For owner-led service businesses
Stop being the system your business runs on.
From first inquiry to final payment, AI agents run the repeatable work — qualifying leads, scoping projects, sending and chasing invoices, closing the books — and you approve what needs your judgment. One system, owned outright. Your data. No subscription.
Owned forever. Includes your first 2,500 agent actions — then bring your own AI key for $0, or top up. Never a subscription.
60-day guarantee: save 5+ hours a week, or get every dollar back.
Why it’s built this way
Most business software is generic — a blank tool you bend into shape, rented forever. Catalyst is the opposite: each part is built and governed by people who do that work — accountants on the books, attorneys on compliance, operations leads on the cadence — and you own the finished system outright. The only ongoing cost is the AI capacity that runs it, and that’s $0 if you bring your own API key.
The shift
You’re not disorganized. You’ve been the operating system your business never had.
A CRM, a portal tool, an accounting app, a project tracker — four systems that don’t talk, so you’re the thing connecting them. Catalyst is one system, and agents run the handoffs between the parts.
Before
- Leads sit in an inbox until someone remembers them
- Staff ask where the file, the status, the number is
- Invoices go out when you get around to it
- You are the workflow — nothing moves without you
- Client data scattered across five subscriptions
- Growth just means more tabs to keep open
With a Business OS
- Every inquiry gets an immediate, qualified reply and follow-up
- One workspace holds the work, files, money, and next step
- Billing fires off the work itself and chases on its own
- Agents run the repeatable process; you handle judgment
- You own the operating layer — the data, the keys, the economics
- Growth adds agent-run workflows, not coordination overhead
The before-and-after isn’t “we swapped four apps for one.” It’s “I used to run the business in my head — now the business runs the process, and I approve the work that needs me.”
Your Business OS
Your business, understood at a glance.
Every client, invoice, and inbox message flows into one connected view. Agents work quietly in the background — you see the result the moment you log in.
Your OS keeps the record. Your agents keep it current — matching receipts, replying to routine emails, flagging what actually needs your judgment. Nothing waits on a human queue.
Built for service businesses without a dedicated back office — where the admin still lands on whoever’s closest to it.
Business health score
LiveAgent tasks · last 14 days
Time reclaimed this month
16 hrs
Returned to your calendar by agents handling inbox triage, receipt matching, and client onboarding.
Active engagements
7
On track
2
Follow-up
1
At risk
Ledger snapshot
$14,280
Collected this month
$2,150
Outstanding across 2 invoices
Agent activity
LiveAvg. task turnaround
4 sec
Down from ~2 hrs handled manually
Illustrative preview — figures are for example only.
What’s included
One system to run the whole business.
The front door clients walk through, the books that keep you straight, and the agents that work in the background — one system, not four rented apps. The parts that carry professional judgment are built by practitioners in that field, not by software teams guessing at your workflow.
Four modules for the company side of any business
Each built with practitioners in that field
Whatever you sell, you still keep books, sign contracts, run on some cadence, and work a pipeline. These four cover that work.
Accounting & Tax
Bookkeeping, tax prep, invoicing, cash-flow forecasting
Legal Documents
Attorney-drafted engagement letters, NDAs, and contracts
Workforce & Operations
Vendor management, scheduling, standard procedures
Sales & Growth
CRM, pipeline, proposals, marketing execution
Everything below is the platform they run on — included with every module.
Client Portal
A white-labeled portal at yourfirm.catalyststudio.app — or your own domain as a paid add-on — where clients log in, see status, and reach you.
CRM & Deal Flow
Every contact, company, and active engagement in one place — nothing gets dropped.
Ledger
Full double-entry accounting, not just invoicing — reconciled bank activity, retainer tracking, and a tax-ready ledger the Ledger agent keeps closed.
Project Execution
Scoped projects, deliverables, and milestones move from kickoff to client sign-off — visible to the client without an extra status email.
Knowledge Base
Your procedures and standards live in the system, not just your head.
Integration Hub
Connects to the tools your business already runs on — Google, Outlook, and Stripe today, Mercury Bank next — so nothing needs re-entering by hand.
