Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and what this covers

Settle is run by the business named at the top of this page. We build and operate the Settle app for Australian tradies: quotes, jobs, crew, invoices and the Copilot.

This policy applies to everyone whose personal information we hold: people who sign up to run a business, crew who join a business in Team Hub, managers a business invites, customers who use the client portal, and the clients and suppliers a tradie records in the app. It also applies to people who send a booking request or an enquiry through a business's booking page (section 4) or open a quote, invoice or job report link, and to visitors to this website.

One login can play more than one part. The same email address can run a business, work on another business's crew and be a customer in the portal. Section 9 explains what that means when you delete your account.

This policy is free to read here at any time, and we can send it in another form on request. That is how we meet APP 1.

2. What we collect

We only collect what the app needs to do its job (APP 3). Most of it is information you type or capture yourself.

Account details

Your name, email address, phone number, business name, ABN, trading address, logo, trade, team size, whether you are registered for GST, and how you signed in (email or Google). If you connect a custom sending domain, the domain name. Each account also has an account ID, and if you use Stripe, the Stripe customer and account IDs that link you to it.

Crew and customer accounts

If you join a business's crew in Team Hub: your name, email address, mobile, postal address, emergency contact name and phone, profile photo, and, if you work as a subcontractor, your ABN and business name. A business may also record your licences, white card and insurance details, with their numbers, issuing state and expiry dates. If you use the client portal: your name, email address and, if you give it, your phone number.

Business data

Quotes, jobs, schedules, invoices, receipts and expenses, supplier bills, payments, notes, bookings and leads, reminders, maintenance plans, saved price-list items, crew shifts, breaks and pay records, and the settings that shape them. It also includes records of what a business has bought (expenses, bills and receipts) and the payments its customers have made. Numbers such as prices, rates and totals are business records, and some contain personal information about your clients and crew.

Clients and contacts

The client list a business keeps: names, email addresses, phone numbers and site addresses of its clients, their extra contacts and its suppliers, the work done for them, and the sign-off a client gives on site, including their name and signature. Contacts are typed in or imported from a spreadsheet file. Settle never reads the contacts on your phone. When someone sends a booking request or an enquiry, or declines a quote or variation, we keep what they wrote, and the photos sent with an enquiry (section 4).

Schedule and calendar

The schedule a business keeps in Settle: jobs, bookings, shifts and who is rostered on them. Settle never reads the calendar on your phone. If you connect Google Calendar, Settle writes your scheduled work into it as events and does not read your other events.

Messages

Messages written in a job's Updates thread by the business, its crew and the client, and the email nudges, carrying the start of the message, that tell the other side a message is waiting. The emails Settle sends for you (quotes, invoices, reminders, receipts, invites and join codes), including any note you add to an invoice email. What you write to us in the support chat.

Photos and files

Job photos, photos and PDFs of receipts and supplier bills, your brand logo, profile photos, and the photos crew take on site: clock-on photos, which carry a stamp of the time and, if you allow location, the place; site-note photos; and materials photos. A photo keeps whatever details the file itself carries. Voice notes you record in Notes are stored as recordings until you delete them.

When you import a spreadsheet, the file is read on your device and only the rows you import are saved, with the file's name. If the app needs help matching the columns, the column headings and up to five sample cells from each column go to Anthropic (section 5).

Voice commands

When you talk to the Copilot or use Dictate, the app records what you say and uploads it to be turned into text. Section 5 explains what happens to the recording. The app uses the microphone only while you are recording, and only after you allow it. In voice mode, the microphone turns back on by itself after each spoken reply so you can answer, and stays on until you tap to send, leave voice mode or a minute passes; nothing is sent until you tap.

Location

In the Settle apps and on the web, with your permission, the app reads your device location at these moments: when you or a crew member clock on or off, when a crew member takes a clock-on photo (the place is stamped on it), when a client signs off a job (so the sign-off carries where it happened, with the accuracy the phone reported), for the weather line on the home screen, when you open the map to pin a job site, when you or a crew member tap On my way on today's booking, and, if you use Tap to Pay on iPhone in the Settle iPhone app, while the app gets it ready and while you take a payment with it. On my way sends that one reading to Mapbox to work out the drive time, which only the person who tapped sees; we do not keep the reading or the time, and the customer is told only that you are on the way. With Tap to Pay on iPhone, Stripe's software in the app uses the iPhone's location to take the payment. The Settle iPhone app and the Settle Android app ask for location only while you are using them, and we do not track location in the background. When the Settle Android app asks, your phone may offer approximate location instead, and the app then uses that.

