Privacy Policy

Effective date: September 16, 2026. This policy applies to www.wattpenny.com ("WattPenny", "we", "us").

1. What we collect directly

Nothing you type into the calculator. All calculations run in your browser. Wattages, hours, rates and the state you select are never sent to our servers or to anyone else.

No accounts. There is no sign-up, login, newsletter or comment system.

Local storage. If you switch to dark mode, your browser stores a single preference ("wp-theme") in localStorage so the choice persists on your next visit. It contains no personal data and never leaves your device. You can clear it through your browser settings.

Email. If you contact us, we receive your email address and whatever you write. We use it only to reply and keep it only as long as needed to resolve your message.

Server logs. Our hosting provider (Vercel) records standard web server logs, including IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time, for security and reliability. These are retained for a short period and are not used to identify or profile visitors.

2. Cookies and advertising

WattPenny is supported by display advertising served by Google AdSense. This is the only part of the site that uses cookies, and we want to be specific about it.

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites.
• Google's use of advertising cookies (including the DoubleClick cookie) enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.
• These cookies and similar technologies (such as web beacons and device identifiers) may collect information such as your IP address, approximate location, browser and device type, the pages you view and how you interact with ads.
• Google and its partners may use this information for ad personalization, frequency capping, fraud prevention and measurement of ad performance.

How to opt out. You may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings. You can opt out of some third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalized advertising at aboutads.info (US), youradchoices.ca (Canada) or youronlinechoices.eu (EU/UK). You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings; the calculator works fully with cookies disabled.

For more on how Google uses data from sites that use its services, see How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

3. Consent in the EEA, UK and Switzerland

If you visit from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, you will see a consent message before any advertising cookies are set. The message is provided through Google's certified consent management platform and lets you accept, reject or customize the purposes for which data is used. You can change your choice at any time via the "Privacy settings" link at the bottom of the page. Non-personalized ads may still be shown; these do not use cookies for personalization but may use contextual information such as the page content and approximate location derived from your IP address.

4. California and other US state privacy rights

We do not sell personal information in the ordinary sense, but advertising cookies may constitute "sharing" for cross-context behavioral advertising under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA) and similar laws in Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and other states. You can opt out of such sharing using the links in section 2, by enabling the Global Privacy Control signal in your browser, or by emailing us. We do not knowingly collect personal information beyond what is described in this policy, so requests to access or delete data will typically return nothing beyond any email correspondence you have had with us.

5. Analytics

We use Vercel Web Analytics, a privacy-focused, cookieless page-view counter provided by our hosting company. It records the page visited, the referring site, your browser and device type, and your country or region derived from your IP address. It does not set cookies, does not use your IP address directly for identification, and does not track you across other websites; a short-lived hashed identifier is used to count unique visits within a single day and is then discarded. We use these aggregate numbers only to see which pages are useful. Vercel's description of what is collected is at vercel.com/docs/analytics/privacy-policy. If we ever add a different analytics service, we will update this section before it goes live.

6. Children

WattPenny is not directed at children under 13 (or 16 in the EEA) and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Advertising on the site is not personalized to users we know to be under the applicable age.

7. Links to other sites

Guides link to external sources such as the U.S. Energy Information Administration and Google's policy pages. Those sites have their own privacy policies, and we are not responsible for their practices.

8. Security

The site is served over HTTPS. Because we do not store calculator inputs or maintain accounts, there is no personal data on our side to breach beyond email correspondence, which is held in a standard email service with two-factor authentication.

9. Changes to this policy

We will post any changes on this page and update the effective date. Material changes, such as adding an analytics service, will be noted with a short summary at the top of this page for at least 30 days.

10. Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: hello@wattpenny.com, subject line "Privacy". See also our terms of service.