What should our software stack cost?
Three illustrative stacks per business type, priced from rates read off each vendor's own page. The expensive one is not the best one — it is a different trade, and at this size it is usually the wrong one.
Consulting business
Text-shaped work, a small number of high-value relationships, and invoices that must be right. Storage needs are modest; credibility with clients is not.
| Stack | Per month | Per year | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean | — | — | — |
| Practical | — | — | — |
| Feature-rich | — | — | — |
Lean — —/month
Covered free:
- Projects and tasks (Trello free, to 10 collaborators)
- Forms (Google Forms)
Deliberately not included:
- A CRM. Below about twenty live relationships a spreadsheet genuinely wins, and the CRM you pick at three people is rarely the one you keep.
- Dedicated file storage — 30 GB pooled per person covers documents comfortably.
- E-signature, until somebody actually asks you to sign something.
Practical — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Project management software. Consulting work is usually structured by client, and a CRM with a pipeline covers it.
- Team chat. At five people in one room or one thread, Slack is a cost without a problem.
Feature-rich — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Separate storage, scheduling and video products — Workspace Standard covers all three to a standard most consultancies never exceed.
The line item that surprises consultants is accounting, not software for the work itself. QuickBooks Simple Start is $38 a month against Wave at $15.83 — and Wave has a genuinely usable free tier. The reason to pay is usually that your accountant asks for it.
Marketing agency
Media files, lots of them, and several clients in flight at once. Storage and project visibility are the two things that actually bind.
| Stack | Per month | Per year | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean | — | — | — |
| Practical | — | — | — |
| Feature-rich | — | — | — |
Lean — —/month
Covered free:
- Projects and tasks (ClickUp free — unlimited members)
Deliberately not included:
- Dropbox. Workspace Standard gives 2 TB pooled per person, which is usually enough — buy storage twice only when you have checked you need to.
- A CRM, while the work still comes from referrals.
Practical — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Calendly, if client calls are booked by one account manager — Workspace Standard includes appointment booking pages.
- Dedicated storage. Workspace Standard already includes 2 TB pooled per person, so adding Dropbox means paying twice for the same capability — check what is actually in Drive before you do.
Feature-rich — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Separate e-signature, which Workspace Standard covers for contracts that are Docs or PDFs.
Agencies are the business type most likely to be paying for storage twice. Before adding Dropbox to a Workspace Standard stack, check what is actually in Drive — the honest test is how fast it grew last year, not how large it feels.
Accounting or bookkeeping firm
Client financial records, retention obligations measured in years, and desktop Excel that is not negotiable for at least one person.
| Stack | Per month | Per year | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean | — | — | — |
| Practical | — | — | — |
| Feature-rich | — | — | — |
Lean — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Desktop Office for everyone. Buy it for the people who genuinely need installed Excel, not the whole firm.
- A CRM — practice management usually matters more, and that is a different category.
Practical — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Separate file storage — Microsoft 365 includes 1 TB of OneDrive per user even on Basic.
Feature-rich — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Project management, which most firms run inside their practice-management software rather than alongside it.
The important number here is not monthly cost — it is what happens to the records when you leave. Microsoft deletes data on cancellation with no read-only period, where QuickBooks keeps yours readable for a year. For a firm with retention obligations that is the line worth reading before the price.
Solo consultant
One person, no shared access problem yet, and every pound of fixed cost coming straight out of take-home.
| Stack | Per month | Per year | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean | — | — | — |
| Practical | — | — | — |
| Feature-rich | — | — | — |
Lean — —/month
Covered free:
- Password management (Bitwarden free personal plan)
- Accounting (Wave free tier — genuinely usable solo)
- Projects (Trello or ClickUp free)
- Forms (Google Forms)
Deliberately not included:
- Almost everything. At one person the only thing you must pay for is a professional email address on your own domain, because it is the one thing clients see.
Practical — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- A CRM, team chat, and anything billed per seat — there is no team to share with.
Feature-rich — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Per-seat products generally. Most of their value is sharing, which you are not doing yet.
The trap for solo consultants is seat minimums. Several products we track will not sell fewer than three or five seats, so a solo owner pays for people who do not exist. Check the floor before the rate.
Small law office
Client confidentiality, retention measured in years, and a lot of documents that must be signed and kept. The constraint is rarely cost — it is being able to produce a file years later.
| Stack | Per month | Per year | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean | — | — | — |
| Practical | — | — | — |
| Feature-rich | — | — | — |
Lean — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- A CRM. Matter management is a different category with its own vendors, and a general-purpose CRM usually fits it badly.
- Project management software, for the same reason — matters are not projects.
Practical — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Separate file storage. Microsoft 365 includes 1 TB of OneDrive per user even on Basic, which is more than most small practices use.
