Privacy policy

Who we are

FarmRent runs ilfarmrent.com, a set of free planning tools for Illinois farmland rent. The way to reach us is email.

Questions about privacy? Email us at contact@ilfarmrent.com.

The short version

• Most of our calculators run right in your browser. You don't need an account.
• If you give us your email, we use it only for what you asked for: updates, or a lease renewal reminder.
• We don't sell your personal information. We don't use ad pixels (bits of code that track you for advertisers).
• We use PostHog to count visits and see which tools get used. We turned off its session recording and automatic click tracking. It doesn't set cookies (small files your browser saves) on our site.
• Our host, Vercel, keeps server and security logs for up to 30 days, like any website host.

What we collect, and where

1. Numbers you type into the calculators

Most tools do their math right in your browser. That includes everything on the owner and farmer tool pages. Those numbers aren't sent to us.

Three tools work differently: Crop share vs cash (/tools/crop-share), Farm P&L (profit and loss, /tools/pnl), and Crop insurance premium estimate (/tools/crop-insurance). When you press the button, the numbers you entered (yield, price, costs, rent, acres, county, and similar) go into the page address. That's the web address at the top of your browser, and it's how our server gets the numbers to do the math. Because of this, those numbers can show up in our hosting logs and in our visit counts (see sections 7 and 8). They don't include your name or email.

The cash-rent estimator also works differently now. When you ask for an estimate, your browser sends our server the county, the soil productivity score or range (if you entered one), the acres (if you entered them), and the year and outlook you picked. Our server does the math and sends back your range. The land sales and reported rent lookups on that page send the county, and sometimes the soil score, the same way. These details travel in the web address of that request, so they can show up in our hosting logs (section 8). They don't include your name or email.

The crop share and P&L tools can also keep your last result in your browser's session storage (short-term memory in your browser). That lets another page show it during the same visit. It stays on your device and clears when you close the tab.

Some tools have a "Notes" box (tile payback, fungicide break-even). Those notes stay in your browser. We don't collect them. Please don't type personal details like names, phone numbers, or account numbers into any tool.

2. Our email list ("Want a heads-up when we add tools?" and "Stay current on Illinois farm rent")

You'll find these on the home page and after you get a cash-rent estimate. If you check the box and join, we collect:

• your email address
• your Illinois county
• how you're connected to the land (the "I'm a..." question: landowner, heir, absentee owner, or farmer)
• about how many acres (optional)
• that you checked the consent box, where on the site you signed up, and when

We store this in a private Vercel Blob storage area, on servers in the US. Only FarmRent can get into it. When we send the Illinois farm rent updates you signed up for, we use Resend, an email delivery service. You can't join without checking the box.

3. Lease renewal reminders ("Remind me before the lease renews")

This shows up after you get a cash-rent estimate. If you fill it out, we collect:

• your email address
• your lease end date, or how many months until it renews
• your county
• whether you're a landlord or a farmer (optional)
• where on the site you signed up, and when

We use this only for the renewal reminders you asked for, with a link back to the estimator. Setting a reminder doesn't add you to our email list, and we won't send you updates or marketing because of it. That only happens if you join the list yourself (section 2). We store reminder sign-ups in a private Vercel Blob storage area, on servers in the US. Only FarmRent can get into it. When we send reminder emails, we use Resend, an email delivery service.

4. Anonymous rent sharing ("Help other Illinois owners: share your rent anonymously" and the /survey page)

This is optional. We ask for your role (landlord or farmer), county, soil productivity score, lease year, and cash rent per acre, plus any notes you want to add. We don't ask for your name or email. We also note which tool you came from, which version of our estimate method was used, and the time.

We use these reports to understand local rents. We may someday show them as combined, anonymous ranges. We never use them for ads. Please keep names and contact details out of the notes box. We store these reports in a private Vercel Blob storage area, on servers in the US. Only FarmRent can get into it.

We don't ask for your name or email on this form, and we don't store your IP address with the report. To catch the same report being sent twice in one day, we briefly store a scrambled code made from your IP address and the date. The code is locked with a secret key only our server has, so it can't be turned back into your IP address. We delete it within 3 days of when you send the report. The report itself, without the code, is kept for 24 months.

5. The matching waitlist and partner inquiry forms

The forms on /matching and /partners don't send anything to our servers. When you press the button, they open your own email program with a message to contact@ilfarmrent.com already filled in. On /matching, that's whether you're a landlord or a farmer, your name, email, county, acres (optional), and notes (optional). For farmers, the county and acres are labeled "Counties of interest" and "Acres sought" in the email. On /partners, it's your name, organization, email, role, and message. Nothing is stored on our site, and nothing is sent until you send that email yourself. After that, it goes through our email forwarding service to our inbox, and it's handled like any other email to us (section 6).

6. Emails you send us

Email to contact@ilfarmrent.com, or to any other @ilfarmrent.com address, goes through ImprovMX, an email forwarding service. From there it all lands in one Gmail inbox, which Google provides. We keep what you send (your address, your message, and anything you attach) so we can answer you.

7. Visit counts and tool use (PostHog analytics)

We use PostHog (PostHog's US cloud) to see how many people visit and which tools they use. Here's how we set it up:

• It records page views, with the page address. For the three tools in section 1, the page address includes the numbers you entered.
• It records when someone starts and finishes a cash-rent estimate, and when they view the result. Those records include the county, which page they came from, whether acres were entered, and whether a soil score range or the county's typical score was used.
• Automatic click tracking is off. Session recording (replays of what a visitor did on a page) is off.
• It keeps its ID only in the page's memory, so it doesn't set cookies or use local storage (another place your browser can save data). A new ID starts each time a page loads.
• If your browser sends a "Do Not Track" signal (a privacy setting some browsers offer), our site doesn't load PostHog at all.
• We never send your email or name to PostHog.

