The real cost of your agency tool stack

By Nirav Gondaliya · April 24, 2026

Let's add up what a 10-person agency actually pays for software.

I'll use the most common tools I've seen agencies use. Your specific stack might differ, but the total will be similar.

Google Workspace (email)$60/month

Asana Business (projects)$240/month

Slack Pro (team chat)$80/month

Better Proposals$39/month

DocuSign Business (contracts)$120/month

FreshBooks Plus (invoicing)$33/month

Toggl Premium (time tracking)$180/month

Front (client communication)$95/month

Dropbox Business (files)$150/month

QuickBooks Online (accounting)$80/month

HubSpot Starter (CRM)$45/month

Fathom (analytics)$14/month

Calendly (scheduling)$60/month

Notion Business (docs)$150/month

1Password Business (passwords)$80/month

Monthly total$1,426

Annual total$17,112

That's nearly $1,500 per month for a 10-person agency just to run the business. Seventeen thousand dollars a year on software alone. Before salaries. Before office rent. Before anything else.

And this is the conservative stack. I know agencies spending $3,000+ per month on tools.

Here's what makes it worse.

The tools don't talk to each other. Your proposal in Better Proposals doesn't flow into your contract in DocuSign. Your signed contract doesn't create a project in Asana. Your time tracked in Toggl doesn't auto-invoice from FreshBooks. Every step requires manual work, manual data entry, manual synchronization.

So the real cost isn't $1,500/month. It's $1,500/month plus the 15-20 hours per week your team spends doing manual data transfer between tools.

Let's do that math. If three team members spend 5 hours each per week moving data between tools, that's 15 hours. At $50/hour loaded cost, that's $750/week = $3,000/month in wasted time.

Real total: $4,500/month. $54,000/year.

For a 10-person agency.

If you're a solo agency owner reading this, your stack is smaller but still significant. Probably $200-500/month in tools plus 10+ hours of wasted admin time per week.

The alternative

Here's the question: what if you could replace 90% of those tools with one platform?

FORGE's Early Access pricing is $29/month. Our Pro plan — when we launch it fully — will be $99/month. Our Agency plan will be $199/month.

Compare those to your current $1,500-3,000/month stack. We're betting you'd rather pay $199/month for one platform that actually works than $1,500 for 15 that don't.

We're also betting you'd rather save those 15 hours/week of data transfer and spend them on client work. Or with your family. Or just having fewer tabs open.

That's the FORGE proposition. Not more features. Less noise. Lower cost. More time.

If any of this resonates, try FORGE. Early access is $29/month for life. Fourteen-day free trial. No credit card to start.

At minimum, you'll save money. At best, you'll save your sanity.

— Nirav