Privacy Policy

DealPrepare (dealprepare.com) is operated by Clotfelter Data & Design LLC. This policy explains what we collect, why, who helps us run the service, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. We do not sell your personal information.

What we collect

• Account details: your email address and name, and your profile photo if you sign in with Google.
• Documents you upload: dealer quotes, buyer's orders, contracts, final paperwork and service quotes, and what our AI reads from them, such as the vehicle, its VIN, the dealer, prices, fees, add-ons and financing terms.
• Your buying and service profiles: what you choose to tell us, such as how you're paying, your credit range, a pre-approved rate, your trade-in and its payoff, your down payment and target payment, and your cars and their mileage.
• Chats with Miles: the messages you send and Miles' replies.
• Market checks: the car, ZIP code, mileage and any price you enter.
• Purchases: Stripe processes your payment. We receive what you bought, the amount and its status, never your card number.
• Technical data: your IP address when you create an account, to prevent abuse. For free market checks we also use a random ID stored in your browser and your connection's address, kept only as salted one-way codes, to enforce daily limits. When a free scan starts, we keep a one-way hash of the browser's random ID and of the connection with that account, kept with the account until it is deleted, so one free scan a month is one per device as well as one per account. The sign-up record keeps the same browser hash beside the IP address.
• Usage data: pages visited and actions taken on the site, through the analytics tools described below.

How we use it

• To run the service: analyze your documents, run market checks and trade-in estimates, power your chats with Miles, and keep your deals, cars and history in your account.
• To email you about your account and your results, such as scan results, market check results, service results and sign-in emails. We don't send newsletters. The one other email is the pair of follow-up notes after a free market check without an account, described below.
• To prevent abuse and enforce the free limits.
• To improve our analysis and understand how the site is used.
• For research we publish: we combine figures from scanned documents into anonymized totals, such as typical doc fees by state, and publish some of them, such as our dealer quote study. These never include your name, email or anything that identifies you.

AI processing

Documents you upload and messages you send to Miles are processed by Anthropic's Claude AI models to produce your analysis and replies. Miles may also search the web for public facts, such as a state's fees or a lender's policy. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, Anthropic does not use this content to train its models. AI can make mistakes, and our analysis is informational, not legal or financial advice (see our Terms of Service).

Who we share it with

We share information only with the companies that help us run DealPrepare, and only what each needs:

• Supabase: our database, file storage and sign-in.
• Railway: runs our servers.
• Vercel: hosts the website; Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights measure visits and page speed.
• Anthropic: the Claude AI models that read your documents and power Miles.
• Stripe: payments.
• Resend: sends our emails.
• Google: Sign in with Google (if you choose it), Google Analytics (how the site is used) and Google Ads (which ads lead to sign-ups and purchases).
• Trustpilot: after a scan, a service quote check or your first market check on an account, we may share your first name, your email and a reference number so Trustpilot can invite you, once, to review us.
• NHTSA (U.S. Department of Transportation): we send a vehicle's VIN, and only the VIN, to its public decoder to read the car's details.

We may also share information when the law requires it, to protect anyone's rights or safety, or as part of a sale or merger of the business, in which case this policy continues to apply to it.

Links you share: if you make a share link for a market check, anyone with the link can see the car, the ZIP code, the price you typed and the result, and nothing else from your account.

Free market checks without an account

Every free market check without an account asks for an email address, because we email you the result, then up to two short notes about that car from our founder. Those notes go only to checks run on or after October 23, 2026, and never to anyone who already has an account: the address is checked against existing accounts, so an account holder gets none. Each note has an unsubscribe link, and an unsubscribe stops every future note. Apart from the result, or a note that the check failed, we send nothing else to that address, and it is never sold or shared. While the check runs you can also answer two optional questions: whether you want Miles to review a quote of yours, and whether you have a trade-in to price. We keep the address and those answers on that check for up to 30 days or until you claim it with an account, whichever comes first.

If you create an account before the result arrives, the check becomes yours and we still owe you the result email, so we keep the address on it until a day after the result email is sent, and then we clear it. We clear it sooner if the email cannot be sent, and after 30 days at the latest. Your answer to the quote question stays with any check that is claimed into your account, whether you claim it before or after the result arrives, for as long as that check is on your account, so the links in the email and on your account take you to the right place: the scan, or Prepare with Miles. The trade-in you describe moves into your buying profile when you create an account.

Cookies and analytics

Google Analytics and Google Ads use cookies to measure visits and which ads lead to sign-ups and purchases. Vercel Analytics measures visits without cookies. Your browser also stores your sign-in session, the random ID used for free check limits, and a few remembered choices. You can opt out of Google Analytics with Google's opt-out add-on and manage Google ads in My Ad Center. Our site does not respond to browser "Do Not Track" signals; the options above work instead.

How long we keep it

• Your account, documents, chats and profiles: until you ask us to delete your account.
• The email address and answers (the quote question and a trade-in) on a free market check without an account: up to 30 days, or until the check is claimed.
• The email address on a check you claim before its result arrives: a day after the result email goes out, sooner if the email cannot be sent, or 30 days at most.
• Your answer to the quote question on a check claimed into your account: for as long as the check is on your account.
• An unsubscribe: a salted one-way fingerprint of the address, kept so an unsubscribe holds after the address itself is deleted.
• The note sequence: a salted one-way hash of the address, kept 30 days after the first note, so one address gets one sequence of notes in 30 days.
• A file that isn't a car document is deleted when our check rejects it.
• Payment records: as long as accounting and tax law require.
• Anonymized totals: kept, since they can't identify you.

Your choices

• See and correct: most of what we hold is on your profile page, where you can edit your buying and service profiles.
• Get a copy or delete: send a request through our contact form using the email on your account. We delete your account, documents, chats and profiles within 30 days, except payment records we must keep and anonymized totals.
• Analytics: use the opt-outs under Cookies and analytics.

These choices are open to everyone, wherever you live.

Security

Data travels encrypted. Uploaded documents sit in private storage and are opened only through short-lived links, and access to our systems is limited to what running the service needs. No system is perfectly secure, so we can't promise that information will never be exposed.

Children

DealPrepare is for adults buying, leasing or servicing cars, and isn't directed at children under 13. We don't knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we'll delete it.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, we update the date at the top. For a significant change, we'll also say so on the site or by email before it takes effect. Using DealPrepare after an update means the updated policy applies.

Contact

Questions about your data? Use our contact form. Clotfelter Data & Design LLC, Chicago, Illinois.