Hey everyone, Like many solo creators, I was paying upwards of $80–$100/mo across task managers, CRM software, and invoicing tools. When you are a solo operator, those monthly subscriptions bite into your early runway. I decided to see if I could build a complete, professional back-office stack using zero-subscription tools: - Notion for Client CRM, project Kanban boards, and client wikis. - Google Sheets for dynamic cash flow modeling, tax reserves, and profit margin formulas. - Canva for visual proposals and pitch decks. - Standard Google Docs for plain-English contract frameworks. The hardest part was setting up relational database rollups so that closing a deal in the CRM automatically populates the project milestones and cash-flow trackers without manual copying. Curious: for those running solo service businesses, what does your monthly software overhead look like? Are you paying for specialized tools or rolling your own setups?   submitted by   /u/HugeGarlic2972 [link]   [comments]