Fern is tax-aware budgeting for the self-employed — a mobile app and this website (together, the Service). Fern helps freelancers, 1099 contractors, and other self-employed people track a tax set-aside when they confirm a deposit and see what is safe to spend. The Service is operated by JPX Software Inc. ( "Fern," "we," "us," or "our").
This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. By using the Service you agree to the practices described here.
Information we collect
We collect what we need to run the Service. That includes the following.
Account and sign-in
You sign in with a one-time code sent to your email address, with Sign in with Apple, or with Google. Fern does not use passwords. We receive and store your email address (or the private relay address Apple gives us if you choose Hide My Email), your name if you give it or your sign-in provider shares it, and a user ID. If you sign in with Apple or Google, that provider handles the sign-in under its own privacy policy.
Tax profile you provide
Information you enter to personalize your estimates: your filing status, your state, the percentage of income you want to reserve for taxes, and your name (if you sign in with Apple or Google, we may pre-fill it with the name that provider shares, and you can change it). Deductions you confirm or dismiss and savings goals you create (including the names you give them) are stored with your account.
Financial data via Plaid (only if you connect a bank)
Connecting a financial account is optional. If you do, you sign in to your bank through Plaid; Fern never sees or stores your bank username or password. Plaid then lets us read, on your behalf:
- Account details: institution name, account names, types, the last few digits (mask), and balances.
- Transactions: amount, date, description and merchant name, Plaid's category, payer or counterparty names, any sender memo, and whether the transaction is pending.
- Investment holdings (securities, quantities, values), where your institution provides them.
Access is read-only: Fern cannot move money in your accounts. Plaid also collects and uses information directly from you and your bank under its own terms; see the Plaid End User Privacy Policy. The access tokens we use to retrieve your data are stored in an encrypted vault. When you disconnect a bank in the app, we revoke our access at Plaid, delete the stored token, and delete that bank's accounts and transactions from Fern.
Tax and budgeting activity
Records of how you use Fern, including:
- Deposits you confirm or dismiss as income.
- Amounts you set aside for taxes (a figure tracked inside the app; no money is moved).
- Budgets, notification preferences, and notifications we have sent you.
Subscriptions
If you subscribe to Fern Pro in the app, the store you bought it from processes the payment: Apple on iPhone, Google Play on Android. We never receive your card number or your Apple or Google payment details. We receive and store subscription records from that store: product, price, trial and renewal status, dates, refund or revocation events, and the store's transaction or purchase identifiers. If Pro is offered outside the app stores, Stripe processes that payment and we store the identifiers needed to manage it.
Notifications
If you allow push notifications, we store a push token for your device. Push messages are delivered through Expo's push service and Apple's notification service and can include details such as a deposit amount and who it came from, or a goal name. We also send emails about deposits to review and milestones through Resend. You can turn these on or off in the app under Notifications, or turn off push in iOS Settings. Messages about a problem with a connected bank cannot be turned off.
AI assistant ("Ask Fern")
Ask Fern is a Fern Pro feature. On iPhones that support Apple Intelligence (iOS 26 or later), it runs on your device using Apple's on-device model: your question and the summary of your figures it reads are not sent to Fern or to an AI provider. The assistant can be wrong and is not tax or financial advice. Older versions of the app (before 1.0.2) send your question and a summary of your figures (such as safe-to-spend, tax set-aside, and reserve rate, not your transaction list) to our server, which passes them to our AI provider, Anthropic, to generate an answer, if that legacy service is turned on. Updating the app keeps the assistant on your device.
Website visitors and the contact form
If you send a message through the form on this website, we collect your name, email, and message, plus the page, referrer, campaign (UTM) parameters, and browser user agent from your visit. We store it, add you to our mailing list, and email you a confirmation through Resend. A notification of each submission, including its contents, is sent to the founder through Telegram. You can ask us to delete it at any time.
This website uses Vercel Web Analytics to count visits. According to Vercel's documentation, each page view can record the page address (with filtered query parameters), the referrer, approximate location (country, region, and city), device type, and browser and operating-system type and version. Vercel states that it does not use third-party cookies for this: a visitor is identified by a hash created from the request, and that session information is discarded after 24 hours. We do not run advertising or cross-site tracking pixels on this website, and we do not send events about your visit to TikTok, Meta, or other ad networks. The site's fonts are served from our own domain. See the Cookie Policy.
Usage analytics and diagnostics in the app
In the app, Fern records a small set of first-party product events (first app open, onboarding started and completed, first deposit confirmed, paywall viewed, checkout started) in our own database. Each event is linked to your account and a random per-install identifier, and includes your app version, platform, and language setting. Event details are limited to a fixed list of non-financial fields (for example, which plan was shown); they contain no dollar amounts, balances, merchants, or bank names. We also derive subscription events (start, renewal, cancellation, expiry, refund) from Apple's and Google Play's verified transaction records. We use this to understand and improve the Service. The app has no advertising or third-party analytics SDK and does not track you across other companies' apps or websites.