AI Agent Team
Otis, the assistant you talk to, plus Scout, Concierge, Ledger, Compass, and Operator working the handoffs in the background — 14 agents in total, included in your setup.
AI Capacity Engine
Your setup includes 2,500 AI Agent Credits (the same as a $25 Top-Up Pack, on us) — each one a single agent task, like a triaged email or a matched receipt. Connect your own API key at $0/mo, or top up anytime: $10 for 1,000 credits, $25 for 2,500, or $50 for 5,000.
Explore the platform
See how the parts connect.
Automated Bookkeeping & Reconciliation
Every receipt, retainer payment, and bank transaction flows into one reconciled record — no more digging through statements at tax time.
- Multi-format receipt & statement ingestion
- Real-time bank transaction matching
- Automatic retainer and invoice tracking
- Reconciliation flags before they become surprises
LEDGER_RECONCILE / WEEK OF 08-11
Illustrative preview — client names and figures are for example only.
Use cases
Built for service businesses without a back office.
One connected environment for operators and small teams who manage high-value client work without a back office. The platform stays the same — its configuration changes based on how work enters your business, moves through engagements, and reaches the client.
01 — Advisory & consulting
Never Lose Track of an Engagement
Work is built around judgment and relationships — engagements, retainers, and recommendations that need to stay organized and visible, even when you’re the only one keeping score.
ENGAGEMENT STATUS
LiveAcme Corp — retainer
Hartline Advisory — onboarding
Growth Partners — renewal due
02 — Financial & legal practices
Deadlines That Don’t Move, Handled Automatically
Client trust depends on accuracy, confidentiality, and follow-through on deadlines that don’t move — Ledger and your agents keep the paper trail so nothing depends on memory.
FILING & DEADLINE TRACKER
LiveQ3 estimated taxes — Client A
1099 filing — Client B
Engagement letter — Client C
03 — Creative & technical studios
From Kickoff to Sign-off, One Timeline
Work moves through scoped projects, deliverables, and client sign-off from kickoff to handoff — visible to the client without an extra status-update email.
PROJECT MILESTONES
LiveBrand refresh — Studio Co.
Website build — Client X
App v2 — Client Y
Illustrative preview — client names and figures are for example only.
The agent team
The operations team your firm can finally afford.
Not a chat box bolted onto software. You talk to Otis; a handful of agents do the repeatable work in the background and stop at the decisions that need you.
Ask it anything, by text or in the app: draft a follow-up, check where a project actually stands, tell an agent to hold off, or ask what is genuinely late this week. It is the one place you point every agent, interrupt any of them mid-task, and get a straight answer without opening a dashboard to find it.
You’re always in the loop: Otis drafts and proposes. Nothing leaves your business without you.
Watches whether the work you’ve already sold or scheduled is actually going to land. Every day, one flag: the single most at-risk thing across every signed engagement and internal commitment. Every week, one focus: how each active business program compares to its plan.
Stops for you: The daily scan only ever flags — it never messages anyone, assigns work, or touches pricing. In program chat, it acts on what you ask it to do; it never restructures your plan on its own.
Works the front of the funnel. Replies to every new inquiry within minutes, asks the qualifying questions, creates the client record, and drafts the proposal. Keeps warm leads warm — the follow-up, the check-in, the nudge before a prospect goes cold — and tells you who to call and what to say.
Stops for you: You approve every proposal and every message before it reaches a prospect.
Takes over the moment a deal is signed. Turns the engagement into a real plan — checklist, owners, due dates, the documents you need back — and sends the kickoff. Keeps every client informed without you chasing, and watches each relationship for the early signs of trouble: a client gone quiet, a slipped date, a missed payment.
Stops for you: Anything that goes to a client in your name, you see first. You sign off on scope and any change to it.
Runs the books end to end. Raises invoices as work is delivered, runs the payment schedule, and chases overdue receivables. Categorizes every transaction, reconciles each account, and keeps the ledger closed and tax-ready — real double-entry accounting, not a spreadsheet. Anything that looks off, it flags.
