Replacing $2,800/Month in SaaS Tools with Owned Infrastructure for a Trades Company

The problem

The company was paying for Jobber, Mailchimp, Calendly, Google Workspace premium, Dropbox Business, and multiple integration layers. Total recurring spend was about $2,800 per month, and data was spread across six platforms.

The problem was not just cost. Staff were moving information between systems manually because each tool solved only one piece of the workflow.

The approach

We scoped the engagement around infrastructure ownership and reduction of overlapping SaaS spend.

The new stack consolidated file storage, scheduling, analytics, and workflow automation into a private environment. We used self-hosted services where ownership and long-term cost mattered, while keeping only the hosted tools that still made operational sense.

The stack

• Nextcloud for file storage
• n8n for workflow automation
• Cal.com for scheduling
• Plausible for privacy-friendly analytics
• Stalwart for email infrastructure
• Cloudflare tunnels for secure access

The result

Monthly tooling cost dropped from about $2,800 to roughly $180 in the template scenario, excluding one-time implementation work and infrastructure setup. More importantly, the business no longer had core operating data scattered across six vendors.

The client also gained a cleaner PIPA posture because more of the stack was under direct operational control.

Before and after

• Before: six platforms, overlapping subscriptions, fragmented data
• After: controlled stack, fewer recurring invoices, simpler access model
• Timeline: Infrastructure package with phased migration

Client quote

TEMPLATE QUOTE: “We did not just cut cost. We finally understood where our data was and how the system actually worked.”

Facing a similar problem?

If your software stack costs more every quarter but does not reduce admin work, infrastructure redesign is probably overdue.