The short version
Cut the Cake is event software. Hosts use it to invite people and collect RSVPs; guests use it to answer. We collect what’s needed to do that and not much else. We do not sell personal information. We do not put advertising on invitations. You can ask us to delete your data and we will.
Hosts and guests
When you are a guest, the host or venue who invited you decides what to ask you and what to do with your answers. That guest list is theirs; we store it on their behalf. If you want your details removed from a particular event, the fastest route is to ask that host — but you can always ask us.
What we collect
From hosts and venues
- Name, email address, and password or sign-in method.
- Billing details. Payments are processed by our payment provider; we store a customer reference and the last four digits of the card, never the full number.
- The events you create and their settings.
- Basic product analytics — which pages were used and when — so we can find what’s broken.
- What you type into search boxes we provide — the cover photo search, for one — so we can tell which searches come back with nothing worth using. We look at the words, not at who typed them.
From guests
- Whatever the host puts on their guest list, typically name and an email address or phone number.
- Your RSVP and anything you choose to add to it: meal choice, plus-ones, dietary notes, a message to the host.
- Content you contribute to an event — photos, guestbook entries, song requests — if the host has enabled those.
- Whether you opted in to hearing from the host or venue about future events.
- Your mobile number, if you give one on an RSVP form, and whether you asked for text messages about that event.
If you add a phone for sign-in codes
- The mobile number you add on your account page, when you confirmed it, and the consent wording you agreed to. It is used only to text you a sign-in code when you ask for one, is never shown to a host, and is never used for event texts.
- A record of each code we asked to be sent (the number, the time, and whether it was accepted), never the code itself. Codes are made, sent and checked by our text delivery provider’s verification service, Twilio Verify, which receives your number only to do that.
- Removing the number stops the texts at once. We keep a history of the numbers added and removed, as the record of your consent, and the number, that history and these records are deleted with your account.
If you open an invitation by text
- A record of each code you ask for: the number, the invitation, the time, a scrambled form of the network address it was asked from, and whether it was accepted, never the code itself. Codes are made, sent and checked by Twilio Verify, which receives your number only to do that.
- An account for that one invitation, with no email address, that can only answer and take part in it. If you later sign in with your email, your answer moves to your own account. It stops opening the invitation after 180 days unused, or once the host archives the event.
Through an AI assistant
If you ask an assistant such as ChatGPT or Claude to start an invitation using our connector, it sends us the event details you gave it: the title, the date and time, the place and its address if you gave one, and a description. We use them to build a link and hand it back, and for nothing else. That request creates no account and no event, and we do not store what it contained. The details travel in the link itself, so they reach us again only when you open it, as an ordinary visit to our site, and they become part of an event only when you choose to start one. The link also says which assistant it came from, so that we can count how many events begin that way; it does not identify you. The assistant’s own provider handles your conversation with it under its own policy.
If you then connect the assistant to your account, you choose on our site what it may do. It can read and change the events you select: their details, wording, look, cover photo, sections, menu, features and who can come. Unless you untick it, that continues after you publish an event, and a change then shows to your guests. If you allow it, it can add guests to those events from names and email addresses you give it, and it can read totals for your events, such as how many people are coming. If you allow that too, it can read your guests’ names and their answers, never their addresses, phone numbers or notes. If you ask to see your guest list in the chat, the list is sent to the assistant’s provider to draw for you, with names, email addresses, answers and notes. The provider’s app keeps it from the assistant, which is only told how many. It can write a message to your guests as a draft, which is sent only if you send it. It cannot send a message or delete anything. Publishing is a button shown to you, in the chat or on our site. We do not offer it to the assistant, and we rely on the assistant’s provider to keep it that way.
What the assistant reads from your account, and the names and addresses you give it, pass through the assistant’s provider and are handled under that provider’s own policy. We keep a record of each connection (which assistant, when you approved it, what you allowed and when it was last used) so that you can see and remove it under Assistants on your account page. A connection ends when you remove it, and after 30 days in any case.
