Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2026

This policy explains what we collect when you generate a report, what we do with it, and who else is involved. It is written in plain language rather than legal boilerplate.

What we collect

When you generate a report, we collect:

Your email address — so we can reach you about your purchase.
Your research topic description — the text you type into the generate form.
Your selected field and options — academic field, focus level, and report depth.
The generated report — the papers, summaries, and analysis we produce for you.

We do not ask for your name, institution, or any other personal details, and we do not have user accounts or passwords.

How we use it

To generate your report and make it available at your report link.
To contact you about your purchase — for example if a payment or a report needs follow-up.

That is the whole list. We do not use your topic or email for anything else.

Who else processes your data

Generating a report means sending parts of your request to other services:

Anthropic — report generation runs on the Anthropic API. Your topic description is sent to it.
Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, and Crossref — paper search queries derived from your topic are sent to these academic databases, and Crossref is used to verify DOIs.
Vercel and Upstash Redis — hosting and storage.
Inngest — runs report generation as a background job.
LemonSqueezy — handles payments as merchant of record. We never see or store your card details.

How long we keep it

Reports and payment status are stored for 30 days, then automatically deleted.
Job records created while a report is generating expire after 1 hour.

After 30 days your report link stops working, because the report is gone. Download the PDF if you want to keep it.

What we do not do

We do not sell your data.
We do not use your data for advertising.
We do not share your topic or email with anyone beyond the processors listed above.

Cookies

We use only what is essential for the site and checkout to function. There are no tracking cookies, no analytics profiling, and no advertising cookies.

Your rights

You can request access to the data we hold about you, or ask us to delete it, by emailing support@citestart.com. Because we do not have accounts, please send your request from the email address you used, and include your report link if you have one.

Contact

Questions about this policy: support@citestart.com.