# My Entire Freelance Tech Stack for Running a Solo Service Business [00:00:00] **Tiana Ned:** There's this idea that in order to run a premium creative business, you need to have 30 different apps and tools. Uh, you need a CRM, then you need an automation platform, you need something for your client portal, you need your own internal project management system. [00:00:19] Then you need five AI tools, you need a scheduling tool, you need something to handle your contracts, invoices, and all of a sudden you're spending three hundred, four hundred dollars a month just to manage your business. And to be honest with you, I'm obsessed with simplicity, especially since I am a service provider that has a signature service. [00:00:43] It's not like I have anything complex that I'm running. I don't have, like, seven streams of income, like low-ticket digital products, courses, memberships, consulting packages, da, da, da, da. No. I only offer basically one service. Under that one service, I have two retainer packages, and that's it. I've been intentionally working on designing a freelance business that can run on as few tools as possible. [00:01:13] It's basically 'cause every single piece of software creates more friction and another thing to maintain. You have another login, notifications, emails from them, another monthly subscription, another place where information can get lost. And to be honest with you, I, ugh, I don't wanna manage software. [00:01:36] That's not what I'm cut out to do. I wanna publish great work, and I want to offer amazing services to my clients. That's it. I don't wanna do the admin stuff. Okay? But I have fallen into a trap of Googling best tools for freelancers in 2026 with a listicle of so many softwares, right? So that inspired me to talk about something that's been sitting in the back of my head for a while, and it's that most creative freelancers think that their problem is which tools to use, which tools to switch from and to, and it's really not. [00:02:16] The problem that you have to think about is what you're actually selling. If you're stuck thinking about which tool to use for this, and that tool research basically becomes a very convincing way to avoid doing the work that you need to do, and the work is figuring out how to structure your packages, how to offer your packages, whether it be a retainer or a one-and-off, how to simplify your pricing, all of that. [00:02:46] So that's what we are gonna be talking about today [00:03:06] Hi, welcome back to AI For Creative Professionals. I'm Tijana, and if you are new here, on this show, we talk about AI specifically for creative professionals and freelancers who are curious about it, but honestly a bit overwhelmed by it as well. And they mostly just want someone to tell them what works instead of what's trending in someone's my current AI stack carousel post on Instagram or LinkedIn. [00:03:36] Today's episode is not precisely gonna be about AI, at least not at first. It's about the four things a service provider or a service-based creative business actually needs. It doesn't really matter if you are a copywriter, photographer, a video editor, a graphic designer, a web designer, a concept artist, podcast producer, whatever. [00:03:58] And a quick scope note before we get into it. I don't want this to land wrong for the wrong person, okay? This is specifically for my solo service providers, so you're doing all the work yourself, and maybe you have two people on your team, whether it's a VA and maybe a bookkeeper. But if you're already got a course business or a big team or you're... [00:04:20] or you have employees, this episode is not built for you because your bottlenecks honestly are totally different ones. But if it's just you doing the client work or you plus one or two people helping you out, this is who I'm talking to, okay? So once that's sorted, we're gonna talk about where AI is doing the heavy lifting versus where it's just decoration, and let's get into it. [00:04:46] Okay, so here is a fantasy version of you having a real business, right? The one that lives in most of our heads You picture the CRM and the automation platform that connects to everything, and then a client portal that looks slick. And then you have your project management system and potentially three to five AI subscriptions because you read somewhere that having an AI stack is what separates the professionals from amateurs now, right? [00:05:15] Then you have your scheduling tool. Then you have another tool for your proposals and contracts. Then there's an automation platform to duct tape it all together, and then you have your website platform, but then you have another newsletter platform. Add that up, and you are at three hundred, four hundred dollars a month easy before you've delivered a single project to a client. [00:05:43] And let me tell you, I've talked to freelancers who spent more hours building the perfect color-coded ClickUp board than they spent on actual client work that month. Why do we tend to do that? Because it feels like progress, like you're doing something, you're working on the back end of your business. It feels like you're a pro now, right? [00:06:04] It's not just opening Premiere Pro or Illustrator or, um, blank Google Doc, right? It's not the same. And look, for most people, these tools have their place. So the problem is not the