1. What are cookies and similar technologies?
A "cookie" is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store on your device. It can be read by the website that set it (a "first-party" cookie) or by a different website (a "third-party" cookie) when you visit that other site or a site that embeds it.
Browser storage technologies such as localStorage, sessionStorage, and IndexedDB work similarly and are also covered by this policy where we use them. We refer to all of these as "cookies" below for simplicity.
2. The rules we follow
In the UK, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) require us to obtain your consent before we set cookies on your device, unless the cookie is "strictly necessary" to deliver a service you have explicitly requested. We follow the same approach for users in the EEA under the EU ePrivacy Directive as implemented locally.
3. What we use cookies for
BandVolt is a privacy-respecting product. We deliberately use as few cookies as possible. Most of the cookies below are strictly necessary to deliver the Service to you. The only non-essential ones measure which of our adverts bring bands to BandVolt, and we set them only if you press Accept on our cookie banner. We do not use analytics cookies that profile you, and we do not use cookies to show you adverts on other sites.
The banner appears on both our website (bandvolt.com) and the app (app.bandvolt.com). Your choice is shared between the two, so you are asked once.
| Cookie / storage | Purpose | Category | Typical lifespan |
|---|---|---|---|
bv_consent (bandvolt.com) | Remembers whether you accepted or rejected advertising measurement cookies, so we do not ask you again on every page. Shared by our website and the app. | Strictly necessary | 12 months |
__session, __client (Clerk) | Keep you signed in. Set and read by our authentication provider, Clerk, on our behalf. | Strictly necessary | Session / up to a few weeks (rotated) |
Clerk localStorage / sessionStorage entries (e.g. __clerk_*)
| Cache your JWT, sign-in state and dev session info so the app does not have to re-authenticate on every page load. | Strictly necessary | Until you sign out or clear browser storage |
App preferences (e.g. bandvolt:lastBand, theme/UI state)
| Remember in-product preferences such as the last active Band or your theme choice. Held in localStorage in your browser; not transmitted to our servers. | Strictly necessary (preference) | Until you clear browser storage |
| Stripe (set during checkout) |
When you start a checkout or open the customer portal, Stripe sets its
own cookies (e.g. __stripe_mid, __stripe_sid)
for fraud prevention and to operate its checkout pages. See
Stripe's Cookie Policy
.
| Strictly necessary (third party, payment fraud prevention) | Per Stripe's policy (up to 1–2 years) |
| Cloudflare |
Our content-delivery and security provider may set cookies (e.g.
__cf_bm) to distinguish humans from bots and to protect the
Service. See
Cloudflare's cookie information
.
| Strictly necessary (third party, security) | Up to 30 minutes (per Cloudflare) |
bv_attr (bandvolt.com) |
Records where your first visit came from: the campaign details in the
link you followed (such as utm_source and
utm_campaign), the Google click identifier if you arrived from
a Google advert, the page you landed on, and the website that referred
you. If you then create an account, we store these details with it so we
can tell which adverts work. Set by us, on our website and the app.
| Advertising measurement (only with your consent) | 90 days |
_gcl_au (Google Ads) | Set by the Google tag to measure how people who see or click our adverts go on to use BandVolt. | Advertising measurement (only with your consent) | 90 days |
_gcl_aw (Google Ads) | Set by the Google tag when you arrive from a Google advert. It holds the click identifier so that, if you sign up, Google Ads can tell which advert led to it. | Advertising measurement (only with your consent) | 90 days |
When you accept, our pages load the Google tag from Google's servers. Google may also read or set cookies on its own domains as described in how Google uses cookies in advertising . If you reject, or make no choice, we do not load the Google tag at all.
Whatever you choose, if you arrive from one of our adverts the campaign details in the link are carried in the web address to our sign-up page. That does not store anything on your device. See our Privacy Policy for how we use them.
4. Managing cookies
You can change your choice at any time. Select Cookie settings at
the foot of any page on our website, or in the Policies & info
menu in the app, then press Accept or Reject. If you reject after previously
accepting, we delete the bv_attr and _gcl_ cookies from
your browser and stop loading the Google tag.
You can also manage cookies in your browser settings - including blocking or deleting them. Useful guides:
Please note: blocking strictly-necessary cookies (for example, Clerk's session cookies) will stop you from signing in and the Service will not work correctly.
5. Changes to this Cookie Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised.
6. Contact
Questions about our use of cookies? Email [email protected].