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Privacy Policy

Verkilo is offline-first, so most of what other apps collect, we never see. Here's exactly what we do and don't handle.

Last updated: October 31, 2026

Verkilo is built on a simple idea: your work is yours, and it lives on your computer, not ours. That principle shapes this entire policy. Because Verkilo is an offline-first desktop application, most of the data other writing tools collect never reaches us in the first place.

This policy explains what we collect, what we don’t, and why.

Your manuscripts stay on your device

Verkilo stores your books, characters, locations, notes, and every other piece of your work as files on your own computer. We do not upload, sync, copy, or store your manuscripts on our servers. We cannot read your writing, because we never receive it.

If you back up or sync those files yourself using a service like iCloud, Dropbox, or an external drive, that data is handled under that service’s terms, not ours.

What we do collect

To sell and license the app, we handle a limited amount of information:

  • Purchase information. When you buy Verkilo, our payment processor collects the details needed to complete the transaction (such as your name, email, and billing information). We receive a record of the purchase and your license, but we do not store your full card number.
  • License and account details. We keep the email address associated with your purchase so we can deliver your license, verify it, and provide support.
  • Email you give us. If you subscribe to our newsletter or contact us for support, we keep that email and correspondence so we can reply and send what you asked for.
  • The update check. Once at launch, Verkilo asks our download server whether a newer version exists. The request carries nothing you’ve written; like any web request, the server sees your IP address.
  • Download counts. When you download Verkilo, our download server counts it by platform, version and the country and region Cloudflare resolves at its edge. It does not store your IP address.

AI and agents

Verkilo ships no AI model of its own, and its AI-assisted tools are off unless you choose otherwise. If you paste in your own API key, the tools you use send the text you pick directly from your computer to that provider (Anthropic, OpenAI or Google), which handles it under its own terms. If you connect your own AI agent, that agent and its provider handle your data under their own terms. We never see either exchange. You can read more about how we think about this on The author is human.

The Writing Record

Verkilo keeps a local record of how each book was written: when you wrote (sessions), how the word count changed with each save, which sections you touched, and where the words came from (typed, pasted, accepted from an AI suggestion, written by a connected agent, imported, or restored from a version). It stores counts, timestamps, a device identifier, and hashes. It does not store keystrokes, what you pasted, or timings finer than a save. The record lives inside your project file, never leaves your computer, and is only exported when you choose to export it.

What we don’t do

  • We don’t sell your personal information.
  • We don’t rent or trade your email to advertisers.
  • We don’t track you across the web or build an advertising profile of you. Nothing on this site reports your visit to an ad network, and nothing follows you to other sites.
  • We don’t require an account or an internet connection to write.

This website

verkilo.com is a static site served by Cloudflare. Two scripts run on it, and neither identifies you:

  • Cloudflare Web Analytics counts page views and referrers without cookies and without a persistent identifier. It tells us which pages are read, not who read them.
  • Affiliate referrals. If you arrive through a partner’s link, a Lemon Squeezy script remembers that partner’s code in your browser (a cookie and local storage on verkilo.com) so the sale is credited to them if you buy. The code is a partner ID, not anything about you, and it is read only by our own checkout.

The newsletter form posts your email to Buttondown. The buy button takes you to our checkout on Lemon Squeezy. Neither runs until you use it.

Third parties we rely on

We use a small number of service providers to run the business, and each receives only what it needs to do its job:

  • Lemon Squeezy processes payments, issues licenses and credits affiliates. It handles your billing details; we see the purchase record and your email.
  • Buttondown sends the newsletter and holds the subscriber list.
  • Cloudflare serves this site and our downloads, and provides the cookieless page-view counts described above.
  • HEY (37signals) hosts the support mailbox your emails to us land in.

Each is bound by its own privacy obligations.

Your choices

  • You can unsubscribe from our newsletter at any time using the link in any email.
  • You can ask us what information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Contact us using the details below.

Children

Verkilo is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top of this page. Meaningful changes will be noted so you can see what’s different.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Email us at email support and we’ll help.