Streamline Blog & Business Costs: Tips & Tool Swaps

In and of itself, running a blog, or any kind of website, is one of the cheapest hobbies around. But it’s easy to end up with a whole bunch of additional extra costs, from design software to paid plugins.

This blog post looks at different ways you can cut down your costs, what software and tool swaps could make sense for you, and helps you make the “is it worth it” decisions.

Let’s get started!

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Making good decisions

Let’s be honest, there are a lot of free alternative tools and software lists out there, but realistically you’re not going to be replacing Adobe Creative Suite with GIMP any time soon.

So this post isn’t a blanket list of “swap X for Y,” as it could be that “Y” doesn’t have the features you need. It’s more important that you’re happy with the tool or software you’re using, and that it makes sense for what you need.

There’s also the question of whether it’s “worth it.” If something is more expensive than its competitor, but it also saves you more time, causes you less stress, and has other features/benefits that save you money, it could be an option that makes more sense for you. It’s completely up to you what you decide; the list below is more suggestions of things to explore than absolute recommendations.

Don’t forget the value of your time as well. There’s a reason we buy washing machines instead of doing everything by hand! Sometimes it actually saves you more to just buy a quick solution compared to manually creating something from scratch. If you like exact numbers, assign a specific per-hour rate to yourself to figure out whether you’ll save more money from buying something or DIYing it.

Many people make buying decisions based on return on interest (ROI). This can be helpful for some things but super restrictive for others. It may not matter if something doesn’t directly make you money if it clears repeat tasks off your plate and allows you to spend more time on things that move the needle. For example, subscribing to a social media reposting service could free up time for you to spend on keyword research or creating a new product or service.

Things to remember when making buying decisions:

It’s totally fine to pick a more expensive option when it does the things you need in a more efficient way or eliminates hassle (your time also has a value!).

It’s totally fine to pick a more expensive option just because you prefer how it looks or works.

It’s also totally fine to pick free options – they aren’t necessarily worse or inferior. For example, free themes in the official WordPress Directory are vetted for best practices and potential security issues, whereas paid independent WordPress themes aren’t.
Advice from other people can help you narrow your options down, but consider where they’re coming from and do your own research. What benefits does the software or tool have for them, and are they ones that appeal to you too?

If you’re using a freemium tool and there’s a Pro option you’re considering, but you don’t know what features you need or why, it’s likely not something you need. If you’d only use one feature from it, try to find a free alternative instead.

In situations where you can afford to pay more upfront to secure a better price, consider how long you may want to be using the service for. For example, we pay for a chatbot service to run one of our contests once a year, so it makes more sense to just pay for it for a single month rather than a full year, even though the monthly price is higher.

Figuring out your usage also helps you get the best value. We have a subscription to Envato Elements because we get through so many photos; buying individual photos would get very expensive, and we’d run out of options on free sites, plus we can download other things from there too, such as icons and graphics. But if you only use a handful of photos a month, it’s likely better for you to use a free option.

Check renewal costs of tools and services, as many places (unlike us!) charge more when it’s time to renew. If it’s not clear from their website, contact their customer services/support before you buy (this also gives you the chance to see how good their communication is).

Make a list throughout the year of tools and software you’re interested in, and ask companies about their Black Friday deals closer to the time. If it’s not a tool or service you need on an ongoing permanent basis, you could take advantage of their deals every year. Some companies will also happily extend your Black Friday deal longer term to avoid the hassle of you canceling and signing back up – it’s always worth asking.

Be skeptical of lifetime deals, especially for services you rely on. Sometimes these types of companies don’t end up sticking around very long, the fine print defines “lifetime deal” as 3 years (maybe the lifespan of a hamster), or the plan gets increasingly restricted.

At the end of the day, the tools, software and services you use need to be right for you. There are plenty of trends and “must use” options out there; more expensive doesn’t always mean better, new and shiny doesn’t always mean better. The time it takes to research and switch can be an endless rabbit hole, so if you’re happy with what you’ve got, don’t worry.

01. Track your expenses & subscriptions

This may sound like an obvious starting point, but it’s an “I’ll get round to it at some point” task for a lot of people. It’s up to you how you prefer to manage your subscriptions, but one of the easiest ways is a simple spreadsheet. If you’re using Google Sheets, pin the tab so you don’t forget about it or lose it!

Related: Lyrical Host's 2020: A Summary

Your spreadsheet can be as simple as the tool, the price, and any extra notes or renewal details. If you’re a customer we have a done-for-you Google Sheets tracking template for expenses in the Resource Library.

