What I pay for, why, and what I refuse to.
Every tool in my solo founder stack, with monthly cost, the one job it does, and what I almost picked instead. No affiliate-driven rankings — labeled where they exist. Real stack only — tools I pay for and use weekly, updated as I add or kill anything.
Note · $565/mo is the verified total — every tier confirmed against the actual subscription on 2026-05-03. This page recomputes the moment a tier changes.
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Claude Code
ContentFor: The single brain that runs the 500k.io content factory.
$200/mo $0 free — $100/mo Max 5x — $200/mo Max 20x -
Claude.ai
ContentFor: The chat product. Brainstorming, drafting, voice mode.
Free Included in Claude Max plan -
Gemini Advanced
ContentFor: 2M-token context window. Underrated for long-doc work.
$20/mo $20/mo (Google One AI Premium) -
Beehiiv
Content affFor: Newsletter platform with growth tools founders actually use.
$39/mo $39/mo (Launch) — Scale $99/mo — Free under 2.5K subs -
Supabase
Ops & InfraFor: Postgres + RLS + Edge Functions + Auth.
$25/mo Free — $25/mo Pro — Pay as you grow -
Cloudflare
Ops & InfraFor: Pages, Workers, R2, DNS — 500k.io runs on the free tier.
Free Free — Workers $5/mo at scale -
Resend
Ops & Infra affFor: Transactional email built by the React Email team.
Free Free — $20/mo Pro -
WaveSpeed
Ops & InfraFor: Hosted image generation. Powers article + OG visuals.
$10/mo Pay-as-you-go — ~$10/mo at 500k.io volume -
Namecheap
Ops & InfraFor: Where 500k.io lives. Domain registrar.
$1.25/mo $1.25/mo (.io domain) -
Loom
ProductivityFor: Screen recording with AI transcription + summary.
$15/mo $15/mo (Business) — $25/mo Business+AI — Free tier available -
Google Workspace
ProductivityFor: Pro email on your domain + Drive + Docs + Meet.
$7/mo $7/mo Starter — $14/mo Standard — $22/mo Plus -
AdsPy
Marketing & AnalyticsFor: Meta Ads spy tool. See every active ad in any niche.
$149/mo $149/mo (Premium) — $79/mo Standard -
Skool
Marketing & AnalyticsFor: Community + course platform in one. The Synapse Circle home.
$99/mo $99/mo flat
No tools match this filter. Try a different category.
// KILLED · 2 TOOLS
Tools I evaluated and stopped paying for.
- Systeme.io 8 years of usage. Replaced by Claude Code (orchestration) + Beehiiv (newsletter). One tool out, two purpose-built tools in.
- Slack Used while running team operations. Solo founder now — don't miss it. Best decision: stop paying for tools the team uses, not me.
This list is short on purpose. New entries get added quarterly, with a 1-line rationale tied to a specific cost or workflow gap. No drive-by takedowns.
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