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Every few months, someone asks me what tools I use to run my online business. Instead of sending the same long message over and over, I decided to write the definitive answer. This is my entire tool stack as of 2026, what each tool does, what it costs, and why I chose it over the alternatives.
My business runs primarily on content, digital products, and client services. The total monthly cost for every tool listed here is $124. That covers everything from my website to my email marketing to my automation workflows to my analytics. Two years ago, a comparable setup would have cost three times that.
Website and Hosting
I run my main site on WordPress with hosting through Cloudways ($14/month). WordPress gives me full ownership and control over my content, which matters when your website is the foundation of your business. Cloudways provides fast, managed hosting without the complexity of setting up your own server. It’s been rock-solid for me with essentially zero downtime in the past year.
For my theme, I use Blocksy Pro ($49/year, which works out to about $4/month). It’s lightweight, fast, and the header and footer builder gives me design flexibility without needing a page builder for every little thing. Greenshift handles the few pages where I need more advanced layouts.
For landing pages and sales funnels related to digital products, I use Systeme.io ($27/month). Having the sales page, checkout, and product delivery all on one platform eliminates a dozen integration headaches. I could build sales pages on WordPress too, but the convenience of Systeme.io’s all-in-one approach saves me time every week.
Email Marketing
My email list runs through Systeme.io as well, which is included in that $27/month. It handles up to 5,000 contacts on my plan, with unlimited emails and automation workflows. The automation builder is visual and straightforward. I have sequences for new subscribers, post-purchase follow-ups, and re-engagement campaigns all running automatically.
I considered dedicated email platforms like ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign, which offer more advanced segmentation and reporting. But for my current list size and needs, Systeme.io handles it well and saves me from paying for a separate email tool.
Automation
Make.com ($16/month) is the backbone of my operational automation. It connects tools that don’t natively talk to each other. My most-used workflows include: new contact form submissions getting logged in a Google Sheet and triggering a Slack notification, published blog posts automatically getting queued for social media distribution, and invoice payments in Stripe triggering client onboarding emails.
I run about 8,000 operations per month across 12 active scenarios. The visual builder makes it easy to modify workflows when my process changes, and the error handling is good enough that I rarely have failures I don’t catch within hours.
Content Creation
ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) is my daily driver for content ideation, first drafts, and research synthesis. I don’t publish AI-generated content directly, but I use it heavily to accelerate the writing process. It’s particularly useful for generating outlines, suggesting angles I hadn’t considered, and drafting email sequences that I then personalize.
Canva Pro ($13/month) handles all visual content. Featured images for blog posts, social media graphics, presentation decks, and PDF lead magnets all come out of Canva. The Brand Kit feature keeps everything visually consistent, and the template library means I rarely start from scratch.
For video editing, I use CapCut (free). It covers everything I need for YouTube content and social media clips. The auto-caption feature alone saves me an hour per video.
Analytics and SEO
Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console are both free and handle the core website analytics. I check them weekly to track traffic trends, top-performing content, and search query data. For keyword research and YouTube SEO, VidIQ ($7.50/month on the annual plan) gives me the data I need to make content decisions based on actual search demand rather than guesses.
I don’t pay for a dedicated SEO tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush. At my current scale, the free data from Google’s tools combined with VidIQ covers 90% of what I need. When my organic traffic grows to the point where advanced competitor analysis and backlink tracking would meaningfully change my strategy, I’ll add one of those tools. Until then, the free options work fine.
Project Management and Communication
Notion (free) is my central hub for everything operational. Content calendars, client project tracking, standard operating procedures, and internal documentation all live in Notion. I’ve built a simple dashboard that shows me what’s in progress, what’s coming up, and what’s overdue across all areas of the business.
Slack (free plan) is where I get notifications from Make.com automations and communicate with contractors. Google Workspace ($0 since I use the free Gmail/Docs/Sheets/Drive stack) handles documents, spreadsheets, and file storage.
Payments and Accounting
Stripe handles all payment processing for both direct client invoices and digital product sales through Systeme.io. The transaction fees are standard at 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. For accounting, I use Wave (free), which connects to my bank accounts and categorizes transactions automatically. It’s not as full-featured as QuickBooks, but for a solo business, it does the job without the monthly fee.
The Full Cost Breakdown
Cloudways hosting comes in at $14 per month. Blocksy Pro averages to $4 per month. Systeme.io is $27 per month for email, sales pages, and product delivery. Make.com runs $16 per month for automation. ChatGPT Plus is $20 per month. Canva Pro is $13 per month. VidIQ is $7.50 per month on the annual plan. Everything else, including Notion, Slack, Google tools, Wave, CapCut, and Google Analytics, is free.
Grand total: $101.50 per month for the paid tools, or about $124 when you factor in the annualized costs of yearly subscriptions like Blocksy. For a business generating five figures per month, that’s a trivially small operating cost. And every tool on this list earns its spot by either saving me time, making me money, or both.
What I’d Cut and What I’d Keep
If I had to trim the budget, Canva Pro and VidIQ would be the first to go since both have usable free tiers. Make.com has a free plan too, though I’d outgrow it quickly. The last things I’d cut are Systeme.io (because it replaces three or four separate paid tools) and ChatGPT Plus (because the productivity gain is too significant to lose).
Every tool on this list was chosen because it solves a specific problem better than the alternatives at its price point. No shelfware, no “I’ll use this someday” subscriptions. If something stops earning its keep, it gets cut. That’s how you keep your tool stack lean and your overhead low while still running a business that operates professionally.
