Privacy policy

LockedBid connects people who need construction and home-improvement work done with contractors who bid on it. This policy explains what we collect, why, and your choices.

What we collect

• Account details: your name, email address and password (stored hashed).
• Listings: project descriptions, your answers about the project, any budget range you give, location (city and ZIP), photos and files you upload, and the contact name, phone and email you choose to share.
• Contractor details: business name, legal business name and type, DBA, state of registration, the last 4 digits of the EIN, the owner or manager's name and role, phone number, website, license number, trades, service area, insurance certificates, and the result of your ID check. From the ID check we keep only the first and last name on the ID; Stripe holds the ID images.
• Bids, proposal files and required documents you submit.
• W-9s: if you're the contractor selected for a project, you can send the project owner a W-9 through LockedBid. A W-9 shows your name, address and tax ID, which can be a Social Security number or an EIN.
• Board members: the email addresses you invite to view a project's bids, and when they accepted.
• Organizations: the HOAs, associations and businesses you add (name, location and a default listing contact), and the email addresses and roles of the people you invite to them.
• Messages you send to other users through LockedBid.
• Payment records. Card details are handled by Stripe and never reach our servers.
• Your approximate area, worked out from location headers our host adds to each request, to show local projects. We don't store your IP address.

How we use it

• To run the marketplace: show listings, deliver bids and messages, send notifications.
• To verify contractors (email and phone codes, ID checks, insurance certificates).
• To keep the marketplace safe: screening listings for scams and handling reports.
• To take payments and issue credits and refunds.

We don't sell your personal information and we don't show third-party ads.

Who we share it with

• Other users, as the product works: contractors see listings and the contact name; ID-verified contractors see a contact phone or email if you add one; posters see the bids and documents contractors send them (sealed bids only after the due date), and so do the board members a poster invites and the members of the organization a project is posted for, at the same time and read-only. We email an invitation to each address a poster or organization manager enters.
• Service providers that process data for us: Stripe (payments and ID verification), Cobalt Intelligence (checks a contractor business with the state and its EIN with the IRS; the full EIN is sent once and not stored by us), Anthropic (AI that helps write listing scopes, screens listings for scams, reads insurance certificates, and compares bids, including proposal documents attached to them, but not required documents, W-9s sent through the W-9 feature, bid files named like tax forms, or documents from contractors who opt out on the bid form), Resend (email), Twilio (text messages), and our hosting and database providers.
• Authorities, when the law requires it.

Tax IDs and W-9s

• EIN checks: a business's full EIN goes to Cobalt Intelligence for the check. We hold it only until that check runs and then keep the last 4 digits. Sole proprietors don't give us a tax ID for this check.
• W-9s: we store the file you upload, including the tax ID on it. Only you and the project owner can open it; board members, other contractors and our staff don't have access in the app, and it isn't sent to AI or attached to emails. Either of you can remove it at any time, and it's removed if either of you deletes your account. The project owner may keep a copy they downloaded.
• Other uploads: we store documents as you upload them and don't scan them for tax IDs, so please don't put tax IDs in bids, listings or messages. Listings posted before November 2026 could ask bidders for a W-9; those files stay with the bid, visible to the poster and their board, and aren't sent to AI.

Keeping and deleting your data

You can delete your account at any time from Your account in the app, or by emailing support@lockedbid.com. We then delete your name, email, password, phone number, owner/manager name, insurance certificates, drafts, board invitations, organization memberships and W-9s you sent or received, and cancel your live listings, open bids and membership. We keep bids on finished projects (with the business name) and messages already sent, because the other party relies on them, and payment records for as long as tax law requires. Details are on the delete your account page.

We also keep encrypted backups of our database and of uploaded files, so we can recover from data loss. Database backups last up to 30 days. A backup of an uploaded file lasts until up to 30 days after the file is deleted. Deleted data and files, and an EIN that was waiting for its check when a backup ran, can stay in those backups until they expire. We use them only to restore service. If we ever restore one, we delete again any accounts that were deleted after it was made.

Children

LockedBid is for adults. You must be 18 or older to create an account.

Contact

LockedBid is operated by INIT LLC, 150 SWS Dr., Unit 304-1B, Lake Ozark, MO 65049, which is responsible for your data. Questions or requests: support@lockedbid.com.