Questions about the product, the privacy, and the price.
What follows are the questions we are most often asked, organised into seven categories and answered in plain language. If your question is not here, write to us at hello@counsel.day; we read every message and many of the answers below grew out of those we received in the first weeks.
What Counsel.day is, and who it is for.
What is Counsel.day, in one paragraph?
Counsel.day is a private-voting product for solo decision-makers, couples, and families facing a meaningful joint decision. Participants vote privately each evening on the same question, for a duration of your choosing (a week to a year). The votes are sealed from each other for the whole period. On the final day, every verdict unlocks at the same instant, along with a five-layer analysis that names the underlying axis of your disagreement and a single specific question to open the conversation that follows. Counsel.day comes before the conversation; it does not replace it.
Who is Counsel.day for?
Solo decision-makers, couples, and households facing a meaningful joint decision that has been on the table for weeks or months without resolving. The decision is usually one of four kinds: family and reproduction (whether to have a baby, second child, IVF, schooling), home and place (whether to move cities or countries, buy a house, downsize), career (whether to leave a job, take a role), or the partnership itself (whether to marry, separate, open or close the relationship). Family extends the tool to households of three to six.
What kind of decisions does Counsel.day work well for?
The decisions Counsel.day is built for share three properties: the stakes are high, the timeline is long enough that feelings will shift, and the question has been circling for some time already. If your question can be settled in a single dinner conversation, it does not belong here. If it has been on the back of your minds for a month, it does. Counsel.day is not built for low-stakes day-to-day choices, procurement decisions, or work-style decisions.
How is Counsel.day different from a couples app like Paired or Lasting?
Paired, Lasting, Coupleness, and the rest of the couples-app category sell daily relationship prompts and conversation starters. They are built for the steady-state work of a relationship. Counsel.day is built for the punctuated work of resolving a single hard decision over a period of time. The unit of value is the verdict produced on the final day, not the daily prompt. The product is also priced per decision ($25 USD) rather than per month, on the principle that you pay for the analysis you have already decided is valuable.
Why the name Counsel.day?
The name is the product, said in two parts. Counsel is the older word for thoughtful weighing: the act of seeking and giving counsel, of considering a question with care, of arriving at a position rather than being told one. We did not want a name with advice, coach, or therapy inside it, because those words imply a position handed down from outside; counsel implies a position arrived at from within. .day is the mechanism, said as the domain. The product runs day by day, evening by evening, across the duration the question deserves. The .day TLD was a deliberate choice over .com; the suffix is part of the meaning.
How a typical evening works.
How does a typical evening vote work?
At a time you set during composition (typically after dinner), each participant receives a single private prompt. The prompt opens to the question, the format you chose, and the buttons or fields appropriate to that format. You tap once. You may, if a thought has landed, add a sentence or two or a paragraph. The vote takes between five seconds and a couple of minutes, depending on whether you write a note. No other participant can see your vote or your note before the verdict day.
What are the eight question formats?
Yes / No (clean binaries); Strong / Lean (a four-point conviction scale, recommended as the default for most life decisions); A vs B (two named alternatives); Photo A vs B (a daily tap between two uploaded images); Scale 1 to 10 (magnitude rather than direction); Pros vs Cons (reasons that accumulate over the period); Pick best of N (one of up to six named alternatives); and Rank options (a daily ordering of up to six options). Full descriptions and worked examples live on the method page.
How do I choose the right duration?
Match the duration to the weight of the question. A fortnight suits a house with an offer deadline. A month suits most career and home decisions. Sixty days suits questions about the shape of the partnership itself: marriage, ending it, moving countries. Ninety days suits the decisions that need to survive a season of moods, especially family and reproduction. You set the duration once, at the start. You may extend a running decision; you may not shorten one.
What happens if one of us misses an evening?
Nothing breaks. The progress bar registers a skipped day; the verdict still arrives on the scheduled date; the analysis still runs on whatever votes and notes did land. If a participant misses three consecutive evenings the product sends them one gentle reminder. Beyond that we leave you alone. We will not nudge a person into voting on a question they have decided not to engage with.
Can I change the question or format mid-decision?
No. A change mid-decision contaminates the data: votes you cast on the old question are not comparable with votes you cast on the new one, and the analysis would be reading two different decisions stitched together. If your question has materially shifted, close the decision and open a fresh one with the new framing. Solo decisions close at no cost; paid decisions are not refunded once composed (see the refund policy).
