Effective October 2, 2026

Privacy, plainly.

Cheap Audiobooks turns your books, documents and saved webpages into private reading and listening items. This policy covers the whole service: the iPhone app, the web app and the Save to Cheap Audiobooks browser extension. Cheap Audiobooks is run by Alex Ramalho, who is responsible for your information.

The short version

• We collect what we need to run your account, store your library and make the audio you ask for.
• No advertising. No tracking across other apps or websites. No third-party analytics SDKs.
• We don’t sell your information or share it for anyone else’s marketing.
• You can delete your account and everything in it from the app at any time.

Information we collect

Account

When you sign in with email and password, Sign in with Apple or Google, we store your account identifier, name, email address and profile photo URL. Passwords are handled by our sign-in provider; we never see or store them. If you use Sign in with Apple and choose to hide your email, we receive Apple’s relay address instead.

Your library

The PDFs and EPUBs you upload, articles you save from the web, the text we extract from them, cover images, narration audio generated for you, AI summaries you request, your listening progress, and the passages and notes you save.

Credit and purchases

Your credit balance and history: purchases, narration and summary charges, and refunds. On iPhone, Apple processes payment and we receive a transaction record, not your card details. On the web, Stripe processes payment and we receive the order and payment status, not your full card number.

Feedback

Bug reports and feedback you send from the app, together with your name and email so we can reply.

TestFlight beta signup

Your email address if you join the beta on this website, so we can send an invitation and occasional notes about major updates.

Operational data

Limited technical information needed to run and secure the service, such as request logs, error details and sign-in session records.

How we use it

Only to provide the service you asked for: sign you in, store and show your library, generate and deliver narration and summaries, sync your progress across devices, keep track of your credit, answer your feedback, send beta invitations you requested, and keep the service secure and working. We do not use your information for advertising, profiling or to determine creditworthiness.

Service providers

We use a small number of providers who process information on our behalf, only as needed to deliver the service:

• Hetzner (EU) hosts our servers, database, uploaded files and audio. Basic narration runs on our own server, so that text is not sent to a speech provider.
• Clerk manages sign-in and accounts. Apple and Google are involved when you choose to sign in with them.
• Amazon Web Services stores cover images in private storage (S3) and sends operator email notifications (SES).
• Speechify supports narration for older books that selected it. It receives the text being narrated.
• Google Gemini generates Premium narration and answers Ask questions. It receives the text being narrated. For Ask it receives your spoken question and the book text up to where you paused, only while an Ask conversation is open.
• Groq aligns narration audio with its text so the current phrase can be highlighted. It receives the generated audio.
• Vercel AI Gateway and the language-model provider it routes to, including OpenAI, prepare imported books for audiobook narration, write AI summaries you request, and may help select the readable text from a difficult webpage. They receive the relevant book or article text.
• Stripe processes web payments. Apple processes in-app purchases on iPhone.
• Telegram delivers operator notifications, such as feedback reports (including your name and email) and payment alerts.

We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the rights, safety or security of users or the service.

Save to Cheap Audiobooks extension

The Chrome extension has one purpose: when you click its toolbar button, it sends the current webpage URL to your Cheap Audiobooks account so the article can be extracted and saved. It does not monitor every page you visit or collect a continuous browsing history.

It processes your account identifier, name and email when you connect it; a revocable, save-only token so you don’t need to connect on every save; the URL and title of the active tab when you click it; and the article text, metadata and optional preview image the service fetches from that URL. Connection tokens are kept in extension-local storage and expire after 30 days, or sooner when you sign out of the extension. Pairing requests expire after five minutes. The server stores only protected token representations.

Chrome Web Store Limited Use

Save to Cheap Audiobooks’ use and transfer of information received from Chrome APIs complies with the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We use and transfer that information only to provide or improve the extension’s single purpose: saving the webpage you select. We do not use it for personalized advertising, creditworthiness or unrelated purposes. We do not permit people to read it except with your explicit consent for support, when necessary for security, or when required by law.

Retention and deletion

Your library stays in your account until you delete an item or delete your account. To delete everything, open Account → Delete account in the app. This permanently deletes your library, uploaded files, generated audio, progress, saved passages and your account. We keep limited, anonymized payment and credit records where needed for accounting, tax and legal obligations. Downloaded audio on your device is removed when you delete the app or its data.

You can also email alexandre.ramalho.1998@gmail.com from your account’s email address to ask us to delete your account.

Where information is processed

Our servers are in the European Union. Some providers above, such as Clerk, Google, Speechify, Groq, Vercel, Stripe and Apple, may process information in other countries, including the United States. Where that happens, we rely on the providers’ standard safeguards for international transfers.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export or delete your information, or to object to or restrict how we use it. Email us to make a request and we’ll respond within the time required by law. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

Children

Cheap Audiobooks is not directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we’ll delete it.

Security and changes

We use HTTPS, private storage, access controls and scoped authentication to protect the service. No internet service can guarantee absolute security. Material changes to this policy will be posted here with a new effective date.

Contact

For privacy questions or requests, email alexandre.ramalho.1998@gmail.com. For help with the app, see the support page.