Lower SaaS spend
SaaS rationalisation exercises typically target 20 to 40% of annual subscription spend, without losing functionality. The inventory step establishes what that number is for you.
Service
Technology Stack Assessment
Most service businesses are paying for software they barely use, and missing tools that would actually move the needle. We give you a clear-eyed look at your stack and a plan to right-size it.
What It Is
Stop buying tools hoping they'll fix the process.
The average SMB pays for 30–50 SaaS subscriptions. A third are barely used, another third overlap with something else, and the remaining third would work better with a few configuration changes nobody has time to make. Meanwhile, the real gaps, the workflows that should be automated but aren't, go unaddressed.
A Technology Stack Assessment fixes that. We catalogue what you have, measure how it's actually used, surface the overlap, identify the gaps, and recommend a rationalized stack that fits your processes, not the other way around.
Subscription consolidation is usually the first thing to show up, and for some businesses it covers the cost of the work. We won't promise that until the inventory is done and we can see your actual numbers. The bigger gains come from the workflow improvements.
How It Works
Four steps to a smarter stack
- 1
Inventory
Catalogue every tool: what it's for, who uses it, what it costs, where it integrates, when contracts renew.
- 2
Usage analysis
Pull actual seat utilization and feature adoption. Surface what's underused, what overlaps, what's redundant.
- 3
Gap analysis
Map your tools against your actual workflows. Where are people doing in spreadsheets what software should be doing?
- 4
Roadmap
A prioritised plan: what to keep, what to cut, what to consolidate, what to add. With renewal dates and a sequencing plan.
Outcomes
What you walk away with
Less context-switching
Consolidating overlapping tools means fewer logins, fewer notifications, fewer "where does this live?" questions.
Better integration
Tools that talk to each other, in the right direction, with the right data flowing through.
Renewal leverage
Negotiate from a position of clarity. Know which tools are load-bearing and which are easy to walk away from.
Common Questions
Technology Stack Assessment, answered.
What is a Technology Stack Assessment?
A structured review of every software tool a business is currently paying for and using. The assessment surfaces what's in the stack (including tools the owner doesn't know about), groups tools by functional category, identifies redundancy, scores each tool on adoption depth and integration position, and produces a prioritised rationalisation plan that consolidates the stack without disrupting team adoption.
Typical Canadian SMB service businesses end up with 30 or more tools through cumulative department-level decisions and can usually consolidate to 12 to 18, with material monthly savings and meaningful friction reduction.
How do you find out what's actually in our stack?
Two-step audit:
- Start with the finance manager. Pull the last twelve months of credit-card statements and AP-system invoices. Filter for SaaS-shaped recurring charges. This is the financial footprint of the stack.
- Ask every team member directly via a short questionnaire: list every tool you use for work, even if you don't pay for it, even if you're not sure others use it. This catches free-tier adoption, browser extensions, AI assistants on personal accounts, and tools the prior owner of a function set up and forgot about.
Reconciling the two lists is where the interesting findings live. Detail in the article.
What categories of tools do you assess?
All functional categories used by the business. Typical service-business stacks cluster into roughly a dozen buckets: CRM / sales pipeline, project management, field / job management, accounting / billing, documents / playbooks, file storage, communication, forms / surveys, e-signature, time tracking, AI assistants, marketing / email.
Each tool is mapped to one functional category and assessed against the others in the same category for redundancy.
Will we have to rip out tools the team has adopted?
Almost never. The most common reason tech stack rationalisations fail is exactly this, forcing a "better" tool on a team that has already built habits around the tool you're replacing.
Our principle: don't shake the tree. Each consolidation decision considers adoption depth, integration position, and trajectory. The tool with deeper team adoption usually wins, even when the alternative is technically stronger, because migration friction often outweighs the technical advantage.
How much can we typically save?
SaaS rationalisation exercises typically target 20 to 40% of current annual subscription spend, depending on how scattered the stack is. That is the band to plan against, not a number we can promise up front. The inventory and usage steps establish the real figure for your business before you commit to any change.
The bigger payoff is friction reduction. The team stops losing daily minutes to "which tool do I log this in" decisions. Reporting becomes possible because data flows through one source. Onboarding new hires no longer requires learning four different versions of the same workflow.
What about AI tools in our stack?
We assess them as a functional category alongside the others. Almost every team has multiple AI assistants in use, often on personal accounts.
The assessment surfaces: which AI tools are paid (and on which tier, consumer or business / enterprise), which are running on personal accounts (a data-governance concern), and what data is being put into which tools.
Recommendations typically include a single approved AI tool on a business-tier subscription with the no-training-on-your-data clause, plus an acceptable-use policy to formalise the boundaries. See AI-native knowledge hubs for the broader category context.
Stop overpaying for underused software.
Know exactly what you're paying for, and what you can stop paying for. Let's scope yours.