Contributor License and your data
A Contributor License is the same perpetual Big Picture Money software as the standard license, at a lower price, in exchange for keeping certain anonymous product-improvement uploads on. Those uploads cannot be turned off in Settings while you hold a Contributor License.
Why Contributors share data
Big Picture Money is local-first: your data stays on your computer. The downside of this, however, is that we cannot use real-world data to improve our merchant recognition algorithms. We don't have it. To solve that problem we chose to offer the "Contributor" license where, in exchange for a discount, users report this data to us and we use it to improve our algorithms.
It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that this data is completely anonymous. It cannot be tied back to you. We don't want that.
How these data help:
| Goal | How shared data helps |
|---|---|
| Better merchant recognition | Learn which category choices and payee patterns are common across many households |
| Cleaner payee names | Improve rules that turn noisy bank text into readable merchant names |
| A better product | See which features are used, where flows fail, and which platforms need attention — without reading anyone’s transactions |
In return, Contributors pay $39 instead of $49 for the same edition year. See Purchase Big Picture Money and Licensing.
Anonymity (the hard line)
Upload requests include an Authorization header so our servers can refuse unauthorized devices and limit abuse. After a request is accepted:
- Stored shared records do not keep your name, email, license id, or device id
- Shared data cannot be tied back to you as a person from those records
- Your encrypted data file never leaves your computer as part of Contributor sharing
That is the same anonymity posture as optional sharing on a Standard license — Contributors commit to participation; they do not get weaker privacy.
What a Contributor License sends
Three separate streams stay on and locked. Each has its own allowlist.
1. Anonymous usage sharing (telemetry)
Why: Understand how the app is used, which features matter, and where operations fail — so we can prioritize fixes and improvements.
What: Allowlisted usage and environment signals (app version, OS, feature areas opened, that you performed common actions, coarse error codes). Not payees, amounts, memos, account names, or anything you typed as free text.
Details: Telemetry privacy · Manage telemetry and privacy
2. Crowd categorization contribution
Why: Improve default categories and merchant matching for everyone. When many people categorize similar bank text the same way, future imports get better suggestions.
What: Hashes of identifying fields plus the category name you chose — never raw payee or description text on this path.
Details: Crowd contribution privacy · Improve categorization accuracy
3. Payee / normalize samples
Why: Train and improve payee normalization (turning messy bank descriptors into clean merchant names). Hash-only categorization signals cannot teach strip rules or spelling patterns; a small allowlisted plaintext sample can.
What: Payee text (and description when present) plus the app’s normalized form of those strings — still without amounts, accounts, or identity on the stored row.
Details: Normalize sample privacy
What never leaves as Contributor sharing
Across all three streams, Contributor sharing never uploads:
- Your full ledger or data file
- Amounts, balances, dates, or currencies (except as excluded above)
- Account names or numbers, institution names
- Passphrases, API keys, bank credentials, or license identifiers in stored shared data
- AI chat prompts or responses
- Issue reports (those are separate and only sent when you choose — see Report a problem)
Standard vs Contributor
| Standard ($49) | Contributor ($39) | |
|---|---|---|
| Usage sharing | Off until you opt in | On, cannot turn off |
| Categorization contribution | Off until you opt in | On, cannot turn off |
| Normalize samples | Off | On, cannot turn off |
| Anonymity of stored shared data | Same | Same |
| Software / edition | Same perpetual license | Same perpetual license |