When you join the waitlist or sign up, we ask for your first name, your email address, your mobile phone number, and your zip code. The zip is only so we learn your timezone, so your daily text arrives in your evening and not someone else's. When you use Oyster, we also keep the journal entries you send us: your words, your photos, and your voice memos. That's the whole point, so we can turn them into your journal.
We use your phone number to send you one gratitude prompt each day and to receive your replies. We use your email to talk to you about your account. We use your entries to build your journal. That's it.
We never sell your information. We never share your entries with advertisers or data brokers. No mobile information, including your phone number, is ever shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging originator opt-in data and consent will not be shared with any third parties. Your journal is not used to train AI models. Your entries are never shown to anyone but you, unless you choose to share one, and then it's your hand on the button, always.
When you text Oyster, a small automated AI service helps us tell a journal entry apart from a question or a quick "thank you," so the right thing happens with your message. That is its only job. Your entries are never used to train AI models, never sold, never shared for marketing, and never used for anything except building your own journal. These are your memories. They're private, and they stay that way.
Oyster costs $59 a year (with a free first week; see our terms for the full picture, including our founding members, who are free always). When you pay, your card details go directly to Stripe, our payment processor. Your card number never touches our servers, and we never see it. Stripe sends your receipt to your email. Once a membership has lapsed for twelve months, we ask Stripe to remove the card automatically.
Oyster sends one text per day. Message and data rates from your phone carrier may apply. You can stop anytime by replying STOP, and you can reply HELP if you need assistance. We will never text you marketing from other companies, and we will never share your mobile number with anyone for their own marketing.
Your information is stored with established cloud providers that we access through protected accounts. Only Oyster can access your entries. We are a small service and we keep our setup simple on purpose: less machinery means fewer places for things to go wrong.
If you want your entries, your number, or your whole account deleted, just ask. Reply STOP to end the texts, or delete your account anytime. When you delete your account, we erase your journal, your photos, and your profile, and we delete your Stripe customer record along with any saved card. We keep a minimal record of your phone number and your texting consent for up to five years, because texting law requires us to be able to prove you said yes. After that, it's gone too.
Oyster is for adults. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.
If this policy ever changes in a way that matters, we'll tell you by text or email before the change takes effect, not after.