I went down a rabbit hole of how to save on SaaS costs. I ended up finding so many software providers that offer free self hosting (i.e you install the software on your own servers), are completely open sourced or ways where you pay once and have access forever. Despite the opens you may still decide on the ‘premium’ options due to better functionality or ease of access. (not all of us want to install and manage our own services)
⚠️ Disclaimer: I am unaffiliated with all of the tools below and many of these tools are unused by me so explore at your own risk.
Communication / Messaging
Slack Pro Subscription Plan costs $7.25 USD per person/month if billed yearly, or $8.75 USD per person/month when billed monthly
Signing Documents
Docusign’s Standard Subscription Plan is $25/month or $300 billed annually.
SignHouse Pricing for their Lifetime Deal for the Basic deal has a fee of $199 for 5 users and unlimited contracts.
No Code Website Builder
Webflow subscription pricing at $14/month if you want more than 2 pages and a custom domain.
Webstudio’s Pro Lifetime T2 Pricing is at $499/lifetime. There is also a hobby self hosted version which is $0 and allows for a custom domain. (which is a big reason you would upgrade in webflow)
Mass Emails / Newsletters
In my opinion if you’re still small, using Beehiiv or Brevo makes a lot of sense. Sendy is worth thinking about as you scale to a big list with a lot of emails. Also this is hard not to have ongoing costs since you still need to use Amazon SES in this case which is charged per email.
The free tier is 300 emails per day with unlimited contacts. Then starts at $28 per month for 20k emails a month.
The Launch Tier is $0 and allows you to have up to 2500 subscribers - unlimited email sends.
The scale tier starts at $39 per month.
Sendy requires a single payment of $69 and then you self host. You can utilise Amazon SES for emails which is 10c for 1000 emails.
Email Marketing Automation
If you’re sending SMS then you would still use Klaviyo!
Klaviyo’s free plan allows for 500 monthly email sends and the paid plan starts at $45 per month.
Dittofeed can be free if you self host it.
Accounting
Xero requires a minimum of $16 AUD per month to get started.
Akaunting has a free standard on-premise version which can be used for 1 user and 1 accountant. Perfect for solopreneurs! Then they have lifetime licenses for larger systems. (Pay once and get it forever)
Design Software
Figma is free for 3 collaborative designs and unlimited personal drafts. Not a bad option! But there are free options for the pro features that start at $12 per month.
Penpot is a free version of figma where you can use it online or self host it.
Nice Looking Forms
Typeform free is capped to 10 responses per typeform which can be restricting then it jumps to $29 USD for 100 responses.
Youform is free for unlimited responses and they have a pro tier where you can remove branding and make more changes for $29 per month or $399 once off payment.
Screen Recording on Mac
Loom provides the easy sharing of videos on their cloud storage which Screen Studio does not have so in this regard, loom might worth it to you for ease.
Ecamm Live is a recording tool for mac users that has 3 pricing tiers which start at $16 per month.
Screen Studio has 2 lifetime plans: $89 for 1 device and $189 for 3 devices.
Customer Support
Intercom is one of the leading customer support apps which starts at $39 per seat per month.
Papercups is an opensource alternative that you can self host for no cost. They have hosted versions you can pay for as well.
Personal & Company Notes / Documentation
Notion is now free for individuals to have unlimited blocks but there is limits on file uploads. This is actually a really amazing free plan. The other options are for those companies racking up a huge bill now.
AppFlowy primarily offers a free open-source solution. AppFlowy is designed to be self-hosted and customizable.
Anytype has membership options but you also have the option to self host which doesn’t have the same storage restrictions or user restrictions.
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Trigger → Effect Automations
Zapier has 100 zaps for free and the most extensive list of integrations. However for more zaps per month you need to pay.
n8n has a self hosted version which you can install and run yourself. Automatisch has a completely open sourced version which you can also self host.
Link Shortener
Bitly Free Plan: Includes 10 links/month, 2 QR codes/month, and unlimited clicks.
Dub’s free plan is better Basic video hosting and sharing, 25 new links/mo, 1K tracked clicks/mo, 30-day analytics retention, 3 custom domains
Search Engine Position Tracking and Keyword Research
SerpBear is a self hosted solution that just requires payment for scraping services which can be on a usage basis (there are also free versions)
Data Pipeline
