Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

NeighborPrices ("we," "us," or "our") is a community-driven database of what homeowners pay for home services. We are operated as an independent project. You can reach us at [email protected].

2. What Information We Collect

Information you submit voluntarily:

• Price reports: service type, description, city, state, ZIP code, price paid, and optional fields like provider name, rating, job type, and scope notes.
• Price check queries: service type, description, ZIP code, and quoted price. We store these to compute community comparisons and improve matching over time.
• Account information: if you create an account, we store your email address, a hashed password (or a Google account identifier if you sign in with Google), and a display name. If you sign in with Google we also receive your profile photo URL.
• Payment information: if you purchase a one-time unlock for an exact result, payment is processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card number. We do store Stripe checkout and payment identifiers for that purchase and, if you are signed in, may also store a Stripe customer identifier on your account so we can restore access to the result you paid for.

Information collected automatically:

• Page-view records for our own analytics. For each page view we store the request path, the HTTP status code, the referring host (if any), a user-agent class (mobile / desktop / tablet / bot), a bot flag, and the timestamp. We do not use a third-party analytics provider for this.
• IP addresses are not stored in raw form. Each page view stores a salted SHA-256 hash of the IP, truncated, used only to count unique visitors. The hash cannot be reversed back to the original IP.
• If you are signed in when a page view is recorded, the page-view row also stores your user ID so we can troubleshoot account-linked activity and investigate abuse or moderation issues.

3. How We Use Your Information

• To display anonymous community pricing data to other users on cost guide pages and price-check results.
• To improve the accuracy of price comparisons and the quality of our service taxonomy over time.
• To run moderation: surface unusual or potentially unsafe submissions to admins before they appear publicly.
• To attribute a report to your name only if you explicitly opt in.
• To prevent spam and abuse via rate limiting, duplicate detection, and automated content scanning of submitted text.
• To grant access to features you have purchased (one-time result unlock), earned (contributor unlock), or received from another contributor (gifted unlock).

We do not use your personal information for advertising targeting, sell it to third parties, or hand your identifiable submission data to contractors or home service companies as leads.

4. Advertising and Affiliate Links

NeighborPrices funds itself in part through two advertising-related revenue streams. These are described in detail in our About page and the Terms of Service:

• Display advertising: on our high-intent cost guide pages (for example /costs/<service>/<city>) we may serve display ads through a third-party ad network. These ad networks may set their own cookies and may use contextual signals (like the page URL and content) to choose which ad to show. We do not pass them your account information, your submitted reports, or your price check queries. If you are in a region where consent is required for advertising cookies, the ad network is responsible for obtaining that consent.
• Contextual affiliate referrals: on price-check result pages where the verdict is HIGH or INSUFFICIENT DATA, we may show third-party links (for example to Angi or Thumbtack) where you can request additional quotes. These links are labeled sponsored. If you click one and complete an action with the third party, we may receive a commission. We do not package or sell your submission history or account data to those partners as contractor leads.

We never show display ads or affiliate links in a way that is intended to be confused with our own pricing data or recommendations.

5. Data Sharing

We do not sell or rent personal information. We may share data in these limited circumstances:

• Aggregate, anonymized data: Pricing statistics (medians, ranges, counts) are displayed publicly on cost guide pages and may be used in analytics and reports. No individual is identifiable from this data.
• Service providers: We use third-party services to operate the site, including database hosting, email delivery (account verification, password reset, moderation notifications), payment processing (Stripe), and ad serving as described in section 4. These providers process data only as needed to provide their services.
• Legal requirements: We may disclose information if required by law or to protect our legal rights.

6. Cookies

We use the following first-party cookies:

• A session cookie that keeps you signed in after you log in.
• A CSRF token cookie used to protect form submissions from cross-site forgery.
• A short-lived cookie used to track anonymous daily price-check usage so we can apply the daily cap fairly without requiring an account.
• A session value used to remember gifted or paid exact-result unlocks already redeemed in your browser.

Third-party ad networks (see section 4) may set their own cookies on cost guide pages where ads are served. We do not control those cookies and they are governed by the ad network's own privacy policy.

7. Data Retention

• Price reports: Retained indefinitely to build the community dataset. If you want a specific report removed, contact us.
• Price check queries: Retained for analytics and matching improvement. Not displayed publicly.
• Page-view records: Retained for diagnostic and analytics purposes. Because IPs are stored only as a salted, truncated one-way hash, individual visitors cannot be re-identified from these records.
• Account data: Retained while your account exists. Email a deletion request to remove it.
• Payment records: Stripe customer and checkout identifiers are retained for accounting and refund eligibility.

8. Your Rights

You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of any personal information we hold about you. To do so, email [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days.

Residents of California (CCPA) and the European Economic Area (GDPR) have additional rights including data portability and the right to object to processing. Contact us to exercise these rights.

9. Children's Privacy

NeighborPrices is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has submitted information, contact us immediately and we will remove it.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as the service evolves. We will update the "last updated" date at the top. Continued use of the site after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Contact

For privacy-related questions or requests: [email protected]