of it.
• Have inaccurate information corrected.
• Have your information deleted.
• Ask us to restrict or stop using your information, or object to our use of it.
• Receive your information in a portable format, or have it transferred to another provider.
• Withdraw consent you have given, at any time.

Email support@marginmateltd.com to exercise any of these. We will respond within one month. You will not be charged, and we will never restrict your use of MarginMate for making a request.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information you can complain to the Isle of Man Information Commissioner (inforights.im). If you are in the UK or the EEA, you may instead complain to your own national data protection authority.

11 International transfers

We are based in the Isle of Man, and some of the providers listed in section 06 store or process data outside the Isle of Man, including in the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area and the United States. Where that happens we rely on recognised safeguards — an adequacy decision, or standard contractual clauses with the provider — so your information keeps an equivalent level of protection.

12 Children's privacy

MarginMate is a tool for businesses and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has given us their information, email us and we will delete it.

13 Changes to this policy

As MarginMate develops, this policy will be updated. The current version always lives at this address, and the date at the top shows when it last changed. If a change materially affects how we handle your information, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect.

14 How to contact us

For any question or request about this policy or your information, please get in touch — we read everything sent to this address.