r/smallbusinessUS

▲ 2 r/smallbusinessUS+2 crossposts

Got tired of paying for 10+ subscriptions for marketing

I run a small apparel/e-commerce brand and at one point realized I was paying for way too many tools that basically did the same things.

I’ve been cutting them down over the past few months, and honestly these are pretty much all I use now:

Google Search Console for understanding where our organic traffic is actually coming from. I mostly look at what people are searching before finding us, which pages are getting impressions/clicks, and whether our SEO work is actually doing anything. Free and honestly enough for most of what I need.

Saharan AI for pretty much anything creative. Product images, social content, ad creatives and videos. The Agent Mode is probably what I use most because I barely need to prompt it. I can upload our brand guidelines, product info and references, and it figures out the creative direction while keeping things consistent with our brand. It also has most of the image/video models in one place, so I got rid of a few separate subscriptions.

Shopify for basically the backbone of the business. Storefront, products, orders, inventory, discounts, etc. I try not to install too many apps anymore unless there’s a real reason for it.

Klaviyo for email and customer retention. Mostly abandoned carts, welcome flows, post-purchase emails and occasional campaigns. Once the basic flows are set up, it runs pretty quietly in the background.

Notion for everything internal. Launch plans, content calendars, product ideas, supplier notes and random things I don’t want scattered across 20 different docs.
There are definitely more powerful specialized tools for each of these things, but as a small business I’d rather have 5 tools that cover 80–90% of what I need than 15 subscriptions I barely use.

Curious what tools you actually kept paying for?

reddit.com
u/Comfortable_Weird891 — 8 days ago

Hey solo & small business owners

When it comes to handling customer enquiries, which would you choose?

AI/automation: faster, efficient and always available
OR
A real person: personal, human and able to understand the customer and situation

Which would you prefer representing your business and talking to your customers, and why?

I’m doing a little market research for a friend who is starting a business and would love to hear what actual business owners think.

reddit.com
u/The-pygmy — 10 days ago