When enabled, the app and our servers send crash and error reports to Sentry. We configure Sentry not to collect personal information by default, but reports can include technical details such as device model, OS and app version, and error context.
In the app, we also record which screens you open and which features you use (for example, confirming a deposit, creating a savings goal, or changing a chart's date range), with the app version, your platform, and a random identifier created on your device. These usage statistics are not linked to your account, and they never include amounts, balances, merchant or bank names, your email, or anything you type. We use them only in aggregate, to learn which parts of Fern are used most and least, and keep them for 180 days.
You can turn off usage statistics, the product events above, and crash reports in the app at Profile → Privacy → Share usage statistics. When it is off, the app stops recording them and discards anything it has not sent yet.
How we use your information
- Provide, operate, and secure the Service and your account.
- Calculate your tax set-aside, safe-to-spend, deduction, and savings estimates from the data and settings you provide.
- Detect likely income deposits in connected accounts for you to review.
- Respond to your questions through the AI assistant and support.
- Process subscriptions, prevent fraud and abuse, and keep billing records.
- Send the notifications and emails described above and respond to your messages.
- Improve the Service using product events, website analytics, and diagnostics.
- Comply with legal obligations.
Selling and sharing
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We share information only with the service providers below, with Apple and your bank or sign-in provider as part of the features you use, or as required by law (and in a sale or merger of the business).
Service providers and other recipients
These companies process data for us or as part of features you use:
- Supabase — database, sign-in, and backend functions for your account data.
- Fly.io — hosting for our API servers.
- Plaid — connections to your financial institutions (see Plaid's End User Privacy Policy).
- Apple — subscription billing, Sign in with Apple, and push notification delivery.
- Google — sign-in, if you choose Google; Google Play billing for subscriptions bought on Android; and Android push notification delivery.
- Expo — push notification relay.
- Resend — sending email.
- Sentry — crash and error reporting (when enabled).
- Anthropic — assistant responses for app versions before 1.0.2 only, if the legacy service is on.
- Stripe — payments, only where Pro is purchased outside the App Store.
- Vercel — website hosting (including standard server logs) and website analytics.
- Telegram — internal notification of website contact-form submissions.
Service providers may use your information only to perform services for Fern, under their own terms and policies.
Security
We take reasonable measures to protect your information, including:
- Encryption in transit (TLS) and encryption at rest by our database provider.
- Bank access tokens held in a separate encrypted vault.
- Per-user row-level security that isolates your data from other users.
- Restricted access to production systems.
No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please keep access to your devices and sign-in methods protected.
Data retention and deletion
We keep your information while your account is active. To delete your account, open the app and go to Profile → Delete account (if you signed in with Apple on an iPhone you will be asked to confirm with Apple so we can revoke the connection). You can also email us to delete it. Deleting your account:
- revokes our access to your connected banks at Plaid and deletes the stored tokens;
- permanently deletes your account and the data tied to it, including your profile, accounts, transactions, income and deduction records, goals, notifications, push tokens, and app analytics events;
- revokes the Sign in with Apple connection, if you used it.
It does not cancel a subscription. Cancel an App Store subscription in Settings → your name → Subscriptions on your iPhone, or a Google Play subscription in the Google Play Store → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions. Subscription and billing records are kept after deletion without being linked to your account, as needed for tax, accounting, and refund records. Backups held by our infrastructure providers age out on their normal schedules. Contact-form messages are not tied to an app account; email us to have them removed. Information held by Plaid, Apple, Google, Sentry, Resend, and the other providers above is governed by their own retention policies. We may keep limited information where the law requires.
Your privacy rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to know what we collect and why, access, correct, delete, or export your personal information, and to not be treated differently for exercising those rights.
- California (CCPA/CPRA): the categories we collect are described above: identifiers and contact information, financial account and transaction information, purchase records, internet and app activity, device and diagnostic information, and the content of messages you send us. We collect them to provide and improve the Service, as described under "How we use your information." We keep them as described under "Data retention and deletion." You may request access, correction, or deletion. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes beyond providing the Service. You may use an authorized agent.
- EEA and UK (GDPR): Fern is offered in the United States. Where the GDPR applies, you have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection.
To exercise any of these rights, email support@getfernapp.com from the address on your account (we may need to verify it's you). You can also delete your account directly in the app.
Children's privacy
The Service is not directed to anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.
International users
Fern is offered in the United States and operated from, and your information is processed in, the United States. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you understand your information will be processed there.
Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date above and, where appropriate, provide additional notice. Your continued use of the Service after an update means you accept the revised policy.
Contact us
Questions about this policy or your information? Email support@getfernapp.com, or write to Fern, JPX Software Inc. You can read more about the Service at https://www.getfernapp.com.