The principle: spend on tools that buy back time
A SaaS subscription is only worth it if it saves you more in hours than it costs in dollars. At an early-stage startup, your time costs roughly $100–$200 an hour fully loaded. That means even an $80/month tool only needs to save one person 30 minutes a week to break even.
1. Notion — Internal wiki & docs
Cheaper than Confluence, friendlier than Google Docs for structured information. Use it as your single source of truth: company handbook, project briefs, meeting notes, decision logs. Start with the free tier and upgrade to the Team plan when you cross 5 collaborators.
2. Slack — Team communication
Yes, Microsoft Teams is included free with M365. Yes, you're going to use Slack anyway. Channel-based async chat has won the startup market for a reason — Slack's third-party integration ecosystem is wider, the UX is faster, and the engineering hires you want will quietly judge you for using anything else.
3. Linear or ClickUp — Project tracking
If you're engineering-led, Linear. The keyboard shortcuts, the speed, the opinionated workflow — engineers actually use it instead of grumbling. If you're more cross-functional, ClickUp gives you views that work for both engineering and marketing without forcing one team's mental model on the other.
4. Figma — Design and prototyping
Free for up to 3 collaborator seats. Not really worth debating in 2026 — Figma owns this market. Use Dev Mode to hand off to engineering without exporting assets manually.
5. Google Workspace — Email, calendar, drive
$7.20/user/month for Business Starter. Don't try to save money on email. A custom domain ([email protected]) is the cheapest credibility you'll ever buy.
6. HubSpot Free — CRM
Until you have a dedicated salesperson, the free HubSpot CRM is plenty. Tracks your pipeline, logs emails, sends sequences. Upgrade only when you're losing deals because the free tier limits are biting.
7. Stripe — Payments
No real alternative for most SaaS or marketplace startups. The API quality is unmatched. Start with Stripe Atlas if you're incorporating from outside the US.
8. QuickBooks or Xero — Accounting
Pick whichever your accountant is fluent in. Both are fine. Trying to do startup accounting in spreadsheets is a tax filing disaster waiting to happen.
9. Loom — Async video
Cuts meetings dramatically. Record a 3-minute walkthrough instead of scheduling a 30-minute sync. Free tier is enough for solo founders; the team tier is worth it once you cross 10 people.
10. ConvertKit or Brevo — Email marketing
If you have a blog or newsletter, you need a dedicated sender. Mailchimp got expensive and clunky; ConvertKit (creators) and Brevo (cheaper, more transactional features) are the modern picks. Skip if you don't have an audience to email yet — don't build the channel before you have the content.
11. PostHog or Plausible — Analytics
Skip Google Analytics for your product app — it's heavyweight and privacy-hostile. PostHog (free up to 1M events/mo) gives you product analytics, session replay, and feature flags in one place. Plausible is the lightweight pick for marketing-site-only tracking.
12. 1Password or Bitwarden — Password management
Non-negotiable. The day a co-founder leaves you want to rotate credentials in 20 minutes, not 20 hours. 1Password's team UX is slightly nicer; Bitwarden is open-source and cheaper.
Tools to skip in the first 12 months
- Salesforce (way too heavy until you have a real sales team)
- Tableau / Looker (premature; spreadsheets are fine)
- Greenhouse (overkill until you hire 20+ people/year)
- Datadog (use the free tier of your hosting platform first)
- Zendesk (Intercom or even shared inbox is fine)
The honest take
Your stack is not your moat. The temptation to optimise tools is a procrastination trap. Pick the defaults, set them up in a day, and get back to making something people want.