Sendit

Is Sendit safe?

No, and especially not for the young teenagers it has courted. Sendit lets you post a prompt such as "ask me anything" to your Snapchat or Instagram story and collect anonymous replies inside the app. In September 2025 the US Justice Department, acting for the Federal Trade Commission, sued its maker, Iconic Hearts, and CEO Hunter Rice. The government says the company sent hundreds of millions of fake messages to sell a paid "reveal", billed users weekly without clear notice and collected data from more than 116,000 children under 13. A federal judge refused to throw the case out in April 2026, and it is heading for a jury trial in late 2027. The app is still rated 13+. We score it 34/100, below NGL (38), which settled similar charges in 2024.

What the government says Sendit did

These are allegations; Iconic Hearts is contesting the case and no court has ruled on the facts. According to the complaint, as summarised in the judge's April 2026 order:

• Fake messages at scale. From 2021 to at least 2024, Sendit sent 279 million or more fake replies, chosen from a stock of over 175 lines. Staff called them "engagement posts". They included "have you done drugs", "Does size matter" and "I know what you did", and until about late 2024 they were not labelled as coming from the company.
• A reveal that did not reveal. Each fake message came with a "who sent it?" button leading to Diamond Membership, at $8.99 or $9.99 a week. Buyers of hints on fake messages got false information; on real ones, generic details such as location or phone type.
• Hidden renewal. The weekly billing appeared only in small, low-contrast text under the buy button.
• Children under 13. In 2022 more than 116,000 users entered a birth date showing they were under 13, and parents complained directly. The company collected names, contacts, phone numbers, location, birthdates, photos and social media usernames without telling parents or getting their consent.
• Aimed at the young. Rice built the app with input from a 13-year-old relative, the company paid teen influencers, ran a "schools" feature for finding classmates, and at times marketed Sendit to "users as young as 12".

Judge Dale S. Fischer denied the motion to dismiss on 13 April 2026. Court-ordered mediation ended without agreement on 9 October 2026, and the trial is set for 30 November 2027.

What Sendit is like today

The basic design has not changed. Diamond Membership still sells hints about senders, the App Store lists a one-off "sendit reveal" for $29.99 alongside weekly plans, and the Google Play listing now also promotes an "AI Clone" that answers questions in your style. Iconic Hearts' website still describes its mission as becoming the place where "every social interaction for gen alpha can happen", the generation the complaint says is no older than 13 at the start of 2024.

Sendit's safety page describes word filters, blocking, the option to pause your link, in-app reporting and a "Community Team" that reviews reports. Its child-safety policy says it will report child sexual exploitation to NCMEC where the law requires. US companies must report child sexual abuse material they become aware of, but NCMEC's published lists of companies that filed CyberTipline reports in 2024 and 2025 do not include Iconic Hearts or Sendit. That does not prove material went unreported, but it is an unusual gap for an app with more than 1.5 million App Store ratings and a young audience.

How much data Sendit collects

The privacy policy was last updated on 1 March 2023 and covers Sendit and the company's other apps. It allows Iconic Hearts to collect your phone contacts if you grant access, your social media usernames, approximate location and usage data, and to share contact details, "inferences" and location with marketing companies, ad networks and "distributors and dealers". Your friends can upload your number from their own contacts even if you never joined.

Apple's label is shorter: usage data used to track you, and contacts, identifiers and usage data linked to you. Google Play's label says device IDs are shared for advertising and, unusually, that the developer's data "isn't encrypted" and is not sent over a secure connection. We take the developer's own declaration at its word; it is the main reason for the low security score.

Who should be careful

Parents of anyone under 16 first. If your child uses Sendit:

1. Explain that some anonymous messages may come from the app itself, not from a friend, and that a reply like "I know what you did" is often a sales tool.
2. Do not buy Diamond or a reveal. The hints do not name anyone, the plan renews weekly, and the terms rule out refunds. Cancel through the App Store or Google Play subscriptions page, not by deleting the app.
3. Turn off contact access in the phone's settings and leave the school field empty.
4. Pause or remove the Sendit link from stories if messages turn hurtful, and keep screenshots of threats before blocking.

For teenagers who want questions from friends, a question sticker on Instagram or Snapchat gives similar fun with names attached and without a second company collecting data.

How we scored it

Scams and harmful content (25) is the weakest factor: the complaint describes fake, sometimes adult-themed messages sent at enormous scale to an audience that includes 13-year-olds. Security (32) reflects the developer's own declaration that data is not encrypted in transit, and privacy (30) the alleged collection of children's data and broad sharing for ads. Regulatory record (63) is the strongest factor only because the federal case has no ruling yet; a judgment or settlement would move it.