02. Check for things you don’t actually need

Have you subscribed to something you no longer use and forgotten to cancel? Did you once pay for a premium WordPress plugin or theme and it’s still set to renew even though you’re no longer using it? Are you paying for a web font and you’ve changed your theme or branding since (reducing the number of fonts you have loading is also good for improving page speed https://www.lyricalhost.com/blog/the-complete-site-speed-resources-roundup/]) ?

If you’ve moved to us from another host, have you remembered to cancel products and services you don’t need any more (especially ones that don’t serve any practical purpose, like “Premium DNS” type products). You can always raise a ticket with our support team to check if you need something or not.

03. Check for crossovers and duplication

What tools and subscriptions do you have that you don’t need because they’re already covered by something else? For example, hosting with us means you have the following included:

Domain privacy (so details such as your address are not displayed publicly when people look up your domain).
Security, including malware scanning and cleaning.
CDN (content delivery network).
Caching.
Backups for the last 30 days (although more backups are always an advantage, you can download your own backups any time from LyricalCP, or use a free backup plugin).
Email – unless you’re a big Gmail fan or need Gmail-specific features, you have at least 6 x 10GB mailboxes with our hosting plans at no extra cost.
SSL certificates.
WordPress technical support (just ask our support team if there’s a task you need doing – we do things like switch your domain name and redirect your links at no extra cost).

Looking at feature lists and asking your current providers can save you money in crossovers. If you use Google Workspace for your Gmail anyway, you could use Google Drive for storage and cut out a separate standalone cloud storage provider for example.

04. Explore free or cheaper alternatives

There are lots of free options for tools and software coming out all the time, so it could be that something that was previously only available in a paid version is now free (or cheaper than it used to be). We’ve divided this list into two parts; free alternatives, and (potentially) cheaper options to consider.

Free tools and services for bloggers & small businesses

This list includes a lot of free options for things bloggers and small business owners typically pay for. There are plenty more options than the ones we’ve listed here, but these are some of the most popular or offer the most for free.

If you’re a Lyrical Host customer, there’s a download in the Resource Library with lots more options.

Free web fonts
https://www.lyricalhost.com/blog/great-google-font-pairings/

Free background remover
https://www.adobe.com/express/feature/image/remove-background
(many phones now also have background removing options built in)

Download free fonts
https://www.fontsquirrel.com/
https://www.dafont.com/
(check the licensing terms cover your usage)

Design tools
Canva and Adobe Express both have free versions; check if you need any paid features or can do without.

There are free design software options, like GIMP, but they’re unlikely to do everything you need. For more options, check out the “May be cheaper to switch” list below this one.

Video recording
iMovie (Mac), Windows Movie Maker (included with your devices)
OBS: https://obsproject.com/

Video editing
https://www.capcut.com/ (available on desktop or mobile app)

Free legal templates/contracts
https://www.legalzoom.com/templates

Website Stats
If you don’t like Google Analytics, most alternatives are a paid-for option. However, AWStats is provided free in LyricalCP and there’s no extra load on your website and no setup required! Find out more in this article

AI tools
https://gemini.google.com
https://claude.ai (requires phone number)

Grammar checkers
Use a free AI tool of your choice to do the same thing.

Digital signatures
https://smallpdf.com/sign-pdf
https://www.docusign.com/en-gb/trial/ (free trial)

If you have an Adobe Creative Cloud plan with Acrobat Pro included, you can also do digital signatures through that.

Invoices
Simple Invoices is free to install from LyricalCP.

Forms (& Surveys)
https://form.new (Google Forms)

Social media scheduler
Buffer.com has a free plan, or you could use the default social media schedulers built into each platform. Some may have limitations and they’re not always as convenient as scheduling everything from a single place, although you can cross-post between Facebook, Instagram and Threads to save time.

Some social media scheduling tools also appear cheaply as Mighty Deals or on other deals websites, so it’s worth searching every so often.

Website backups
https://www.lyricalhost.com/blog/how-to-back-up-your-wordpress-website/

Free appointment scheduling/calendar embedding
https://calendly.com (free basic plan)

Free recipes/third party connectors
https://ifttt.com/ (free plan):

Free WordPress cookie plugins
Complianz
GDPR Cookie Compliance by Moov Agency
Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPA by Humanity.co
(install by going to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress Dashboard and using the search function)

Free WordPress courses plugin
LearnPress
(install by going to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress Dashboard and using the search function)

Free ecommerce plugins (paid add-ons may be needed)
Woocommerce
Easy Digital Downloads
(install by going to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress Dashboard and using the search function).

