Privacy policy

Monthly Shell keeps your money data on your device. We run no server and receive none of it. If you turn Family Sync on, one profile goes to your own iCloud and nowhere else.

Effective 18 September 2026. This is the same policy the app shows you in Settings → About → Privacy.

Who we are

Monthly Shell is made by Vidabyte (https://vidabyte.com), which builds tools meant to make people more capable with technology rather than more dependent on it.

That principle is why this app works the way it does: your money data belongs to you, it lives on your device, and we are never in the loop.

What we collect

Nothing.

Monthly Shell has no user accounts, no sign-in, and no servers of its own. We do not collect your name, your email, your device identifiers, or your financial data, because there is nowhere for us to collect it to.

This is not a promise to handle your data carefully. It is the absence of any data for us to handle.

There is one way data leaves your phone without you exporting it, and only one: Family Sync, which you have to turn on yourself. It sends to your own iCloud, not to us. The section below says exactly what it sends, and we still receive none of it.

Where your data lives

Everything you enter — income, budgets, accounts, transactions, notes, and coach settings — is stored in a database file inside the app on your device.

If you have iCloud backups turned on, that file is included in your backups, the same as any other app data. Those backups are handled by Apple under its own privacy policy, not ours.

Without Family Sync, that is the end of the story: nothing else goes anywhere.

Family Sync

Family Sync is an optional part of a paid subscription. It is off until you turn it on, and there is a screen that explains all of this before you do.

When it is on, one profile — the household you chose — is copied to your own iCloud account so the people you invited can see it and add to it. Your other profiles never leave the phone.

What goes: that profile’s budgets, income, accounts, activity and bill reminders. What never goes: the notes you write on a transaction, every other profile, your settings, and everything the coach has ever said.

It is encrypted on your device before it is sent, with keys held by you and the people you invited. We cannot read it. Apple stores it without being able to read it either. Only the people in your household can.

Because the data sits in your iCloud, Apple’s iCloud terms and Apple’s privacy policy apply to it while it is there, alongside this one.

There is no invitation by email and no contact details are collected. You share a link from your phone, to whoever you choose, however you like.

Turn Family Sync off, or leave a household somebody else runs, and your copy stays on your phone and keeps working. Nothing is deleted from your device by leaving, by stopping the subscription, or by us.

To remove the household’s data from iCloud, the person who created it opens Settings → Family Sync and chooses Delete from iCloud. That deletes the copy Apple holds; every member keeps the copy already on their own phone. Deleting the app, or signing out of iCloud, removes nothing from the other members’ phones either — their copy was always theirs.

Bank connections

There are none. Monthly Shell never asks for bank credentials and has no ability to connect to a financial institution. Every figure in the app is one you typed in.

The camera and receipts

The receipt scanner uses your camera to read an amount from a receipt. The photo is processed on your device and is never uploaded, stored, or sent anywhere. Only the number you confirm is saved, and only as an ordinary transaction.

You can decline camera access and use the app fully — the keypad does everything the scanner does.

The coach

The coach runs on your phone. It reads the numbers already in the app, writes its note there, and sends nothing anywhere — there is no service behind it and no text of yours is transmitted to be processed.

On an iPhone that has Apple Intelligence, the phone’s own on-device writing model can smooth the wording. That happens on the phone too, and you can switch it off.

In a household the coach talks to you about your own month and about the household as a whole. It never names another person and never comments on what they spent. That is a rule in the code, not a guideline.

Notifications

The reminders you see are scheduled locally by the app on your device. There is no push server of ours, and no notification content ever leaves your phone.

If you use Family Sync, Apple’s own silent push tells the app that something in your household changed so it can fetch it. Those carry no message, show nothing, and reach nobody but your own devices.

You can turn notifications off entirely in Settings, or per event.

Analytics and tracking

There are none. Monthly Shell contains no analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, no crash reporter, and no third-party trackers. We do not know how many people use the app or what they do in it.

Subscriptions

The extras are a subscription, bought and managed through the App Store. Apple handles the payment and tells this app one thing: whether a subscription is active. We never see your payment details, and we receive no report of who subscribed.

Manage or cancel it the way you manage every other subscription — in the Settings app, under your Apple Account. Cancelling stops the extras. It deletes nothing.

Sharing and selling

We do not share or sell your data, because we do not have it. There is no third party in this app to hand it to.

Data leaves your device in exactly two ways, both of them yours: when you export it — the CSV, the spreadsheet and the full backup all hand a file to your own share sheet, and where it goes from there is your choice — and when you turn Family Sync on, which sends one profile to your own iCloud for the people you invited.

Deleting your data

Deleting a transaction, budget, or account removes it immediately — there are no hidden archives. Deleting the app removes the database file and everything in it.

If you used Family Sync, delete the household from iCloud first (Settings → Family Sync), because deleting the app leaves that copy behind in your iCloud. Everything else about deletion is unchanged: we hold nothing, so there is no request to make of us.

Children

Monthly Shell is not directed at children under 13 and we knowingly collect no data from anyone, including children.

Changes

This policy is effective as of 18 September 2026. If it ever changes in a way that affects how your data is handled, the updated policy will ship in an app update and be readable here before the change takes effect.

Questions, or anything that reads wrong to you: hello@vidabyte.com