How Cinderkin works
Five steps from kit to custody.
A kit to a lineage to a vault you walk with — and a clean exit whenever you want one. Same analytical depth as the legacy incumbents; a fundamentally different trust model. The privacy posture covers the why, the (forthcoming) pricing tiers answer the how much, and this page covers the how.
- 01
Order a kit
Pick a tier. Pay once. No subscription, no data sale.
Start with an autosomal SNP kit — ancestry composition and kinship matching out of the box. When (and only when) you want pharmacogenomic and trait-level reporting, opt in to a clinical-grade whole-genome sequencing upgrade. Checkout goes through Stripe; the only thing on the receipt is the kit.
- 02
Saliva to lab
A collection tube leaves the day you order.
We mail the tube; you spit and mail it back. A CLIA- and CAP-accredited partner lab processes the sample — nothing human at Cinderkin touches it. Raw reads come back over an encrypted channel; the lab retains nothing that is not contractually required to discard on receipt.
- 03
Vault provisioned
Your encrypted vault is built on results return.
When the sequence lands, we provision an end-to-end-encrypted vault under the keys only you hold. Raw FASTQ, SNP VCF, and the match table are sealed into cipher before they ever touch our database. Ciphertext-only on our servers — we cannot read it, not for support, not for analytics, not under subpoena.
- 04
Family tree and reports
The lineage graph and reports light up as data returns.
DNA matches flow into the family tree automatically. Ancestry composition, inherited health risks, carrier status, and drug-response variants appear progressively as data is processed — all written in plain language under FDA direct-to-consumer guidelines. New kin, new documents, new migrations: the graph keeps growing.
- 05
Export and delete
Your data is exportable. And deletable. On your terms.
One click exports your FASTQ, VCF, match table, and the full lineage graph (GEDCOM + ours) in standard formats. One click purges everything — the keys, the cipher, the account. We keep nothing. No retention. No re-import tax if you come back on harder terms.
And then?
Same depth as the incumbents. A different trust model.
That’s the whole arc. The privacy posture on the home page covers the why; pricing is still being written and will land alongside the kit order. If any step in the journey above raises a question — where the lab sits, how the keys are derived, what “on your terms” looks like under a real subpoena — the answers are on the privacy FAQ.
Pricing is still being finalised; the steps above describe how the journey works regardless of the tier you pick.
What this means in practice
Ciphertext-only on our servers
The vault is sealed under your passphrase before it leaves the browser. We cannot read it — for support, analytics, or legal process.
Lab, not us
Sequencing happens at a CLIA/CAP partner lab. We never hold your physical sample, and we contractually minimise what the lab retains on return.
Plain-language reporting
Ancestry, inherited health risks, carrier status, drug response — written for you, under FDA direct-to-consumer guidelines. Nothing clinically interpretive behind a paywall.
Bankruptcy is a hard exit
If Cinderkin fails or is acquired, the vault does not change hands. Trust is not portable. You keep the ability to export or destroy.