Most one-person businesses need four things on day one: a place people can find you, a way to stay in touch, a way to get paid, and something to make content with. You don’t need to pay for all four.
Why these picks
- Website: Squarespace Basic. It’s the only paid line in this stack. It gets you a professional site with a 14-day trial and no card required. If money is very tight, Wix’s free plan works until you need to take payments.
- Email: Kit Free. It covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts and landing pages, and you can sell digital products on it.
- Invoicing: Wave Starter. Unlimited invoices and bookkeeping records for free. You pay only card processing when clients pay online.
- Audio: Audacity. Free and open source, enough for a solo audio show or for cleaning up recordings.
When to upgrade
- Email automations. When you want welcome sequences or automated funnels, Kit Creator costs $33 a month billed yearly (shown for 1,000 subscribers). That takes the stack to about $52 a month, just over this budget.
- Store sales. If you sell through your site, Squarespace Core removes the 2% store fee and lowers the digital content fee from 7% to 5%.
- Bank sync. Wave Pro adds bank connections and late-payment reminders for $19 a month.