What Cently knows about you, in plain words.
This page describes the app as it is built today. If something here is ever unclear or wrong, tell us and we'll fix the page.
Cently never asks for banking credentials and never connects to your bank.
The app works fully offline. Nothing is uploaded by default.
Every feature that sends data is off until you turn it on, and the table below says exactly what it sends.
What stays on your phone
All of it, in the app's own storage. Backups you make are encrypted and go where you put them.
Bank messages are not kept
When Cently reads a bank message, the message text itself is never stored in your data. What it keeps is:
- the amount
- the merchant
- the date
- a fingerprint, so the same spend isn't counted twice
On iPhone, a message your Shortcuts automation hands over waits in Cently's own storage on the phone until you next open the app. It is read then and deleted.
What can leave, and only if you turn it on
Nothing in this table happens on a fresh install. Each row is something you switch on or do yourself.
| Feature | What is sent | To whom | Encrypted end-to-end? | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sync / Family vault | Your data, encrypted on the phone first | Cently server | Yes | Off (Pro) |
| Signing in | Your email address, to send a 6-digit code (sync, family vault and Ask Cently only) | Cently server, and our email provider to deliver the code | — | Only when you sign in |
| Ask Cently | Your question + budget names and amounts, category totals, net worth, Safe-to-Spend | Cently server + OpenAI | No | Off (Pro) |
| Usage statistics | Anonymous event counts | Cently (self-hosted) | No | Off |
| Crash reports | Error details with numbers and emails removed | Cently (Sentry) | No | Off |
| Help Cently learn a bank | One bank message you choose, with numbers and emails masked and anything else you remove | Cently server | No | Only when you tap Submit |
| Purchases | Anonymous ID + store receipt | App Store / Google Play via RevenueCat | — | Only when you open Pro |
Ask Cently is the one feature that is not end-to-end encrypted. We say so here, in the app, and on the Pro screen. Everything that travels is encrypted in transit.
iPhone and Android are different, and that's Apple's rule
Not a Cently choice, and not something any app can work around.
Can read bank messages, on the phone
Android lets an app you trust read SMS and notifications. Cently does that work on the device, keeps the amount, merchant and date, and discards the text. Nothing about the message is uploaded.
Can't, so your iPhone forwards them instead
Apple doesn't allow any app to read your messages. You can set up one Shortcuts automation that hands each bank message to Cently, or paste or share one, scan a receipt, or add a spend in two taps. The same privacy rules apply to whatever you add.
You're in control
The Privacy dashboard in the app lists every switch on this page, shows how much has been sent this month, and lets you delete all of it.
- See what is kept on this device
- Turn sync, statistics and crash reports on or off, any time
- Export an encrypted backup before you leave
- Delete everything on this device, and your synced data on our server, permanently
