The Software Stack for a Solo Consultant
You’re one person. Every tool you buy comes out of your own margin, and every tool you don’t buy costs you time you could have billed. Here’s the stack that resolves that tension, with real prices and the specific moment each free tier stops being enough.
Two versions below: the lean stack at $15.25/month, and the fully-paid stack at $58.25/month. Most solo consultants should start lean and upgrade on trigger, not on schedule.
The lean stack — $15.25/month ($183/year)
| Category | Product | Cost | Why this one |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email + office | Google Workspace Business Starter | $7.00 | Your own domain on email. The one thing you cannot fake. |
| Passwords | Bitwarden Free | $0 | Unlimited passwords, all devices, solo. Genuinely free, not crippled. |
| Backup | Backblaze Business Backup | $8.25 | Unlimited backup of your laptop. Your practice lives on one machine. |
| CRM | Capsule Free | $0 | 250 contacts, 1 pipeline. More than most solo pipelines hold. |
| Accounting | Wave Starter | $0 | Unlimited invoicing and bookkeeping free; you pay only card fees. |
| E-signature | SignWell Free | $0 | 3 documents/month — enough for a consultant signing a few contracts. |
That’s it. $15.25/month buys you a professional email address, protected credentials, a real backup, a client pipeline, invoicing, and signed contracts.
Why email and backup are the two you pay for
Everything else on that list has a credible free tier. These two don’t, and both are load-bearing:
Email on your own domain signals you’re a business rather than a hobby, and it’s the account that resets every other password you own — which is why it also gets MFA on day one (here’s the whole security stack, which for a solo consultant is mostly free).
Backup because a consultant’s entire practice — client files, contracts, working papers — usually sits on one laptop. Google Drive is not a backup (here’s why): it syncs your mistakes and your ransomware as faithfully as your files. $8.25/month against “my laptop died and the client deliverable was on it” is the best-value line item in this entire article.
The upgrade triggers
Don’t upgrade on a schedule. Upgrade when you hit these:
| Upgrade | Trigger | New cost |
|---|---|---|
| Capsule Starter (from Free) | You pass ~250 contacts, or you need more than one pipeline | $18.00/mo |
| Zoho Books Standard (from Wave) | You need bank feeds, 1099 e-filing, or proper recurring invoices | $15.00/mo |
| SignWell Light (from Free) | You send more than 3 documents in a month | $10.00/mo |
| Bitwarden Teams | You hire anyone — even a part-time VA | $4.00/user/mo |
| A second backup destination | Client contracts require it, or you’re just prudent | varies |
Hit all four of the first ones and you land at the fully-paid stack: $58.25/month ($699/year) — still less than a single billable hour for most consultants.
What a solo consultant should NOT buy yet
- A VPN subscription. If your work lives in reputable cloud tools over HTTPS, it adds little against the risks that actually threaten a consulting practice. Disk encryption and MFA matter far more.
- Project management software. At one person, your calendar and a task list are the project management. Revisit when you have contractors.
- Paid AI tooling per-seat, until you can name the specific hours it saves.
- A CRM upgrade before you have contacts to manage. The free tier failing is the signal you’re growing; upgrading early just costs money.
- Enterprise security tooling. At one person, the free half of the security stack buys more real protection per dollar.
The two things people forget
Client-data hygiene isn’t a tool, it’s a habit. One folder per client, access granted per engagement, and a deletion step when the engagement ends. Data you don’t hold can’t leak — and “we delete client files 90 days after close” is a line enterprise clients love reading in your security questionnaire.
Plan for the first hire before you make it. Company-owned accounts from day one — never personal Gmail “just for now.” When you do hire, the offboarding checklist should already exist. Retrofitting ownership after the fact is the single most expensive cleanup in this whole category.
Check your own numbers
Run your actual subscriptions through the cost calculator — it shows your per-person cost and flags where you’re paying twice for the same category. If you’re materially above $58/month as a solo consultant, you’re likely carrying overlap or an enterprise tier you never grew into.
All prices verified 2026-07-30 from vendors’ official pricing pages, US pricing, annual-billing rates where offered. Vendors change prices without notice — confirm before you buy. Full sourcing in what small teams actually pay.