Data retention
How long Intempt keeps your data, what happens to backups and deleted projects, and how retention interacts with deletion requests.
Overview
Intempt keeps data no longer than it needs to.
On paid plans you choose how long we keep your data, per meter. Pick 7 days, 30 days, 13 months or 39 months for Events and, separately, for Identified events in the console under Settings > Billing. The default is 13 months. Data older than the window you choose is deleted. A longer window applies from your next billing period. To shorten one, contact support: it can delete a large amount of stored data, so our team does it with you.
📘 Good to know
Each event is billed once, in the month it is sent, at the rate for the window in place that month. Changing the window later doesn't re-bill past events:
| Change | Events you already sent | Who carries the difference |
|---|---|---|
| Longer window | Kept for the new, longer window from your next billing period, though they were billed at the shorter window's rate | Intempt. There's no extra charge for them |
| Shorter window (through support) | Deleted once they're older than the new window, though they were billed at the longer window's rate | You. There's no refund or credit for the time they would have been kept |
Intempt keeps data for up to 39 months, and only where you choose the 39-month window.
Retention is applied automatically. There's nothing to schedule and no job to run.
What is retained
Intempt meters two kinds of event. Which one a source sends depends on whether it runs identity resolution:
| What it is | Billed on | Deleted when | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Events | Every event from an events-only source | Events sent that month | The event is older than the Events window |
| Identified events | Every event from a users source, with identity resolution on | Identified events sent that month | The event is older than the Identified events window |
The window sets the rate: each of the four windows (7 days, 30 days, 13 months, 39 months) has one flat rate per event sent in the month, and a longer window costs more. See the rates on the pricing page. There are no tiers and no included allowance on paid plans. An org that sends nothing on one of them pays nothing for it.
When you create a source you pick what it collects. Both types are available on every plan, Free included.
| Source type | What it does | Billed as | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Users and events (recommended) | Resolves identity and builds user profiles | Identified events | Almost everything. Journeys, experiences and recommendations need it |
| Events only | Keeps raw events. No users are created in the CRM | Events | High-volume events you send straight to destinations |
Workflows run on either type. Upgrading from Free doesn't change a source's type, and both meters start on the 13-month window at checkout unless you pick another.
There is no limit on how many sources you connect.
The default is 13 months rather than 12 so a year-over-year comparison has a prior period to compare against. A segment, journey wait, or attribute-history lookup can reach back as far as the window you chose. Pick 39 months if you need multi-year comparisons, or 7 or 30 days if you only act on recent data.
Free tier
The Free tier keeps events and identified events for 7 days, so no paid window is shorter and upgrading never deletes data you already collected. Free includes up to 1M events and 100K identified events a month, at no charge. See Project Limits for every free cap.
Backups
Intempt takes daily backups of customer data and keeps each one for 7 days, then deletes it as part of standard lifecycle procedures.
📘 Good to know
Deleting data doesn't reach into backups, and backups aren't edited to remove individual records. A backup ages out on its own within 7 days. If you're answering a deletion request from one of your users, that's the accurate thing to tell them: the live record is gone immediately, and any backup copy expires within 7 days.
Deleted projects
Deleting or resetting a project is recoverable for 30 days. During that window the data still exists and support can restore it. After 30 days it's permanently deleted and can't be recovered.
A separate 30-day window applies when an agreement ends or an organization is deleted: data stays in active systems for 30 days and is then deleted. See the Data Processing Addendum.
How retention interacts with deletion requests
| Erasure request | Removes that user's data immediately, ahead of the retention window |
| Retention expiry | Removes data older than the window you chose, regardless of requests |
| Backups | Expire within 7 days in both cases |
| Project deletion | Permanent after the 30-day recovery window |
Retention is not a substitute for handling deletion requests. A user who asks to be forgotten shouldn't wait for the retention period to pass. See Managing DSR.
Use cases
- Answer a procurement question about how long a vendor holds data.
- Confirm a reporting window is available before committing to a year-over-year analysis.
- Tell a user asking to be deleted exactly when the last backup copy expires.
- Recover a project a teammate deleted by mistake, within 30 days.
- Explain to an auditor why deletion requests are handled separately from retention.
- Check what happens to your data after a subscription ends, before renewal discussions.
Where to go next
Blocking unwanted traffic
Keeping bots, crawlers, and your own team's testing out of your analytics: what Intempt filters automatically, and how to exclude internal traffic yourself.
Privacy Settings Reference
Field reference for the Privacy tab on a user's profile: consent status, consent categories, and legitimate interest records.