Rate My Rent.
The University of Texas at AustinReal rents. Local knowledge. A better next move.

Privacy Policy

Last updated October 22, 2026

Rate My Rent is run by A1Base, Inc. (“A1Base”, “we”). This policy covers the Rate My Rent websites (ratemyrentut.com, umichratemyrent.com and aggiesratemyrent.com), the Rate My Rent iOS app and the Rate My Rent for Chrome browser extension. Questions go to support@a1base.com.

The short version

  • What you share about your rent is published without your name.
  • We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t track you across other companies’ apps or websites for advertising.
  • Your location stays on your phone, and the Chrome extension doesn’t collect your browsing history.
  • You can delete your account at any time, in the app or on the website.

What we collect

  • Your account. You sign in with an A1Base account (Apple, Google, Discord or an email code). From it we keep your display name, handle, profile photo, email address, whether your school email is verified, and which campuses you can use. Your password and sign-in methods stay with A1Base; Rate My Rent never sees your password.
  • What you share. Rents, layouts, utilities, parking, lease dates, notes, building ratings and surveys, lease reviews and sublease posts. These are published on the site and the app without your name. Please don’t include your name or contact details in notes; sublease posts show the contact details you choose to give.
  • What you save. Saved buildings, comparisons and your preferences, so they follow you between the app and the site. A list you choose to share is published at its own link.
  • Enquiries. When you contact a property, the email, phone number, move-in date and message you enter, and your consent to share them with that property.
  • Reports. When you report content, what you reported and why.
  • Notifications. If you turn on notifications in the app, your device’s push token and which alerts you chose.
  • Usage. Pages and features used, sign-in and submission events, under a random ID that isn’t your name or email, and views and clicks on paid Showcase listings under a one-way hash. On public pages of the website we may record how the page is used (scrolling and clicks, with form fields and contact details masked) to find problems. Our host, Cloudflare, processes IP addresses and basic device information to serve and protect the site.

The iOS app

The app uses your location only on your phone, when you search “Nearby” or show yourself on the map, and doesn’t send it to us. If you add your move-out date to your calendar, the app can only add that event; it can’t read your calendar. My Lease (rent due dates, roommates, rent split) stays on your phone. The app doesn’t use Apple’s advertising identifier.

Rate My Rent for Chrome

The browser extension shows Rate My Rent’s card on apartment listings and property websites. It runs on the listing and property sites it lists, and on other sites only if you turn on “show on every site” or click the extension on a page. To find the building a page is about, it sends us the property’s name, street, city and map position as the page shows them, and the page’s title; on a property’s own website, also that site’s domain and page path. It sends nothing else from the page and nothing from sites it doesn’t run on, and doesn’t collect your browsing history or personal information from listing pages. Property lookups don’t use your account or sign-in cookies. Links on the card open Rate My Rent without passing on the listing’s address. Answers are kept in your browser for 10 minutes, and the sites you hide the card on are kept in Chrome’s storage (Chrome syncs them between your own browsers if you use Chrome sync); removing the extension deletes both.

The extension’s popup and side panel use the same account and sign-in cookie as the Rate My Rent website in your Chrome profile. They ask the website for your account status and display name; they don’t read the cookie, save account details in extension storage, or share those details with listing sites. Sign-in and sign-out take place on the website. Signing out there signs you out of the extension too. Browsing and property lookups work without signing in.

If several Rate My Rent locations link to the same property website, the extension asks you to choose one. It sends that location’s public Rate My Rent building ID with the lookup so it can show that building’s reports. Your choice stays on the open page and isn’t saved to your account.

On supported apartment marketplace home and Austin search pages, the floating badge opens Rate My Rent’s public apartment index. The index’s searches and filters stay in your browser; the extension doesn’t send the marketplace page’s address, search terms or results to us. Apartment photos come from Rate My Rent’s saved copies.

The extension’s use of information received from Chrome APIs adheres to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We use what it sends only to show you the card; we don’t sell it, use it for advertising, or let people read it, except to fix problems or where the law requires.

Remy, the chat on the website, answers housing questions from Rate My Rent’s own data. We keep the conversation (your messages, Remy’s replies) and what you tell Remy about your search, such as a first name, budget, bedrooms, move-in date and neighborhoods, so it can pick up where you left off: on your account when you’re signed in, otherwise on your browser. To write each reply we send the conversation to an AI model run for us by Cloudflare (Workers AI, or OpenAI’s models through Cloudflare), which may use it only to write the reply and don’t train their models on it. Starting a new chat clears what Remy remembers about your search.

