My Actual Tech Stack for Running a One-Person Business

I used to believe that the right tools would solve everything. I’d spend a Thursday night replacing my entire stack because someone on Twitter swore by a new productivity app. By Friday morning, I’d have four databases, three note-taking apps, and two project managers sitting idle while I worked out of a single Google Doc like a barbarian. The problem wasn’t the tools. It was that I hadn’t actually figured out what I needed.

Three years into running a solo operation, I’ve finally stopped chasing the shiny stuff. My stack now isn’t the one I’d brag about at a conference. It’s not built on the latest frameworks or bleeding-edge SaaS. It’s just the stuff that works, costs nothing or very little, and hasn’t created more problems than it solves. More importantly, I can actually explain why each piece is there.

The Non-Negotiable Core

Gmail. Everyone wants to replace email with something sexier, but email is where your money lives. Client invoices arrive here. Payment confirmations live here. It’s the one system everyone understands, and I’m not fighting that. I use filters aggressively—automating what I can so the inbox stays a signal, not noise—and I move on.

Stripe. If you’re taking payments, you need something that doesn’t require a CPA to understand. Stripe gives me payouts I can rely on, integration with every platform I touch, and fraud protection that actually works. The 2.9% cut is real, but the alternative is manual bank transfers and spreadsheet reconciliation.

Notion. I resisted this for years because everyone raved about it like it was digital cocaine. Turns out, they were right—but only if you use it for one thing instead of fifteen. I keep client information, project templates, and a running log of rates and rates-per-word there. It’s searchable. It’s sortable. It’s enough. If you’re torn between Notion and other tools, the comparison I wrote about Notion vs. Obsidian vs. Apple Notes might help you figure out what you actually need.

Where the Money Actually Gets Spent

Fastmail. This is my single splurge—$5/month. I forward everything important from Gmail to a custom email address so I always have a clean inbox, and I can search years of email without wading through every “urgent” message from my own mailing list. Worth it.

Figma Free. Most design work I do lives here. The free tier is genuinely sufficient. I can build mockups, export assets, and collaborate with clients without hitting a paywall. I stay away from the things that would tempt me to upgrade, and it’s fine. If you’re trying to figure out whether paid design tools are worth the cost, I broke that down in free design tools that don’t look free.

Loom. At $120/year, this isn’t free, but it’s worth it. I send a lot of asynchronous video explanations to clients—walkthroughs, decisions, feedback. Recording once and sending the link is faster than a call and way more useful than a 2,000-word email. It’s legitimately saved me hours.

The Invisible Infrastructure

Zapier. At $20/month, I run three automations: Stripe transactions to a spreadsheet, form submissions to Notion, and calendar reminders to email. That’s it. Not seventeen workflows that will break when platforms update. Three automations that genuinely save time. This is where most people go wrong—they build elaborate systems that require maintenance. Keep it simple or you’ll end up resenting the tools you thought would save time.

Airtable free tier. When Notion isn’t the right fit—usually when I need relationships between datasets—Airtable does the job. I use it to track content and deadlines. The free version exists and it works.

Dropbox. Just the free tier. Client files, templates, work-in-progress stuff. I don’t need a terabyte. I just need things not to evaporate if my laptop dies.

The Cost Reality

All of this—email, payments, database, automation, video recording, design, file storage—costs me roughly $150 a month. That’s $1,800 a year to run a solopreneur operation that generates six figures.

The real cost isn’t the money. It’s the decision fatigue. Every tool I removed was a decision I didn’t have to make every day. Every process I standardized was a morning I didn’t waste looking for the right app. The best tech stack isn’t the fanciest. It’s the one you stop thinking about.

I keep thinking about a conversation I had with another solo operator who’d spent two months building the perfect system. Beautiful. Organized. Completely unusable because maintaining it required more time than the work it was meant to help. She switched to a notebook and Slack. No regrets.

The uncomfortable part about tools is that they only work if they fit exactly how you operate, which you probably don’t know yet. I spent three years finding out. You don’t have to. Start simple. Don’t add anything until the thing you’re using breaks or costs you actual time. And when you’re tempted by a new tool, ask yourself if it’s solving a real problem or if you’re just bored. If you’ve already caught yourself doing this, there’s probably something worth reading in the hidden cost of free tools—because the cheapest tools are sometimes the most expensive.

The stack that actually works is the one you’ll still use in two years, not the one that looks good in a screenshot.