Until you allow location, the weather line uses the capital city of the state your business is in, or Sydney when the business has no state or postcode, and the other moments leave the place off. Once you allow it, the app keeps the last place it read for the weather line on your device, not on our servers, so the line can show your local weather next time. When the app finds that location has been refused or turned off, it forgets that place, and the weather line goes back to the capital city or Sydney.

Health information

When a crew member calls off a shift in Team Hub, they can choose a reason. Two of the choices are "I'm sick" and "Injured". Giving a reason is optional. The reason goes to the business they work for, which keeps it with its shift records. By choosing one of those reasons you agree to us holding it and to the business receiving it (APP 3).

Apart from that, we do not ask for sensitive information (such as religion or political views). If you put it in a note, it is treated like the rest of your business data.

Payment and bank details

Card details for a Settle plan go to Apple, Google Play or Stripe, whichever bills it, never to us: we see which plan you are on and its status. If you buy a plan in the Settle Android app, Google Play takes the payment and the card details, and the app never asks for them.

When your customers pay you by card, they pay through Stripe, and their card details go only to Stripe. We record the payment against the invoice.

Bank details: the BSB, account number, PayID and payment link you add so they print on your invoices, and, if you are a crew member, the account name, BSB and account number you add in Team Hub. Only you can see your own crew bank details in Settle. The business you work for cannot see them through Settle.

Device and technical data

When the app or this website talks to our servers, your device sends its IP address and the usual request details, such as the browser or device type. Our hosting providers keep these in their request logs.

To stop abuse of public links, the client portal and the AI connector, we keep counters made from the feature being used, the business, link or account involved, your IP address and the minute. They are used only to limit how often a request can be made, never for anything else, and are cleared periodically.

The maps in the app are drawn by Mapbox. Mapbox's map code creates an anonymous ID on your device, replaces it every 24 hours, and sends it to Mapbox when a map loads. If the iPhone app asks to send you alerts and you allow it, we keep that device's token and app version so the alerts reach it. The Settle apps collect no advertising IDs, and the app has no crash reporting or analytics of its own. Nothing here is used to build an advertising profile. Meta's pixel on the web is covered under Our ads, below, and in section 12.

App activity and searches

The app records some activity so it works: which job updates you have read, which walkthroughs you have finished, how often saved items are used, the clock-on, clock-off and break taps crew make, shifts called off, sign-offs, and which Copilot plans you approved. Each AI request leaves a usage record with the feature, how much of the AI allowance it used and its cost, without what you asked. What you type into search, such as a client's name or an address, is sent to find results, and address searches go to Mapbox.

Support and website

What you write to us by email or through the chat and booking widgets on this website and in the app.

Our ads

If you reach this website from one of our ads, or from a link that carries campaign tags, the website keeps those tags on your device for 90 days, with the page you landed on and the website that sent you, and adds them to its sign-up links. If you then sign up on the web, we save them with your new account, together with Meta's browser and click IDs (section 12), so we can count which ads lead to signups. Signing up in the Settle apps saves none of this.

3. Why we collect it and how we use it

We use personal information for the purpose you gave it to us and for closely related purposes you would expect (APP 6). In practice that means:

• Running Settle for you: storing your work, producing quotes and invoices, tracking payments and crew hours, and connecting crew and customers to the businesses they deal with.
• Sending quotes, invoices, receipts and reminders to your clients in your name, when you or a rule you set tells the app to.
• Keeping a business, its crew and its customers up to date about shifts, jobs, bookings and messages.
• Taking payment for your plan and keeping it in step with Apple, Google Play or Stripe, whichever bills it.
• Answering your questions in the Copilot and reading receipts, bills and quotes for you (section 5), and counting AI use against your plan.
• Support, security, fraud prevention and fixing bugs, including limiting how often a request can be made from one IP address.
• Measuring which of our own ads bring people to this website, to sign up, and to start or pay for a plan on the web (section 12).
• Meeting our legal obligations, including tax and record keeping.
• Telling you about Settle, only where section 11 allows it.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with data brokers. Our only advertising use is measuring our own ads on this website and when you sign up or start a plan on the web, as section 12 describes. We never use your business data, such as jobs, clients, invoices and messages, or anything from the Settle apps, for advertising.

