Privacy Policy

Who we are

LadderStar is operated by Ladder Star LLC, 30 N Gould St, STE R, Sheridan, WY 82801, USA. This policy explains what information LadderStar collects when you use the website and its AI practice partner, Co-Star, and how it is used.

What we collect

Account information: your name, email address and a securely hashed password, or your Google account's name and email if you sign in with Google.

Conversation information: the text of your chats with Co-Star on the home page (typed messages and transcripts of voice chats), with the account or browser identifier they were made under, and the practice plans Co-Star builds from them. Practice information: the practice plans Co-Star builds for you, text transcripts of your spoken practice sessions, the written reviews of those sessions, and your skill profile (short plain-text notes about your speaking strengths, things you're working on, patterns, goals and context).

Billing information, if you buy a paid plan: Stripe collects your payment details and billing address. We receive your Stripe customer ID, your plan, billing period, subscription status and renewal or end dates, and never your full card number.

Promotion-abuse information, if you use a promotion code: we keep the account and Stripe customer IDs, the campaign and code, the redemption time, and one-way keyed hashes of a random device identifier, IP address and Stripe card fingerprint when available. The raw device identifier, IP address and card fingerprint are not stored in this ledger. IP reuse is a temporary risk signal, not a permanent block.

Live Labs information, on paid plans: your Lab settings, the passage the speaker reads, a transcript of your interpretation and your Lab summary. Lab audio (the speaker and your voice) is sent to our AI provider for assessment and is not stored.

Voice usage information: how many tokens each practice session used with our AI provider, so we can understand and control costs.

Usage information: daily and monthly counters used to apply plan limits. For visitors without an account these counters are keyed to a one-way hash of the IP address; the IP address itself is not stored in them.

Website visit information: which pages of the website are opened and for how long, the website or campaign link you arrived from (the site name only, not the full address), your country as reported by our hosting provider, your device type (phone, tablet or computer) and language. Our page-view records use a one-way hash of the random visitor identifier and are kept for 90 days. If you create an account, we also keep the entry page and campaign that led to signup with your account until it is deleted. We count plan selections, checkout starts, failures and cancellations, and new paid plans; these event records are kept for 90 days and account-linked records are deleted with the account. We also count Live voice connection starts, failures, drops and reconnect time without storing a transcript, account or visitor ID in those records. Browser-based analytics skip browsers that send a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal.

Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights also collect aggregated website traffic and page-performance measurements for us. We remove query parameters and exclude private account and practice URLs from those reports. Vercel does not use analytics cookies for its Web Analytics service.

Technical information needed to run the service, such as sign-in sessions (including IP address and browser type, kept by our authentication system) and server logs.

Voice and AI processing

When you talk to Co-Star or practice by voice, your microphone audio is streamed in real time to Google's Gemini API, which generates Co-Star's spoken replies and the text transcripts. Text you type to Co-Star is also sent to the Gemini API. Reviews and skill-profile updates are generated by the Gemini API from your transcripts.

LadderStar does not record or store your audio. We store the text transcripts of practice sessions so we can show your review and history. We also save the text of your conversations with Co-Star on the home page, typed or spoken (as a transcript), whether or not you have an account, so our team can review them to support you, keep the service safe and improve it. Conversations from a browser that isn't signed in are deleted after 90 days.

Google processes this information as our service provider under its API terms. AI output can be wrong; reviews are practice feedback, not professional assessments.

Cookies and local storage

We use a sign-in session cookie when you have an account, a random visitor identifier so practice you do before signing up belongs to your browser (and moves to your account when you sign up) and, only as a one-way hash, to count website visits, a separate long-lived random device identifier used only to prevent repeated promotion claims, and a cookie that remembers your chosen language. Your light or dark theme choice and the last email address you signed in with are kept in your browser's local storage, so the sign-in form can fill it in. We don't use advertising cookies.

How we use information

To provide practice sessions, reviews, history and your skill profile; to personalize Co-Star's practice using your skill profile; to apply fair-use limits and prevent abuse; to secure accounts; and to operate, support and improve LadderStar. We do not sell your personal information.

Your skill profile

You can view, edit, pin or remove any line in your skill profile, pause learning so reviews stop updating it, and undo automatic updates. The profile describes observed speaking behavior only; it does not assess appearance, identity or personality.

Service providers

We rely on providers to run LadderStar: Vercel (hosting, website analytics and performance measurement), Neon (database), Google (Gemini API, and Google sign-in if you choose it), Stripe (payments, subscriptions and tax calculation) and Resend (account emails such as password resets). They process information on our behalf to provide their services. Stripe also processes payment information under its own privacy policy as needed to prevent fraud and meet legal obligations.

Retention and deletion

We keep account and practice information while your account is active. Co-Star conversations from a browser that isn't signed in are deleted after 90 days; if you sign in on that browser first, they move to your account. Content you remove in the product, such as skill-profile lines, is taken out of view and out of Co-Star's context rather than immediately destroyed.

In Settings you can download a copy of your data or delete your account. Deleting it cancels any paid plan and permanently removes your account, practice, reviews, Live Lab rounds, skill profile and Co-Star conversations. Usage and cost records stay only without any link to you, and the promotion-abuse records described above stay, without your account ID, so a promotion can't be claimed twice. To access or correct your information, or if you can't sign in, email privacy@ladderstar.com. We may keep limited records where required by law or to resolve disputes; for example, billing and tax records of paid plans are kept for as long as tax law requires.

Eligibility

LadderStar is intended for people who are at least 18 years old. We do not knowingly collect information from children.

Changes and contact

We'll update this page when our practices change and revise the effective date. Questions or requests: privacy@ladderstar.com.