Like any web service, PostHog receives your IP address (the number that identifies your internet connection) and basic browser and device details each time our site sends it a record. It uses the IP address to work out your rough location (country, state, city, and approximate map coordinates for that area) and to spot bots (automated programs). It keeps that rough location with the record. Then our PostHog project throws the IP address away, so PostHog doesn't store it.

One exception: we turned on that setting at 10:38 PM Central Time on September 24, 2026. Records sent before then kept the IP address. We've chosen to keep those older records for now, IP addresses included.

Our analytics records are kept up to 12 months under our analytics provider's plan limits. That includes the older records.

8. Hosting, security, and abuse-prevention logs (Vercel)

Vercel hosts our site. Like any web host, Vercel handles your IP address, your browser type, the pages you ask for (including the full page address), and the time your browser asks our site for anything. We use Vercel's firewall (a filter that screens traffic to our site) to protect the site:

• Limits on how often one IP address can use our data and form services: about 60 data lookups and 10 form sends a minute.
• Vercel's bot protection, set to "log" mode only. It records traffic that looks automated. It doesn't block anything.
• Vercel's automatic protection against denial-of-service attacks (floods of traffic meant to knock a site offline).

These logs help us keep the site running, spot scraping (automated copying of the site) and spam, and fix problems. Vercel keeps these logs, including firewall and security logs, for up to 30 days. Vercel controls that, not us. We don't export them or copy them anywhere else.

Cookies and similar tech

Today FarmRent doesn't set cookies for visitors. We checked the live site and found no cookies set by our pages. Our analytics runs without cookies too (section 7). Your browser's session storage may hold calculator results during a visit (section 1). If we ever add cookies, we'll update this page first.

Why we use your information

• To give you the tool results you ask for.
• To send the updates or reminders you signed up for, once we start sending email.
• To answer your emails.
• To understand which tools help people, so we can improve them.
• To keep the site secure and stop spam, scraping, and abuse.
• To follow the law.

If you only set a lease renewal reminder, the only emails we'll send you are those reminders. Keeping the site secure and following the law never mean extra emails or marketing.

Who helps us handle it

We use a few service providers. They handle information for us so we can run the site:

We also use Google Search Console to see how our pages show up in Google search. It uses Google's own search data, not anything you give us. We don't use Vercel Web Analytics, Vercel Speed Insights, a database service, a newsletter tool, or any ad trackers.

We don't sell your personal information. We don't share it with anyone for their own advertising. We may share information if the law requires it, to protect FarmRent or our visitors from fraud or harm, or as part of a sale or transfer of FarmRent. Passing our records to a new owner in a business transfer (like a merger, or a sale of the business) isn't selling your email, so our promise "We won't sell your email" still holds.

How long we keep it

Emails from us, and how to stop them

Once we start sending email, these rules apply to every email we send. Each one will include a one-click unsubscribe link.

• Updates: We'll send these only if you checked the box. Every update email will say it's from FarmRent, include our mailing address, and have a one-click unsubscribe link. If you unsubscribe, we'll stop within 10 business days, and usually much sooner.
• Renewal reminders: We'll send these only because you asked, and we'll send you nothing else unless you join our list. Each one will have a one-click link to stop future reminders.
• You can also email contact@ilfarmrent.com and ask us to stop.

When you unsubscribe or stop reminders, we delete everything right away except your email address and a note not to email you, with the date. We keep that note so we never email you again. If you ask us to delete your sign-up, we delete all of it, including that note. After that, we can't tell that you once unsubscribed, so if the same address signs up again later, it's treated as a new sign-up. To ask, just email contact@ilfarmrent.com.

Children

FarmRent is for adults who own, inherit, or farm land. It isn't meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them. If you think a child under 13 gave us personal information, email contact@ilfarmrent.com and we'll delete it, as described in "How long we keep it" above.

Keeping it safe

List sign-ups, reminder sign-ups, and rent reports are stored in a private storage area that needs a secret key to open. One owner account controls it. The AI tools we use to build and run the site work through that same account, so they can reach the sign-ups too. The key for downloading the list is saved as a hidden secret. The site runs only over HTTPS (the secure, encrypted kind of web connection). Our firewall limits abuse. No system is perfect, though, and we can't promise that information will never be lost or misused.

Your choices

• Use the calculators without giving us any personal information.
• Skip the email list, reminders, and rent sharing. They're always optional and never block a tool.
• Unsubscribe or stop reminders at any time.
• Block analytics by turning on "Do Not Track" in your browser. Content blockers work too.
• Email contact@ilfarmrent.com to ask what we have about you, to fix it, or to delete it. We'll answer any request to see, fix, or delete your data within 30 days. We may need to confirm the request is really from you.

Illinois notes

• Data breaches. If a security breach affects Illinois residents' personal information as Illinois law defines it, we'll notify them as the Illinois Personal Information Protection Act requires. Today we don't collect the kinds of information that law focuses on, like Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, financial account numbers, or passwords.
• Biometrics. We don't collect fingerprints, face scans, voiceprints, or any other biometric information. We have no logins, photo uploads, or voice features.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. When we do, we'll change the "last updated" date at the top of this page. If we make a big change to how we use your email, we'll also mention it in the next email we send you, whether that's an update or a renewal reminder.

Questions

Questions about privacy? Email us at contact@ilfarmrent.com.