FREELANCE SOFTWARE BUDGET TRACKER =================================== Track every subscription, decide what to cut, and know your true tool overhead. SoloStack | solostack.madethis.app/resources/freelance-tools No signup required. Use freely. Year: ___________ Freelancer: ___________ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HOW TO USE THIS TRACKER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1. List every software subscription you pay for (check your bank/credit card statement — you'll find at least 2 you forgot about) 2. Fill in the monthly and annual cost 3. Rate your usage: High / Medium / Low / Rarely 4. Mark Cut or Keep based on the criteria below 5. Note if it's tax-deductible (most freelance tools are — see note at bottom) 6. Total up the columns to see your real monthly overhead CUT criteria: Low/Rarely use + has a free alternative that covers 80% of needs KEEP criteria: High use + saves time worth more than its monthly cost + no good free alternative ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SUBSCRIPTION TRACKER TABLE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CATEGORY: PROJECT MANAGEMENT --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool Name | Mo. Cost | Annual Cost | Usage | Cut/Keep | Tax Ded? | Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ Subtotal | $______ | $_________ CATEGORY: INVOICING & ACCOUNTING --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool Name | Mo. Cost | Annual Cost | Usage | Cut/Keep | Tax Ded? | Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ Subtotal | $______ | $_________ CATEGORY: CONTRACTS & E-SIGNING --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool Name | Mo. Cost | Annual Cost | Usage | Cut/Keep | Tax Ded? | Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ Subtotal | $______ | $_________ CATEGORY: TIME TRACKING --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool Name | Mo. Cost | Annual Cost | Usage | Cut/Keep | Tax Ded? | Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ Subtotal | $______ | $_________ CATEGORY: COMMUNICATION & VIDEO --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool Name | Mo. Cost | Annual Cost | Usage | Cut/Keep | Tax Ded? | Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ Subtotal | $______ | $_________ CATEGORY: FILE STORAGE & SHARING --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool Name | Mo. Cost | Annual Cost | Usage | Cut/Keep | Tax Ded? | Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ Subtotal | $______ | $_________ CATEGORY: SOCIAL MEDIA & MARKETING --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool Name | Mo. Cost | Annual Cost | Usage | Cut/Keep | Tax Ded? | Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ Subtotal | $______ | $_________ CATEGORY: DESIGN & CREATIVE --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool Name | Mo. Cost | Annual Cost | Usage | Cut/Keep | Tax Ded? | Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ Subtotal | $______ | $_________ CATEGORY: TEMPLATES & BUSINESS RESOURCES --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool Name | Mo. Cost | Annual Cost | Usage | Cut/Keep | Tax Ded? | Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SoloStack | $19.00 | $228.00 | H | Keep | Y | 50+ templates ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ Subtotal | $______ | $_________ CATEGORY: OTHER --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tool Name | Mo. Cost | Annual Cost | Usage | Cut/Keep | Tax Ded? | Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ ___________________| $______ | $_________ | H/M/L/Rare | ___ | Y / N | ________________ Subtotal | $______ | $_________ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SUMMARY ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CURRENT TOTAL (all subscriptions) Monthly: $_______________ Annual: $_______________ AFTER CUTS (tools marked "Keep" only) Monthly: $_______________ Annual: $_______________ Monthly savings from audit: $_______________ Annual savings from audit: $_______________ TOOLS MARKED "CUT" (cancel these): 1. _______________ 2. _______________ 3. _______________ 4. _______________ BENCHMARK: Is your tool spend healthy? ------------------------------------------- Your monthly revenue: $_______________ Your monthly tool spend: $_______________ Tool spend as % of revenue: _______________% 3–5% of revenue → Healthy, well-optimized stack 5–8% of revenue → Acceptable, worth reviewing annually 8–12% of revenue → High — do a serious audit this quarter 12%+ of revenue → Critical — cut aggressively now ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TAX DEDUCTIBILITY NOTES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In the US, software and tools used for your freelance business are generally deductible as business expenses under Schedule C. This includes: ✓ Project management tools (Notion, ClickUp, Asana) ✓ Invoicing software (Wave, FreshBooks, HoneyBook) ✓ Contract/e-signature tools (HelloSign, PandaDoc) ✓ Time tracking software (Toggl, Clockify, Harvest) ✓ Video conferencing (Zoom, Loom subscriptions) ✓ File storage (Dropbox, Google One) ✓ Design tools (Canva Pro, Adobe Creative Cloud) ✓ Marketing tools (email platforms, scheduling tools) ✓ Template libraries and educational resources (SoloStack) IMPORTANT: Keep receipts/statements. Only deduct the business-use portion if you also use a tool personally. Consult a tax professional for your specific situation. For more on freelance tax deductions: solostack.madethis.app/resources/freelance-taxes-guide ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AUDIT SCHEDULE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Last audit date: _______________ Next audit date: _______________ (set a calendar reminder now) Recommended frequency: every 6 months, or when monthly revenue changes by 20%+ RENEWAL DATES TO WATCH (annual subscriptions auto-renewing): Tool: _______________ Renewal date: _______________ Annual cost: $___ Tool: _______________ Renewal date: _______________ Annual cost: $___ Tool: _______________ Renewal date: _______________ Annual cost: $___ Set calendar reminders 2 weeks before each renewal to decide: renew or cancel. --- More freelance resources (free, no signup): solostack.madethis.app/resources