Privacy policy

This policy explains how AK Foundry Ltd ("we", "us") handles personal data collected through Phrasemill at phrasemill.com. It covers the whole service: browsing the agent directory, creating an account, saving searches and lists, tracking your submissions, and paid subscriptions.

Who we are

The data controller is AK Foundry Ltd, registered in England and Wales (Company No. 16882461). Contact: hello@phrasemill.com.

What we collect

You can browse the agent directory without an account, and without giving us anything.

If you create an account we store your email address, your name if you give one, and — if you sign in with Google — the profile picture Google supplies. We then store what you create in the product: saved searches, saved lists and the agents in them, agents you have passed on, your manuscripts and the queries you track for each, and any feedback you send us.

A manuscript is its title and, if you give one, a description. Search stores the text you describe your book with only when you choose a manuscript for it, and then keeps it on that manuscript so the next search can start from it; you can edit or delete it on the Manuscripts page at any time. Without a manuscript, the text is used for that search and not kept. For a few features, such as campaign insights, we record against your account when you first and last used them and how many times, so we can see whether they are worth keeping.

Separately, we keep a running count of which taste tags are searched for, and which combinations of them are searched together — including how often a search returns no agents at all. These counts carry no account, no session, no IP address and no time more precise than the date: a record says “this combination was searched N times on this day” and nothing more, so there is nothing in it that points back to you or to your manuscript. We keep it so we can see what writers are looking for and where the directory has gaps, and we may publish it in aggregate. Because the counts are not attributable to anyone, there is nothing individual to remove — deleting your account does not change them, and it cannot.

We use two analytics tools. Vercel Web Analytics measures aggregate page traffic and does not use tracking cookies or identify you. PostHog tells us how the site is actually used — which pages are viewed, which searches are run, and which features are used. It is configured without cookies or any other storage on your device: nothing is written to your browser, so nothing follows you between visits. Each visit is a fresh, unconnected session. It records your device type, browser, referring link, and an approximate location derived from your IP address, and it may record how you interact with pages so we can see where the product is confusing.

We do not link any of this to your account. Even when you are signed in, analytics events are not associated with your name or email address, and no profile is built for you. The one exception is deliberate and small: if you arrive through a link that names where you came from, we store that single word on your account when you create it, so we can tell which channels bring people to Phrasemill.

PostHog processes this data on servers in the European Union, on our behalf, under a data processing agreement. We do not use it for advertising, and we do not sell it.

Why we use it

We use your email address to sign you in and to send you the emails the service needs to work. Our lawful basis for that is performing the contract between us. We use what you save to provide the features you asked for. If you subscribe, we use Stripe to take payment and keep the record of it, which we also need in order to meet our tax and accounting obligations.

We use analytics to understand which parts of Phrasemill people find useful, so we can improve them. You can opt out of PostHog by enabling “Do Not Track” in your browser, which we honour. There is no analytics history to delete on request: because nothing is stored on your device and no profile is built, there is no record tied to you that we could find or remove.

Who processes it for us

Your account and the things you save are held in our database, hosted by Neon. Resend sends the emails the service needs to work, such as your sign-in link and, if you subscribe and switch alerts on, the emails about agents you have saved. Stripe handles payments if you subscribe — your card details go to Stripe directly and we never see or store them. Vercel hosts the site. PostHog holds the analytics described above, in the European Union. Each of these processes data on our behalf under a data processing agreement. We do not sell your data or share it with anyone for their marketing.

How long we keep it

We keep your account and everything in it until you delete the account. You can do that yourself from your settings page; it removes your account, your saved searches and lists, your passed agents and your tracked submissions, and cancels any live subscription. Stripe keeps its own payment records for as long as UK tax and accounting law requires, which is outside our control. Analytics history is kept by PostHog and can be deleted on request.

Your rights

You have the right to ask for a copy of your data, to have it corrected or deleted, to object to how we use it, and to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you are unhappy with our response. The quickest route for deletion is the settings page in your account. Otherwise, email hello@phrasemill.com. You may also unsubscribe using the link in any marketing email we send; we will still send the emails the service needs to work, such as sign-in links.

Last updated 16 October 2026.