The $10,000 Afternoon
A few months ago, we did an audit for a marketing agency. Thirty-plus apps. Three of them hadn’t been used in over a year. This cost them over $10,000 a year.
Finding it only took one afternoon, a bank statement review, and somebody willing to ask, “Who actually uses this?”
Then we built them a tech stack tracker: every tool, who owns it, what it costs per seat, and when it renews. Renewal alerts go to the owner 30 days out, so someone makes a decision before the card gets charged. And we added “remove their licenses” to the offboarding checklist, so the next person who leaves takes their seat with them.
Doing a tech stack audit is a simple yet powerful way to identify where you’re overspending and underutilizing. Most times the fix is genuinely small, and the ROI is immediate.
Pull the bank statement, not the tool list
Everybody who tries this starts by listing their tools. Don’t.
The list is what you think you have. The statement is what you’re really paying for.
Open last month’s credit card statement or the AP report. Go line by line & sort every recurring charge. Sort the lines into four categories.
The four buckets
- CUT: Nobody has opened it, or rarely uses it
- KEEP: Actively used, doing a job nothing else does.
- CONSOLIDATE: Two tools doing the same job. Pick one.
- SEATS: You’re paying per user for people who don’t work here anymore. Most common, most invisible, because the total only moves when headcount does and you stopped reading the total years ago.
Don’t cut the expensive one just because it’s expensive
The instinct is to find the biggest number and kill it.
But a $600/month platform your whole team lives in is a better deal than four $50 tools nobody opens. Price isn’t the metric. Cost per person is, and whether anyone actually uses it.
Found the leak? Let’s close it.
The Get Systems Done Weekend is November 7–8, and it’s fully virtual. You join from your own desk, with your own accounts and your own tools open. No flights, no hotel, and you don’t lose a Monday to travel.
Two days. One working system by Sunday night.
Here’s what we do together. We find your profit leaks. We audit your tech stack. Then we build one real thing, either an automation or a documented process, live and in your account before we log off. You don’t leave with a deck or a plan for later. You leave with a tailored system that’s already running Monday morning.
If one undocumented process eats 5 hours of your week, that’s 65 hours a quarter.
The weekend is two days to get your hours back for good.
Registration opens October 26th. The waitlist gets in 48 hours early.
Before you close this email.
Remember, nobody decides to waste money on software. It happens one “we’ll cancel it later” at a time. One free trial becomes $49 a month. One login outlives the person who used it. You’re not careless. You’re missing a system.
If you’d rather not spend the afternoon sorting statements alone, let’s do it together. In a 90-Minute Evaluation, we go through your stack, flag what to cut before it renews, and leave you with the first fix in place. It’s $499, so it’s usually less than a year of the subscriptions we find.
[Book your 90-Minute Evaluation →]
P.S. AI tools are this year’s fastest-growing line on most statements, and the easiest to forget you’re paying for. Before you sort your buckets, watch What Makes an AI Tool Worth Keeping. It’s 40 minutes on how to tell a tool that’s earning its seat from one that’s just renewing.
— Georgie-Ann, your Ops Bestie
GSD Solutions works with Owners and Operators to audit, automate, and update the systems they outgrew. If you want a second set of eyes on yours, that’s what the 90-minute evaluation is for. Book yours today at gsdsolutionsinc.com/letstalk