What sealed actually means.
Are the votes really sealed until the final day?
Yes. The database is designed so that no participant's votes or notes are visible to any other, in any form, until the verdict is generated on the scheduled day. The only thing visible to anyone before then is whether the other participants have voted today. There is no settings panel to override this. There is no support workflow to override this. We could not show you another participant's votes early, even if you asked us to.
What does my partner see while the decision is open?
They see the question you both agreed to, the format, the duration, the day count, and whether you have voted today. They do not see the direction of your vote, the value of your vote, or any of your notes. They see nothing else about your activity. The same is true in reverse.
Where is my data stored?
Encrypted at rest, in a managed PostgreSQL instance in the region closest to your account location. Encryption keys are per-decision, not per-account, so the failure mode of any single key compromise is one decision rather than your full history. Backups are encrypted with a separate key. Vote and note content never appears in our application logs, and the logs themselves ship to an append-only store. Full architectural detail is described on the method page.
What about analytics, cookies, advertising?
We measure how visitors arrive at the marketing site with standard analytics, gated behind a cookie-consent banner you see on first visit. Those tools see which page you read, which campaign sent you, whether you signed up. They never see the question you composed inside a decision, the votes you cast, the notes you wrote, or the verdict you received. The in-app content lives in a separate database with row-level security; analytics SDKs are not loaded on those pages. The only third party that ever sees note content is the Anthropic API on verdict day, and that request carries no identifying metadata. You can review the full cookie list and reject non-essential ones from the privacy page at any time.
What arrives on the final day.
What does the verdict look like on the final day?
On a paid decision, at the same instant for every participant, the verdicts publish on the same page. Beneath them, a five-layer analysis: the agreement rate across the period, the conviction trajectory for each participant, the themes extracted from your notes, the synthesis paragraph that names the underlying axis of your disagreement, and one specific question to open the conversation that follows. The full verdict can be exported as a branded PDF. A walked-through example lives on the verdict page. On the free first Solo decision, the verdict ships with the Python summary analysis only (trajectory, trend, stability, sentiment, top themes, readiness), without the Claude-written synthesis paragraph or the conversation prompt.
What are the five layers of the analysis?
Layer 01: the agreement rate (and how it moved across the period). Layer 02: each participant's conviction trajectory (rising, falling, flat, or spiky). Layer 03: the themes extracted from your notes with frequencies per participant. Layer 04: the synthesis paragraph that names the axis of your disagreement underneath the surface question. Layer 05: a single specific question for the conversation that follows. The layers are stacked so every claim further down is checkable against the data above it.
How is the analysis generated?
In two distinct tiers. On a paid decision (Solo at $14 USD, Couple at $25 USD, Family at $49 USD, or covered by Consumer Annual at $99 USD/year), every vote and every note is read by a pipeline that computes the trajectory and the agreement curve in pure Python, clusters the themes locally, then submits the clustered data and the question framing to Claude (by Anthropic) with a prompt template iterated through hundreds of test verdicts. Claude writes the 600-to-1200-word synthesis paragraph that names the underlying axis of the disagreement in plain English. The model receives the data with no identifying metadata; it is not used to train any further system on your content. On the free first Solo decision, the Claude synthesis is not run; the verdict ships with your own conviction chart and your own notes back. The 600-to-1200-word written verdict is the part reserved for paid decisions, because that single Anthropic API call is the part of the output that costs us real money to produce.
What it costs, in US dollars.
How much does Counsel.day cost?
Five SKUs across three audiences. Solo: your first lifetime decision is free; additional Solo decisions are $14 USD each. Couple is $25 USD per decision for two participants. Family is $49 USD per decision for three to six participants. Consumer Annual is $99 USD per year · a single all-access plan that covers unlimited Solo, Couple, and Family decisions on one account for twelve months. Per-decision plans charge upfront on the day you compose; Consumer Annual is upfront for the year. Practitioners using Counsel.day with clients sit on a separate Practitioner Annual at $399 USD per year, sold only on the therapist program and counsellor program pages.
When am I charged?
Upfront, on the day you compose a decision. Couple, Family, and Consumer Annual all charge upfront; the verdict is generated on the final day of the duration you chose. We charge upfront because a Stripe authorization cannot be held for the full 7-to-365 day duration. A seven-day refund window from purchase applies to every paid decision and to Consumer Annual · cancel within seven days and we refund in full; after seven days the charge is final unless there is a technical defect on our part. See the refund policy for the full detail.
