Privacy Policy

Effective October 14, 2026

This policy covers the Living Soil app and the website makelivingsoil.com, both run by Make Living Soil LLC ("we", "us"). The short version: browsing needs no account; unlocking recipes needs a small account that holds your credits and recipes; there are no ads and no analytics; and your own saved mixes never leave your phone.

What stays on your phone

Your saved mixes, batches, ingredient stock and app settings are stored only on your device. We never receive them. If you delete the app, they are deleted with it, unless you made a backup.

A backup is a file you create and choose where to send, for example to your own email or cloud storage. We never receive it unless you send it to us yourself.

Recipes you have unlocked are also copied onto your phone so they work with no signal. Signing out removes that copy.

If you use Living Soil in a web browser at app.makelivingsoil.com, the same applies to that browser: your saved mixes and settings, and the copy of your unlocked recipes, are kept in the browser's own storage on that computer, and we never receive them. Clearing the browser's site data removes them.

Your account

You can browse every plant's overview without an account. To unlock recipes you sign in with Apple or with Google, or create an account with your email address and a password. With Apple or Google we never see or store a password: we receive an account identifier and the email address Apple or Google shares with us, and with Apple you can choose to share a private relay address instead of your own.

With an email account we store your email address, and our hosting provider stores your password only in scrambled (hashed) form, so nobody can read it, us included. We email you a link to confirm the address, and the account cannot spend credits or receive the free recipe until it is confirmed. If you forget your password, we email you a link to set a new one.

Your account holds: your credit balance and the record of credits added and spent, the recipes you have unlocked, any plan you hold and when it renews, when a calculator pass runs out, and any feedback you send us about a mix.

Our server runs on Supabase, a hosting provider that stores this data for us and processes it only on our instructions.

Fraud and abuse prevention

Living Soil's recipes are what people pay for, so we work to stop automated accounts and bulk copying. To do that:

• When you claim the free recipe, and every time you spend a credit, the app asks Google Play Integrity (Android) or Apple DeviceCheck (iPhone) to confirm the request comes from a genuine phone running the real app. With DeviceCheck, Apple keeps a small marker for your device recording that it has had its free recipe, and one for a device we have found being misused.
• On Android we record a device identifier that Google provides for fraud prevention, in scrambled (hashed) form, so we can tell when many accounts come from one phone. We never store the identifier itself.
• In a web browser there is no phone to check, so every time you spend a credit there the app runs Cloudflare Turnstile (below) instead, tied to that one request. The free recipe and feedback credits are only offered in the phone apps.
• When you create an email account (in the app or on makelivingsoil.com/start.html), sign in with email or ask for a password reset, Living Soil runs Cloudflare Turnstile, a check that tells people from automated programs without a puzzle. Cloudflare processes signals such as your internet address and browser details to do this, under its Turnstile Privacy Addendum, and does not use them for advertising.
• We record the internet address an account signs up from and uses, and flag patterns such as many accounts from one address.
• When you first sign in with Apple, Apple may tell us whether the account appears to belong to a real person. When you sign in with Google, we note whether Google has verified the email address.
• We keep a log of unlocks, recipe downloads and ingredient searches on your account, with the time and internet address, for 180 days, and limit how many can happen in a short time.
• If you dispute a purchase made in a web browser with your bank, we give Stripe, and through Stripe your bank, the purchase record, your account email and a record of the recipes your account unlocked and opened after the purchase, with their times and internet addresses, as evidence for the dispute.
• Recipes you download carry an invisible mark that identifies the account they were downloaded to, so a copy found elsewhere can be traced.

These signals can flag an account, which then misses the free recipe, or pause new unlocks on it until we review it. We never delete an account on suspicion. If yours is paused, recipes already on your phone still open, and you can write to us.

Feedback on a mix

After you have tried your free recipe, the app may ask how a mix worked for you: a score from 1 to 5 and, if you like, a note. We store it with your account and use it to improve our recipes. It is private: we do not publish it, and it is never posted anywhere as a public rating. Deleting your account deletes it.

Purchases

Purchases are made through Google Play or the Apple App Store. They handle your payment, and we never see your card or payment details. The app sends the store's receipt for a purchase to our server, which asks Google or Apple to confirm it before adding credits. Google and Apple also tell our server about renewals and refunds, so your balance and plan stay correct.

Purchases in a web browser are made on a payment page run by Stripe, our payment processor. Stripe handles your card and payment details, and we never see them. Stripe tells our server when a payment, renewal, refund or dispute happens, and our server asks Stripe to confirm it before changing your credits. We give Stripe your account's email address and an account identifier so the payment is matched to your account, and Stripe keeps a customer record for receipts and for managing a plan. Stripe processes this under its own privacy policy, at stripe.com/privacy.

No ads, no analytics

Living Soil shows no ads and contains no advertising or analytics software. We do not track how you use the app, and we do not sell or share your information with advertisers.

Notifications

If you hold the annual plan and allow notifications, the app reminds you a month before and a week before it renews. These reminders are scheduled on your phone. We do not send them from a server and we do not collect a notification address for your device.

When you write to us

If you email roots@makelivingsoil.com, we receive your email address and whatever you write, and we use it only to answer you. We do not add you to a mailing list.

Emailing your calculator results

On the soil calculator you can ask for your results by email. When you do, we receive your email address, the sizes you entered, the bag size, what you are growing if you choose it, and whether you ticked the box for tips. We keep these so we can send your results, limit how many emails one address or connection can be sent, and, only if you ticked the box, send you soil and feeding tips. Your IP address is used only as a hashed value, to stop the form being misused, and those records are deleted after two days. Cloudflare Turnstile checks the form is used by a person, as it does on sign up.

The email is sent through Resend, our email provider, which processes your address only to deliver it, under its own privacy policy at resend.com/legal/privacy-policy. Every email has an Unsubscribe link that stops the tips at once. To have your address and calculator details deleted, write to us and we will delete them.

This website

makelivingsoil.com sets no cookies and has no analytics. Like any website, the company that hosts it may keep standard server logs, such as IP addresses and the pages requested, for security and to keep the site running.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time in the app, under About, or by emailing roots@makelivingsoil.com from the address on the account. If you signed in with Apple on an iPhone, the app asks Apple to confirm once more, and we then ask Apple to revoke Living Soil's access to your Apple ID before the account is deleted. That deletes your account, your unused credits, your unlocked recipes, your plan record and any feedback you sent from our server. We keep the record of past purchases, with nothing linking it to you, because a business must keep its sales records. An active plan bought in a phone store must also be canceled in your Google Play or Apple subscriptions, which only you can do. A plan bought in a web browser is canceled for you, and your Stripe customer record is deleted, when you delete your account; Stripe keeps its own record of past payments, as the law requires of it.

Children

Living Soil is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

Your choices and rights

You can ask us what we hold about you, or to correct or delete it, by writing to us. Deleting your account in the app does most of this for you straight away.

Changes

If this policy changes, we will update it here and change the effective date at the top.

Contact

Make Living Soil LLC, Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Email roots@makelivingsoil.com
Phone (484) 642-7639