The solo consultant's software stack
You don't need six tools and a project manager to run yourself as a business. Here's the stack we'd actually run — and what it costs, in full, every month.
HubSpot's free CRM tier for your CRM, beehiiv's free Launch plan for a newsletter. Total: $0/month to start. You only pay once you outgrow the free limits — and by then you'll know exactly why you're upgrading.
1. CRM: HubSpot (free tier)
As a solo consultant, your "pipeline" lives mostly in your inbox anyway — a handful of live conversations, not fifty deals moving through six stages. HubSpot's free CRM covers exactly that: contacts, companies, deal tracking, and email logging, with no time limit on the free tier and no card required to start. It's not the leanest interface out there, but it's the one guide that will scale with you all the way to marketing and support tooling if you ever need it, without a migration. Upgrade only once you need marketing sequences or deeper reporting on Starter (from $20/seat/mo).
2. Audience & referrals: beehiiv (free Launch plan)
Referrals dry up if nobody remembers you exist between projects. A short, regular newsletter — what you learned this month, one client story, one useful resource — keeps you in front of past clients and their network without the awkwardness of a cold check-in call. beehiiv's free plan covers a solo consultant's list size for a long time, with a real website and subscribe forms included, not a stripped-down trial. Read our full beehiiv guide →
Total monthly cost
| Tool | Plan | Monthly cost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRM | HubSpot | Free | $0 |
| Newsletter | beehiiv | Launch (free) | $0 |
| Total | $0/month |
Optional add-ons (researched picks, both free to start)
Proposals & contracts: PandaDoc. The moment a client says "send me something to sign," you've outgrown PDF attachments. PandaDoc's free eSign plan covers 60 documents a year — more than most solo consultants sign — with legally binding signatures and no card required. Upgrade to Starter ($19/seat/mo, billed annually) only when you want tracked, templated proposals. We've verified the pricing and tiers but haven't run our hands-on scenario in it yet — our researched PandaDoc guide says exactly what we checked.
Glue & automation: Make. When you catch yourself copy-pasting between your CRM, invoicing, and inbox, Make's free plan (1,000 credits/mo) is enough to automate one or two of those handoffs — and EU (AWS) hosting is available even on the free tier, which matters if your clients are GDPR-sensitive. Also researched rather than hands-on tested so far: our Make pricing & fit guide.
When to upgrade — and to what
Two honest triggers, not a calendar reminder: you bring on a second person or need marketing sequences (HubSpot Starter, from $20/seat/mo), or your list crosses 2,500 subscribers and you want paid subscriptions or deeper analytics (beehiiv Scale, from $49/mo). If you're doing active cold outbound rather than relationship-based referrals, Apollo's free tier is worth adding for contact data and sequences before you pay for anything there either — see our full Apollo pricing & fit guide.
Bottom line
Start on the free tiers of both. There's no version of "solo consultant" where you need to spend money on software in month one — spend that budget on getting in front of clients instead.
Running a small team instead of solo? See the 5-person agency stack, or take the 2-minute stack finder for a recommendation tailored to your exact situation.