Cookie Policy

1. What this policy covers

This Cookie Policy explains how GradeDrive uses cookies and similar technologies when you visit our website or use the app. It covers what we store, why we store it, and how you can manage cookie behaviour in your browser.

2. What cookies we use

• Essential cookies: used for security, sign-in, session refresh, and protecting authenticated routes.
• Preference cookies: used to remember settings such as language or theme where available.
• Operational storage: used for lightweight website UI preferences, including remembering your cookie choices, so we do not ask on every page.
• Advertising cookies (only if you accept them): Google Ads cookies that tell us which of our adverts bring people to GradeDrive. See section 4.
• Analytics cookies (only if you accept them): PostHog cookies that remember you between visits so we can see where people get stuck. See section 5.
• Anonymous statistics (no cookies): counts of visits to each page that store nothing on your device. See section 6.

3. Why we use them

We use cookies to keep your account secure, maintain signed-in sessions, remember site preferences, and support a smoother user experience across page loads. With your consent, we also use analytics cookies to understand how people use GradeDrive, and advertising cookies to measure our adverts.

4. Advertising cookies

Our cookie banner asks about these under "Advertising". If you choose Accept, or turn on Advertising under Manage, our website loads Google's advertising tag. It sets the cookies below on our domain, so that when someone who arrived from one of our Google adverts views our pricing page, signs up, or becomes a paying subscriber, Google can tell us which advert they came from. If you choose Reject, or make no choice, we load nothing from Google and set none of them.

• _gcl_aw, _gcl_gs: record the Google advert click that brought you to our website. They last 90 days.
• _gcl_au: links your later visits to that click so the result can be counted. It lasts 90 days.
• _gcl_ls: a local storage copy of the same advert click information, kept in your browser.

When the tag sends a result to Google, Google may also read or set its own cookies on its own domains. We have turned off ad personalisation, so none of this is used to show you personalised ads. Google, as provider of the tag, handles this data as described in its explanation of how it uses information from sites like ours. See our Privacy Policy (sections 6 and 7) for what is shared and why.

Changing your mind: use Cookie settings in the footer of our website, or in the account menu in the app, at any time. Choosing Reject there deletes these cookies. We remember your choice for 12 months, then ask again.

5. Analytics cookies

If you accept analytics, our website loads PostHog. It stores the first item below as a cookie and in your browser's local storage, and the others as listed. It recognises you between visits and links those visits to your account when you sign in. PostHog also makes masked recordings of how you use our pages, with all text, typing and images hidden before anything leaves your browser.

• ph_<project>_posthog: a random ID for your browser and the current visit. It lasts 12 months.
• __ph_opt_in_out_<project>: local storage only: records that you accepted analytics. It lasts until you change your choice.
• Session storage starting ph_: keeps track of the current visit and its recording. It is cleared when you close the tab.
• gradedrive_first_touch: local storage only: the page you first arrived at and the site that sent you, kept until you register.

Choosing Reject, or turning Analytics off under Manage, deletes them. See our Privacy Policy (sections 2, 3 and 6) for what PostHog receives and why.

6. Anonymous statistics

We count visits to each page without storing anything on your device. To count visits without cookies, PostHog uses a scrambled code made from your IP address and browser. The code changes every day and can't be turned back into either. It's on unless you turn it off under Manage.

7. Managing cookies

You can change your choices about anonymous statistics, analytics and advertising cookies from Cookie settings, as described in sections 4 to 6. You can also control or remove any cookies through your browser settings. Disabling essential cookies may prevent sign-in or other core app features from working correctly.

8. Chat widget storage

Our chat widget uses your browser's local storage (not cookies) to keep a conversation identifier, your message history, and (if you choose to provide one) a contact email, so you can continue a conversation across pages and later visits. You can remove it at any time by clearing your site data or using the "start new conversation" control in the chat widget.

Sometimes the chat widget offers to start a chat with you. If you respond to that offer (by opening it, closing it, or opening or closing the chat yourself), local storage keeps the time you did, so we don't offer again for 24 hours. When the offer is shown, a marker in your browser's session storage notes it, so it doesn't follow you from page to page during that visit; the marker goes when you close the tab. Neither is sent to us.

The messages you send are also stored on our servers so a support person can read and reply to them, so this data is not limited to your browser. See Privacy Policy §11 for what we store, where, and for how long.

9. Related policies

For more detail on how personal data is handled, see our Privacy Policy.