Privacy Policy

About Mero

Mero is a performance meal system that provides personalized meal planning, macro-based nutrition guidance, and meal preparation tools, offered through the Mero website and the Mero mobile app. The app is available for iPhone through Apple’s App Store, and an Android version is in closed testing through Google Play. Different parts of the Service collect different information, as described below, depending on whether you use the website, create an app account, or subscribe. Website and email list data handling is described separately from mobile-app data handling throughout this Policy.

What We Collect, At a Glance

This table summarizes our data practices. The sections that follow explain each one in full; where the table is shorter than the text, the text governs.

Scroll the table sideways to see every column

Anonymous onboarding you never finish is handled separately: access expires after 24 hours, and the encrypted session and any generated draft are deleted seven days after that expiry.

Information We Collect on the Website

On the Mero website, we collect your email address when you join the email list or contact us, a name only if you choose to provide one, and, when you arrive through a tagged link, the campaign source of your visit (such as the newsletter or post that brought you here). Website analytics are described in the website section below and are separate from mobile-app data handling.

The free macro calculator also asks for your weight, height, age, sex, activity level, and goal. Those values are sent to our website host, used to calculate the estimate, and returned to your browser. Mero does not store them, does not attach them to your email address, and does not include them in analytics or send them to our email provider; the analytics event records only that a calculation finished. If you join the email list from the calculator page, we record that the signup came from the calculator, not the numbers you entered. Because these are health-related inputs, they are also covered by our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy.

Information We Collect in the App

Account and access information: a provider-specific account identifier from Apple or Google and, when the provider gives them to us, your name and email address. If you use Apple’s Hide My Email, we receive a private relay address rather than your personal one. Mero uses Sign in with Apple and Sign in with Google; the app does not use separate Mero account credentials.

A Mero account may hold more than one authentication identity. On iPhone you sign in with Apple. On Android you sign in with Google, and if you already have a Mero account created with Apple you can sign in to it through Apple in a browser. Each provider identity belongs to one underlying Mero account once you link it. Linking a second identity requires you to be signed in to the existing Mero account first, and we never merge two accounts simply because Apple and Google report the same email address.

Profile inputs you provide for meal planning: exact date of birth, sex selection, height, weight, goals, allergies, training schedule, and meal preferences.

Plans and activity: your weekly plans, meal activity such as meals checked off and logged, shopping and prep progress, and weight check-ins you enter.

Product feedback: when you choose to respond to an in-app check-in or use Send feedback, we collect the source of the response, optional sentiment and categories, your comment, whether you allow us to contact you, the app version and build, and the related weekly plan identifier when applicable. Feedback comments are encrypted at rest.

Optional marketing email: if you choose Email me updates after accepting your first full-week plan, or later under Me > Email preferences, we record your choice, the address you provided, and when you made the choice. Creating an account, accepting a plan, or receiving an operational email does not sign you up for marketing. If you opt in, we send the chosen address to Klaviyo for the Mero email list. We do not send your body profile, health information, meals, or plans with this request.

Subscription and purchase state: whether you are on a free trial or paid subscription, renewal and expiration status, and restore-purchase activity. Apple’s App Store processes purchases, trials, renewals, cancellations, and refunds on iPhone, and Google Play does the same on Android. RevenueCat, our subscription and entitlement provider, processes purchase and entitlement status on both platforms. Mero receives the purchase and entitlement information needed to grant and restore your access. We do not receive or store your payment card details from Apple or Google.

Support and deletion requests: the contents of requests you send us, including the email address and details you provide so we can respond and act on them.

Device and technical data: device type, operating system, app version, a random installation identifier used for session and device management, and failed-update diagnostics. IP addresses may be processed transiently by network infrastructure for request delivery, security, abuse prevention, and rate limiting; Mero does not persist derived location in its application data.

Onboarding progress: the furthest milestone you reached while setting Mero up, from Body Profile through First Week Started, together with the platform, app version, and build number you used. We use this for app functionality and analytics, so we can see where setup is confusing and fix it. We keep only the furthest milestone, not a history: repeated or backward updates are ignored.

Before you create an account, that progress belongs to the anonymous onboarding session rather than to you. If you go on to create an account and the session is claimed, the record stays attached to that account, and it is deleted when the account is deleted. It is not permanently anonymous once you have an account.

What Mero’s first-party onboarding record does not include: your onboarding answers, body measurements, health details, allergies, training details, meals, or plans. It records no taps, no screen dwell time, and no arbitrary event properties. This record is sent to Mero’s own API. The separate, limited app measurement described below includes standard app lifecycle events and the fixed milestone names Mero sends to the named providers.