4. Your clients' and crew's information

Settle has two sides. You give us your own details when you sign up. You also record other people's details: your clients, your suppliers and your crew. Many of those people never deal with us directly.

Some do. Crew can have their own login to Team Hub, where they see their shifts and clock on, and customers can have their own login to the client portal, where they see their quotes, invoices and jobs. Their login and profile are theirs, covered by this policy and theirs to delete (section 9). The records a business keeps about them, such as timesheets, pay, call-offs, credentials, quotes and invoices, belong to that business.

A business sees what its crew record in Team Hub for it: clock-on and clock-off times and places, breaks, photos, call-offs with any reason given, and the licences and cards on file. It does not see a crew member's bank details through Settle. A business sees what its customers do in the portal for it, such as accepting a quote or writing in a job's Updates.

A booking request made in the client portal never gets a reply drafted by AI on its own. If the person who runs the business asks Settle's AI to draft a reply to one, what the customer wrote goes to Anthropic for that (section 5). When someone at the business asks Settle's AI about its enquiries and booking requests, the customer's name, mobile number, email address and request go to Anthropic too.

For the information you record about other people, you decide what goes in and what it is used for, and we hold it for you so the app works. We only use it to provide Settle to you, to send the messages you ask us to send, and as the law requires.

You are responsible for collecting it fairly, for telling your clients and crew how you use it, and for any obligations you have under the Privacy Act or another law. Many small businesses are outside the Privacy Act today, but the rules change, and treating people's details with care is good business anyway.

If a client or crew member asks us for access to their details, we will point them to you where we can, and help you respond. Section 9 explains what happens to their records when you delete your account.

People who use a business's booking page

A business can share a booking page so people can ask it for work: a booking request for a time, or an enquiry for a quote. If you send one, you are giving your details to that business so it can reply and do the work. We hold them for the business as its service provider, and use them only to run Settle for it and as the law requires.

We keep what you send: your name and mobile number, what the job is, whether it is urgent, and, if you give them, your email address, where the job is, the time you would like and any notes. An enquiry can also carry up to three photos. Your browser redraws each photo before sending it, so it carries the picture and none of the details a camera stores with it, such as where it was taken. We remove any photo that still has them.

The business, and any manager it has added in Settle, see what you sent. The photos are private (section 8).

If the business has allowed Settle's AI, Anthropic may draft the business's reply from what you wrote (section 5). The business checks the reply and sends it itself. When someone at the business asks Settle's AI about its enquiries, your name, mobile number, email address and what you asked for go to Anthropic so it can answer.

When you send a booking request or an enquiry, the person who runs the business can get an alert on their iPhone with your name and what you asked about, if they use the Settle iPhone app with alerts on. Alerts travel through Apple's push notification service, in the United States, on their way to the phone.

The booking page also has a My requests tab. Anyone who has the business's booking link and your mobile number can use it to see the requests and enquiries made with that number in the last 90 days, and to accept or turn down a time the business has suggested. For each one it shows when it was sent and where it stands, and for a booking request, the job and its times. It never shows your notes, your email address, where the job is or your photos.

What you sent stays with the business while it has a Settle account, and is deleted, photos included, when the business deletes its account (section 9). To see, correct or remove it, ask the business. You can also email us at hello@settleapp.com.au and we will help (section 13).

5. The AI in Settle

The Copilot, Smart Quote, receipt and bill reading, the daily brief, matching the columns of a spreadsheet you import, spotting possible variations in job notes, and drafting replies to enquiries run on models made by Anthropic, reached through Anthropic's API. The models we use are claude-haiku-4-5 for extraction, mapping and reply drafts, and claude-opus-5 for the bill reader and the assistant.

