Pre-seed tech stack: what you actually need on day one.
The minimum-viable software stack to look professional, sell and scale — for under $400 a month. The tools we install for almost every pre-seed team.
Founders ask us this every week: "What software should we have on day one?" Here's the minimum-viable list — under $400/month — that we install for almost every pre-seed team we work with.
The 'must have' five
1. Email + Workspace — Google Workspace ($14/seat/month)
Use Google Workspace, not Outlook, not your old college email. It's universal, every tool integrates with it, and you'll need the shared drive on day one.
2. Calendar booking — Cal.com (free) or Calendly ($10/month)
You'll set 100+ meetings in your first quarter. A booking link is non-negotiable. Cal.com is free and self-hostable; Calendly is $10/month for sanity.
3. Pipeline / CRM — Pipedrive ($15/seat/month) or Notion (free)
Until you're at three reps, a clean Notion database is fine. Past that, Pipedrive is the cheapest sane CRM. Don't go to HubSpot until you have a marketer; don't go to Salesforce until you have $1M ARR.
4. Documents / wiki — Notion ($8/seat/month)
Notion will be your wiki, your project tracker, your investor data room and your meeting notes. Pay for it from day one — the free tier breaks at five members.
5. Communication — Slack (free tier) or WhatsApp Groups
Slack free tier handles up to 10k messages — enough for the first six months of a small team. Beyond that, $7/seat/month.
The 'add when you have customers' five
6. Email marketing — Loops or Resend
Don't go straight to HubSpot or Klaviyo. For pre-PMF, Loops or Resend ($0–$30/month) is enough. Migrate when volume justifies.
7. Analytics — Plausible ($9/month) + PostHog (free)
Plausible for the marketing site, PostHog for the product. Both privacy-friendly, both have generous free tiers.
8. Payments — Stripe
Just use Stripe. The 'shop around' instinct on payments wastes weeks for negligible returns at startup scale.
9. Customer support — Plain ($0) or Front (from $19/seat)
For your first 100 customers, a shared inbox in Plain or Front is enough. Don't buy Zendesk yet.
10. Cap table — Carta or Pulley
You'll need this the day you incorporate. Carta is the default; Pulley is cheaper. Either is fine.
What you don't need yet
- Salesforce, HubSpot Enterprise, NetSuite — all of it, no.
- A 'data team' tool stack — your data fits in one Postgres database.
- An ATS — your ATS is a Notion page until you're hiring two-plus people a month.
- Customer data platform — Segment is overkill until you're past Series A.
Every dollar spent on tooling at pre-seed is a dollar not spent on the thing that's actually going to determine whether you raise.
The total damage
For a 4-person seed team, the must-have five plus the add-when-you-have-customers five comes in around $320/month. Add Stripe (free until revenue) and you're at the entire operational stack of most pre-seed companies.
The instinct to over-tool is strong. Resist it. The teams who win in your category aren't the ones with the prettiest tool stack — they're the ones whose product moves users.