tool itself, but most people build the stack to feel like they're running a real business instead of because they hit a wall of what the tool solves. [00:06:27] Like, you don't really have a CRM problem if you've had four clients this year, let me tell you that. And your problem is, I haven't sent an invoice from March, and no software will fix that for you. Okay? A new tool, if I get it, has to solve a problem I have today, not a problem I imagine I'll have once I'm bigger in two years when I have my agency and I have 20 clients. [00:06:55] Okay? It has to be a real bottleneck sitting right in front of me. Which brings the most obvious question: If all of that is mostly noise, all of those tools and softwares, what then does a copywriter and an illustrator or a video editor need underneath the tool talk? I think it's the same four things no matter what you do for your clients. [00:07:21] First things first, a website. But what kind of website? Do you need a complex website on WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, or Webflow, wherever else? I don't think so. Not really when you think about it. You need a simple page or three pages, four pages at most. You need your homepage, your services page, your portfolio page, and your contact or about me page. [00:07:48] That's it. That's literally it. Your website has one and only job. It is to explain how you work and who it's for. Your services, a little bit about you, that's it. And this is exactly where AI is doing something real for us. The bottleneck is not usually design, but explaining your own work out loud And when you have a blank services page, that's kind of brutal, right? [00:08:19] But if you take your actual project notes and you just talk through your process the way you'd explain it to a friend, and you feed it into something like ChatGPT or Claude, you can get a rough draft that's maybe, uh, sixty to seventy percent of the way there. You still have to rip out anything that sounds like a robot, right? [00:08:40] You need to find those sentences and replace them. But going from a blank page to something you're editing instead of generating out of nothing, that's really where the time saver is. So the second thing is onboarding. That's what every professional service provider needs. So essentially, it's an intake form that has the right questions. [00:09:05] A welcome doc, here's what happens after you sign, email. So a client is not left wondering if you fell off the face of the Earth for three days. And this might be the single most underrated place AI can help in a service business 'cause it's not flashy, right? It's just, ugh, a bit tedious. Okay. So y-you already know the answer. [00:09:29] You know what info you need before you can quote a job. You just never sat down to type it in a document, and if you ask AI to draft the intake questions based on what you know you need before quoting a project, suddenly you're not chasing someone for missing details before a deadline. Okay? And then third is the workspace, somewhere to keep the work, whether that's a shared folder with your client, a Notion page or a plain Google Doc with links in it. [00:10:03] It doesn't matter which. What matters is there's a home base instead of the project living across six email threads and then a text conversation there and a, a Instagram DM from three weeks ago. So it's less of an AI thing directly, though, once you pick a home base, AI can help you write a short explainer doc for how it works, so you're not re-explaining your process to every new client over Slack, right? [00:10:33] And then there's the fourth thing, which is the offer, the one people avoid the longest, right? 'Cause it's the scary one. What are you selling? What are you really selling, and how much? So whether you structure it like a mini agency, you have three tiers, like starter tier, mid tier, premium tier, or you do one retainer relationship with, with a flat monthly rate and then ongoing work, or you have a single signature package. [00:11:00] It's one thing at one price. There's no menu. You take it or leave it, right? It's a one and done. So any of those work. But if you don't have any structure at all, you are, "Well, it depends on what you need. I will customize the offer for you," and y- you turn out to do custom proposals for every single client. [00:11:21] So e- essentially every inquiry turns into a custom quote, then every custom quote easily turns into scope creep somewhere around week two or three, right? So this is another place where AI earns its spot for you because you can turn a messy discovery call, the notes you scribble that are half illegible, into a proper written proposal, and that's exactly the kind of task it handles well, as long as you're feeding it real notes and not asking it to invent a client relationship out of nothing. [00:11:56] Same with pricing copy. Articulating what's different between your starter tier and your premier tier, or explaining a retainer without it reading like a legal document. AI drafts your structure, but you still have to obviously know what you're selling before any of that works. Which Funny enough, loops right back to the whole point of this episode. [00:12:20] And I wanna be clear that none of this changes based on what you make. A concept artist's intake form asks different questions than a copywriter's. You will ask for style