SmallTeamStack

Software stack for a consulting business

Three illustrative stacks, priced from rates read off each vendor's own page. At five people they run from $70.83 to $306.95 a month — and the expensive one is not the best one.

Typically 1–5 people · figures computed from the pricing tracker at build time · newest check

What shapes this business's software

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.

The three stacks at a glance

Stack1351025
Lean $26.83$48.83$70.83$125.83$290.83
Practical $97$155$237$442$1,057
Feature-rich $130.95$206.95$306.95$556.95$1,282

Monthly, at the annual-billing rate, for the whole team.

Lean — $70.83/month at five people

The least you can pay and still run the business properly. Free tiers where they genuinely work.

Covered free:

  • Projects and tasks (Trello free, to 10 collaborators)
  • Forms (Google Forms)

Deliberately not included at this size:

  • 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.

Per person: $14.17/month · $849.96 a year for five people

Practical — $237/month at five people

What most teams this size actually end up on, once free tiers stop fitting.

Deliberately not included at this size:

  • 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.

Per person: $47.40/month · $2,844 a year for five people

Feature-rich — $306.95/month at five people

More capability, and more cost. Not an upgrade — a different trade, and often the wrong one at this size.

Deliberately not included at this size:

  • Separate storage, scheduling and video products — Workspace Standard covers all three to a standard most consultancies never exceed.

Per person: $61.39/month · $3,683.40 a year for five people

The thing generic stack advice misses here

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.

What this page is not

A recommendation. We have not run most of these products in a lab, and two businesses of the same type and size can have genuinely different right answers — the variable that matters most is how your team actually works, which no table can see. These are priced illustrations, good for checking whether your bill is in a sane range and for seeing what a tier deliberately leaves out.

To price what you actually pay for rather than an illustration, the stack auditor takes your real list and flags overlap, seat-minimum waste and what happens when somebody leaves. If your bill is well above the feature-rich row, the cause is usually paying twice for a capability you already own rather than one expensive mistake.

Other business types

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.