Keep 3. Cut 11. Own 3.
Owning your project tracking, support desk and scheduling ends $94.2k a year of subscriptions, for a one-time $47.5k–$90k, and cutting the duplicates in 11 categories recovers $176k–$385k a year. Once it’s done, that’s 37–68% off a $672k bill.
The verdict on every line
-
Own it
Project / Work Mgmt
$57,570/yrAsana · monday.com · Trello · Jira
One tracker shaped to how your team actually works, in place of several you each use a sliver of.
- One-time build
- $19,000–$37,500
- Care plan
- $650/mo
- Pays back
- ~7 months
- 3-year net
- $121,060
What you’d get: Boards, lists and timelines with your own statuses and fields, your history imported, and single sign-on. Ships agent-ready, with an MCP server your AI tools can use. 4–6 weeks, typically.
-
Own it
Support / Helpdesk
$25,860/yrZendesk · Intercom
A shared inbox with a customer portal covers what most support teams use.
- One-time build
- $19,000–$37,500
- Care plan
- $650/mo
- Pays back
- ~19 months
- 3-year net
- $25,930
What you’d get: A shared inbox with assignment, SLAs and saved replies, plus a help centre and customer portal on your domain. Ships agent-ready, with an MCP server your AI tools can use. 4–6 weeks, typically.
-
Own it
Scheduling
$10,800/yrCalendly
Booking pages, reminders and a calendar sync are a small, well-understood build.
- One-time build
- $9,500–$15,000
- Care plan
- $300/mo
- Pays back
- ~21 months
- 3-year net
- $9,350
What you’d get: Booking pages on your own domain, round-robin across the team, reminders, and two-way calendar sync. Ships agent-ready, with an MCP server your AI tools can use. 2–3 weeks, typically.
-
Cut
CRM
$111,240/yrSalesforce Sales Cloud · HubSpot Sales Hub
2 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$36,000–$75,240/yr recoverable
-
Cut
File Storage
$102,000/yrDropbox Business · Box · Google Drive
3 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$48,000–$102,000/yr recoverable
-
Cut
Office / Email Suite
$79,500/yrGoogle Workspace · Microsoft 365
2 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$37,500–$42,000/yr recoverable
-
Cut
Video Conferencing
$43,173/yrZoom · Google Meet
2 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$0–$43,173/yr recoverable
-
Cut
Team Chat
$38,250/yrSlack · Microsoft Teams
2 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$12,000–$26,250/yr recoverable
-
Cut
Docs / Wiki
$30,675/yrNotion · Confluence
2 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$9,075–$21,600/yr recoverable
-
Cut
Analytics / BI
$29,700/yrAmplitude · Tableau
2 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$11,700–$18,000/yr recoverable
-
Cut
Marketing Automation
$23,400/yrHubSpot Marketing Hub · Mailchimp
2 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$4,200–$19,200/yr recoverable
-
Cut
Dev / Source Control
$20,424/yrGitLab · GitHub
2 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$3,024–$17,400/yr recoverable
-
Cut
Design
$17,518/yrAdobe Creative Cloud · Canva Teams · Figma
3 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$8,160–$13,918/yr recoverable
-
Cut
E-Signature
$12,300/yrPandaDoc · DocuSign
2 tools doing one job. Keep one and retire the rest; which one suits your team is decided in the consult.
$6,000–$6,300/yr recoverable
-
Keep
HR / People
$27,000/yrBambooHR
Payroll and HR carry compliance you shouldn’t own.
-
Keep
Password / Identity
$23,970/yr1Password
Identity and passwords are security products: never rebuild them.
-
Keep
Finance / Accounting
$19,020/yrExpensify · Bill.com · QuickBooks Online
Accounting carries audit and tax obligations you shouldn’t own.
Recoverable ranges run from keeping your priciest tool in a category (the floor) to keeping the cheapest (the ceiling). Which one survives is decided with your team, never by the model. A replacement only appears where a fixed-fee build pays for itself inside 24 months of the rent it ends, at your seat count.
Estimates use public list prices and a modeled stack. Real negotiated prices are usually lower: treat this as a directional estimate.