The $300/Month Stack Audit: What I Actually Use
Sean on the $300/month stack audit: every tool, what it costs, what it does, and the three that were doing the same thing. Stack Made Simple — 2025. See full review →
Current monthly spend on productivity and work tools: $71. This is down from $138 six months ago and $215 at the peak in 2023. Here is the full breakdown.
Notion: $16/month
Wiki, project notes, content planning, and the central knowledge base for everything I do. Notion earns this $16 every month because it is the tool I open first, use most, and could not easily replace with something cheaper. The free tier is functional for individuals; the Plus tier adds features I use for collaborative work.
Linear (See Sean's full review →): $8/month
Project tracking for work involving sprints, issues, and team visibility. Linear is what I use instead of Asana, Jira, and Trello. One tool, one workflow, no context switching between project management systems. The fastest interface I have used in this category. $8/month is underpriced.
Claude Pro: $20/month
Long documents, code review, first drafts of things that require sustained context. Claude Pro handles tasks that would otherwise require either specialized tools at higher cost or manual effort at higher time cost. At $20/month it is the highest-ROI tool in the stack. I say this having also subscribed to ChatGPT Plus — I cancelled ChatGPT, kept Claude.
Loom: $15/month
Async video for communicating things that would take twenty minutes of back-and-forth email to convey. Loom earns its place by reducing meeting load. I send approximately eight Loom videos per week. Without Loom, those eight communications would either be meetings or very long emails. Neither is better than a three-minute video.
Zapier: $12/month
Four automations currently active: new form submission to Linear issue, Linear completed to Notion database update, weekly reporting trigger, and a connection between a client portal and my notification system. Twelve dollars for automations that would otherwise require manual steps several times per week. Earns it.
Total: $71. The tools I cut are not missed. The tools I kept are used every single day. This is what a functional stack looks like.
NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. This is for informational purposes only. Verify all rates, fees, and terms with the provider before applying.