My entire business runs on $84/month in tools

I spent last Tuesday night in a spreadsheet counting every subscription I pay for. The number made me feel sick. $84 wasn't the problem — it was realizing I'd been paying for three tools that did the exact same thing for months and never noticed.

Then I started canceling. One by one. Here's what survived.

I know solopreneurs spending $200-$300/month on subscriptions — some over $500. A developer named Marcus audited his AI subscriptions in January: ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, Midjourney.
$137/month just on AI tools. He wasn't even using most of them.

Here's the thing — most of these tools have free tiers that are absurdly good in 2026. And you probably don't need as many as you think.

Here's my whole stack. Every dollar accounted for.

THE STACK: The $84 Business

This is the hub. Beehiiv handles the newsletter, hosts the website, sells digital products (Stripe handles payments), and runs a recommendation network called Boosts where other newsletters send you
subscribers.

$39/month for a platform that replaces a separate email tool, website builder, and payment processor.

Free alt: Beehiiv Launch plan ($0, up to 2,500 subscribers). You can start here and upgrade when you hit the ceiling.

Replaces: Mailchimp ($13-20/mo) + Squarespace ($16-27/mo) + Gumroad ($10/mo + fees) = $39-57/mo minimum, none of them integrated.

I use Claude through an API to draft newsletters, write social posts, and generate product copy. Not the $20/month Pro plan — the pay-per-use API. For the volume I run, it's about $5/month.

The free tiers of both Claude and ChatGPT handle 90% of one-off tasks. The API is for automation — connecting AI to my workflow tools so drafts generate automatically.

Free alt: Claude free tier or ChatGPT free tier for manual writing. You don't need the API until you're automating.

Replaces: Freelance copywriter ($500-2,000/project), research assistant ($15-25/hr)

The glue. Zapier connects everything so I'm not manually copy-pasting between 6 tools every time something needs to happen.

Right now I run 4 core automations:

Zapier's free tier gives you 100 tasks/month with 5 active zaps — enough for basic workflows. I upgraded because the automation pipeline needs more.

Free alt: Make.com free tier (1,000 operations/month). Honestly, Make.com's free tier is more generous than Zapier's.

Replaces: You. Doing the same steps manually every time.

Schedule posts across LinkedIn, X, and Instagram. Batch everything on Monday, approve the queue, done for the week.

Buffer's free plan covers 3 channels and 10 posts per channel — that's 30 scheduled posts. The $10 plan removes the limits.

Free alt: Buffer free tier. Or just post natively — it works, it's just slower.

Replaces: Hootsuite ($99/mo — honestly, what are they thinking)

Open-source booking page. Client picks a time, it hits your calendar, they get a confirmation. Free forever.

I set this up in 11 minutes. Connects to Google Calendar, sends reminders, handles time zones. Haven't paid a dollar.

Replaces: Calendly Pro ($30/mo). The 4-email back-and-forth of "Does Tuesday work?"

The operations center. Content calendar, client tracker, SOPs for every repeatable process.

The free plan gives you unlimited pages. I run my entire project management and CRM out of it — it's a database with status columns and linked records. Not fancy. Works.

Free alt: Google Sheets + Docs (also free, just less organized)

Replaces: Trello ($10/mo) + HubSpot CRM ($0-50/mo) + Evernote ($15/mo)

Wave handles invoicing and basic accounting. Actually free. Not "free for 14 days." Free.

Stripe handles product payments through Beehiiv. No monthly fee — just 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

Replaces: QuickBooks ($30/mo), FreshBooks ($17/mo)

Social graphics, PDF design, brand assets. The free tier includes thousands of templates, stock photos, and a drag-and-drop editor that's good enough for 95% of what a solopreneur needs.

Replaces: Hiring a designer for one-off graphics ($50-200/piece)

The Math

Beehiiv Scale — Newsletter + website + products + Boosts — $39
Claude API — Content generation (automated) — ~$5
Zapier Professional — Connects everything — $30
Buffer Essentials — Social scheduling — $10
Cal.com — Booking/scheduling — $0
Notion — Projects + CRM — $0
Wave + Stripe — Finance + payments — $0
Canva — Design — $0

Total: $84/mo

Compare that to one part-time employee at 20 hours/week: roughly $4,000/month with taxes and overhead.

I'm not saying tools replace people forever. When you're ready to hire, hire. But if you're under $200K in revenue and running things alone, this stack handles it.

Budget version: If you swap paid tools for free tiers (Beehiiv Launch + Zapier/Make free + Buffer free + ChatGPT free), the total drops to roughly $0-39/month. You lose automation and some features, but the core stack still works.

WHAT I ACTUALLY USED THIS WEEK

This week I set up the Solo Stack automation pipeline: Zapier triggers Claude API to write newsletter drafts and social posts automatically. The drafts land in Beehiiv; the social posts queue in Buffer. I
review everything before it goes out — about 30-45 minutes per edition.

Honest assessment: the automated drafts are about 70-80% there. The structure is right, the tools are right, but the voice needs editing. It sounds a little too clean — too much "content creator" and not
enough "person who actually uses these tools." I rewrote about a third of this edition by hand.

I'll report back on whether the automation quality improves as I tune the prompts. That's the experiment: can a one-person content business run 95% on automation and still sound like a real person? I don't
know yet. I'll show you.

GET THE FULL BLUEPRINT

I made a visual one-page blueprint of this entire stack — every tool, every price, every connection between them. It's called The $150 Stack Blueprint (covers the full range of tools, not just the lean $84
version).

Download the $150 Stack Blueprint -- Free
https://solostack-blueprint.netlify.app/

Shows what I use, the free alternatives, and the wiring diagram of how everything connects.

Every Tuesday, I share tools like these. Every Friday, I show you how to wire them together into systems that actually save time.

This is Edition 1. You're early.

Hit reply and tell me: what's the ONE subscription you're paying for that you haven't opened in 30 days? I'll tell you what to replace it with.

Marius
Solo Stack