Privacy Policy

Introduction

SeveranceCalc.com ("we," "our," or "us") operates the website severancecalc.com (the "Service"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your information when you use our Service. Your use of the Service is also governed by our Terms of Service.

Information We Collect

Free Calculators

The main US calculator's estimate is computed in your browser. Your selected industry and, for supported role levels, role selection are sent to retrieve separate self-reported community comparison data. Individual contributor results request an industry-only sample across submitted roles. These submissions do not supply or calibrate the calculator's formula. If you enter your email on a results page, we also store your estimate amount and the page you were on alongside your email (see Email below).

Community Submissions

The voluntary community form stores the industry, company-size band, role level, state, years of service and severance weeks you submit, plus a total package amount if you provide one. It also records the submission time and an internal record number. The form does not ask for your name, email or employer. Ordinary hosting, security and API access processing can still involve technical request information, so this is not a promise that a web request or an unusual combination of answers is anonymous. Submissions are self-reported, not employer-verified or a representative survey, and do not calibrate the calculator's authored model.

Community comparisons and aggregate API exports suppress statistics with fewer than five submissions for the particular measure. An omitted package amount does not count towards its average. Individual minimum and maximum values are not published. This display rule cannot prevent every inference from overlapping groups, repeated submissions or information known elsewhere.

Calculator Input Suggestions

When you continue from a calculator into a new assessment, we can keep editable input suggestions in temporary browser storage for that tab and assessment. Depending on the calculator, these are salary, years of service, state, industry and role level, or state and the gross severance amount you entered. The store also records the calculator type, source, page pathname and preparation time. It contains no name, email, age, year-to-date wages or generated estimate results, and creates no additional analytics identifier. The suggestions are not added to assessment URLs or uploaded as answers when the assessment starts: a value is saved as an answer only when you review the relevant question and select Next.

Suggestions remain eligible for use for 30 minutes. Individual values are removed after a successful answer save or a confirmed skip; the temporary store is cleared on completion, a new assessment session or payment return. Expired or invalid suggestions are removed when next checked, so an inactive tab may retain a stored copy longer. This per-tab storage normally ends when the tab is closed. It is functional storage for your chosen assessment, not tracking storage.

Paid Severance Assessment

If you start the paid Severance Assessment, the details you enter are stored in our database to generate and deliver your report: your email address and the answers you provide, for example salary, years of service, state, industry, employer name, termination circumstances, offer details, and answers about potential claims. When you click the purchase button beneath the Terms notice, we record the time of that acknowledgement, the version of the wording in force, your IP address, and your browser identifier (user-agent) as our record of that consent. When you tick the terms acceptance box on Stripe's payment page, Stripe records that acceptance with your payment session and we store the time it is reported to us. Your payment status is recorded on our systems; your card details are collected and processed solely by Stripe and never touch our servers.

If you have accepted analytics cookies when you start an assessment, we also store privacy-limited first-touch attribution with the assessment record: the landing-page pathname, referring hostname, source, medium, and capture time. We do not store the landing page's query string or fragment, the full referring URL, advertising click identifiers, or a user identifier in this attribution record.

This attribution describes the first eligible touch we observed after analytics consent, which may differ from your original visit. Missing or invalid capture times remain unknown. Historical acquisition cannot be reconstructed from a later visit or payment.

For future report sends, we keep a version record, the generated attachments' digital fingerprints and sizes, and the payment amount and currency when confirmed by our payment provider. This evidence feature does not store another copy of the PDF or your answers. We record an email provider's acceptance separately from any verified delivery, bounce or failure notice. Acceptance is not proof of inbox placement, reading or use of a report. Earlier reports may have no attachment or recipient-server delivery evidence.

AI Tools

Text you enter into our AI-assisted tools, meaning the assessment (for the report narrative and paywall preview), the chatbot, the negotiation coach, and the document/agreement review tools, is sent to Anthropic's API to generate the output, along with relevant optional context or conversation history you submit. If you choose image extraction, the single image you submit is also sent to Anthropic. The free document-preparation and coach routes do not save the document, image or conversation in our application database. An optional email resource signup is stored separately as a subscription. The overview tool may retain a local browser flag recording that its notes were unlocked; it contains no document text and remains until browser storage is cleared. Anthropic processes submitted data under its commercial API terms; see Third-Party Services below.

Email

If you subscribe to our email list or enter your email to start an assessment, we store your email address together with context such as your estimate amount, the page you signed up on, and signup variant. If you start an assessment and don't finish, we send up to three automated follow-up emails (a resume link, a short feedback question, and a final notice); these stop if you finish, purchase, or unsubscribe. If you finish an assessment and view your results without purchasing, we may send up to three follow-up emails (an example of the report, a one-click question about what held you back, and a final note); these stop if you purchase, answer, or unsubscribe. If you answer that question we store the option you chose with your assessment record; it is not published. Every email we send contains an unsubscribe link.

Automatically Collected Information

If you accept analytics cookies, we use Google Analytics to collect usage data: pages visited, time on site, browser type, general geographic location, and calculator interaction events. Event data uses banded ranges (for example a salary band such as "50k-100k"), not exact figures, along with coarse categories like state and industry. With the same consent, we use first-party attribution browser storage (sc_first_touch_v1, with a 30-day lifetime) to remember the first eligible observed page, referring domain and supported source/medium categories. Arbitrary campaign or content text is not sent as an analytics property. Query strings and fragments are removed from analytics page and referrer URLs. Credential-bearing payment-success and feedback pages do not send third-party analytics events; payment records remain separate.