Stops for you: You decide what to discount or write off. Contested treatments go to you or your accountant.
Every business drifts. Compass reviews your goals against real progress each week, weighs the trade-offs when two priorities collide, and tells you the one thing to fix while it is still cheap to fix.
Stops for you: Compass only ever advises. It never sends a message, makes a change, or moves a number itself.
Every morning, one screen: new leads, overdue items, and what’s stuck — everything the agents found overnight, triaged down to what needs you today. So you run the company instead of hunting for the status of it.
Reads your client and vendor email in the background and turns it into context: logged interactions, action items, follow-up flags — so every agent works from what’s actually happening, not what you remembered to type in.
Fourteen agents in total. Scout, Concierge, Ledger, Compass, and Operator do the heavy lifting; the rest handle the smaller handoffs behind them. All included, plus every agent we add next.
Data privacy
You see everything. Your agents see only what the task needs.
Most software makes you choose between doing everything yourself or handing over full access to someone else. Catalyst’s AI agents work from a role-based view—scoped to exactly what a task requires, nothing more.
What you see
What your AI agent sees
Your AI agents can reconcile transactions, match invoices, and keep the books current — without ever seeing your total balances, account numbers, or payout routing details.
Our commitment
We built Catalyst so it can never profit from your data.
As AI agents start reading client files and financial records, most software companies pick up a second incentive: sell what they see. Catalyst is built so it can’t. Its revenue comes from setup and AI capacity, never your data, and no one’s pay here is tied to how much data the system collects. A public Data Steward Charter and an independent Data & Security Council — which can veto any change that would weaken it — keep it that way as we grow.
Read the Data Steward CharterThe team
Led by a serial founder. Built by a proven team.
Mike leads the company, but he's not building it alone. The platform is built and run by a small, committed team — and each domain module is built and governed by practitioners doing that work today, not a product team guessing at it.
Founder
Mike Anderson
Founder, Catalyst Studio
For 25 years, Mike has led operations, technology, and organizational change across large, complex organizations and fast-scaling companies — EY, Warner Music Group, Thomson Reuters, Gilt Groupe, and Freedom Mortgage among them. Fifteen of those years were also spent building and scaling businesses of his own, which taught him something those institutions never had to learn: most software isn’t built for the person actually running the business.
Over the past two years his focus has shifted almost entirely to AI — not layering it onto existing tools, but designing an operating platform from the ground up, one where a small service business can own its client portal, its books, and its AI agents outright instead of renting a piece of all three every month.
That shift raised a harder question than the technology itself: once AI agents are reading client files, bank feeds, and years of business history, who is actually accountable for what happens to that data, and who is incentivized to protect it instead of sell it? Most software companies are built to answer that badly. Catalyst is built to answer it differently — as a data steward, structured so the business that builds the software can never profit from mining what you store in it.
“Trust isn’t a feature you bolt onto software. It’s a structure you build the company around, before you ever have to prove it under pressure.”
Advisors
Eric Chu
Responsible AI Advisor
Rob Levin
Growth & Marketing
Liz Cuccinello
Legal Advisor
Eric Harlovic
Finance Advisor
The platform team
The two people who built the infrastructure and the AI layer your data runs on, and who still run both day to day.
Cloud & Infrastructure
~20 years in cloud and infrastructure architecture, including a decade-plus at a top consulting firm. Owns how the platform is encrypted at rest and in transit, who and what can access customer data, and how it recovers if something breaks.
What they own
Full-Stack & AI Engineering
7+ years as a full-stack engineer, currently building AI-powered features on a healthcare data platform in production. Builds the pipelines that move your data through the AI agents and back, and the tools that let you export everything you own, in full, on demand.
What they own
AI runs the work. Practicing experts vet the system behind it — continuously, not just once.
The books logic is built and continuously reviewed by practicing CPAs. Client agreements and contracts by attorneys. The operating cadence by fractional COOs. Each team governs its own part, on an ongoing basis, not a one-time build.
