Data Retention Policy

Last updated: April 11, 2026

1. Overview

DealerPulse retains personal data only as long as necessary to deliver the Service, fulfill the purposes described in our Privacy Policy, and meet applicable legal obligations. This policy outlines retention periods by data category, what happens after your subscription ends, and how to request early deletion.

2. Retention Schedule

Data Category	Retention Period	Notes
Active account data (user profiles, roles, settings)	Duration of subscription	Deleted after post-termination grace period
SMS and chat message history (Connect)	Duration of subscription	Tenant may delete individual conversations
AI chat conversations (Assist / Claire)	90 days (default), tenant-configurable	Tenants can adjust retention from 30 to 365 days in Assist settings. Expired sessions are purged automatically.
Call recordings and transcriptions	90 days (default), tenant-configurable	Configurable from 30 to 365 days. Audio files are permanently deleted when the retention window closes.
Financial and billing records	7 years after creation	Required for tax compliance. Includes invoices, payment records, and subscription history.
Audit log entries	7 years after creation	Required for compliance and security investigations
Error monitoring data (Sentry)	90 days	Managed by Sentry per their retention settings. No customer PII is included by design.
Database backups	Rolling 30 days	Older backups are automatically overwritten. Backups are encrypted at rest.

3. Post-Termination

When a tenant's subscription ends (whether by cancellation, non-renewal, or termination), the following process applies:

Grace period (30 days):The tenant retains read-only access to their data and may export records through the platform's standard export features or by requesting a data export from privacy@dealerpulse.app. During this period, the tenant may also reactivate their subscription with no data loss.
Primary deletion: After the grace period, all tenant data is permanently deleted from primary database storage. This includes messages, contacts, user profiles, AI conversations, call recordings, and uploaded files.
Backup purge: Tenant data is removed from backup systems within 30 days of primary deletion, as backup snapshots cycle out naturally.

4. Tenant-Initiated Deletion

Tenant administrators can delete specific records at any time through the platform without waiting for subscription termination:

Individual contacts: Delete a contact and all associated messages, notes, and activity history from Connect.
Conversations: Delete individual chat or SMS conversations from Connect.
AI sessions: Assist chat sessions are automatically purged per the configured retention window. Manual deletion is also available.
Call recordings: Tenant administrators can delete individual recordings from the Assist dashboard.

For bulk deletion requests or deletion of data that cannot be removed through self-service tools, contact privacy@dealerpulse.app. We will process the request within 15 business days.

5. Exceptions

DealerPulse may retain data beyond the standard retention periods in the following circumstances:

Legal holds: If we receive a litigation hold, legal preservation request, subpoena, or other legal process requiring us to preserve data, we will retain the affected data until the hold is released, regardless of the standard retention schedule.
Regulatory requirements: Financial records and audit logs are retained for 7 years as required by applicable tax and financial reporting laws.
Active disputes: Data relevant to an ongoing dispute, investigation, or claim will be retained until the matter is resolved.
Aggregated and anonymized data: We may retain de-identified, aggregated statistical data indefinitely for product improvement and benchmarking. This data cannot be linked back to individual Data Subjects.

6. Contact

For questions about data retention, export requests, or deletion inquiries, contact us at:

DealerPulse Privacy
Email: privacy@dealerpulse.app