Last updated: 14 October 2026
This policy explains how Grit Co Pty Ltd (ABN 27 645 068 524) collects, uses, shares and protects your personal information. We run Sward and Catch Cups by Sward. The policy covers sward.au, catchcups.com.au, our checkout at shop.sward.au, the Sward app and the emails we send.
We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). If you have a question, email hello@sward.au.
The short version
- We collect what we need to measure your lawn, build and deliver your plan, run the app, help you and tell you about offers.
- We may share your contact details, address and lawn information with partners in lawn care, irrigation, garden and home services, and with water authorities, and we may receive a benefit for this. Ask us not to and we won't.
- The outline you trace in the measure tool stays in your browser. Where the app shows lawns measured near you, it shows a count only.
- Photos you add in the app are private.
- Apart from a repairer request you choose to send, we share watering answers from Catch Cup Tests only with water authorities, as de-identified figures for a suburb where at least 10 households answered.
- We only send marketing emails if you've said yes, and every one has an unsubscribe link. We may also send marketing by post, and you can ask us to stop.
- We use PostHog and Google Analytics to see how our sites are used, and Google's and Meta's advertising tools to measure and show our ads. You can opt out, as described below.
- Some of our service providers hold information overseas. They're all listed below.
- You can ask to see, correct or delete your information at any time.
What we collect
| Kind of information | What it includes |
|---|---|
| Contact and account details | Your email address, which is also how you sign in, and your password if you set one. Your name, delivery and billing addresses, and your phone number if you give one at checkout. |
| Your lawn and location | The address or postcode you type in, including the address you type into the measure tool's address field, the map location of your address in the Catch Cup Test and the lawn plan sign-up, the lawn zones you trace and their areas, your grass type, and your answers to our lawn questions, such as sun, watering and who uses the lawn. |
| Tests and your plan | Catch Cup readings and run times, Watering Scores and other results, pH level results, your application log and bottle timer results, and your plan and box schedule. |
| Photos | Lawn photos and check-in photos, if you choose to add them. They're optional. |
| Orders and payments | What you buy, your payment option, payment status, refunds and store credit. Shopify, our checkout provider, handles your card details. We never see or store your full card number. |
| Messages and reviews | Emails you send us, guarantee claims and complaints, and reviews you write. |
| Referrals and partner codes | The referral link or partner code you used. If you join our partner program, the details you give to sign up and get paid. |
| Technical details | Your internet (IP) address, browser and device type, the pages and app steps you use and when, and how you found us, such as a QR code you scanned, a link you followed, the campaign tags in that link (such as "utm_source=google") and the click identifier an ad adds to it (such as Google's gclid or Meta's fbclid). |
We don't need sensitive information, such as health information, so please don't send it to us. When you take lawn photos, try to keep people out of them.
How we collect it
- From you, when you use our sites and the app, buy from us or contact us.
- Automatically, through cookies, similar technologies, our server records, analytics and advertising tags, when you use our sites and the app.
- From our service providers, for example order and payment details from our checkout, plan status from our subscription billing service, delivery updates from couriers, and partner code details from our partner program service.
How we hold it
We hold personal information electronically: in our own database, which is in Sydney, and with the service providers listed below.
Using our sites without telling us who you are
You can browse our sites, measure your lawn, and start a Catch Cup test or a pH test, without giving us your name or email address. To save your lawn, buy from us or start a plan, we need your email address. To deliver an order, we need your name and delivery address. If you don't give us these details, we can't save your lawn, sell to you or deliver to you.
How we use it
We use your personal information to:
- measure your lawn and work out your plan size;
- build your plan, choose what goes in each box and set your application calendar;
- estimate your soil and climate, and show the watering rules for your area;
- personalise what our sites and the app show you, such as the right Catch Cups pack for your lawn size;
- run the app, including saving your lawn, tests, results, photos and reminders;
- take payments and deliver orders and plan boxes, and handle refunds, skips, store credit, referrals and partner commissions;
- sign you in and keep your account secure, including stopping bots, abuse and fraud;
- answer your questions and handle guarantee claims and complaints;
- send service emails, such as sign-in links, order and shipping updates and renewal reminders;
- send marketing emails, if you've agreed to them, and marketing by post;
- share your contact details, address and lawn information with partners, as described below;
- ask you for a review after an order is delivered;
- understand how people use our sites and the app, so we can improve them;
- measure how well our advertising works and show our ads to people on other sites and apps, such as Google, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram;
- show how many lawns have been measured near a postcode, as a count only;
- do research, and turn what we hold into aggregated, de-identified insights, such as the watering answers from Catch Cup Tests added up into figures for each suburb, which we may share with water authorities, as described below; and
- meet our legal obligations, such as keeping tax records and dealing with consumer law claims.
