The software stack I actually pay for after three years of running a side business

Three years running a side business taught me the SaaS bill is the silent killer of margin. I once had €380/month of recurring software, half of which I wasn't actively using. I'm down to about €95/month now. Here's exactly what I still pay for, what I canceled, and the free tools I run instead.

The tools I still pay for and would re-buy tomorrow

Cloudflare for the domain, DNS, and Workers Paid plan — about €5/month for the developer plan. Hosts the site, caches everything, handles the CDN. The free plan covers most static sites; you'd jump to paid when you need Workers AI, Hyperdrive, or higher analytics retention. Worth every cent.

Stripe for payments. No subscription, just transaction fees (2.9% + €0.30). If you take money online, Stripe is the default. Their alternatives are not better in 2026; some are cheaper on paper and worse in implementation.

Notion for documentation, project planning, and the public knowledge base. €10/month for one user with AI features. I tried the cheaper Obsidian/Logseq route for nine months and came back. Notion's database views are genuinely better than any free equivalent I tested.

An accounting tool — I use Wave Accounting at €0/month for the basic plan, €16/month for the payroll add-on if you have employees. If Wave doesn't work in your region, QuickBooks Self-Employed at €15/month is the alternative. Don't try to run a business in a spreadsheet past year one. Tax season will punish you.

Email sending — I use a transactional email service for receipts and confirmations. About €15/month at low volume. Don't try to send transactional email from a personal Gmail or your domain MX. Deliverability will silently destroy your open rate.

A password manager for the team (which is currently just me). Bitwarden Premium at €10/year is the absolute floor of business hygiene. Bitwarden Teams is €36/user/year when you have a second person.

A domain registrar that isn't trying to upsell you. Cloudflare Registrar charges at-cost for domains (€10/year for a .com). GoDaddy and Network Solutions will charge €25+ for the same domain. Switch your domains.

The tools I canceled and don't miss

I canceled ClickFunnels at €97/month. A simple landing page on Cloudflare Pages with an embedded Stripe checkout does what most people use ClickFunnels for, at zero marginal cost. ClickFunnels is the right tool if you run high-volume paid ad campaigns and need their split-testing and analytics. Otherwise it's expensive.

I canceled ConvertKit at €29/month for my email list. Switched to Buttondown at €9/month for the equivalent feature set at my list size. ConvertKit is good. It's also priced for full-time creators with five-figure lists.

I canceled Calendly Pro at €12/month. The free plan covers one calendar and unlimited 1-on-1 bookings, which is what I actually needed. The pro features (group meetings, integrations, custom branding) sound useful and were not, in practice, for me.

I canceled Adobe Creative Cloud at €60/month. Switched to Affinity Suite at €170 once for Photo + Designer + Publisher. Three years on, that's €1,800 saved.

I canceled Zapier at €30/month. Most of what I was using Zapier for can be done with a tiny Cloudflare Worker, a webhook, and a cron trigger — for €5/month total. The learning curve is real; the savings are also real if you're at all technical.

The free tools that handle real work

A code editor — VS Code, free. Use it for everything from writing posts in markdown to managing the site.

Image compression for site uploads — Squoosh by Google in the browser, free. Drag in an image, set quality, download. Beats every paid alternative for one-off compression.

Screenshots and screen recording — ShareX on Windows, free. On macOS the built-in screen capture (Cmd+Shift+5) is fine. Skip the €50 paid screenshot tools.

Analytics — Cloudflare's built-in analytics is free and respects privacy. Plausible is €9/month if you want a more polished dashboard. Skip Google Analytics unless you have a specific need for it — the privacy/cookie banner overhead isn't worth it for most small sites.

The book that made me audit my stack

Profit First by Mike Michalowicz is the book that made me look at the bill. The central idea — that you pay yourself first and run the business on what's left, instead of paying the business first and yourself with leftovers — forces an audit of every recurring expense. I cut €280/month in 90 minutes after reading the first three chapters.

I don't follow the bank-account scheme he proposes religiously. The philosophy was enough. Read it, audit your SaaS bill on the same day, and you'll pay for the book three hundred times over.

The audit cadence

Once a quarter, open the credit card statement. Highlight every recurring software charge. For each one: "did I use this in the last 30 days?" If no, cancel it. You'll renew if you need it. The cost of re-signing up is €5 of mild inconvenience. The cost of keeping a €30/month tool you don't use is €360/year.

I do this on the first Sunday of each quarter. Takes twenty minutes. Pays for the dinner I have that night.