Why we use it
- To show you the invitation and record your answer.
- To send the messages described in our messaging policy and the equivalent emails.
- To give the host an accurate headcount and guest list.
- To take payment from hosts and venues.
- To keep the service working and secure, spam prevention, abuse detection, debugging.
Who can see your information
- The host of the event. They see your RSVP, your contact details, and anything you submitted.
- Other guests, only where the host has turned on a shared feature such as the photo gallery or guestbook, and only for that event.
- Our service providers — hosting, database, email delivery, text delivery, payment processing, error monitoring, and the automated screening described below — who may use it only to provide their service to us.
- Nobody else. We do not sell personal information, we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not disclose it to third parties for their own direct marketing.
No mobile information is shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text-message opt-in data and consent are excluded from every kind of sharing described above and are not shared with any third party; our text delivery provider receives a number only to deliver the messages its owner asked for.
Guests invited to one event cannot see the guests, content, or details of any other event. That separation is enforced in the database itself, not only in the interface.
What is on a guest page, and who can open it
A published guest page is unlisted rather than private. It has no password: anyone holding the link can open it. We ask search engines not to index it and it appears in no sitemap, so it should not turn up in a search result — but the link itself is the key, and a link that gets forwarded works for whoever receives it.
Everyone who opens the page sees the event’s title, its date and time, the name the host has given the place, and whatever else the host has written there. The street address and the map link to it are held back until a guest answers yes or maybe.
There is one exception, and it is the host’s own doing. A host may name the place, give its address, or both — only one of the two is required, because a party at somebody’s house has an address and often no name worth inventing. When a host leaves the name blank, the address is what the page prints for where the event is, so it is public along with the rest of the page, and so is its map link. Giving the place a name of its own puts the address back behind the RSVP.
Tracking
We do not use third-party advertising or tracking cookies, and no third party collects information about you across other sites through our service. Because we do not track you across other sites, we do not respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals.
Our own cookies keep you signed in. One more is set when you arrive through a link that says where it was placed, such as the “Made with Cut the Cake” line on an invitation: it holds only that placement, never your name, your address or which event you came from, for up to 90 days, so that if you open an account we can count which places bring new hosts.
Content moderation, and where AI is used
Where a host enables the guestbook, the text of each note is screened for abusive material before it appears, using Claude, a model provided by Anthropic. Only the text of the note is sent; the writer’s name, email address and account are not. A flagged note is held for the host to review, and nothing is published or removed by the model on its own. Photos are not screened automatically; guests can report one and the host can remove it.
The same provider is used when a host asks for help drafting a message to guests, from the description the host types together with the event’s name, date, venue and who the message is for; when a host asks for nametag charm suggestions, from the description alone; and to sort spam out of messages sent through our contact form, from the message and the sender’s email domain. Each of those controls says so beside it. Anthropic processes this content only to return a result to us and does not use it to train its models.
How long we keep it
Event data is kept while the host’s account is active, so they can look back at what they hosted. When a host deletes an event or closes their account, we delete the associated guest data within 30 days, except where we must keep records for tax or legal reasons.
Your choices
You can download a copy of your events at any time from your account (Download your data). You can also ask us for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, through our contact form. We may need to verify that you are who you say you are before acting, and we will respond within 45 days. We will not treat you differently for asking. Some states give their residents additional rights; where a right applies to you, the contact form is how to exercise it.
Security
We use security measures appropriate to the data we handle, including encryption in transit and at rest. No system is perfect; if we have a breach that affects you, we will notify you as the law requires.
Children
Cut the Cake is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. A host may of course invite a family to an event; in that case the responsible adult provides the details.
Changes
When we change this policy we will post the new version here and update the date at the top.
Contact
Write to us through our contact form, or by post at the address in the footer of this site. A person reads every message.