We don't use your personal information for other purposes unless you agree, or the law requires or allows it.
Your address, your lawn and the neighbour count
When you measure your lawn on sward.au/measure:
- We save your lawn size (in whole square metres), how many zones you traced and, if you answer the optional question, your grass type. We save them with your visit's session on our server, and in your browser's storage on this device, so sward.au and catchcups.com.au can suggest the right pack, show your lawn size and fill it in when you start a lawn plan.
- If you type an address into the measure tool's address field, we save the address you typed or chose with your measured lawn: with your visit's session, and in your Sward account once you sign in. We don't save its map location or any other place details from Google. The address also goes to Google Maps Platform to find your lawn on the map.
- The outline you trace in the measure tool stays in your browser. We never save it.
- If you shop from your result, the link to catchcups.com.au carries your lawn size and grass type, and that site keeps them in your browser's storage on this device. Neither site uses a cookie for them.
- If you sign in from the same browser, your measured lawn moves to your account with the rest of your visit, and sward.au shows it on any device you sign in on. "Forget my lawn" in either site's header clears it from that site's storage on this device; on sward.au it also deletes the measurements saved with your visit or your account.
- If you choose "Save it to a Sward account", the sign-in page and the sign-in link we email you carry your lawn size and grass type in the link back to catchcups.com.au, so the shop can tailor your visit when you return.
- The analytics event for a measured lawn carries a size band (such as 100 to 300 square metres) and the grass type only, never the exact size.
When you run a Catch Cup Test or start a lawn plan:
- Your address, its map location and your lawn outlines are kept on your profile only.
- We never show them publicly, never send them to our analytics service and never put them on images you share. We may share your address with partners, as described below.
- Where the app shows lawns measured near you, it shows a count for the area. It never shows addresses, outlines or who did the measuring.
- We don't store satellite images, and we don't share lawn outlines or pool them into a dataset.
- To estimate your soil and climate, we look up public Australian soil and climate datasets for your location. We don't send your name or contact details with those look-ups.
Your photos
Photos you add in the app are private. Only you can see them in the app. Our team only looks at them if you ask for help or make a guarantee claim. We won't use them in marketing, or share them, without asking you first.
Decisions our software makes
The app uses fixed rules, written and approved by us, to work some things out automatically. It doesn't use AI models to make these decisions.
- Plan size. The app picks Standard or Large from the total lawn area you measure or enter. This sets the price of your plan.
- Box contents. The app picks the feed bottle for each box from the month the box ships, and may adjust your plan to suit your local climate and your soil test results.
- Results. The app works out your Watering Score, run times and dry-zone flags from your Catch Cup readings, and explains what your pH level result means.
- Estimates. The app shows soil and climate estimates for your location.
To do this, the app uses your lawn measurements, your location, your answers to our lawn questions and your test results. If you think something has been worked out incorrectly, contact us and a person will review it.
Emails
- Service emails are about your account, orders and plan: sign-in links, order and shipping updates, renewal reminders and changes that affect you. We send these while you have an account or an order with us. Reminders to retest your lawn are service emails too, and you can ask us to stop them at any time.
- Marketing emails tell you about our products and offers. We only send them if you've agreed. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link, and we act on it within 5 business days.
- Marketing by post. We may send you offers and information by post, to an address you've given us, such as your delivery address or the address you typed into the measure tool. Ask us not to contact you by post and we'll stop.
- Saving your lawn for 10% off. If you give your email address after measuring your lawn and tick the box to get Catch Cups tips and offers, we add it to our marketing email list in Shopify with your lawn size and grass type as tags (for example "lawn-m2:186" and "grass:kikuyu"), so the tips and offers we send suit your lawn, and a source tag if you arrived from a campaign link (for example "src:google"). A newer measurement replaces the older lawn size tag, and a newer grass answer replaces the older grass tag. We never add your lawn outline.