What We Do Not Collect

Mero does not ask for or access your precise device location. Analytics and advertising providers may infer a general region from network information, but Mero does not collect GPS data or store derived location in its application database. Mero also does not collect contacts, photos, audio, or browsing history, and it does not access HealthKit; health and fitness inputs are entered manually by you. Advertising identifiers are used only when platform rules and your settings allow them, as described below.

How We Use Information

We use personal information to operate the email list, provide the Service, create and adapt meal plans, generate grocery lists and preparation guidance, manage subscriptions, free trials, and restore-purchase requests, improve Mero from optional product feedback, maintain account security, communicate with users, respond to support, privacy, and deletion requests, troubleshoot technical issues, and comply with legal obligations.

How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information. We share limited website and app information with Google and Meta for analytics, advertising measurement, attribution, and campaign improvement as described in the two sections below. Under California law, some of that activity may count as sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising, and you can opt out of it. We do not send health-related data, body-profile answers, allergies, training details, meals, grocery items, feedback, email addresses, phone numbers, or names to Google Analytics for Firebase or Meta for advertising. RevenueCat sends a hashed app user ID with subscription events to Meta as described below. We otherwise share personal information only in the following circumstances: with the service providers described below who process data on our behalf to operate the Service; with Apple, Google Play, and RevenueCat to process and verify subscriptions, depending on the store you bought through; when required by law, legal process, or a valid government request; to protect the rights, safety, and security of Mero, our users, or others; in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, subject to this Policy; and with your consent or at your direction.

We may also create and use de-identified or aggregated information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you, for purposes such as research and improving the Service.

Feedback you submit may be linked to your Mero account. Mero sends a private notification for operational follow-up, delivered by Resend, our email delivery provider. That notification does not include your weight, calories, allergies, meals, grocery list, prep activity, training details, or plan contents. Your account email is included only when you explicitly allow us to contact you. Each submitted response is saved even if notification delivery fails, and delivery may be retried asynchronously. Internal launch reporting shows aggregate response counts, response rates, sentiment distribution, and category trends; it does not display feedback comments or identities.

Automated Processing and AI

Mero uses automated systems and rule-based calculations to turn the information and preferences you provide into macro targets, meal plans, grocery lists, and preparation guidance. The app itself does not run on artificial intelligence; your plans are produced by standard, deterministic computation. We do not send production personal data to general-purpose AI tools. Development and support work may use synthetic fixtures, de-identified examples, or aggregate findings that cannot reasonably identify a person. Automated outputs may be incomplete or unsuitable for your circumstances, and you remain responsible for reviewing them before relying on them.

App Analytics and Advertising Measurement

The Mero app uses Google Analytics for Firebase and Meta App Events to measure app installs, app activation, standard app lifecycle events, and a fixed set of setup and subscription-funnel milestones. Those milestones include starting and reviewing setup, starting and completing first-week generation, viewing a draft, creating an account, viewing membership, starting checkout, receiving access, and starting the first week. Milestone events carry a fixed milestone name and fixed content type. Optional preview events also carry limited context: a day of the week, a meal-row index from 0 to 8, or a predefined entry point such as a meal row or the Keep this week button. The SDKs automatically record ordinary lifecycle context and add technical context such as platform, app version, build, device and app-instance identifiers, IP address, and a general region inferred from network information.

When marketing measurement is enabled, Mero also records selected preview interactions with its own API: reaching the plan reveal, opening a day, tapping a meal row or trial entry point, viewing the trial sheet, and starting a trial. This optional preview record is separate from the operational onboarding progress record above, which remains available for setup recovery regardless of the measurement choice. Preview records include an event name and limited day, row index, or entry-point context, not meal names or recipe contents. To avoid counting an event twice, Mero keeps a receipt linked to the onboarding session with a day-level recording date, not a precise tap timestamp. Claimed sessions can be linked to your account. Mero also keeps identity-free hourly cohort totals by event context, platform, app version, and build. These totals describe consenting preview sessions, not every user.

Mero does not attach onboarding answers, body measurements, health details, allergies, training details, meals, grocery items, feedback, email address, phone number, name, or Mero account ID to these on-device funnel events. We do not send a general tap stream or screen-by-screen dwell time. Firebase may record standard app and session engagement duration while measurement is on. Google ad-personalization signals are disabled.

For subscription attribution, Mero may provide RevenueCat with the Firebase app-instance ID and Meta anonymous app ID. Mero does not use RevenueCat’s device-identifier collector. RevenueCat may then send trial starts, initial purchases, trial conversions, renewals, product identifiers, and associated subscription revenue to Meta on Mero’s behalf, including when the app is closed. RevenueCat includes a hashed app user ID so Meta can match and attribute those events. Mero does not send the same purchase or revenue event from the Meta SDK.

