Privacy Policy

Overview

Settled Estate ("we," "us," or "our") is a publisher of estate, probate, and planning information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, retain, and protect information when you use settledestate.com, our free tools, and our paid informational report products.

Information We Collect

Information You Provide

We collect information you choose to provide, including:

• Contact information, including name and email address, when you contact us or buy a paid report.
• Assessment, calculator, checklist, and intake answers, including state, county, role, family details, estate value ranges, asset information, probate or planning concerns, and optional notes you enter.
• Payment-related metadata from Stripe, such as checkout session, payment status, amount, product purchased, and customer email. We do not receive your full card number.
• Support messages, corrections, feedback, or other communications you send us.
• Your acceptance of our Terms, Privacy Policy, and Legal Disclaimer for paid report checkout.

Automatically Collected Information

When you visit our Site, we may automatically collect:

• Device information, browser type, operating system, IP address, approximate location, pages visited, and referring website.
• Limited analytics events (such as pages visited and interactions), unless you opt out of analytics.
• Technical error information, such as page URL, browser, and stack traces, when an error occurs.

Local Storage

Some tools save progress in your browser's local storage so you can resume on the same device. Paid-report intake drafts are stored locally while you are filling out the form, then sent to our plan API when you choose to continue to checkout. Clearing your browser storage may remove saved progress.

How We Use Information

We use information to:

• Provide free educational tools, assessments, calculators, checklists, and content.
• Create, deliver, support, and improve paid informational reports.
• Process checkout, send transactional emails, and monitor report-generation status.
• Debug errors, protect against fraud or abuse, and maintain site security.
• Understand aggregate site usage, unless you opt out of analytics.
• Respond to requests, corrections, complaints, privacy questions, and support messages.

Service Providers

We use service providers to operate the Site and paid reports. These providers may process information for us only as needed to provide their services:

• Cloudflare and R2: hosting, API routing, storage for drafts, checkout records, report status, and report files.
• Stripe: hosted checkout and payment processing.
• Resend: transactional email delivery and support-related email.
• Trigger.dev: report-generation workflow orchestration.
• Sentry: error monitoring and debugging.
• Google Analytics: aggregate site-usage analytics (on by default; opt out any time).
• Microsoft Clarity: aggregate heatmaps and de-identified session insights to improve usability (on by default; opt out any time).
• AI/model providers: report drafting and summarization for paid informational reports, based on your intake answers and available source data.

AI Processing

Paid reports may use AI-assisted drafting. We send the information needed to generate your report, such as your intake answers and relevant public source data, to our report-generation systems and model providers. These reports are informational only and are not legal advice or attorney review.

Error Monitoring

We use Sentry to identify and fix technical issues. Sentry is configured to limit personally identifying information, but error reports may include technical data, page URLs, device and browser details, and error context needed for debugging. Sentry data is used for debugging and retained according to our account settings and Sentry's Privacy Policy.

Data Storage, Security, and Retention

We use technical and organizational measures intended to protect information. No internet transmission or storage system can be guaranteed absolutely secure.

• Local form progress remains on your device until you clear it, complete checkout, or the tool expires it.
• Unpaid paid-report drafts may be stored temporarily so checkout can be completed.
• Paid report records, generated report files, checkout mappings, and transactional emails are retained as needed to deliver the product, respond to requests, keep business records, and prevent abuse.
• We review retention needs periodically and may delete or de-identify records when they are no longer needed.

Sharing and Sale of Personal Information

We do not sell the answers you enter into our free guides, assessments, calculators, or paid-report intake, and we do not share that information with attorneys or lead buyers.

“Connect with an attorney” feature. If you choose to use our optional attorney-connect feature and submit that form, you are asking us to share the contact details and request information you provide (such as your name, phone number, email, ZIP code, and a description of your situation) with 4LegalLeads, our attorney-matching partner, and the independent attorney they connect you with, so that the attorney can contact you. This sharing happens only when you complete that specific form and check its consent box; it does not happen with our guides, calculators, or paid-report data. Under California and some other state privacy laws, this may be considered a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information.

Your choice and opt-out. Using the attorney-connect feature is entirely optional. If you do not submit that form, we do not share your information with attorneys. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, we honor it and do not submit the form for sharing. To exercise a “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” right, you can decline to submit the form, or contact us at support@settledestate.com after submitting as well; in that case, we will stop sharing your information.

We may also share information with service providers that help us operate the Site, when required by law, to protect rights or security, or in connection with a business transfer. Affiliate or sponsored links may take you to third-party websites, and those websites control their own privacy practices.

Third-Party Links

Our Site contains links to third-party websites, including court websites, government resources, and partner tools. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these external sites. Review their privacy policies before providing information to them.

Children's Privacy

Our Site is not intended for children under 13 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 provided personal information, contact us and we will take appropriate steps.

Your Rights and Choices

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of personal information, and to opt out of certain uses. You may also ask us to explain what information we have and how it is used. We will respond as required by applicable law.

To make a request, email support@settledestate.com. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling a request.

Advertising

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)

The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The "help" feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at All About Cookies.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.

The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:

• IP Address
• Operating System type
• Operating System version
• Device Type
• Language of the website
• Web browser type
• Email (in hashed form)

Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.

If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post the updated policy on this page and update the "Last updated" date.