Privacy Policy
Effective August 12, 2026 · Previous version: July 18, 2026
This Privacy Policy describes how Starways LLC ("Starways," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and protects your information when you use the Starways Meals meal-planning service, including our website at starways.app, our mobile application, our SMS text-messaging service, and our assistant's email address (collectively, the "Service"). By using the Service, you agree to the practices described here.
Information we collect
We collect the following so that Starways Meals can plan your meals and build your grocery lists:
- Account and sign-in information: your name, your household's name, and your mobile phone number. Your phone number is also how you sign in — we text you a one-time code, and each signed-in phone holds an access token that we store only in hashed form. If you link an email address so you can email our assistant, we store that address to recognize you.
- Mobile number and SMS consent: when you opt in to text messaging, we record your mobile number and your consent to receive messages.
- Meal and household data: meals you save or request, the folders you file them in, your weekly plans, the grocery list items derived from those plans, pantry staples, household members you invite, and reminders you ask us to send you.
- Health-related information: the food rules you tell us about — allergies, intolerances, medical or religious dietary restrictions, pregnancy, and dislikes — including rules you tell us apply to a particular member of your household. We collect this only so that meal plans and grocery lists can avoid those foods. We never use it for advertising and never sell it. Besides the service providers listed below, the only other people who can see it are the members of your household — food rules are shared, so that anyone planning a meal plans around them.
- Photos you send: if you text, email, or upload a photo of a recipe, we process it to identify the meal and its ingredients. We do not store the photo — see "Data retention and deletion" below.
- Recipe links you share: if you send us a link, we fetch that page so we can read the recipe.
- Messages you send our assistant: your texts and emails to the assistant, and its replies, are kept as your conversation history so the assistant remembers your household. If you ask the assistant for something it can't do yet, we keep a note of what you asked, so we know what to build and can tell you when it ships.
- Store and location information: if you use a grocery hand-off, the ZIP code you type to find nearby stores and the store you choose. If you connect a grocery account, we store the authorization that lets us add items to your cart — never your store password, and never your cart contents.
- Usage information: records of which features are used and when — for example that a plan was saved or a text was received. These records do not contain your message content, and they do not include your device model, your operating system, or any advertising identifier. We use them to operate the Service, understand which features are worth keeping, and track what the Service costs us to run.
How we use your information
We use your information to:
- create and manage your account and household;
- plan meals, generate grocery lists, and respond to your requests through our assistant;
- send you the text messages you have opted in to receive, including reminders you ask for;
- send your grocery list to a store when you ask us to;
- provide customer support; and
- maintain the security, reliability, and quality of the Service.
We do not use your information for advertising, and we do not sell it. Starways Meals is currently free, so we collect no payment information of any kind. If we introduce paid plans, we will update this policy before any payment information is collected, and our Terms of Service describe what happens then.
SMS / text-messaging terms
Starways Meals is a text-message-first service. The following terms apply to our SMS program.
- Program description. When you opt in, you will receive recurring automated text messages from Starways Meals related to meal planning, grocery lists, recipe and photo parsing, weekly plan proposals, and replies from our assistant.
- Consent. You opt in by sending us the first text message. You can do that from the Starways Meals app, using the button that opens a message to our assistant, or by texting our number yourself to join a household. Consent to receive text messages is not a condition of any purchase.
- Message frequency. Message frequency varies based on your activity and your settings.
- Cost. Message and data rates may apply, depending on your mobile carrier and plan.
- Opt-out. You can cancel at any time by replying STOP to any message. After you reply STOP, we will send one confirmation message and then stop sending texts. You can opt back in by replying START.
- Help. Reply HELP for assistance, or contact us at support@starwaysapps.com.
- Carriers. Mobile carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
No sharing of SMS consent or mobile data. We do not sell, rent, or share your mobile phone number or your SMS opt-in consent with any third parties or affiliates for their own marketing or promotional purposes. Mobile opt-in information and consent are never shared with third parties for any purpose other than delivering the Service as described in this policy — our SMS provider receives your number only so it can deliver the messages you asked for.
How we share information
We do not sell your personal information. We share information only as follows:
- Service providers. With vendors who help us operate the Service: our SMS provider (Twilio), our AI provider (Anthropic, which processes your messages, meal data, food rules, and photos to generate the assistant's responses), and our hosting, email, and infrastructure providers (Railway, Netlify, and Cloudflare), which run our servers, this website, and the mailbox that receives your support and deletion requests. Our agreement with our AI provider does not permit it to use your content to train its models. Each of these companies is bound by contract to protect your information at least as well as this policy requires, and may use it only to do work for us.
- Transfers you ask us to make. Some features send your information somewhere on your instruction. Sending your grocery list to Kroger or one of its stores (such as Harris Teeter or Ralphs) transmits your item names, the ZIP code you entered, and the store you chose, using the account connection you authorized. Sending your list to Walmart transmits your item names and opens a cart in your browser. Sharing a recipe link means we request that page from the site that hosts it — for example TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest — so that platform receives the link you shared. Once your information reaches one of these companies, that company's own privacy policy governs what it does with it.
- Household members. Information you choose to share within your household, such as meals, weekly plans, food rules, and the shared grocery list, is visible to members you invite.
- Legal reasons. When required by law, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of Starways and its users.
Data retention and deletion
We keep your information for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Service. In particular:
- We don't store your photos. A recipe photo you send is read and discarded — it is never written to our database. On the text and email channels we hold the most recent photo in memory for up to ten minutes, so that a follow-up question about the same photo works, and it is discarded after that. A photo you send by text is also held for a time by our SMS provider as part of that message, under its own retention practices.
- Conversation history is kept until you delete it. Your messages with the assistant, and its replies, remain until you delete your data using one of the methods below.
- Detailed usage records are kept for about fifteen months, then removed automatically, and deleting your data removes them sooner. We keep a small record of which weeks a household was active for longer — see "What we may retain" below.
- A ZIP code you enter to find nearby stores is not stored. It is sent to the store's service to look up locations, and only the store you choose is saved.
You can permanently delete your data at any time, at no charge. If you created your household, Settings → Your data deletes the household and everything in it, for everyone. If you joined someone else's household, Settings → Your data removes your phone and signs it out; the meals and lists you shared stay with the rest of the household. To also delete your personal message history, text DELETE MY DATA to Starways Meals and confirm when we ask (if you previously texted STOP, text START first so we can reply). You can also email support@starwaysapps.com and ask us to delete your data. Delete Your Data walks through each option and exactly what it removes.
What we may retain. After a deletion we keep a limited record of the request, along with a record of which weeks a household was active and a count of when households left — records that carry no name, phone number, email address, or message content — and information we are required to keep for legal, tax, accounting, or fraud-prevention purposes. Retained records are kept no longer than needed and are not used to re-identify you within the Service.
Security
We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information. Traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted in transit, and sign-in tokens are stored only in hashed form. Text messages travel over your mobile carrier's network, which applies its own protections. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to safeguard your data and limit access to it.
Age requirement
You must be 18 or older to use the Service. It is not directed to anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has provided us personal information, please contact us so we can remove it.
Your choices and rights
You can review and update your account information and manage your household at any time. You can also withdraw consent in each of the specific ways it was given:
- reply STOP to any text to end text messages, and START to resume;
- disconnect a linked grocery store from the Grocery List tab;
- if you own the household, sign any other phone out — or sign out every other phone at once — from Settings → Members & devices; and
- delete your data entirely, using any of the methods described above.
Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights regarding your personal information; contact us to exercise them.
Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post the updated version here with a revised effective date.