- The sward.au waitlist. If you join the waitlist on sward.au and tick the box to get Sward news, tips and offers, we add your email address to our marketing email list in Shopify tagged "sward-waitlist" (and with a source tag if you arrived from a campaign link), tell you when Sward lawn plans open, and send you Sward news, tips and offers.
- Review requests. After an order is delivered, our reviews service may email you to ask for a review. Each request includes a way to stop getting them.
Cookies and similar technology
- Session cookie. This keeps your progress and keeps you signed in. The app can't work without it.
- Browser storage for your lawn size. When you measure your lawn, each of our sites keeps your lawn size and grass type in your browser's storage (not a cookie) to tailor what it shows. Use "Forget my lawn" to clear it, or clear your browser's site data.
- Analytics. We use PostHog to understand how people use our sites and the app. Our sites keep a random identifier for it in your browser's storage. We don't send it your name, email address, street address or lawn outline, and we switch off its location lookup.
- Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages, products and campaigns work. It sets its own cookies on our sites. We send it the pages you view (without any code, sign-in link or lawn size in the address), the products you view or add to your cart, the start of a checkout, and that a sign-up happened (never your email address or street address). For a measured lawn we send only a size band and the grass type.
- Advertising: Google Ads and the Meta Pixel. If we advertise on Google (including YouTube) or on Facebook and Instagram, their tags on our sites tell them which pages and products you view, what you add to your cart, when you start a checkout and when you sign up, so they can count the results of our ads and show our ads to people who visited. Google and Meta can link this to your own account with them, under their own privacy policies.
- Purchases and the Conversions API. Our checkout's Google & YouTube and Facebook & Instagram apps, run by Shopify, tell Google and Meta about a purchase so they can count it against our ads. Meta's Conversions API sends this from Shopify's servers rather than your browser, and it can include your contact details (such as your email address and phone number) in hashed (scrambled) form so Meta can match the purchase to an ad you saw.
- Campaign details. When you arrive from a link with campaign tags or an ad click identifier, we keep them in your browser's storage on this device for 30 days, add them to your order so we can see where it came from, and add a source tag (for example "src:google") to your email sign-up. They never include your name or email address.
- Discount links. If you open one of our sites from a link with a discount code in it, we keep the code in your browser's storage to apply it in your cart, and take it out of the page address so it isn't sent to our analytics.
- Checkout. Shopify sets its own cookies on shop.sward.au to run your cart and checkout.
- Maps and bot checks. Google Maps and Cloudflare Turnstile may use cookies or similar technology when they load.
You can block or delete cookies and site data in your browser settings. If you block the session cookie, you won't be able to save your progress or sign in. To opt out of analytics and personalised ads:
- Google Analytics: install Google's opt-out browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
- Google ads: turn off personalised ads in My Ad Center at myadcenter.google.com.
- Facebook and Instagram ads: use the ad preferences in your Facebook or Instagram settings, or at facebook.com/adpreferences.
- Other ad networks: see youronlinechoices.com.au.
Who we share it with
- Our service providers, listed in the next section, so they can do their work for us.
- Our warehouse partner in New South Wales, which packs and sends plan boxes, and the couriers who deliver our parcels. They get your name, delivery address, phone number if you gave one, and what's in your parcel.
- Partner codes. If you use a partner's code, our partner program service records the sale so the partner can be paid. We don't give the partner whose code you used your contact details.
- Partners in lawn care and home services. We may share your name, contact details, address and information about your lawn, such as its size, grass type and your Catch Cup Test and pH results, with businesses in lawn care, irrigation and retic repair, and garden and home services, and with water authorities, so they can offer you their own products and services. We may receive a benefit for this, such as a payment or a commission. Ask us not to share your information with partners and we won't.
- The person who referred you. If you use a referral link, we record it so the person who shared it gets their credit.
- Google and Meta, for analytics and advertising, as described in "Cookies and similar technology": what you do on our sites and, from our checkout, your purchases, which can include your contact details in hashed form. They may also use this information for their own purposes, such as improving their advertising services, under their own privacy policies.
- Professional advisers, such as our accountant or lawyer, when they need it to advise us.
- Government bodies, courts or law enforcement, when the law requires or allows it.
- A business that takes over Sward, if that ever happens. We'd require it to protect your information as this policy does.
- A retic repairer, if you ask for one. If you send a repairer request after a Catch Cup Test, the details you choose to share come to us first, then go to the independent repairer we introduce to you.