references and usage rights instead of tone and word count, for example. But what I'm saying is the shape underneath is identical. So you've got your website, you've got the filter, you've got workspace, and you've got the offer. [00:12:47] So AI drafts the first pass on all four, but you obviously still have to be the one who knows what you're building underneath. Okay, so here's what I'd tell you if you'd messaged me this week saying you feel behind on all of this. Pick one tool, just one tool for each of those four things, the cheapest one that does the job, okay? [00:13:09] You're not going and exploring which one has the most features. No, you pick the simplest and the cheapest one, and you give yourself two weeks before you're allowed to add a fifth tool on anything. Write that rule down somewhere you'll see it, 'cause the itch to add just one more thing comes back really fast. [00:13:30] And so with every AI draft, you have to edit before you ship it. Every piece of onboarding copy, every proposal, and every sentence on your services page needs a pass where you read it and ask, "Would I say this out loud to a client?" Because otherwise you've replaced a website nobody wrote with a website nobody wrote that sounds like a robot wrote it, which is somehow even worse. [00:13:57] So here is my version of this tool stack I use for my retainer business. My website I host on Netlify. It's a simple static HTML. I don't have WordPress or plugins, and there's no maintenance, okay? So my website has one job, is to explain how I work and get the right people to apply through my application form link. [00:14:21] For applications, I use Tally. I used to use Typeform, but I switched to Tally. Instead of having the link to book a call, I have the application form first, which I review, and if it's a fit, they get invited to a booking call. Then for meetings, I use Google Calendar and Google Meet. That's it. There's no extra scheduling software. [00:14:43] I don't use Calendly or Zoom or any of that, so it's all under Google's... There are no downloads or anything. Google Meet for meetings, Google Calendar events for booking calls. Then for client portal, I keep everything in Notion. Everything. So what they see on their end, their client portal, also my own internal tracking stuff, okay? [00:15:03] Everything happens in Notion. I don't have ClickUp for clients and then Asana for me and then this for the... No, everything is in Notion For communication, I use Slack. I have one private channel with the client for questions, approvals, updates. Then for file storage, again, I use Google Drive. That's where I keep client folders with raw recordings, exports, branding assets, final deliverables. [00:15:26] It's organized the same way for every client. Then this is specific to me, okay? But you know what, what you use in your business. For production specifically, I use Descript, Canva, and AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT. Descript for my primary editing, transcripts, captions. Canva for thumbnails, quote graphics, and simple design work. [00:15:48] I use Claude as a writing partner, and I use Claude Skills to repurpose my client's podcasts. And then ChatGPT I use for image creation, brainstorming, things like that. For contracts, again, I'm under the Google umbrella, so I use Google eSignature, and there's no complicated legal platform that I have to pay extra for So it's contract signed, done. [00:16:11] Okay? For payments, I use Wise and PayPal specifically. That's it. And to be honest, I think that's the whole tool stack. . Oh yeah, I also use LastPass to collect my clients' passwords. That's it. So what's missing here? What's missing is ClickUp, Monday, HubSpot, HoneyBook, Dubsado, Asana, Airtable, Zapier. There's no giant automation system. [00:16:37] Why? Because I really don't need them at this point, okay? Maybe you do. Maybe you do need some of these tools, and maybe you're already using them. But what I'm saying is, if it doesn't solve a real problem for you today, it doesn't belong. If it solves a future problem or a hypothetical problem, that's exactly when I'll get it, in the future. [00:17:02] So my final thought is that I think creative professionals often optimize for automation before they've optimized for simplicity and clarity. And when you have a simple business with a clear process, that will almost always beat a complicated business with 50 automations, okay? Because if you are a creative professional that's working one-on-one with clients, software should support your work and not become the work itself. [00:17:31] Okay, m- one question that I want you to ask yourself this week: What is that one tool you're paying for right now that you really cannot explain the reason you have it? Okay? That's it for this episode of AI For Creative Professionals. If this helped, the biggest thing you can do is share it with another creative freelancer who is currently tabs deep comparing software instead of doing their work, okay? [00:17:58] You probably have that one friend, so send this episode to them. If you have a minute, I would also appreciate if you would leave a rating on Spotify or a review on Apple, because it would help other creative freelancers and creative professionals who are interested in AI find this show. I will talk to you next week. [00:18:17] Thank you so much for listening.