Settle asks before any of this. Each person chooses Allow or Not now the first time they use a feature that needs AI, and can change it at any time in Settings, AI usage & limits, or on the Profile tab in Team Hub. With Not now, those features don't run for you: nothing you type, say or photograph in them goes to Anthropic or Deepgram, and the rest of Settle works as usual. A manager working in a business's account needs their own Allow, and AI there runs only once the business owner has allowed it too.

When a business owner allows it, Settle also uses Anthropic on its own for that business. It drafts a reply to each new enquiry or booking request made on the business's booking page, for the owner to check and send, using the person's first name, what they wrote, the address and times they gave, and the business's name and booking page text. It can also check finished fixed-price jobs for extras that haven't been billed, using the job's notes, crew notes, photo captions (not the photos), materials and quote lines. An owner who chooses Not now gets none of this.

A crew member who talks a site note in from Team Hub has it turned into text by Deepgram, once they have allowed it, unless the business owner has said Not now to AI. The words come back to them to check before they send the note. The business's client and crew names go with the recording, so they come back spelled right, only if the business owner has allowed AI.

When you use one of those features, the relevant part of your data goes to Anthropic for processing: the question you asked, the receipt image, the quote text, the column headings and sample cells of an import, or the jobs and invoices the Copilot needs to answer you. That can include the names and details of your clients, of the people who send you enquiries, and of your crew, with their email addresses and the licence numbers on file. Anthropic is bound by terms that protect your information the way this policy does, and it does not use your data to train its models. Nor do we. Your conversations with the Copilot are kept in your account so you can pick them up again.

Voice commands and Dictate are turned into text by Deepgram (Nova-3). The app uploads the recording to private storage, and we delete our copy of the audio file before the transcription request is made, so we never keep the recording. What stays is the text the Copilot heard, which you see on screen. When the Copilot reads a reply aloud, the reply text goes to Deepgram (Aura-2) to make the audio. Since 27 October 2026, every request Settle sends Deepgram opts out of its Model Improvement Program, so Deepgram does not use those recordings or that reply text to train its models. Beyond that, Deepgram handles what it receives under its own terms.

Your client and crew names may be included with a voice command so that names come back spelled correctly.

If you connect your own AI app (such as Claude Desktop) to Settle with an access token you create, that app can read your business data when you ask it to. It cannot change anything in Settle. What it does with what it reads is up to that app's provider and its terms, and you can revoke the token in Settings at any time.

The Copilot never sends anything to a client on its own. It can get an invoice, a quote or a payment reminder ready to email to the client on that document, and the email goes only when you tap Send on its card. It never deletes a record you made, never moves money and never changes your plan. Section 6 explains what it does and how to undo it.

6. Automated decisions

From 10 December 2026 the Privacy Act asks businesses to explain automated decisions that affect people. We prefer to say it now.

The Copilot acts only on what you ask it to do. When you ask for work, such as a draft quote or a job to book, it does it and shows every change on a card, with Edit beside each one and an Undo that takes back what it made. Undo keeps anything you have since sent, billed, edited or built on, and tells you what it kept.

Reminders about unpaid invoices are rule based. They follow the schedule you set, they go out in your name, and they stop when the invoice is paid. No model decides who gets chased.

Replies to enquiries can be drafted by AI, but a draft is never sent on its own. The business checks it and sends it.

We make no decisions about you by automated means alone that have a legal or similarly significant effect. Your subscription, your access and your account are managed by rules you can see (the plan you chose, whether a payment succeeded) and by people.

7. Who we share information with

We use a small number of providers to run Settle. Each one handles only the part of your data its job needs. Some are outside Australia, which APP 8 asks us to tell you about and to take reasonable steps over. We do that through each provider's standard terms and data processing agreements, and by sending the minimum.

We may also disclose information when the law requires it, to a court or regulator, or to protect someone's safety. If we ever sell or transfer the business, your data would go with it under this policy, and we would tell you first.