On iPhone, Mero asks for App Tracking Transparency permission before using Apple’s advertising identifier or enabling cross-company advertising measurement. If you decline, the app still works and can continue limited analytics without the advertising identifier. On Android, advertising-identifier access follows your Android advertising settings and Google Play rules. On both platforms, you can turn Mero’s app measurement off under Me > Privacy choices. Turning it off disables new Firebase collection, Meta App Events, and advertising-identifier collection, and removes the Firebase and Meta identifiers Mero supplied to RevenueCat. Providers may retain information collected before you turned measurement off under their retention policies. Your choice does not affect your plan, subscription, or access.

Website Cookies and Analytics

On the Mero website, we use cookies and similar technologies to operate the site, remember preferences, and understand how the site is used. The website loads Google Analytics for visit and campaign measurement and is served through Cloudflare for hosting, content delivery, and security. This website analytics activity is separate from the mobile app and is not app telemetry. You can control cookies through your browser settings.

A small number of pages also load the Meta advertising pixel, so we can measure whether our ads reach people who are actually interested and show follow-up ads to people who have visited. It runs only on the marketing pages that carry the email signup form. It does not run on the free macro calculator, on any article, or on this policy or the other legal pages. It records that one of those marketing pages was viewed and that an email signup succeeded, along with which of the three forms was used. Meta also receives the technical information any web request carries, such as your IP address, browser, and the page address. We do not send your email address or name to Meta, and we do not use Advanced Matching. The pixel never runs in the Mero app, and it does not receive anything you enter in the app.

The pixel is deliberately limited. It loads only on the marketing pages described above, and only on getmero.co itself, never on development or preview versions of the site. It loads only for visitors in the United States, where the advertising runs, so visitors elsewhere are not pixeled at all. And it does not load for any browser sending a Global Privacy Control signal. Blocking it, or opting out, has no effect on the email signup form or anything else on the site.

Global Privacy Control has an agreed meaning, so we honor it. The older "Do Not Track" header does not, so we do not currently respond to it.

Third-Party Service Providers

For the mobile service, our current providers are Apple (app distribution, Sign in with Apple, App Store purchase processing, and platform privacy controls), Google Identity services (Sign in with Google), Google Play Billing (Android purchase processing), Google Analytics for Firebase (limited app analytics and Google advertising attribution), Meta App Events (limited app analytics and Meta advertising attribution), RevenueCat (subscription and entitlement management on both platforms, plus subscription attribution to Meta when enabled), Laravel Cloud (application hosting and database), Expo (app updates and failed-update diagnostics), and Resend (delivery of private feedback and support notification emails only).

For the website and email list, our current providers are Cloudflare (hosting, content delivery, and security), Google Analytics (website analytics), Klaviyo (website and optional in-app marketing email list), and Meta (advertising measurement and retargeting on the marketing pages only, through the pixel described above). Meta is an advertising company rather than a processor acting only on our instructions, which is why the pixel is limited and can be opted out of.

We engage these providers to run parts of the Service for us, under each provider’s written terms. We do not sell your information, and we do not give any of them permission to use it to build their own products, profiles, or advertising. We are reviewing the operative terms with each provider against the processor obligations that apply to health-related data, and we will state the outcome here.

Marketing Communications

If you join the website email list or separately opt in inside the app, we may send you product updates and marketing emails. The in-app choice is optional and off until you select Email me updates; it does not affect your plan or access. You can change it under Me > Email preferences, unsubscribe using the link in any marketing email, or contact us. We may still send you non-marketing messages about your account, subscription, security, or support requests.

Data Retention

We retain personal information on the following schedule, which is enforced by the product:

• Incomplete anonymous onboarding: access expires after 24 hours. The encrypted session and any generated draft are deleted seven days after that expiry.
• Active accounts: profile, plans, logs, shopping, prep, and support records are retained while the account remains active and are deleted with the account.
• Product feedback: account-linked sentiment, categories, encrypted comments, contact permission, and app/build metadata are retained while the account remains active and are deleted with the account.
• In-app marketing email choices: the chosen address and choice history are retained while the account is active and deleted with the account. If an address was sent to Klaviyo, Mero requests deletion of that contact during account deletion; the provider processes that request asynchronously.
• Feedback and support notification emails: Resend delivers these messages and may retain limited delivery records in line with its own provider obligations and retention practices.
• Provider credentials: retained only while needed to operate the account and, where the provider supports it, revoke the authorization. They are deleted during account deletion.
• Completed deletion audit: a minimal, de-identified operational record is retained for 730 days, then deleted. It contains no profile, email, meal, weight, allergy, or support content.
• Onboarding progress: the furthest milestone reached follows the record it belongs to. On an unclaimed anonymous session it is deleted when that session is cleaned up after expiry. On a claimed session it is deleted with the account.
• Onboarding cohort totals: identity-free hourly totals of how many sessions reached each milestone, kept for 30 days, then deleted. They carry no account, device, or session identifier, and cover only platform, app version, and build.
• Optional preview interactions: session-linked deduplication receipts and identity-free cohort totals are kept for 30 days, then deleted by scheduled cleanup. Session-linked receipts are also removed when their session or account is deleted. Providers retain their separately collected events under their own retention settings and policies.
• Pending or retrying deletion work: retained until provider and local deletion steps finish.
• Backups: deleted records disappear from Laravel Cloud backups as the configured backup rotation expires, within its supported 1 to 30 day lifecycle.

