Every firm runs on a stack of tools. Most firms have no idea what their stack actually costs, whether the pieces talk to each other, or how much time the team wastes moving data between systems that should be connected.
What a stack teardown looks like
A stack teardown is a structured audit of every piece of software your firm uses, what it costs, who uses it, and whether it actually solves the problem it was bought for.
We surveyed 40 firms across law, accounting, and financial advisory. Here's what the median five-person firm runs:
- Practice management: $200–$500/mo (Clio, PracticePanther, Karbon)
- Document management: $50–$200/mo (NetDocuments, Google Workspace, Dropbox Business)
- Client intake: $0–$300/mo (built-in to PM tool, or Lawmatics, HubSpot)
- Billing & payments: $50–$150/mo (QuickBooks, Xero, LeanLaw)
- Communication: $50–$200/mo (Slack, Teams, Zoom)
- Email marketing: $20–$100/mo (Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Buttondown)
- Website: $20–$100/mo (Squarespace, WordPress, custom)
The real cost
Software licenses are the visible cost. The hidden cost is integration — or lack of it. When your intake form doesn't flow into your PM system, someone is copying and pasting. When your billing tool doesn't sync with your accounting, someone is reconciling by hand.
The stack isn't expensive because of what you pay. It's expensive because of the labor you're not counting.
The framework
For each tool in your stack, answer three questions:
- Does it save more time than it costs to maintain?
- Does it integrate with the tools on either side of it?
- Could one tool replace two or three?
Most firms can cut 30% of their tool spend and improve efficiency by consolidating. The hard part isn't finding the waste — it's overcoming the inertia of 'we've always used this.'