How Tella connects to your accounts
- Through Buffer. You connect Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or TikTok to your own Buffer account. Buffer holds those connections, using each network's official sign-in.
- One key, not your passwords. You give Tella a Buffer API key. Tella never asks for, sees or stores your social media passwords.
- You can switch it off at any time. Deleting the key in Buffer stops Tella posting immediately.
How keys are protected
- Keys are checked when you add them, then encrypted (AES-256-GCM) before they're stored. Each one is tied to your business and to its purpose, so it can't be swapped onto another account.
- The encryption key is kept separately from the database that stores your encrypted keys.
- No screen and no part of our system ever shows a stored key again: you and our team see only its last four characters.
- Key exports by our team are logged and alert the other admins.
What Tella can and can't do
| Tella can | Tella can't |
|---|---|
| Publish a post you approved to the accounts you connected | Publish anything you haven't approved |
| Rewrite a caption when you ask | Add a price, date, discount or figure you didn't type |
| Report where each post went | Read or reply to your comments or DMs |
| Tell you a publish failed and offer a fresh approve button | Retry a publish on its own (so it can't double-post) |
| Use your avatar and cloned voice for your scripts | Make a video of anyone who hasn't consented |
Approval
Approval is built in, not a setting. Every post comes to you in the Tella app first. For video, you approve the script before anything is produced, then the finished video before it's posted. The words you approve are exactly the words published.
How Tella uses AI
- Writing: an AI language model writes captions and scripts from your message, your photos and your brand brief, under fixed rules: Australian English by default, no invented figures, nothing beyond what you said or what the photo shows.
- Understanding your messages: when you type something in the chat, an AI model works out what you're asking for (for example, a rewrite). It can't publish or use up your allowance.
- Video: an AI video service produces text-to-video and avatar videos from your approved script. Raw clips are edited by our own pipeline with an AI-written voiceover and captions.
- Learning your style (free trial): Tella reads your public website or public social account. It only reaches public addresses.
- Training: we don't train AI models on your content. Your material goes to AI providers only to make your posts, through paid business APIs.
On the Unlimited plan, writing and video run on your own AI accounts and keys, not ours.
Avatars and cloned voices
- An avatar and voice are made only during a paid setup, from a recording made by the person they belong to, with their consent.
- Each business has one pinned voice, belonging to its chosen person. Tella never picks a stock voice in its place and never switches to someone else's.
- Every avatar video starts as a script you approve, and the finished video comes back for approval before it's posted.
- Tella can't clone a voice or face from a photo or clip you send in the chat.
- Ask us and we'll delete your avatar and voice.
Signing in and team access
- Customers sign in with a one-time code sent to their email. There's no password to leak.
- The business owner decides who else can use the business's Tella. Each person signs in with their own email.
- Our team's admin area requires two-factor authentication, and each staff account can be switched off. Customer accounts can never reach it.
- Database access is restricted row by row, and every change our team makes to a client's details is logged.
Where your data lives
Account and post records are stored in Sydney. Photos and videos are kept with a media hosting service at unlisted web addresses so the social networks can fetch them when publishing. AI providers and the system that renders posts may process your material outside Australia. Full details are in the privacy policy.
Reporting a problem
If you think something is wrong with your account or you've found a security issue, email [email protected] or message us on WhatsApp.