You can also text Remy. Texts go through Linq, which delivers them by iMessage, SMS or RCS. We keep your phone number only in a hashed and encrypted form, plus its last four digits, and keep the texts and Remy’s replies as we keep chats on the website. Your answers to Remy’s first questions (campus, budget, bedrooms, move-in) are kept the same way. Remy texts you first only if you said yes to updates; reply STOP at any time to stop all texts, START to resume, or HELP for help. We keep a record of each STOP, START and yes or no to updates. If you text Remy a code from your account, your number is linked to the account; reply UNLINK to undo it, and deleting your account deletes the linked number’s chat with Remy.

Cookies and local storage

The website uses a few cookies it needs to work: one that keeps you signed in (up to 30 days), one that protects sign-in while it is in progress, a random ID that keeps a chat with Remy on your browser when you aren’t signed in (up to 180 days; signing out clears it and the chat), and settings for our own staff. Our analytics provider, PostHog, keeps a random ID in a cookie and in your browser’s storage to count visits. We don’t use advertising cookies or let ad networks place cookies on our pages. Our video pages show a video in TikTok’s, Instagram’s or YouTube’s own player only once you press play; that service then receives your IP address and may set its own cookies, under its own privacy policy. You can block or clear cookies in your browser; signing in needs the sign-in cookie.

How we use it

To run Rate My Rent: to show students what others pay, keep your saved buildings in sync, send the notifications you turned on, pass your enquiry to the property you chose, prevent abuse, moderate content, and understand which features help students. Showcase listings are paid placements from properties; they are chosen by campus and page, not by a profile of you. We don’t sell your personal information, don’t share it for targeted advertising, and don’t use it for advertising targeted to you across other companies’ apps or sites.

Who we share it with

  • Everyone sees what you share (rents, ratings, surveys, reviews), without your name.
  • A property you contact receives your enquiry.
  • Service providers who run parts of the service for us: Cloudflare (hosting and storage, and running the AI model that writes Remy’s replies), Linq (delivering texts with Remy), A1Base Identity (sign-in), PostHog (product analytics and page recordings), Resend (emailing your enquiry to the property), Slack (alerts to our team about new sign-ups, with your name and email, about submissions and reports, and with each question asked of Remy and its answer, with your name if you’re signed in or the last four digits of your number on a text), Apple (push notifications) and MapTiler and OpenStreetMap (map images, which receive your IP address and the area of the map you view). They may use your information only to provide their service to us, and must protect it as this policy does.
  • The law. When required by law or to protect people from harm.
  • A change of ownership. If A1Base or Rate My Rent is merged or sold, your information would pass to the new owner under this policy.

Rate My Rent is run from the United States, and your information is stored and processed there.

How long we keep it

Your account data stays until you delete your account. Signed-in sessions last up to 30 days. A chat with Remy on a browser you weren’t signed in on is deleted when you sign out there, or after 180 days without use. The working copy of a text to Remy is cleared once Remy answers and deleted after 30 days; the conversation itself is kept like a chat on the website. Your number and its STOP and consent record are kept so that STOP keeps working. Content you shared stays published, without any link to you, after you delete your account, because other students rely on it.

Deleting your account

In the iOS app, open You → Delete account. On the website, open Support while signed in. Deleting removes your account, sessions, saved buildings, preferences, shared list links, our records of your enquiries, notification devices, your chats with Remy, and the link between you and your analytics ID. The rents, ratings and surveys you shared stay public but are no longer linked to anyone; sublease posts are taken down. A property you contacted keeps the enquiry it received, and analytics events already collected stay under a random ID that no longer leads to you; email us if you want those removed too. Your A1Base login is separate and stays for other A1Base apps; ask us at support@a1base.com and we will delete it too.

Your choices and rights

You can browse without an account, turn notifications and location off at any time in your phone’s settings, and ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, or to delete it by emailing support@a1base.com. Depending on where you live (for example Texas, California or Michigan), you may have further rights under local law, such as to opt out of the sale of personal data or targeted advertising (we do neither); we will honor them and won’t treat you differently for using them. We answer within 45 days. If we decline a request, you can appeal by replying to our answer with “Appeal” in the subject, and we will tell you the outcome and why within 60 days; if you disagree, you can contact your state’s attorney general.

Children

Rate My Rent is for college students and isn’t directed at children under 13. We don’t knowingly collect their information; if you believe a child has given us information, email us and we will delete it.

Security

Sessions and notification tokens are stored encrypted, the app keeps its session in the iOS Keychain, and every connection uses HTTPS. No system is perfectly secure, so tell us at support@a1base.com if you find a problem.

Changes

We will post changes here and update the date above. Significant changes will also be announced on the site or in the app.