Cookie Policy

What cookies do we use?

We use the following cookies:

1. Necessary cookies

   These cookies are required for the operation of our website, so we set them without asking first. We use two:

   Name	What it does	How long it lasts
   stairpay_consent	Remembers whether you accepted or rejected analytics cookies, marketing cookies and personalised adverts, so we do not ask again on every page. It is set only once you have made a choice, and is shared across stairpay.com websites and the Stairpay App so you only choose once.	6 months, after which we ask again
   stairpay_visitor_session	Lets us find what you started in our calculator or Ask Stairpay, so you can carry on and, if you create an account, bring it with you. It holds a random value and nothing else about you, and is set only when you ask a question or continue from the calculator, never just because you visit a page. It is shared across stairpay.com websites so our sign-up can find it, and the pages you visit cannot read it. See our privacy policy for what it is linked to.	90 days after you last asked a question or continued from the calculator, or until you answer the "bring over" question when you create an account

2. Analysis cookies

   These cookies allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how users move around our website when they are using it. We use PostHog, hosted in the EU, for this. We only set them if you accept analytics cookies, and we remove them if you later reject them. PostHog stores the following in your browser, where [key] is our PostHog project's public key:

   Name	What it does	How long it lasts
   ph_[key]_posthog (a cookie, and browser storage of the same name)	Gives your browser and your current visit a random identifier, so visits and pages can be counted. It also records the address of the first page you visited, and is shared across stairpay.com websites	1 year
   __ph_opt_in_out_[key] (browser storage)	Records that you accepted analytics cookies	Until you reject analytics cookies or clear your browser's storage
   ph_[key]_window_id and ph_[key]_primary_window_exists (browser storage)	Tell visits in different browser tabs apart	Until you close the tab

3. Marketing cookies

   These cookies let us measure whether our adverts lead to people creating a Stairpay account. We use Google Ads for this. We only set them if you accept marketing cookies. On their own they do not change which adverts you see. The Google tag sets the _gcl_ cookies below, shared across stairpay.com websites; the Stairpay App reads them once, when you create an account, to tell Google that a sign-up happened. If you later reject marketing cookies, we remove the _gcl_ cookies:

   Name	What it does	How long it lasts
   _gcl_aw	Records which of our adverts you clicked, so a sign-up can be matched to it	90 days
   _gcl_au	Used by Google to measure whether an advert led to a sign-up	90 days
   Other cookies starting _gcl_	Used by Google for the same measurement	Up to 90 days
   stairpay_signup_conversion	Set by the Stairpay App, on its welcome page only, when it tells Google you created an account, so that reloading the page does not tell Google again. It holds nothing about you and sends nothing to Google. It is not removed if you later reject marketing cookies, because it only stops a second report; it expires on its own	90 days

4. Personalised advertising cookies

   If you also accept personalised adverts (you can only do this with marketing cookies on), Google may use your visits to our website to show you Stairpay adverts on Google, YouTube and other websites. We set this only if you accept personalised adverts, separately from marketing cookies, and we never use the Stairpay App or anything in your account for it. To do this, Google sets its own cookies on its own domains (for example IDE on doubleclick.net, which lasts about 13 months). Google controls those cookies; see how Google uses cookies in advertising. If you withdraw your choice, we stop sending information to Google for this; you can remove Google's own cookies in your browser's settings or through Google's My Ad Center.

5. Third party cookies

   Other than PostHog and Google, described above, no third party sets cookies on our website. We only set advertising cookies if you accept them.

Your control over cookies

Before we set any analytics, marketing or personalised advertising cookie, we ask whether you accept them. You can accept or reject them all, or choose each one in "Manage settings", and nothing is set until you accept. You can change your choice at any time with "Cookie settings" at the bottom of every page, and in the Stairpay App. If you reject analytics cookies after accepting them, we stop sending information to PostHog and remove what it stored in your browser. If you reject marketing cookies after accepting them, we stop sending information to Google and remove the cookies its tag set, and personalised adverts stop too. Your choice applies across stairpay.com websites and the Stairpay App.

You can also block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you block all cookies (including necessary ones), you may not be able to access all or parts of our website. You may refuse to accept cookies by altering the settings on your internet browser but in some cases by doing so may impact your ability to use our website or certain parts of it.