- Water authorities. We may share what the watering answers from Catch Cup Tests show, such as where the water comes from, how lawns are watered and the problems people notice, with water authorities. We only share de-identified figures added up for each suburb, and only for a suburb where at least 10 households answered. These figures never include your name, contact details, address, map location or lawn outline.
Apart from the partners above and Google and Meta as described, we don't share your personal information with other businesses for their own marketing.
Service providers and overseas disclosure
These providers handle personal information for us:
| Provider | What it does for us | Where your information may be held |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify | Our online store, checkout, payments, orders and our marketing email list | Canada and the United States |
| Appstle | Billing, skips and renewals for lawn plans | The United States, Canada and India |
| Supabase | The app's database and photo storage | Australia (Sydney) |
| Vercel | Hosting for our websites and the app | The United States |
| Resend | Sending sign-in links and service emails | The United States |
| PostHog | Product analytics | The United States |
| Google (Google Analytics and Google Ads) | Website analytics, and measuring and showing our ads | The United States |
| Meta (the Meta Pixel and the Conversions API) | Measuring and showing our ads on Facebook and Instagram | The United States |
| Cloudflare Turnstile | Checking that forms are filled in by people, not bots | The United States |
| Google Maps Platform | Address search and satellite maps | The United States |
| Judge.me | Asking for, collecting and showing product reviews | The United States and the United Kingdom |
| Social Snowball | Running our partner program | The United States |
This means we're likely to disclose personal information to recipients in Canada, the United States, India and the United Kingdom. Some providers also have staff or subcontractors in other countries who may access information to support their service. Each provider's privacy policy explains where it operates.
Before we use a provider, we check its privacy and security commitments. We only use providers whose terms require them to protect personal information and to use it only to provide their service to us. We take reasonable steps to make sure they handle your information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles.
How we protect it
- Our sites and the app use encrypted connections.
- Only our own servers can read our database. A browser can never read it directly.
- Passwords and sign-in links are stored only in scrambled (hashed) form. Each sign-in link works once and expires quickly.
- Only people in our team who need personal information to do their job can see it.
No system is completely secure. If a data breach is likely to cause you serious harm, we'll tell you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), and explain what you can do.
How long we keep it
- Signed-in sessions end after 180 days without use, and after 365 days at most. After that you sign in again.
- Sessions where you haven't saved your lawn to an email address end after 90 days without use. We then delete the session and the lawn, measured lawn size, address and test details linked only to it. We may keep a count of lawns measured in each postcode, without any address or outline.
- Your account, lawns, test results and photos stay until you ask us to delete them, so your history is there when you come back.
- Order and payment records are kept for as long as tax and company law requires, usually up to 7 years.
- Security records, such as counts of sign-in attempts, are short-lived and deleted automatically.
- Backups. Information we delete may stay in our backups for a short time until they're replaced.
Your choices
Email hello@sward.au at any time to ask us:
- not to contact you by post;
- not to share your information with partners; or
- to see, correct or delete your information, as described below.
Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link.
Seeing, correcting and deleting your information
- See it. Ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you. It's free.
- Correct it. You can change most of your details in the app. For anything else, ask us.
- Delete it. Ask us to delete your account. Within 30 days, we'll delete your profile, lawns, test results and photos, and delete or de-identify the analytics linked to you. We'll keep the records the law says we must, such as order and payment records. If you still have an active lawn plan, we'll check with you first, because we need your account to run it.
Email hello@sward.au. We'll respond within 30 days. To protect your information, we may first ask you to confirm it's you, for example by replying from the email address on your account. If we can't do what you've asked, we'll explain why and tell you how to complain.
Complaints
If you think we've mishandled your personal information, email hello@sward.au with "Privacy complaint" in the subject line. We'll reply within one business day, look into what happened, and tell you in writing what we found and what we'll do about it. We aim to resolve complaints within 30 days.
If you're not happy with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.
Children
Our sites and the app are for adults. You need to be 18 or older to buy from us or to create an account.
Changes to this policy
We'll publish any changes here with a new date. If a change significantly affects how we use your personal information, we'll email you before it takes effect.
Contact us
- Email: hello@sward.au
- Post: Privacy, Grit Co Pty Ltd, 21 Clayton Street, Bellevue WA 6056
If you'd like this policy in another format, ask us and we'll send it to you.