Is there a free version?
Yes. Your first Solo decision is free, no card required. You can run a full thirty-day Solo decision end to end and decide for yourself whether to continue. The free decision ships with your own conviction chart and your own notes back · no third-party AI call, no five-layer written analysis. The 600-to-1200-word written verdict paragraph (the synthesis that names the axis of your question in plain English) is generated by Claude and is reserved for paid decisions, because that single API call is the part of the verdict that costs us real money to produce. After your first decision, additional Solo decisions are $14 USD each, or Consumer Annual at $99 USD per year covers unlimited Solo, Couple, and Family decisions for the year.
When it does not look like a textbook couple.
Can I use Counsel.day alone, without a partner?
Yes. Solo is built for one-person decisions, in full, free for the first lifetime decision. Many of our users begin alone with a question they have not yet brought to their partner. Some never invite a partner at all; the Solo product is the whole product for them.
What if my partner stops engaging mid-decision?
You can pause the decision, extend its duration, or convert it to a Solo decision without losing your data. Your partner receives one gentle reminder if they miss three consecutive evenings; beyond that we leave them alone. We will not nudge a person into voting on a question they have decided not to engage with. If your partner withdrew from the decision entirely, the verdict day for the Solo version produces a verdict and the agreement-rate and trajectory layers for your votes alone.
Can same-sex, polyamorous, or non-traditional couples use Counsel.day?
Yes. The product is built around participants in a decision held jointly; the relationship structure between those people is your business, not ours. The pronoun and the name of each participant are set by you at composition. Group decisions for three to six participants run on the Family edition.
Is Counsel.day a substitute for couples therapy?
No. Therapy is the guided conversation, with a trained third party present. Counsel.day is the data underneath one specific decision: the captured private positions across the period, the themes from your notes, the synthesis. We have no clinical training and the product is not a therapeutic intervention. Many users will benefit from both, in sequence; bring the verdict to a therapist when the verdict reveals the decision sits on something larger. See the full Counsel.day vs Couples Therapy comparison.
The rest of the practical questions.
Do you offer a therapist program?
Yes. We run a simple referral program for therapists, counsellors, and other practitioners who recommend the tool to clients. Write to therapists@counsel.day (or counsellors@counsel.day if you are a non-clinical decision-support practitioner) with your practice details and we issue a unique referral code. When a client mentions the code at composition, the client pays the standard price (nothing about their billing changes), and we pay you 20% of the attributed spend at the end of each quarter via Stripe Connect, bank transfer, or PayPal. No billing to your practice, no subscription cost, no enrolment commitment. The program is a sales channel, not an endorsement: we have no clinical training and we do not offer workshops or training on therapeutic use of the verdict.
Can a therapist see our verdict?
Only if you choose to share it. The verdict is private to the participants by default. Many couples bring a printed copy to their first session; some share the PDF directly. Therapists do not have any back-channel access to your data.
How do I delete my account and data?
From the account page, in a single click, with a single confirmation. Deletion is honoured within twenty-four hours and propagates to backups within thirty days. We do not retain a tombstone copy. If you have a paid decision in flight at the moment of deletion, the verdict is generated and emailed to you before the data is destroyed, so you receive the analysis you paid for.
Is Counsel.day available worldwide?
Yes. The product is built for a worldwide market from day one, in English. Pricing is in US dollars (USD), charged worldwide; local taxes are added at checkout based on your billing address. Stripe handles the currency conversion at the moment of charge using the rate your card issuer posts. Additional language localisations are on the roadmap for the second year.
Does Counsel.day use my data to train AI models?
No. On a paid decision, your notes and votes are submitted to the Anthropic Claude API on the verdict day only, for the single purpose of generating your synthesis paragraph. Anthropic does not train on data submitted via the API, and our integration disables data sharing in addition. Your data is not used to train any model, ours or theirs. On the free first Solo decision, no data reaches Anthropic at all; the summary analysis is generated entirely by Python models running on our own server.
Write to us, and we will write back.
Every message is read by a person, replied to within one business day, and very often added to this page if it turns out to be a question we have not heard yet. Plain prose is welcome. There is no form.
For most questions, write to hello@counsel.day. For the therapist referral program, write to therapists@counsel.day. For security disclosure, write to security@counsel.day and you will be acknowledged within one business day.