How Dowel handles your information.
Dowel is a budgeting and money management app designed to help individuals and households plan, track, and manage their money with greater clarity.
Last updated: October 10, 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Dowel Budgeting App Inc., operating as Dowel, collects, uses, shares, stores, and protects personal information when you visit our website, use the Dowel app, contact us, or interact with our services.
This Privacy Policy describes our practices. Where consent is required by applicable law, Dowel seeks consent for the relevant collection, use, or disclosure of personal information.
1. Our privacy commitment
Dowel is built around trust. Because budgeting information can be personal and sensitive, we aim to collect only what we need, use it only for clear purposes, protect it responsibly, and be transparent about how it is handled.
Dowel is a manual-first budgeting app. At this time, Dowel does not connect directly to your bank account, does not collect your online banking login credentials, and does not move money in or out of your bank account.
2. Information we collect
We collect personal information in a few different ways, depending on how you use Dowel.
Account information
When you create or use a Dowel account, we may collect name, email address, login and authentication information, account status, household membership or invitation details, preferences, and app settings.
Budgeting and money management information
Dowel collects the budgeting and money management information you choose to enter into the app. This may include income sources and income amounts, budget categories, planned spending amounts, expenses and transactions, transaction dates, notes and descriptions, savings goals, giving goals or giving contributions, set-aside or reserve amounts, recurring income or recurring expense schedules, monthly budget summaries and archive records, and other budgeting details you choose to enter.
This information is used to operate the app and provide budgeting features such as dashboards, category tracking, recurring entries, month-end summaries, household views, and progress tracking.
Household/shared budgeting information
Dowel may allow users to create or join a shared household budget. If you are part of a shared household, information entered into that household may be visible to other authorized household members.
This may include shared income planning, spending categories, transactions, savings goals, giving goals, budget progress, monthly summaries, and other household budgeting information.
You should only join or create a shared household with people you trust to view shared budget information.
Website and contact information
When you visit our website or contact us, we may collect name and email address, messages or support requests you send to us, information submitted through forms, newsletter or waitlist signup information if applicable, and basic website usage information such as browser type, device type, pages visited, referring pages, and approximate location based on IP address.
Technical, usage, and security information
We may collect limited technical information necessary to operate, secure, and troubleshoot Dowel, including IP address, device and browser information, request and log data, error, crash and performance data, and security and authentication events. Optional product analytics are described in Section 7 and are not enabled unless you choose to enable them.
Payment and subscription information
Dowel offers paid subscription plans through Apple's App Store. Apple processes App Store purchases and payment information. Dowel uses RevenueCat to help manage subscription status and entitlements.
Dowel does not receive or store your full payment card number. Dowel and RevenueCat may receive limited subscription-related information such as subscription status, purchase confirmation, transaction or product identifiers, plan type, renewal status, entitlement status, and related billing metadata.
3. Information we do not collect
At this time, Dowel does not collect your online banking username or password, connect directly to your bank account, import bank transactions automatically, move money between accounts, sell your personal financial information, or make lending, credit, banking, or investment decisions.
Dowel is a budgeting and money management tool. It is not a bank, financial institution, investment advisor, credit counsellor, or accounting firm.
4. How we use your information
We use personal information to create, maintain, and secure your account; provide the Dowel app and website; display your budget, dashboard, categories, transactions, savings, giving, and monthly summaries; support shared household budgeting features; process recurring budget entries; save your settings and preferences; provide customer support; respond to questions, requests, or feedback; improve app performance, usability, and reliability; monitor for errors, abuse, fraud, or security issues; send important service-related notices; manage subscriptions and billing-related account status; and comply with legal, regulatory, tax, security, or business obligations.
Where you explicitly enable optional product analytics, Dowel may also use a limited set of approved interaction events to understand how selected features are used and improve the Dowel experience. Optional product analytics are not required to use Dowel.
5. Consent
We collect, use, and disclose personal information with your consent where consent is required by law, and otherwise as permitted or required by applicable law.
Consent may be provided through your actions when you create an account, use the website or app, enter budgeting information, join or create a household, submit a form, contact us, or subscribe to updates. For optional product analytics, Dowel asks for a separate, explicit choice in the app. Product analytics remain off unless you enable them.
You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal, contractual, technical, or operational limitations. If you withdraw consent for information that is necessary to provide the app, Dowel may no longer be able to provide some or all services to you.
6. How we share information
We do not sell your personal financial information.
With authorized household members
If you use a shared household budget, information entered into that household may be visible to other authorized members of the household.
With service providers
We may share information with service providers that help us operate, host, secure, support, analyze, or improve Dowel. At launch, principal providers include Base44 for app infrastructure, authentication, and data storage; Framer for website hosting and delivery; Apple and Google for authentication when you choose their sign-in options; Apple for App Store purchase and subscription processing; RevenueCat for subscription status and entitlement management; and PostHog for optional product analytics only when you enable that feature.
We limit information shared with service providers to what is reasonably necessary for their role. Depending on the provider and service, information may also be subject to that provider's own privacy terms and practices.
