How We Eliminated $19,909 in Annual SaaS Costs: The Vendor-by-Vendor Breakdown

The Setup

SaaS subscriptions are the recurring expense that most businesses accept as permanent. You sign up, the monthly charge starts, and unless you actively cancel, it continues indefinitely. Most operators know what they pay per month. Few have calculated what they have paid in total across the full lifetime of each vendor relationship.

According to Zylo's 2024 SaaS Management Index, the average organization wastes 25% of its SaaS spend on unused or underutilized licenses. But waste is only half the problem. The other half is the accumulation: small monthly charges that compound into five-figure annual expenses that could be eliminated entirely.

The Stealth Labz operation tracked every SaaS dollar across a 28-month period (February 2024 through January 2026) using QuickBooks-verified financial records. The total: $19,909 across six vendors. Here is exactly where that money went — and how every dollar of it was eliminated.

What the Data Shows

The Vendor-by-Vendor Breakdown

Vendor 1: Konnektive CRM — $9,497 total ($583/month)

Konnektive handled order management, customer records, and affiliate tracking. It was the most expensive single platform and the most deeply embedded in the operation. Customer data, transaction histories, and attribution records all lived inside Konnektive. The monthly cost fluctuated based on transaction volume, averaging $583 per month over the periods it was active.

What replaced it: PRJ-01's CRM module with 135 database tables, identity resolution, and lead-level revenue attribution. Not a lateral move to a cheaper CRM — a move to a fundamentally different system that does more with zero monthly fee.

Vendor 2: TrackDesk — $5,988 total ($499/month)

TrackDesk handled affiliate tracking and payouts: click tracking, conversion attribution, and commission calculations. At $499 per month, it was the second-largest line item. The platform worked but operated as a silo — affiliate data lived in TrackDesk, customer data lived in Konnektive, and connecting the two required integration work.

What replaced it: PRJ-01's affiliate tracking system with click tracking, conversion processing, postback firing with retry logic, and a 4-tier affiliate management system. All data now lives in the same database as customer records, eliminating the need for cross-platform attribution reconciliation.

Vendor 3: Socioboard — $1,575 total ($143/month)

Socioboard handled social media management: content scheduling, monitoring, and analytics. Relatively low monthly cost, but the data it generated (engagement metrics, content performance) was completely disconnected from customer and revenue data.

What replaced it: PRJ-01's notification and content management capabilities. Social metrics now feed into the same analytics pipeline as all other business data.

Vendor 4: SendGrid/Twilio — $1,584 total ($180/month)

SendGrid handled transactional email and Twilio handled SMS messaging. These were utility-level services — pay per message, usage-based pricing. The integration between these messaging services and the CRM required custom connections that broke when APIs changed.

What replaced it: PRJ-01's notification system handling email, SMS, and Telegram from within the platform. Outbound messaging through SendGrid/SMTP and Dripcel is now controlled by internal logic rather than separate platform configurations.

Vendor 5: Klaviyo — $720 total ($60/month)

Klaviyo handled email marketing automation: drip campaigns, segmentation, and subscriber management. The lowest monthly cost, but the data it held (subscriber engagement, campaign performance) was another silo that could not be connected to the complete customer picture without manual reconciliation.

What replaced it: PRJ-01's audience builder with 26 persona segments and configurable feed routing with suppression and throttle caps. Segmentation now operates on the complete customer profile, not just email engagement data.

Vendor 6: Sonetel — $545 total ($100/month)

Sonetel provided phone and communications services: call routing, virtual numbers, basic call tracking. The smallest line item, but still a separate login, a separate data silo, and a separate vendor relationship to manage.

What replaced it: PRJ-01's communications layer integrated directly into the platform.

The Combined Impact

Vendor	28-Month Spend	Monthly Cost	Status
Konnektive CRM	$9,497	$583	Replaced
TrackDesk	$5,988	$499	Replaced
Socioboard	$1,575	$143	Replaced
SendGrid/Twilio	$1,584	$180	Replaced
Klaviyo	$720	$60	Replaced
Sonetel	$545	$100	Replaced
Total	$19,909	$1,565/mo	$0/mo now

Source: 28_month_financial. All costs QB-verified from vendor transactions in 28_Month_Source_of_Truth_1.xlsx. Period: February 2024 through January 2026.

According to Productiv's 2024 SaaS benchmark, the average company's SaaS spend grows 18% year over year without active management. If the Stealth Labz operation had kept these vendors and costs grew at the industry average, the annual spend would have reached approximately $22,151 in year three and $26,138 in year four. Eliminating the expense entirely avoids not just the current cost but the compounding future cost.

The cost trajectory tells the full story:

Month	SaaS Vendor Spend	Contractor Spend	Total Monthly Cost
Jul 2025	$1,346	$0	$1,931
Aug 2025	$1,492	$4,330	$6,513
Sep 2025	$1,082	$6,486	$8,367
Oct 2025	$1,715	$2,443	$6,070
Nov 2025	$563	$5,139	$6,999
Dec 2025	$499	$0	$1,035
Jan 2026	$0	$0	$0

Source: 28_month_financial. Cost trajectory table from PRJ-01 impact section.

By January 2026, every SaaS vendor was decommissioned. Monthly vendor cost: $0. Monthly contractor cost: $0. Ongoing infrastructure cost: approximately $825 per month for hosting and AI tools across the entire 10-system portfolio.

How It Works

Each vendor was replaced individually as PRJ-01's corresponding capability reached production readiness. This was not a one-day cutover. It was a systematic decommissioning over four months:

• October 2025: SaaS spend still at $1,715 (build underway, all vendors active)
• November 2025: SaaS spend drops to $563 (Konnektive and TrackDesk decommissioned or reduced)
• December 2025: SaaS spend drops to $499 (most vendors off)
• January 2026: SaaS spend reaches $0 (all vendors decommissioned)

The replacement platform cost $16,800 to build. That is less than one year of the SaaS costs it eliminated ($18,780 annualized). The payback period was under 11 months. Every month after payback is permanent savings.

What This Means for Business Operators

Pull your credit card statements for the last 12 months. Add up every SaaS subscription. For the Stealth Labz operation, that exercise revealed $19,909 in cumulative spend across six vendors over 28 months, plus $62,731 in contractor costs to maintain the integrations between them.

The question is not whether $1,565 per month in SaaS feels like a lot. The question is whether $1,565 per month, compounding at 18% annually, with $5,228 per month in hidden integration costs on top, is the best use of operating budget when a $16,800 one-time build can replace all of it.

For this operation, the answer was clear. Six vendors. $19,909 in cumulative spend. All eliminated. Permanently.

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Related: [C5_S101 — How We Replaced 6 SaaS Vendors with 1 Custom Platform] | [C5_S102 — The Hidden Costs of SaaS] | [C5_S107 — When to Build Custom Software vs When to Keep Paying for SaaS]

References

1. Zylo (2024). "SaaS Management Index." SaaS license waste benchmarks (25% average unused or underutilized).
2. Productiv (2024). "SaaS Benchmark Report." Year-over-year SaaS spend growth rate (18% average without active management).
3. Keating, M.G. (2026). "Case Study: The Platform Displacement." Stealth Labz. Read case study