A vetted specialist, whenever you need one
Some things need a licensed professional, not more automation. When that happens, Catalyst can connect you with a vetted specialist, every one with at least 7 years in their field. You hire them and pay them directly, at their rate. Catalyst never takes a cut.
Who’s running on it
Real businesses, one system.
Attorneys, accountants, and fractional executives are already running their business on the Business OS instead of a stack of separate tools.
Every Engagement, One Screen
Attorneys on the Business OS keep client status, documents, and invoices in one place, instead of switching between practice software, a separate CRM, and a billing spreadsheet to see where an engagement stands.
Ask Your Books a Question
Solo CPAs and bookkeepers on the Business OS don’t pull a report to answer a client question — they ask their AI agents directly and get reconciled numbers back in seconds, from one system instead of accounting software bolted onto everything else.
Every Engagement, Visible at a Glance
Fractional executives juggling several clients at once use the Business OS as the one place engagement status, deliverables, and follow-ups live, instead of a task tool for the work and a separate CRM for the relationships.
Most of them also gave up a stack of separate subscriptions to get here: tools like Clio, MyCase, QuickBooks, Xero, ClickUp, and HubSpot, replaced by one owned system with one bill.
Pricing
Own it once. Never pay rent.
Catalyst is a one-time purchase. Take all four business modules, or start with the one area you need and add the rest later. The OS, the full agent team, and 2,500 AI Agent Credits come with every setup — no monthly platform rent, no per-agent subscription, no forced recurring plan.
One-time, however you buy
$499 one-time
Business Complete · 3 seats
All four modules. You configure it, with our docs and a setup call.
- All four business modules — Accounting & Tax, Legal Documents, Workforce & Operations, Sales & Growth
- The OS, the full agent team, and 3 seats — add more below at $99 each
- 2,500 AI Agent Credits included (1 task = 1 credit, ~6–8 weeks of typical use)
- Portal branding, database setup, and a yourfirm.catalyststudio.app subdomain
$199 + $99/module
Start with one area · 3 seats
The OS plus a single module. Add the rest for $99 each, anytime.
- The OS, the full agent team, 3 seats, and 2,500 credits
- Your first module included — pick from the four
- Each additional module is a one-time $99
Want it set up for you? — White-Glove Launch
Our team handles the configuration, migrates your historic data, and tunes the agents to your workflows. The work runs from a few hours to a full day-plus, so we scope it on a call and give you a fixed price up front — from $799.
$99 per extra seat
Seats for your team
- 3 seats come with every setup; add more at $99 each, or 5 for $299
- Role-based access and multi-user sync
- One-time, like everything else — no per-seat monthly tax
$0 with your own key
AI Capacity
- 2,500 credits included; top up anytime — $10 for 1,000, $25 for 2,500, $50 for 5,000
- Or bring your own OpenAI or Anthropic API key — $0 to Catalyst, ever
- Nothing renting, nothing to cancel
A “credit” is one agent task — a triaged email, a matched receipt, a drafted reply, a client-intake step. 2,500 credits covers roughly 6–8 weeks of typical early use; heavier day-to-day usage and bigger teams will burn through them faster. Actual usage varies by business.
Setup includes a yourfirm.catalyststudio.app subdomain. Want it on your own domain instead (like app.yourfirm.com)? Add it anytime for a one-time $149.
Fourteen agents in total
Scout, Concierge, Ledger, Compass, and Operator do the heavy lifting; the rest handle the smaller handoffs behind them. All included, plus every agent we add next. Meet the team →
Switch capacity sources anytime.
Your OS and every agent stay fully functional—portal, CRM, and Ledger keep running—no matter whether you’re using included credits, a Top-Up Pack, or your own API key.
The 60-day guarantee.
If your agents don’t save you 5 hours a week in your first 60 days, we refund every dollar — your setup fee, self-service or white-glove, and any Top-Up Packs you’ve bought.
FAQ
Common questions.
The mechanics of owning a platform instead of renting one, answered plainly.
Get started
Get your OS.
Tell us a bit about your business. We review every setup request personally—no bots, no automatic charges—then follow up within one business day with a recommended agent lineup and a secure payment link.