We just did ours and I'm a little embarrassed honestly.
We're 3 people running a Shopify store, few hundred orders a month. Turns out we were paying for tools built for teams way bigger than us. Nobody made a big mistake either, you hit a stressful moment, sign up for something, it goes on the card and you forget about it. Cut around $400/month just by asking "do we actually use this." Most of it was support and marketing tools we barely touched.
Feels obvious in hindsight but when you're heads down running the store you just don't stop to question it. Starting the year with a much cleaner stack now.
At what point did you realize you were paying for tools that were actually slowing you down instead of helping? And how much do you think small teams overspend on software just because switching feels like more work than staying?
How often do you audit the tools you're paying for?
byu/Vegetable-Bid-9749 inEntrepreneur
Posted by Vegetable-Bid-9749
1 Comment
Honestly, most founders don’t audit nearly enough. I’ve seen teams paying $200+/month for tools they used twice during onboarding.
The trick isn’t just auditing; it’s knowing what the *free alternatives* are. Almost every paid tool has a freemium competitor that covers 80% of what you need at the stage you’re at.
Quick framework I use every quarter:
1. List every tool with a recurring charge
2. Ask “did anyone actually use this in the last 30 days?”
3. For anything you *do* use check if there’s a free tier that covers your usage
There’s a site I’ve been using called [fewertools.com](https://fewertools.com/) that literally compares tools side-by-side with pricing breakdowns. Saved me from paying for Mixpanel when PostHog’s free tier was more than enough.
Your $400/month savings is real most small teams are overpaying by 30-50% just because nobody looked at alternatives.