For legal and safety reasons
We may disclose information if we believe it is reasonably necessary to comply with the law, respond to lawful requests, court orders, or legal processes, protect the rights, safety, or security of Dowel, our users, or others, investigate fraud, abuse, unauthorized access, or security incidents, or enforce our terms, policies, or agreements.
Business transfers
If Dowel is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, or similar business transaction, personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to appropriate confidentiality and privacy protections.
7. Cookies, authentication, and optional analytics
Dowel's website and app may use authentication tokens, local storage, cookies, and similar technologies that are necessary to sign users in, maintain sessions, remember preferences, and operate and secure the services.
Optional in-app product analytics are off by default. If an authenticated user explicitly enables Product Analytics in Dowel, we use PostHog to collect only a limited set of approved product-interaction events so we can understand whether selected setup features are being used. PostHog may assign an anonymous analytics identifier after consent, but Dowel does not send your Dowel account ID, email address, or household ID to PostHog and does not identify you in PostHog.
Under Dowel's current product analytics design, we do not send budgeting amounts, balances, transaction details, merchant or description data, category names, giving or savings details, or other financial information to PostHog. We disable autocapture, pageview and pageleave capture, session replay, heatmaps, exception capture, and similar broad tracking features. Website hosting, app infrastructure, authentication, and security providers may still process standard technical data such as IP address, device or browser information, request logs, security events, and approximate location derived from IP as necessary to operate and protect the services. Dowel does not use analytics for cross-app advertising or sell analytics data for advertising purposes.
8. Email communications
We may send you service-related emails about your account, security, policy updates, product changes, or important app notices.
If you sign up for marketing emails, updates, or a waitlist, we may send occasional promotional or product-related messages. You can unsubscribe from marketing emails using the unsubscribe link in the email or by contacting us.
You may still receive non-promotional service emails that are necessary for your account or use of Dowel.
9. Storage and processing of information
Dowel and our service providers may store or process personal information in Canada, the United States, or other jurisdictions where our service providers operate.
If information is stored or processed outside your province, territory, or country, it may be subject to the laws of that jurisdiction, including lawful access by courts, law enforcement, or government authorities.
We take reasonable steps to ensure that personal information is protected when handled by our service providers.
10. How we protect information
We use reasonable physical, organizational, and technical safeguards designed to protect personal information against loss, theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use, or modification.
These safeguards may include access controls, authentication protections, secure service providers, encryption or secure transmission where appropriate, monitoring and logging, limiting access to personal information based on need, and administrative and technical security practices.
No system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. Users are responsible for keeping their login credentials confidential and for using a secure device and network when accessing Dowel.
11. Retention of information
We retain personal information only as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.
The length of time we retain information may depend on whether your account is active, whether the information is needed to provide Dowel, legal, accounting, tax, security, or compliance requirements, backup and disaster recovery processes, and dispute resolution or enforcement needs.
If you delete your account or request deletion, we will take reasonable steps to delete or anonymize personal information, subject to legal, technical, backup, security, or legitimate business requirements.
12. Your privacy rights
Depending on where you live and subject to applicable law, you may have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, request access to your personal information, request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information, withdraw consent where applicable, request deletion of your account or certain information, ask questions about how your information is collected, used, disclosed, or protected, and make a privacy complaint.
To make a privacy request, contact us using the information below. We may need to verify your identity before responding.
13. Account deletion
You may request deletion of your Dowel account by using the account deletion option in the app or by contacting us.
When your account is deleted, Dowel will take reasonable steps to delete or anonymize personal information associated with your account, subject to legal, technical, backup, security, and legitimate business requirements.
If you are part of a shared household, deleting your account may not automatically delete information that belongs to the household or information entered by other household members.
14. Accuracy of information
Dowel relies on the information you enter into the app. You are responsible for keeping your account and budgeting information accurate and up to date.
You may update or correct much of your information directly in the app. For other correction requests, contact us.
15. Children and minors
Dowel is not designed for use by children. Dowel should only be used by individuals who are old enough to understand this Privacy Policy and provide valid consent, or by users with the involvement and consent of a parent or legal guardian where required by law.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children without appropriate consent. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child in a way that does not comply with applicable law, we will take reasonable steps to delete it.
16. Financial disclaimer
Dowel helps users organize and understand their budgets. Dowel does not provide financial, legal, tax, investment, credit, or accounting advice.
Any budgeting insights, summaries, progress indicators, or calculations in Dowel are based on information entered by users and are provided for planning and informational purposes only.
17. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will take reasonable steps to notify users, such as posting the updated policy on our website, updating the Last updated date, or providing notice through the app or email.
If a material change requires new consent under applicable law, we will seek that consent before applying the new practice. Otherwise, the updated Privacy Policy will apply from the effective date shown above.
18. Contact us
If you have questions, requests, or concerns about this Privacy Policy or Dowel's privacy practices, contact us at:
Privacy Contact: Privacy Officer
Email: privacy@getdowel.com
Company: Dowel Budgeting App Inc.
Address: 1958 Gough Ave., London, Ontario N5X 0H2
Location: Ontario, Canada
You may also contact us if you wish to access, correct, delete, or ask questions about your personal information.