- Team chat, at this size — email plus a room covers it.
Feature-rich — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- A scheduling tool, unless client intake volume genuinely justifies it — Microsoft Bookings is included and handles simple booking.
The line worth reading before any price here is what happens on cancellation. Microsoft deletes data when a subscription ends, with no read-only period. For a practice with retention obligations that is a bigger risk than a monthly rate, and it argues for backup that is genuinely independent of the suite.
Real-estate team
Phone-first, document-heavy, and e-signature is not a nice-to-have — it is how deals close. Desktop software matters much less than it does for an accounting firm.
| Stack | Per month | Per year | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean | — | — | — |
| Practical | — | — | — |
| Feature-rich | — | — | — |
Lean — —/month
Covered free:
- Pipeline tracking (HubSpot or Capsule free tier, to 2 users)
Deliberately not included:
- Desktop Office. Almost nothing in this workflow needs installed Excel.
- Dedicated project management — the pipeline IS the project list.
Practical — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Separate storage, while 30 GB pooled per person holds documents rather than media.
Feature-rich — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Team chat — at this size it usually duplicates the group messages people already use on their phones.
E-signature pricing is where this stack gets decided. Docusign Standard is $30 per user per month but allows 100 envelopes per user per YEAR — about two a week. A team closing more than that needs to check the allowance, not the headline rate, and SignWell Business is $30 a month total for three senders with unlimited documents.
Construction or trades business
Most of the team is not at a desk. Photos from site, invoices out fast, and software that works on a phone with poor signal. Per-seat pricing hurts here because the head-count is real.
| Stack | Per month | Per year | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean | — | — | — |
| Practical | — | — | — |
| Feature-rich | — | — | — |
Lean — —/month
Covered free:
- Invoicing (Wave free tier)
- Job tracking (Trello free, to 10 collaborators)
Deliberately not included:
- Anything billed per seat that office staff alone will use. Field crews rarely need a licence for software they open twice a month.
- Desktop Office entirely. Almost nothing in this workflow needs installed Excel, and the cheapest Microsoft plan that includes it is $23.50 a user — on a team this size that is the single largest avoidable line.
Practical — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- A CRM, while work comes from repeat customers and referrals.
- Dedicated storage — but watch the 30 GB pooled limit if crews upload site photos, because that is exactly the thing that fills it.
Feature-rich — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Scheduling software aimed at meetings — job scheduling is a different category with trade-specific vendors.
Site photos are the thing that breaks the lean stack, and they break it quietly. Google Business Starter gives 30 GB pooled per person covering Drive and Gmail together; a crew uploading daily progress photos will reach that far faster than an office of the same size. Standard at 2 TB is usually the right call before it becomes urgent.
Small nonprofit
Grant-funded, so every recurring cost has to be defensible to somebody. Donor records matter as much as client records do elsewhere, and volunteer turnover makes offboarding a routine event rather than a rare one.
| Stack | Per month | Per year | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean | — | — | — |
| Practical | — | — | — |
| Feature-rich | — | — | — |
Lean — —/month
Covered free:
- Accounting (Wave free tier)
- Projects (ClickUp free — unlimited members, which suits volunteers)
- Forms (Google Forms)
Deliberately not included:
- A paid CRM. Donor management has its own nonprofit-specific vendors, and a sales CRM fits it awkwardly.
- Per-seat tools for volunteers, who come and go — this is the single biggest avoidable cost in a nonprofit stack.
Practical — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Paid storage and scheduling, both of which the suite covers adequately at this size.
Feature-rich — —/month
Deliberately not included:
- Anything that charges per volunteer. Pick tools that cap on usage rather than on people.
Several vendors publish nonprofit pricing, including Google and Microsoft, and the discounts can be substantial. We have NOT verified those rates — every figure on this page is the standard commercial price, so treat it as a ceiling rather than a quote. Ask each vendor directly before budgeting, and check what proof of status they want, because that is usually what delays it.
These are illustrations — have you got a real one?
Everything above is built from verified prices, but it is still our construction rather than anybody's actual bill. We are collecting real stacks from real businesses, anonymised. That page is empty today and we are not going to seed it with invented ones.
How to read these
They are illustrations, not recommendations. We have not run most of these products in a lab, and a stack that suits one five-person agency will be wrong for the next one — the variable that matters most is how your team actually works, which no table can see.
What they are good for is a sanity check. If your bill is far above the feature-rich column for your size, the cause is usually overlap or a tier you outgrew and never revisited rather than one expensive mistake — the subscription audit finds both, and the stack auditor will price what you actually have.
Tell me when these prices change
Every figure on this page is recomputed when a tracked rate moves. Subscribers hear what changed, with the date and the source.