Mero does not copy access or application logs into its product database. Platform logging is limited to operational metadata; sensitive request bodies, tokens, receipts, and raw provider payloads are not intentionally logged. Email list information is retained until you ask us to remove it or it is no longer needed. When you request account deletion, we process it as described in our data deletion policy.

Your Privacy Rights and Choices

Depending on where you live, you may have rights over your personal information. The request methods below are available to all Mero users, and we do not ask you to prove where you live before we act on a request. The legal rights that apply to you may depend on where you live.

• Know and access. Ask what personal information we hold about you, where it came from, why we have it, and who we have shared it with.
• Get a copy. Ask for a copy of the information you provided to us.
• Correct. Ask us to fix information that is wrong. Most profile information you can correct yourself under Me in the app, which is usually faster.
• Delete. Ask us to delete your account and the information tied to it. You can start this yourself under Me, or write to us. Our data deletion page sets out exactly what deletion covers.
• Withdraw consent or ask us to stop. Ask us to stop collecting or sharing your information. Because your profile is what Mero uses to build a plan, stopping collection generally means closing the account; we will tell you so directly rather than leaving you with a service that no longer works.
• Opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell personal information. For the app, turn off measurement under Me > Privacy choices; on iPhone, you can also decline or change App Tracking Transparency permission in Settings. For the website’s Meta pixel, turn on Global Privacy Control, block the pixel with a tracker blocker, or write to [email protected]. Opting out does not affect your ability to use Mero, subscribe, or join the email list.

How to make a request. Email [email protected], or use the in-app account-deletion request under Me. Tell us what you want us to do. We will acknowledge the request, act on it as quickly as we can, and in all cases within the time applicable law allows; if we need longer, we will tell you why before that time runs out.

Verifying who you are. Before acting on a request about a specific person’s data, we need to be reasonably sure you are that person, so that we do not disclose your information to someone else. Usually that means writing from the email address associated with the account, or making the request from inside the app while signed in. If we cannot verify you, we will tell you and explain what would let us proceed.

Authorized agents. Where the law allows, you can ask someone to make a request on your behalf. We will ask for evidence that you authorized them, and we may also ask you to confirm the request directly.

If we decline. If we cannot do what you asked, we will tell you which part we declined and why. For example, we may not be able to verify your identity, or a specific legal obligation requires us to keep something. We will complete the parts of a request we can rather than refusing all of it.

Appeals. If we refuse a request, you can appeal by replying to our decision or writing to [email protected] with “Appeal” in the subject line. A person will review the decision again and write back with the outcome and the reasoning. If we deny the appeal, we will tell you how to raise it with your state attorney general.

No retaliation. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights. You will not get a worse plan, a worse price, or worse support for asking.

You may also unsubscribe from marketing at any time, and you can manage or cancel a subscription through the store you bought it from, either your Apple subscription settings or Google Play. Deleting your Mero account does not cancel an App Store or Google Play subscription.

Health and Wellness Information

Some of the information you provide, such as weight, sex selection, goals, and allergies, relates to your health and wellness. You provide this information voluntarily so Mero can personalize your plan. It is self-reported wellness information used to operate the Service; it is not medical record information, and Mero is not a covered entity under HIPAA. We treat this information as sensitive, store it encrypted at rest, and use it only for the purposes described in this Policy. Our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy describes this information in more detail, including who processes it and the specific rights you have over it.

Minors' Privacy

Mero is intended for users in the United States who are at least 18 years old. The Service is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from minors under 18. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a minor, we will delete it.

International Users

Mero is operated for users in the United States, and information we collect is processed in the United States and other countries where we or our service providers operate. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you understand that your information may be transferred to and processed in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from those in your location.

Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect personal information. Sensitive planning data is encrypted at rest, authentication credentials and session material are held in platform-backed secure storage, which is Keychain-backed storage on iOS and the equivalent protected storage on Android, and data is encrypted in transit. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us at [email protected].

Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The effective date above shows when it was last updated. If we make material changes, we will take reasonable steps to notify you, such as by posting a notice on the website or in the app or by email. Before we collect a new category of health-related data, use it for a new purpose, or disclose it to a new kind of recipient, we will give you notice first and obtain your consent where the law requires it. We will not treat your continued use of the Service as consent where consent is legally required.

Contact

For privacy questions, contact [email protected]. For general support, contact [email protected].