Vs subscriptions
Simple Ledger vs the monthly bill
On Simple Ledger:
The business workflow aisle is stacked with subscriptions: HubSpot at $180 a year, or $20 a month, and Pipedrive at $168 a year. The Simple Ledger is one HTML file that does the honest working core of what those tools sell, once, for the price of a Swiss Knife.
The bill you were quietly paying
Name the actual products and the arithmetic stops being abstract: HubSpot ($180 a year, or $20 a month: CRM with a seat price that climbs), Pipedrive ($168 a year: pipeline software, per seat), FreshBooks ($23 a month: invoices, capped at five clients). An average business stack lands at $14 to $23 a month, forever.
Run that out five years and Pipedrive costs $840, HubSpot costs $900. A Swiss Knife, with the Simple Ledger folded in beside up to eleven other tools, is $95, once.
One year of Pipedrive at $168 costs more than a Swiss Knife at $95. Every year after that is pure savings on this category.
What the Simple Ledger replaces cleanly
You mow three lawns, sell a little honey, and keep the books in your head, where they charge no fees but keep no records. That is the working shape most subscriptions in this category are wrapped around; the Simple Ledger delivers it without the wrapper.
Concretely: HubSpot would keep for whom / what, amount, type, and date on its own servers, behind its own login, on its own pricing schedule. The Simple Ledger keeps the same fields in a file on your disk — same shape of work, no monthly line on the card.
You keep the workflow. You lose the login, the sync outage, the price hike email, and the export deadline.
What you honestly give up
Team collaboration in real time. Auto-import from third-party APIs. A mobile app that pings you. HubSpot does those things and does them properly; if any of them are load-bearing for how you work today, keep paying HubSpot — the Simple Ledger is not trying to compete on those fronts.
Most people, honestly, were paying for features they did not use. The Simple Ledger is what remains when you strip that back to the tool.
What you stop renting
- HubSpot: $180 a year, or $20 a monthCRM with a seat price that climbs. $180 a year, every year.
- Pipedrive: $168 a yearPipeline software, per seat. $168 a year, every year.
- FreshBooks: $23 a monthInvoices, capped at five clients.
Questions people ask
How does the cost compare to HubSpot?
Pipedrive runs about $840 over five years and HubSpot about $900. One year of Pipedrive at $168 costs more than a Swiss Knife at $95. A Swiss Knife folds the Simple Ledger in with up to eleven other tools for $95, once, and there is no year two.
Is the Simple Ledger a like-for-like replacement for HubSpot?
For the working core — for whom / what, amount, type, and date — yes. For CRM with a seat price that climbs, no. We would rather say that plainly than sell you a switch you'll regret in a fortnight.
What if my needs grow past a single file?
Excellent problem. Keep the Simple Ledger for what it does well; add a specialised SaaS on top only when you have a specialised need. Nothing here locks you in — it is a file.
Can I import my current data?
The Simple Ledger is deliberately hand-entered. Two minutes of typing on Monday keeps you closer to your own business workflow than an integration ever will.
The subscription was renting the arithmetic. Buy the arithmetic instead.