What Cleanfox does

Cleanfox is a free consumer email inbox cleaning service delivered as a web application, native iOS app, native Android app, and an Instant App accessible via QR code without installation. The product connects to user mailboxes via the IMAP protocol using application passwords and two-step verification, identifies newsletter and promotional senders, and lets users bulk-delete historical emails or auto-route future emails from those senders to trash. It supports Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo, iCloud, Orange, and other major consumer email providers, with the explicit exception of Free (French ISP) mailboxes.

The core technology pairs deterministic regex-based classification of transactional vs. personal emails with AI-powered data enrichment and NLP for lookalike audience modeling. Transactional signals — order confirmations, delivery notifications, invoices, and commercial newsletters — are pseudonymized, aggregated, and fed into NielsenIQ's consumer panel as e-commerce market intelligence, while personal emails are excluded from processing.

Cleanfox is operated by AC Nielsen SAS under NielsenIQ following NielsenIQ's 2021 acquisition of the product's original developer, Foxintelligence. The business model is two-sided: the consumer product is provided at no cost and is supported entirely by B2B revenue from the sale of pseudonymized aggregated transactional-email data to e-commerce businesses, consumer brands, investment companies, media companies, and data brokers. Distribution is product-led and self-serve, relying on earned French media coverage (BFMTV, Le Monde, TF1, GQ), organic social, and a referral program linked to reforestation through a partnership with WeForest.

Name

Cleanfox

Legal name

AC Nielsen SAS

Website

https://cleanfox.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Cleanfox is a free email inbox cleaning service for consumers that bulk-deletes newsletters while contributing pseudonymized transactional email data to NielsenIQ's e-commerce market intelligence panel for B2B resale.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Paris

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. E-commerce Statistical Data Sales: Cleanfox generates revenue by selling pseudonymized and aggregated statistical data derived from users' transactional emails (order confirmations, delivery notifications, invoices, newsletters) to economic operators including e-commerce businesses, investment companies, consumer brands, media companies, and data brokers. The data provides insights into market share, customer loyalty, promotional sensitivity, and competitive analysis. Users' personal data is never sold or shared for advertising purposes, and panelists can opt out of data collection at any time.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Cleanfox provides a free consumer application that connects to user email mailboxes via IMAP, identifies newsletters and promotional emails, and lets users bulk-delete or automatically block them with one click. The service is offered across web, iOS, Android, and a browser-based Instant App. It is monetized by selling aggregated, pseudonymized statistical data derived from transactional emails to enterprise clients through NielsenIQ's Foxintelligence consumer panel.

Product overview

Cleanfox is a single unified product offered as both a web application and mobile app (iOS/Android) that helps users clean their email mailboxes by removing and blocking newsletters with one click. The core product is provided free of charge, financed by a companion market research panel called Foxintelligence (operated by parent company NielsenIQ) that analyzes pseudonymized e-commerce transaction data extracted from users' commercial emails. The service connects to user email accounts via IMAP protocol and offers an Instant App version accessible via QR code without installation.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Cleanfox Web Application A free web-based email cleaning service that scans user mailboxes via IMAP to identify newsletters and promotional emails and enables bulk deletion or automatic blocking of unwanted subscriptions with one click.
• Cleanfox Mobile App (iOS and Android) Native mobile application for iOS and Android providing the same email cleaning functionality as the web version, with QR code scanning for instant access and streamlined two-step authentication for easier setup.
• Cleanfox Instant App A browser-based instant version of Cleanfox accessible via QR code scanning, allowing users to test and use the email cleaning service without downloading or installing any software.
• Foxintelligence Consumer Panel A market research panel integrated into Cleanfox that collects and analyzes pseudonymized e-commerce transaction data from user emails to provide market intelligence, consumer insights, and advertising effectiveness analytics to NielsenIQ's business customers.

Quantifiable outcome

• Users can recover email storage space by deleting newsletters and blocking future unwanted emails, reducing digital carbon footprint
• +2 more outcomes

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

AI capability5 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• WeForestminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCleanfox partners with WeForest, a reforestation organization, to fund tree planting in Zambia as part of its environmental impact initiative. For each new user referred to Cleanfox, one square meter of trees is planted in Zambia through WeForest's projects. This partnership enables Cleanfox to offer users a tangible environmental benefit in exchange for referrals.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• GfK: Global market research and consumer intelligence company (now part of NielsenIQ). Overlaps with Cleanfox/NielsenIQ in retail and consumer panel data, with broader coverage in non-digital categories.
• Sensor Tower: Digital market intelligence provider focused on mobile apps, advertising, and consumer trends. Comparable to NielsenIQ/Cleanfox as a B2B data-intelligence incumbent that sells insights derived from large-scale consumer signal collection.
• Similarweb: Digital market intelligence platform offering web, app, and e-commerce analytics to enterprise customers. Comparable to NielsenIQ/Cleanfox on the B2B data-monetization side, with overlapping use cases in e-commerce market share and consumer behavior insights.
• NielsenIQ: Global consumer intelligence and market research firm that owns Cleanfox. Comparable as the parent that monetizes Cleanfox's panel data and competes with other market intelligence providers; broader portfolio dwarfs the Cleanfox product itself.

Direct peers

• Unroll.me: Free consumer email-unsubscribe service that scans inboxes and lets users bulk-unsub from newsletters. Closest direct competitor to Cleanfox in the 'clean your inbox' consumer category, though its monetization model (selling anonymized user data, including to Uber) has drawn heavy privacy criticism.
• Leave Me Alone: Subscription-based email unsubscribe service that scans inboxes and produces a one-click cleanup report. Directly comparable to Cleanfox's core newsletter-removal function but uses a paid freemium model and emphasizes stronger privacy.
• SaneBox: Email management service that filters, snoozes, and unsubscribes newsletters using AI. Competes with Cleanfox for inbox-organization mindshare among professionals; differs by charging a paid subscription rather than monetizing aggregated data.

Others

• Tidio: AI-powered customer service and marketing platform that, like Cleanfox, leverages email/transactional signals to derive insights for SMB e-commerce customers. Adjacent rather than directly competing, but operates in the same commerce-data ecosystem.

Emerging players

• Spark Mail: Cross-platform email client with smart inbox, snooze, and sender-management features. Comparable to Cleanfox for power users wanting cleaner inboxes, but competes as a full email client rather than a dedicated cleanup utility.
• Edison Mail: Third-party mobile email client with built-in unsubscribe and tracker-blocking features. Overlaps with Cleanfox on inbox management for consumers but competes primarily as an email-app replacement rather than a standalone cleaning tool.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/CleanfoxApp
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCOTdz6q20jj8rWSiRLFohmw
• Facebookfacebook.com/cleanfox
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/10875838
• Instagraminstagram.com/cleanfoxapp

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Cleanfox