Related: Lyrical Host: 2022 In Review

Could be cheaper to switch

Below we’ve included some tips, hacks, and alternatives to tools and services you may currently be using so you can see if you can save any money there. Remember to do the research before you switch, and make a note in your calendar of when free trials are ending!

Email marketing
Mailerlite is free up to 1000 subscribers, and Convertkit is free up to 10,000 subscribers with ads. If you don’t need anything fancy, you just want to email a bunch of people, they’ll do the job just fine.

Keyword tools
While we believe you get what you pay for when it comes to keyword tools, you don’t have to spend agency prices to get good features.

Check out our blog post on keyword tools [https://www.lyricalhost.com/blog/how-to-choose-keywords-for-seo/]; our personal favorite is Keysearch, which usually has a Black Friday sale. Other keyword tools also have free trials.

Themes & Page Builders
The prices of themes and page builders can vary wildly, so it’s worth shopping around to see if you can get a similar look at a cheaper price. Page builders may also offer different features for free, so if you’re currently only paying for a single feature, it may be worth researching to see if another option offers it in its free basic version.

Some features may also be replaceable with free plugins, for example font options, and our support team may be able to change colors and make basic CSS changes for you – raise a ticket with the details of what you want to find out what’s possible.

Cheaper design software
Design software often comes at a premium, but here are some quick ways to keep the costs down.

Check what you need – There’s no point paying for the whole Adobe Creative Suite if you only need Photoshop or Lightroom. Can you downgrade what you have, or switch to a different plan? Can you take advantage of sales or use online chat to get a better price? Don’t always assume that going direct will get you the cheapest price – check Amazon during Prime Day and Black Friday and compare the prices.

Tip: Save images you create to your computer or download them. Don’t store them in Adobe/Canva cloud because it’s easier to move in and out as you find the best prices and deals.

One-off costs: Some well-respected software, like the Affinity Suite is available for a one-off cost rather than an on-going subscription.

Check out mobile apps such as Snapseed and Lightroom for Mobile, which often work out cheaper than desktop alternatives.

Image optimization
Rather than paying for a plugin that optimizes your images, follow this tutorial to reduce your image sizes using something like Photoshop or TinyPNG.

If you resize your images in any free graphics program first, you’ll find it easier to compress them using free tools, plus your images will be smaller than if you use a plugin alone.

Design element subscriptions
If you go through a lot of stock photos, fonts, icons, graphics, etc., it may work out cheaper for you to get a subscription with unlimited downloads, especially if you’re taking advantage of a deal or sale. Envato Elements and Creative Fabrica are both worth a look. If it saves you time hunting or creating, it can more than make up the spend to you.

05. Do the research

Before you buy any plugin that sounds great, check to see if there’s a free version that does the same thing, or if there’s a cut-down version of the one you’re planning to buy so you can see if you like it first.

There are a lot of plugin developers out there who make paid versions of existing free plugins that do the same thing.

Try to avoid paying for tools or services that only offer one single feature that you actually use. For example, if you’re only paying for design software to be able to remove backgrounds, you can use a tool like Adobe Express’s Free Background Remover to do it for free without having to sign up for anything.

Compare solutions based on both features and price and plan ahead so you know what to expect for all the costs involved. For example, you could compare WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads based on what paid add-ons you think you’ll need and see which works out cheaper.

If something has a lot of additional costs, make sure you’re comparing like for like so that you’re not hit with unexpected extras. Sometimes something that looks more expensive on the surface actually ends up working out better value once an alternative’s extra or hidden costs are factored in.

06. Get a second opinion

Don’t forget, we’re here to help! We offer plenty of support beyond web hosting, and we work with thousands of bloggers and small business owners so we know what people find useful and what they don’t.

Please ask any time if you aren’t sure about whether you need something or not, and we’ll give you honest advice based on your own website, needs and setup. We don’t recommend anything we haven’t used ourselves, and we always share free and budget-friendly solutions. Just raise a support ticket!

Alternatively, if you’re in our customer Facebook group, you’re welcome to start a thread and crowdsource opinions there – just be warned that you may end up with more options than you started out with!

And that brings us to the end of the post. What are your favorite free tools and cheaper switches? Let us know in the comments!

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How to streamline your blog and business software costs