On the severance tax calculator, we also count when the assessment action is visible, email entry is opened, a start request is attempted, or a start fails. These first-party diagnostic counters run independently of Google Analytics. They store only the stage, a general failure category where relevant, and the time, without an email address, assessment token, calculator figures or a stored IP address. They create no cookies or browser-storage identifiers and do not follow you between visits. This measurement notice was added on 30 September 2026.

On the report sales page, first-party diagnostics are linked to your existing assessment. They can record the price our server confirmed, a browser report that the confirmed price was visible, and a purchase-button click. These are separate from a confirmed payment, not anonymous records or additional Terms consent. The optional feedback choice on that page stores only the category you select, is never published, and does not change your access or email preferences. Optional private report feedback asks whether it helped you prepare; a confirmed answer is distinguished from an answer inferred from an opened link. None of this establishes a negotiation outcome.

Cookies and Tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies for:

• Analytics (Google Analytics) to understand how visitors use our site, loaded only if you accept via the cookie banner
• Session management (e.g., remembering if you've dismissed a popup, or your in-progress assessment)
• Marketing attribution, only after analytics consent (first-party sc_first_touch_v1 browser storage, 30-day lifetime), to remember the first eligible observed page, referring domain and supported source/medium categories for assessment attribution
• Entry-page tests: when we are comparing two versions of an entry page, a first-party sc_split cookie (30-day lifetime) remembers which version you were shown so you see the same one on your next visit. It holds only the version label, no identifier, and is set whether or not you accept analytics cookies; the events that measure the entry-page test are sent only after analytics consent
• Report-page tests: we may save which version of the sales page is assigned to your assessment, using a coded identifier derived from your email address to keep the same version when you return or use another assessment with that email. This record is linked to your existing assessment and is not anonymous. We use it with our first-party page events and purchase records to compare versions, independently of Google Analytics and analytics-cookie consent. It creates no additional browser identifier, and we do not send your email or this coded identifier to Google Analytics.

We do not currently serve advertisements. If we introduce advertising in the future, we will update this policy first. You can control cookies through your browser settings; disabling them may affect some features of the Service.

Third-Party Services

We use the following processors, each of which handles data only to provide its service to us:

• Stripe (payment processing): your card details go directly to Stripe; we never see your card number. Stripe receives your email to create the checkout. Stripe's Privacy Policy
• Anthropic (AI processing): assessment answers and any text you enter into our AI tools are sent to Anthropic's Claude API to generate output, including any image submitted for extraction and optional context or conversation history. Anthropic's published standard API retention is up to 30 days, with contractual, safety and legal exceptions. We have not verified an account-specific zero-retention arrangement. See its commercial data-retention information and Anthropic's Privacy Policy
• Resend (email delivery): sends our transactional and follow-up emails, including your report. Resend's Privacy Policy
• Sentry (error monitoring): receives technical error and diagnostic data (such as request metadata) when something breaks, so we can fix it. Sentry's Privacy Policy
• Railway (cloud hosting): our application and database run on Railway's infrastructure. Railway's Privacy Policy
• Google Analytics (usage statistics, consent-gated): see Cookies and Tracking above. Google's Privacy Policy

Data Retention and Deletion

We keep assessment and lead records while they are needed to provide the Service (delivering your report, honouring the 30-day refund, and responding to questions about your purchase). Purchase, consent, and refund records are retained longer (for as long as legal claims relating to a purchase could arise) because they exist to evidence the transaction. Email subscription records are kept until you unsubscribe.

The first-touch record in your browser expires after 30 days. If you start an assessment while it is active, the privacy-limited attribution fields are stored with that lead and follow the same retention and deletion rules as the assessment record. They are not refreshed or overwritten by later visits.

Report attachment fingerprints, email-provider evidence, sales-page diagnostics and private feedback are linked to the assessment and follow its retention and deletion rules. They are not outside those rules merely because they contain no name or email. A retained fingerprint cannot recreate a missing original PDF.

You can request deletion of your personal data at any time by emailing [email protected] from the email address on the record, which is how we verify the request. We will delete the data we hold about you except records we are required or entitled to retain (for example payment and consent records tied to a completed purchase).

Data Security

We take reasonable measures to protect the information collected through our Service, including encryption in transit (TLS) and access controls on our database and admin tools. However, no method of transmission or storage over the Internet is 100% secure.

Children's Privacy

Our Service is not directed to individuals under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you
• Request deletion of your personal data (see Data Retention and Deletion above)
• Correct inaccurate personal data
• Opt out of email communications at any time
• Decline analytics cookies via the cookie banner or your browser settings

California residents: to the extent the California Consumer Privacy Act applies to us, the categories of personal information we collect are identifiers (email, IP address), financial and employment-related information you provide in an assessment, commercial information (purchase records), and internet activity (usage events and privacy-limited attribution). We collect them to provide the Service and understand which pages and sources lead to assessment use, and we do not sell your personal information or share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. You may exercise access, deletion, and correction rights by emailing [email protected]; we verify requests via the email address on the record and do not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated "Last updated" date.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected].