Everything you need to build and run a digital business
Research, development, operations, and distribution. Local-first. AI-native. Yours forever.
Connects to your existing tools
Your business runs on a dozen apps that don't talk to each other
One app for notes. Another for tasks. Another for code. Another for email. Another for invoicing. Another for scheduling. Another for analytics. Each with its own login, its own monthly bill, its own way of doing things.
A Harvard Business Review study tracked knowledge workers across 3,200 workdays and found they toggle between applications 1,200 times per day. That adds up to four hours every week spent just reorienting. Not thinking. Not building. Not shipping. Just figuring out where you left off.
It takes 23 minutes to fully regain focus after switching context. In an eight-hour day, the American Psychological Association estimates that task-switching alone cuts your productive time by up to 40%. You're not slow. Your tools are making you slow.
And the information you need is never where you expect it. Your client info lives in three different places. Your project context is scattered across tabs you'll never find again. According to McKinsey, knowledge workers spend roughly 20% of their week just searching for information. That's an entire day, every week, hunting through apps for something you already know.
And it keeps getting worse
Every year, every tool raises prices. SaaS inflation hit 12.2% in 2024, nearly five times faster than general inflation. Slack went up 20%. Google Workspace, 16-22%. Adobe's photo plan jumped 50%. Your tools cost more every year for the same features you were already paying for.
Now add AI to the bill. Every SaaS product just bolted on AI features at $20/month extra. Microsoft Copilot is $20 per user per month. Google bundled theirs into a price hike. AI-related software spending rose 75% year over year, and according to BCG, 74% of companies still can't extract real value from it. You're paying more for capabilities you can barely use, spread across tools that each have their own version of "AI" that can't see what the others are doing.
Meanwhile, you're building your entire business on rented ground. The app you rely on gets acquired and shut down. Builder.ai was valued at $1.3 billion. When it collapsed in 2025, customers who had spent $50,000 to $100,000 found their products, their data, and their source code inaccessible overnight. "Enshittification" was named the 2024 word of the year for a reason. The pattern is everywhere: platforms attract you with value, then extract it once you're locked in.
So you try to fix the fragmentation with automation. Zapier. Make. A dozen workflows connecting a dozen apps. But 68% of those automations break after app updates. Now instead of managing your business, you're managing your automations. You replaced one problem with another.
You've tried to fix this before
Zoho offers 45 apps in one suite. But it was built for companies with IT departments. The setup feels like configuring an ERP system. Enterprise pricing, enterprise complexity, enterprise assumptions about how you work.
Notion is flexible, but it's a notebook. You can't write code in it. You can't invoice a client. You can't deploy a site. You can't run AI agents across your data. It handles one slice of the job and expects you to bolt on everything else.
The problem isn't that these tools are bad. It's that none of them were designed for how you actually work: researching, building, operating, and shipping, all in the same day, often in the same hour. They solve one piece. You need the whole picture.
What you're actually paying
Ion Alpha replaces all of it. One purchase. No subscriptions. Yours forever.
One system for your entire business
Research
Built-in browser, AI-powered deep research, knowledge base, web monitors, bookmarks. Know your market before you commit. Gather and organise everything in one place instead of 40 browser tabs.
Development
Code workspaces, AI coding agents, git integration, test runner, code quality analysis. Build without context-switching. Your code, tasks, notes, and AI all live together.
Operations
Tasks, projects, notes, files, contacts, time tracking. Run your business from the same place you build it. No more syncing data between five different apps.
Distribution
Platform connections, audience metrics, content publishing, analytics. Get your work out there. Manage your presence across platforms without a separate tool for each one.
Not another cloud app
A fundamentally different approach to business software.
Local-first
Runs on your machine. Your data stays on your hard drive. Works without internet. No server between you and your work. Fast, private, and always available.
AI-native
AI is built into every part of the system, not bolted on as a paid add-on. Bring your own keys for OpenAI, Claude, or run local models. You choose the provider. You control the cost.
Own forever
One-time purchase. No subscription that doubles when you're not looking. No enshittification roadmap. Your tools shouldn't have a landlord.
Built to solve a real problem
Ion Alpha started the way most tools should: out of frustration. I was running a digital business across a dozen subscriptions, paying hundreds a month for apps that each did one thing and couldn't talk to each other. My client info was in three places. My project context was scattered across tabs. Every year the bills went up and the integrations got worse.
So I started building the system I actually wanted. One application where research, code, tasks, notes, and everything else live together. Local-first, because I was tired of being dependent on someone else's servers. AI-native, because that's the only way one person can build something this ambitious.
Ion Alpha isn't a startup chasing a Series A. It's an independent product built by someone who uses it every day to run the business that makes it. No investors to please, no growth-at-all-costs pressure, no reason to enshittify it down the road. Just software that works, sold honestly, owned forever.
Questions
What is Ion Alpha?
A desktop application that integrates research, development, operations, and distribution into one system. Instead of paying for a dozen separate SaaS tools, you get one app that runs locally on your machine, connects to AI providers of your choice, and syncs between your devices via peer-to-peer.
Who is this for?
Founders, freelancers, and small teams running digital businesses. Whether you're a solo developer shipping a product, a freelancer managing clients, or a small agency juggling projects, if you've ever wished all your tools were in one place and you actually owned them, this is for you.
How does collaboration work if it's local-first?
Peer-to-peer sync. Your devices connect directly with no server in the middle and no data passing through our infrastructure. Think of it like git, but for everything in the system.
What happens if Ion Alpha shuts down?
Your app keeps running. It's on your machine, using a local database you control. There's no server dependency. Even if we disappeared, nothing changes for you.
Do I pay for AI on top of the purchase price?
You bring your own API keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, or whatever you prefer. You pay those providers directly at their rates, no markup from us. You can also use free local models if you want zero ongoing cost.
How much does it cost?
Pricing isn't announced yet. It will be a one-time purchase with no monthly or yearly subscriptions. Get on the early access list to hear about launch pricing first.
Is there a guarantee?
30-day money-back, no questions asked. If it's not right for you, you get a full refund.