In the app, on every device, we use no analytics, advertising or tracking provider apart from Mapbox's anonymous map ID (section 2). The one exception is Meta's pixel, which runs only on this website and when you sign up or start a trial on the web (section 12).

8. Where your data lives and how we protect it

Your data is stored with Supabase in Sydney (AWS ap-southeast-2). Files sit in storage in the same region, in folders that belong to the account that uploaded them, or for the photos sent with an enquiry, to the business it was sent to. Receipts and bills, job photos, voice notes, voice commands, profile photos, the photos crew take on site (clock-on, site-note and materials photos) and the photos sent with an enquiry are private. The app opens a photo only for someone allowed to see the record it belongs to: the business and its managers, a worker for their own shifts and the business's site notes and materials, and a customer for a site note while it is shared with them. It does that with a link that stops working within the hour (five minutes in the client portal), so a copied or forwarded link soon opens nothing. Business logos can be opened by anyone who has the link.

Data moves over encrypted connections (TLS). Every table is protected by row-level security so an account can only read its own rows and the rows shared with it. Access from our side is limited to what is needed to run and support the service. Secrets and API keys are kept out of the app itself.

No system is perfectly secure. We take reasonable steps to protect your information from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access (APP 11), and section 10 explains what happens if something goes wrong.

9. How long we keep it, and deleting your account

We keep your data while you have an account, so that your quotes, invoices and records are there when you need them. When you no longer need it, you can delete your account yourself, in the app, whatever kind of account you have. You type your email address to confirm in every case.

Where to delete your account

• If you run a business: in Settings, under Danger Zone, choose Delete, type your email address, then tap Delete everything. If you are managing another business in Settle, go back to your own account first, then open Settings.
• If you are crew: in Team Hub, open Profile, tap Delete my account and type your email address.
• If you are a customer using the client portal: open Profile in the portal, tap Delete my account and type your email address.

One login can be all three. If your login also runs a business, Team Hub and the portal send you to that business's Settings, because deleting the login deletes the business too. If you are clocked on to a shift, clock off first: until you do, nothing is deleted.

If you run a business

Deletion happens in this order:

• If your plan is billed by Google Play or Stripe, it is cancelled first. If that fails, nothing is deleted, and you can try again or message us. If your plan is billed by Apple, only you can cancel it, in your Apple ID's subscriptions; the app reminds you.
• Your rows are removed from the database in one pass: profile, clients, leads, quotes, jobs, invoices, expenses, crew, shifts, notes, settings and the tokens for any accounting or calendar connection.
• The files you uploaded, and the photos people sent you with an enquiry, are purged from all seven storage areas: photos, receipts, job photos, brand logos, voice notes, voice commands and enquiry photos. Files your crew or a manager uploaded for your business are not (see below).
• Your login is deleted. The account stops existing at that point.

Your crew's and customers' own logins belong to them and are not deleted with your business.

If you are crew

Your login, profile, bank details and team connections are deleted, with the device tokens used to send alerts to your phone. You are taken off each business's team and its future roster. The files you uploaded are purged, except the photos and sign-offs a business still relies on (see below). If you also manage a business for its owner, that access ends too, and what you did for that business stays with it (see below).

If you are a customer

Your login, your details and your connections to businesses are deleted, with the device tokens used to send alerts to your phone.

Deletion is immediate. There is no grace period and no way to recover the account afterwards. If a step fails part way, you stay signed in and can run Delete again to finish it.

