This policy describes how Rate Farm ("Rate Farm," "we," "us") handles information in connection with ratefarmus.com and the Rate Farm shipment-preparation tool (together, the "Site"). It's written to describe what the Site actually does, not a generic template.
Shipment information you enter into the tool
The shipment details you enter into the Builder — ZIP codes, addresses, pallet dimensions, weight, commodity description, Hazmat details, and similar fields — are processed entirely in your browser. Rate Farm's density, classification, and readiness calculations run client-side; this information is not transmitted to or stored on a Rate Farm server as part of using the tool.
Your browser may save a local draft of an in-progress shipment using its built-in local storage, so you don't lose your work if you navigate away. This draft stays on your device and is not sent to us.
ZIP code location data provided by GeoNames.
Feedback submissions
If you choose to submit feedback from the Shipment Brief screen, that submission — whatever you type, an optional name and email if you provide them, and a short summary of your assessment (such as your Preparation Status and estimated freight class, not your full shipment details) — is sent through Formspree, a third-party form-delivery service, to Rate Farm's inbox. Formspree's own privacy policy governs how they handle that transmission. Submitting feedback is entirely optional, and providing your name or email is optional within that.
Contact by email
If you email jake@ratefarmus.com directly, we receive whatever information you choose to include in that email, handled the same way any personal email is — it isn't added to a marketing list or shared with third parties beyond what's needed to respond to you.
Analytics (Google Analytics)
Rate Farm uses Google Analytics (GA4) to understand how the Site is used at an aggregate level — which pages people visit, roughly how they arrived (search, a direct link, a referring site), and whether visitors go on to use the shipment-preparation tool. Google Analytics may set cookies or use device identifiers to distinguish sessions and visitors, and it automatically collects general technical information such as device type, browser, approximate geographic region, and the page you're on.
Rate Farm also sends a small number of specific events to Google Analytics tied to how the tool is used: that the Builder was opened, that a shipment analysis was started, that an analysis completed successfully (or failed), that a Shipment Brief PDF was generated, and that beta feedback was submitted. These events record that something happened and, where useful, a general device category (for example, "mobile" vs. "desktop") — never the contents of what you entered. Your shipment details — addresses, weights, dimensions, commodity descriptions, contact information — are never included in any analytics event. That data stays local to your browser exactly as described above; analytics only knows that an assessment was run, not what was in it.
You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking across sites using Google's browser opt-out add-on, or by using your browser's tracking-protection or cookie-blocking settings. The Site works normally either way — analytics never affects whether the shipment tool functions.
Advertising (Google AdSense)
Rate Farm may display advertising served by Google AdSense. Google and its advertising partners may use cookies, device identifiers, or similar technologies to serve ads based on your visits to this and other websites. This is standard behavior for Google's advertising technology and is not something Rate Farm controls directly.
You can learn more about how Google uses information from sites that use its services, and adjust your ad personalization settings, at Google's Partner Sites policy and Google Ads Settings. If you are located in a region where specific consent is required before personalized ads can be shown, Google's own consent mechanisms for AdSense apply to those ads.
Server and hosting information
Like most websites, the Site's hosting infrastructure may log standard technical information (such as IP address, browser type, and request timestamps) as part of ordinary web server operation and security. Rate Farm does not separately collect or analyze this information beyond what the hosting provider retains by default.
What we don't do
Rate Farm does not require an account, does not sell personal information, does not maintain a customer database, and does not use session-recording, screen-recording, or heatmap tools on the Site. Analytics is limited to the aggregate usage patterns and specific events described above — not a record of your individual shipment.
Your choices
You can clear your browser's local storage at any time to remove any saved shipment draft. Because feedback and email are the only ways information reaches us directly, you're always in control of whether to send either.
Changes to this policy
If Rate Farm's practices change — for example, if we add analytics or introduce accounts — this page will be updated to accurately reflect that, along with the "last updated" date above.
Contact
Questions about this policy can be sent to jake@ratefarmus.com.