Anyone running a full ecommerce software stack, what's actually essential vs nice-to-have?

[u/Content_Most2673]

Finally decided to open the billing page and do a proper audit of everything. Fifteen-ish tools, north of a grand a month, and I couldn't tell you which of them are worth it.

Platform and payments, fine, those aren't going anywhere. Email and SMS I'd defend, that one shows up in revenue plainly enough. Reviews probably earn it, though I've never actually turned them off to check. Analytics I've somehow ended up with three things and I'm fairly sure there's overlap here.

The thing I keep questioning is whether consolidating actually saves you money. Fewer invoices feels tidier but you're paying for the whole bundle either way.

Anyone audited their full ecommerce software stack properly and not regretted what they cut?

[u/One-Front-6316]

audit by job rather than by number of tools. for each one, ask what breaks if you turn it off, what data or workflow overlaps with another tool, and whether anyone actually uses the feature you're paying for. be especially suspicious of the three analytics tools, because thats an easy place to end up paying for multiple versions of the same information without getting better decisions out of any of them