Every roundup lists cloud SaaS. Clone is desktop software that runs yours.

Two different things in the same sentence. 'Software for a consulting business' usually means the cloud SaaS you buy to run the practice: HubSpot for CRM, QuickBooks Online for invoicing, PandaDoc for proposals, Notion for docs. Clone is a second, different category: an operator program that installs on your Mac or PC. It does not replace HubSpot or QuickBooks. It reads their windows, clicks their buttons, types into their forms, so you don't have to. Architecture.tsx lines 18-22 names this layer the Computer Agent and describes it with exactly four verbs: reads the screen, clicks, types, scrolls. The consulting business keeps its cloud stack. Clone adds the desktop operator that drives the stack.

Three reasons. First, your client data stays on your disk. Architecture Principle 1 (architecture.tsx lines 46-50): client files, emails, contracts, and transcripts never leave your computer. For lawyers, fractional CFOs, healthcare advisors, and anyone under NDA, that is a meaningful compliance posture. Second, you can reach tools that have no public API. QuickBooks Desktop, Sage 50, Tally, Clio Manage, PracticePanther, most law-firm docket systems, many regional bank portals, any custom internal CMS. Cloud-only automation platforms quietly exclude these. Clone treats them like any other window. Third, the authentication model is simpler: you are already logged in to your apps on your own machine, so Clone uses those sessions in place. No separate OAuth flow per vendor, no tokens that expire and break the automation at 2am.

Anything your machine can open a window for. Validated so far: QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, FreshBooks, Xero, Sage 50, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, Salesforce Classic and Lightning, Clio Manage, PracticePanther, MyCase, PandaDoc, DocuSign, Ignition, Qwilr, Google Docs, Sheets, Drive, Gmail, Outlook, Microsoft Word and Excel with macros, Airtable, Notion, Calendly, Cal.com, Fireflies, tl;dv, Otter, Zoom, Loom, Slack, Dropbox, SharePoint. Because Clone uses pixels and keystrokes rather than APIs, tools with no public API, or with legacy UIs, or with single-tenant internal deployments, work the same way. The ritual file names the tool, Clone drives it.

Zapier, Make, and n8n are cloud automation platforms. They require an API or pre-built connector on every tool in the chain, they run in the vendor's cloud, and they configure as a graph of triggers and branches you build in their UI. They are strong for simple reflex automations between two SaaS tools. Clone is a different shape: plain English in chat, plain markdown for config, the apps' own UIs as the action surface, and the whole thing runs on your desktop. A Zap is 'when X then Y'. A Clone ritual is an entire Friday invoice run across five clients in QuickBooks Desktop plus cover emails in Gmail, described in one readable file. Many consulting businesses end up running both: Zaps for simple A-to-B reflexes between two SaaS tools, Clone for multi-app rituals that touch offline tools or need judgment.

HoneyBook, Dubsado, and Bonsai are cloud all-in-ones that try to replace your CRM, invoicing, proposal, scheduling, and portal with one subscription. If you already use QuickBooks for tax-grade bookkeeping, PandaDoc for legally-reviewed contracts, HubSpot for pipeline, and Cal.com for scheduling, migrating into HoneyBook means re-exporting and re-onboarding all of them, and it means your client records now live inside HoneyBook's cloud. Clone does the opposite: it leaves your best-of-breed tools in place and adds a desktop operator that drives across them. The choice of portal and system of record stays yours. If you already run HoneyBook, Clone drives HoneyBook. If you run the separate-tools stack, Clone drives the separate-tools stack.

That is a good example of where most roundups stop being useful. QuickBooks Desktop has no public API for third-party automation. Cloud-only tools like Zapier or Make cannot see it. Most 'consulting software' articles either ignore QBD or suggest you migrate to QBO (which most small firms refuse to do for tax-season reasons). Clone reaches QuickBooks Desktop the same way it reaches any other tool: a window, four verbs. A weekly invoice ritual opens QBD, goes to Customers > Create Invoices, types the customer name, fills line items from your Harvest export, saves as draft. Five invoices in the same sequence. Then Gmail for cover emails. All staged for your review before a single thing sends.

Yes. Clone runs on both macOS and Windows. The Computer Agent layer treats a window as a window regardless of platform. Windows-only software (legacy .NET line-of-business apps, certain law-firm practice-management tools, some desktop accounting packages) is in scope the same way macOS-only software is. A consulting business on one OS or the other does not need to port anything.

review_before_send: true in the ritual file (shown in this page). When Clone runs a ritual, each action that produces an outgoing artifact stages a draft rather than sending. For an invoice run, that means QuickBooks Desktop invoices are saved as drafts inside QBD (not emailed), cover emails are Gmail drafts (not sent). For a proposal run, the SOW is a Google Docs draft (not shared), the PandaDoc envelope is created but not sent, the HubSpot deal is at stage 'proposal sent' with the envelope URL attached for audit. You open each one, read, edit, hit Send or Approve. Architecture principle 4 (architecture.tsx lines 61-63) is the backbone: every action is logged and reversible, preview drafts before they send, see every file touched, roll back an entire morning with one click.

The underlying claim to verify: Architecture Principle 1, architecture.tsx lines 46-50, is that Clone operates your desktop apps from your desktop, and that client files, emails, contracts, and transcripts never leave your computer. There is no Clone cloud holding copies. The Planner layer may call a language model to interpret your English instruction, but attached engagement content is not sent along with that call. For consulting practices under SOC 2, HIPAA-adjacent, client NDAs, or attorney work-product doctrine, that is the posture that matters. Enterprise tier offers on-prem or private cloud deployment and bring-your-own-LLM for firms that need the model call itself to stay inside their perimeter. Uninstalling Clone leaves every other tool intact and every record exactly where it already was.

Per pricing.tsx: Solo is $49/mo, Boutique is $129/seat/mo, Enterprise is custom. Solo is unlimited plain-English tasks, runs on your Mac or PC, drives Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Zoom, any app, includes CRM and invoicing integrations, voice learning from past work, scheduled recurring tasks, local data private by default, and community support. Every plan starts with a 21-day free trial. Solo is the right fit for an independent consultant or a fractional operator. Boutique adds shared client memory across a team, firm-wide playbooks and templates, role-based permissions, and scheduled firm-level rituals. Enterprise adds on-prem or private cloud, bring-your-own-LLM, SOC 2 Type II and audit logs, SSO and SCIM, and a dedicated success engineer.

features.tsx lines 58-60 state it directly: solo consultants report reclaiming 10 to 15 hours a week within the first month, and the in-product average is 11x ROI in the first 30 days based on reclaimed billable hours at typical consulting rates. The reclaim is concentrated in the handoffs every SaaS roundup skips: exporting time from a tracker, retyping it into an invoicing tool, drafting cover emails in a second window, filing PDFs into the right folder. An hour every Friday afternoon, repeated across 5 retainer clients, is roughly 50 hours a year. At a $200/hr billable rate that is $10,000 of reclaimed capacity against an annual Clone cost of $588 on Solo.

Yes. Every plan starts with a 21-day free trial on Solo. Download Clone, paste a ritual like weekly-invoice-run.md from this page into memory/rituals/, drop two tone examples into a folder, run it on this Friday's invoice batch. If the reclaimed time in the trial period is not worth $49/mo, don't subscribe. The ritual file stays on your disk regardless: it is plain markdown, owned by you, readable without Clone installed.