Last updated: September 14, 2026
Tellstoy has no accounts and no sign-up, and it never asks for your name, e-mail address or payment details. It shows no ads. It does collect a small amount of anonymous usage data so we can see which stories people listen to and whether our own advertising brings in listeners; that data is described below and is never tied to your identity.
Your listening progress, language choices, settings and — if you choose to enter one — the name used for the in-app greeting are stored only on your device. They never leave it, and the name is entirely optional.
The app uses Google Analytics for Firebase to record usage events: a story was started, a story was listened to for at least a minute, a story was finished, the subscription screen was viewed, and a subscription was bought. Firebase also records automatically when the app is opened and updated, how long each session lasts, which screens are shown, and whether a notification was received or opened. Each event carries the story or category id, a random app-instance identifier generated on install, and general device information (device model, operating system version, app version, language, screen size and an approximate location — country, region and city — estimated from your IP address). We have switched off collection of your device's advertising identifier and of Apple's identifier for vendors, and none of this is linked to a name, e-mail address or account.
We share these anonymous events with Google Ads so we can measure whether our own advertisements lead to people actually listening. Ad-personalisation signals are switched off, so the data is used for measurement only: it is not sold and is not used to show you personalised ads or to build a profile of you across other apps or websites. Google's handling of this data is described in the Google Privacy Policy. You can reset the app-instance identifier at any time by uninstalling the app.
No push token is created until you turn notifications on. If you do, the app registers a token with Firebase Cloud Messaging so we can occasionally tell you about a new story. The token identifies the app installation, not you; turning notifications off in Settings removes it.
Premium subscriptions are processed by Apple through your App Store account or by Google through your Google Play account. To validate purchases, our subscription partner RevenueCat receives an anonymous device identifier and purchase receipts. We never see your name, e-mail address or payment details. See RevenueCat's privacy policy.
The app downloads the story catalog, audio and subtitles from our content servers (Cloudflare). Standard technical logs (such as IP addresses) may be processed briefly by Cloudflare to deliver the content, as with any website.
Tellstoy is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect personal data from anyone, including children. The anonymous usage data above is not linked to any person.
Questions? E-mail us at [email protected].