How CVLoom works
Most resume tools ask you to trust a score, a privacy promise, and a free tier that quietly ends at the download button. This page exists so you don't have to trust any of it — here is the mechanism behind each claim, in plain terms.
What CVLoom does with your resume file
When you upload a PDF to the checker, the file is read into memory, its text layer is extracted, and the extracted text is scored against 30 rules. When the request finishes, the buffer is released. No copy is written to disk, no copy is sent to a third party, and no account exists to attach one to — the checker requires no signup, so there is nowhere for a stored file to live.
Resumes you build in the editor are different, and it would be dishonest to blur the two: those are saved, because a resume you can't come back to is useless. They are tied to a random identifier in your browser, visible only to you, and deletable from your documents page. On a shared computer, delete them before you leave; the next person at that machine would otherwise see them.
What CVLoom checks, and why
An applicant tracking system reads the text layer of your PDF, not the design a human sees. The checker runs 30 deterministic rules over that same text layer, grouped into four categories: whether the file parses at all (40 points), whether contact details are findable (10), whether the structure reads as a resume (30), and whether the content is written the way recruiters expect (20). No AI is involved in the score — the same resume produces the same number every time.
Every one of those rules is published in full, with the reason parsers break on it and how to fix it: read all 30 ATS rules. As far as we can tell, no other free checker publishes its rule set — which means you can act on ours without ever running the tool.
How CVLoom makes money
It doesn't. CVLoom is an independent project, paid for out of pocket: a small server, a domain, and an AI allowance that together cost less per month than one competitor's subscription. There is no paid tier, no advertising, no affiliate links, and nothing about your data is for sale.
The one thing that is limited is AI. Importing an old PDF, the deep-scan feedback, and the job-description match all call a paid model, so they share a fair-use allowance of five runs a day — enough for anyone actually writing their own resume, and not enough to make the bill unsurvivable. The 30-rule score runs no AI at all, so it stays unlimited.
What CVLoom does not do
- ·No watermark on exports — ever, on any of the 585+ templates.
- ·No paywall at the download button, which is where most free builders stop being free.
- ·No email required to see your result. The full report is on screen before anyone asks you for anything.
- ·No tracking or advertising cookies, and no selling, sharing, or training on your resume content.
- ·No fake urgency, no invented “ATS score” for a system nobody named, and no guarantee of an interview — the honest answer is that formatting is necessary, not sufficient.
Common questions
How does CVLoom make money?
It doesn't, and that's deliberate. CVLoom is run as a free tool, paid for out of pocket — a small server, a domain, and an AI allowance. There is no paid tier, no ads, no email list being sold, and no plan to gate the parts that are free today. The only limits that exist are fair-use caps on the AI features, which keep the running cost survivable rather than turning a profit.
What happens to a resume I upload to the checker?
It is parsed in memory and discarded when the request finishes. No copy is written to disk, no copy is sent anywhere else, and there is no account for one to be attached to. Close the tab and nothing of it remains.
Why publish the rules instead of just showing a score?
Because a score you can't audit is a number you have to take on faith. Every rule CVLoom checks is published in full, so you can disagree with one, verify another, or fix your resume without using CVLoom at all.
What are the AI limits?
Five AI runs per day, shared between importing a PDF, the deep-scan feedback, and the job-description match. The 30-rule score itself is unlimited and always will be — it costs nothing to compute because it runs no AI at all.
Free, unlimited, no signup — and nothing of your file is kept.
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