What stays after deletion

• If you worked for a business through Settle, that business keeps its records of your shifts, hours, pay, credentials and call-offs, and the photos and customer sign-offs you captured on its jobs. They are the employer's records, and the law requires many of them to be kept for tax. Your name, email address, mobile, address and any ABN or business name you gave stay on those records. Your emergency contact and profile photo are removed from them, and the profile photo's file is deleted. The photos the business keeps stay private (section 8).
• If you ran a business, the clock-on, site-note and materials photos and the customer signatures your crew took on your jobs, and any files a manager added for your business, are stored under that person's own login, not yours, so deleting your account does not remove them. They stay private, and once your records are gone only that person can open them. They go when that person deletes their own Settle account. If you want them removed sooner, or that person has already left Settle, email us and we will remove them.
• If you managed a business for its owner, that business keeps the receipts you scanned for it and the record of the AI you used for it.
• If a business recorded you as a client, it keeps its own record of you and the quotes, invoices, jobs, bookings and messages it has with you, for the same reason.
• Messages you wrote in a business's job Updates stay with that business, and emails already delivered stay with the people who received them.
• Payment-provider audit rows (Apple notifications and Stripe events) are kept, keyed by transaction rather than by you, so a payment can never be billed twice.
• Google Play purchase records, and Google Play's notifications about them, are kept, keyed by the purchase rather than by you. Google Play keeps its own record of the purchase under Google's terms.
• Your Stripe customer record, and any Stripe account you connected to take payments, stay with Stripe under Stripe's terms. If you set up a custom sending domain, its record stays with Resend.
• Connections you approved on Google, Xero or QuickBooks are yours to revoke on their side. We delete our copy of the tokens.
• The rate-limit counters described in section 2 are cleared periodically, and our hosting providers' request and server logs roll off on their own schedule.
• Deleted data can remain in our hosting provider's backups for up to 7 days. It is never restored to a live account.

If you would rather we do it, or you cannot get into the app, email hello@settleapp.com.au from the account's address and we will run the same deletion for you. This works for every kind of account.

10. Data breaches

We are covered by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme in the Privacy Act. If personal information we hold is lost or accessed without authorisation, we will contain it, assess it quickly, and if it is likely to result in serious harm to anyone, notify the people affected and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), with what happened and what to do.

If the breach involves your clients' or crew's details, we will tell you first so you can meet any obligations of your own.

11. Marketing messages

Emails the app sends for you (quotes, invoices, receipts, reminders) and the emails we send about your account (a one-off welcome when you open a business account, sign-in codes, receipts, changes to these documents) are not marketing. You get them because you use Settle.

We send marketing emails or texts only with your consent, such as when you ask to hear from us. We identify ourselves in every message, every message has an unsubscribe that works, and we act on it within five business days. That is what the Spam Act 2003 requires, and it is also the reasonable thing to do.

Marketing and sales contact runs through Convayro / LeadConnector. You can opt out at any time by using the unsubscribe link, replying stop, or emailing us.

12. Cookies, Meta's pixel and the Settle website

Settle sets no cookies of its own. Meta's pixel, described below, sets Meta's cookies on this website and on the web app's sign-up page. The app stores your sign-in session on your device so you stay logged in, and a copy of your recent data so it opens without a connection; signing out clears that copy. Neither is tracking. The app also holds Mapbox's anonymous map ID (section 2), and the chat widget in the app may set its own identifiers when you use it.

Three third parties are loaded by this website: Meta's pixel (below), the Convayro / LeadConnector chat and booking widgets, which may set their own cookies when you use them, and Google Fonts, which serves the typefaces. Your browser sends its usual request details (such as your IP address) to those providers when it loads them.

13. Access, correction and complaints

We rely on what you and the businesses you deal with enter, so keeping it accurate and up to date is shared work (APP 10). You can see and change most of your details yourself in the app. For anything else, email us and we will give you access to the personal information we hold about you, or correct it, usually within 30 days (APP 12 and 13). We will not charge for this.

If you think we have handled your information badly, tell us first at hello@settleapp.com.au. We will acknowledge your complaint, look into it and respond within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints or on 1300 363 992.

14. Anonymity, identifiers and children

You can read this website without telling us who you are (APP 2). The app itself needs an account, because it keeps your business records.

We do not use a government identifier, such as a tax file number, as our own identifier for you (APP 9). Your ABN is a business identifier and appears on your documents because you put it there.

We do not collect unsolicited personal information on purpose. If we receive it and could not have collected it under this policy, we destroy or de-identify it (APP 4).

Settle is a business tool and is not directed at anyone under 18.

15. Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we update the date at the top and keep the previous version available on request. If a change affects how we use your information in a way you would not expect, we tell you by email before it applies.

16. Contact

Privacy questions, access requests and complaints: hello@settleapp.com.au. The business behind Settle is named at the top of this page.

Where each principle is covered