Privacy, in plain English

Last updated: August 11, 2026

Crier narrates writing. To do that we necessarily handle your words, and if you use the reader app, your email. This page says exactly what we do with both — in the same plain language we'd want from a tool we trusted with our own writing.

The three promises

• Your content is processed solely to generate your audio — never sold, never used to train AI models, deleted on request.
• AI features are opt-in and metered. Nothing is sent to an AI model without your explicit opt-in, every AI call is recorded against your account, and synthesis that we can't meter is refused rather than run.
• You own the audio and can export everything, always.

What we collect

• Content you give us to narrate — published issues, manuscripts, or articles you share into the service. Stored encrypted at rest.
• Account basics — an email address and the settings you choose (voices, reading preferences).
• Payment records — handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card number; we keep only the receipt (what was bought, when).
• Listener activation counts for creator feeds — how many subscribers added a feed and fetched episodes. Counts, not identities: we do not build listening profiles of your readers.

What we deliberately do not do

• We do not sell or share your content or your subscribers' data with anyone, for anything.
• We do not use your content to train AI models, and our provider agreements do not permit them to either.
• We do not run advertising or advertising trackers. Site analytics are cookie-free, aggregate page counts.
• Automated ingestion (mail we fetch for you in the reader app) is classified on our own servers with local rules — it is never sent to an AI provider without your opt-in.

Who touches your data on our behalf

Narration requires sending the approved manuscript text to a speech provider, and payments require a processor. Our subprocessors:

• Speech synthesis: OpenAI, Fish Audio, ElevenLabs, Cartesia — receive only the text of the manuscript being narrated, per episode, to produce the audio.
• Payments: Stripe.
• Hosting and DNS: Cloudflare.

Voice cloning

We create a cloned voice only from recordings whose speaker has given us documented consent, and we keep the consent record alongside the clone. A cloned voice belongs to the account that made it and is deleted, at the provider too, when you delete it or your account.

Deletion

Account deletion is built into the product, not a support ticket. Deleting your account erases your content, audio, settings, and any cloned voices — including at the providers — and the deletion is durable: interrupted cleanups finish on our side even if you never open the app again. Payment receipts are retained as required by tax law. Or email [email protected] and we'll do it for you.

Where and how long

Content lives on our servers, encrypted at rest, for as long as your account exists or until you delete it — whichever comes first. We keep operational logs (errors, request metadata, never content bodies) for up to 90 days.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we'll email account holders before it takes effect. Questions: [email protected].