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Less Tools.
Since 2026The less tools the better.

You don't need most of your tools.

One operator, 61 tools tested, 15 kept. We read the fine print and keep the short list that wins.

Every subscription arrived with the same promise, that this one would finally organize the chaos. Then it joined the chaos. Another login, another onboarding email sequence, another $19 a month that renews quietly in the dark. Nobody decided to own forty tools. It happened one free trial at a time.

Meanwhile the math changed and most stacks didn't. An assistant that reads, writes, and builds now covers what a dozen single-purpose apps used to. The winning move is no longer finding better software. It is keeping less of it, and knowing exactly why each survivor stays.

That is the whole job of this paper. We run the timers, read the pricing pages, cancel on your behalf first, and print what survives. No tool is safe, including the ones that pay us. Start with the essentials ↓

The Essentials

the ones everyone keeps

Most software earns its keep for a week and bills you for a year. These are the ones that keep earning it.

ClaudeNo. 1

The assistant that quietly replaces half this page. Writes, reads, plans, and remembers how you work.

Read more → Google WorkspaceNo. 2

Mail, docs, sheets, drive, calendar on one bill. Everything syncs and there is nothing new to learn.

Read more → CanvaNo. 3

Every graphic the business needs, with templates that carry the design taste you don't have time to build.

Read more → Claude CodeNo. 4

An agent in your terminal. It builds the automations you were about to buy another subscription for.

Read more → DescriptNo. 5

Edit video by editing the transcript. Delete the sentence and the cut is already made.

Read more → 1PasswordNo. 6

Passwords solved once, everywhere, for the whole team. A problem you never think about again.

Read more →
Free · No Email Wall

33 Tool Hacks

The tricks that replace whole subscriptions. One page, links included.

 Download →

The Directory

two ways in: who you are, or the job at hand
By who you are
By the job
Advt. · Two Minutes
How bloated
is your stack?
✦ ✦ ✦

A number you will not like, and what to cancel first.

Take the checkup →

Making Content

idea to posted
Design Canva every format, one search away Get → AI media Higgsfield image, video, and voice in one seat Get → Phone edit CapCut phone-native, captions auto-styled Get → Video edit Descript edit the transcript, not the timeline Get → Scheduling Metricool every platform in one calendar Get → Auto-post Blotato your agent does the posting Get → Repurposing Opus Clip one long video becomes ten shorts Get → Voice ElevenLabs the narrator you don't hire Get → Decks Gamma slides that write themselves Get → UI design Figma one canvas the whole team shares Get →

The Latest

fresh off the press
✦
fig. 1 · the forty-tool graveyard, photographed at dawn
Review · Notes and Docs

Notion is the outdated way

For eight years the answer to every workflow question was a Notion template. Databases inside databases, a wiki nobody read, and a Sunday spent gardening it all. The premise made sense when software was dumb and needed us to file everything in the right drawer.

Software is not dumb anymore. Plain files plus an agent that reads them beat the most beautiful workspace you will ever build, because the agent does the filing. What that switch looks like in practice, and the one case where Notion still earns its seat, inside.

Read the verdict →
Review · Run the Business

Monday, Asana, ClickUp: the same trap

Project management software has one honest job, telling you what to do next. Somewhere along the way it took a second job, being a place to perform work about work, and the second job ate the first.

A doc with an agent that reads it, or Linear if you truly need issues, covers the honest job for almost everyone. The full verdict walks every real option, what each one costs, and the cases where you should just keep ClickUp.

Read the verdict →
✎
fig. 2 · the board nobody looked at, preserved for history
Review · Creative

Adobe, if you ship weekly

You open it twice a year and it charges you every month. That is the whole relationship most solo founders have with the Creative Cloud, and the cancellation fee is designed around the guilt of it.

“Opened twice a year. Billed every month.”

Canva covers what most solo founders actually make, at a price that does not sting when you skip a month. The full verdict is on the press, with the timings and what we actually kept.

On the press

Tool Hacks

three of the thirty-three, printed free
No. 4 Canva is a video editor. The timeline hides under Create a Design, then Video. Most people pay for a second app to do what the first one already does.
No. 11 Claude reads screenshots. Paste a pricing page and ask what the free tier actually covers. It reads the fine print you were never going to.
No. 19 A Google Doc is a landing page. File, Share, Publish to web. Zero dollars, live in ten seconds, and nobody asks what theme it is.
The other thirty are in the free guide →
From this paper The Minimal Stack, in full. The 15 we'd pay for, and the receipt for every seat. Read the stack →