Here is what I was paying every month before I stopped:
- HubSpot Starter: $50
- Twilio messaging: $120
- Bland AI phone agents: $200
- GoHighLevel: $297
- Zapier: $74
- Make.com: $59
- ElevenLabs: $99
- Airtable: $45
- Various smaller tools: $125
Total: $1,069/month for six businesses.
Now I pay $140. Here is exactly what changed.
What I Replaced and With What
HubSpot replaced by Supabase. PostgreSQL tables handle CRM, pipeline stages, and analytics. Cost: $25/month Pro plan. I get 142 tables, row-level security, 38 scheduled pg_cron jobs, and edge functions. HubSpot never gave me pg_cron.
Twilio replaced by VoIP.ms + Asterisk. Six business phone lines on flat-rate VoIP. One $14/month VPS runs Asterisk PBX. Total phone infrastructure: under $20/month.
Bland AI replaced by VAPI + self-hosted routing. VAPI charges per minute of AI conversation. Way cheaper than Bland for the same quality. Asterisk handles the routing logic. I built the scripts myself.
GoHighLevel replaced by nothing. The automation workflows GHL sells you are just Postgres triggers and pg_cron jobs. Zero monthly cost.
Zapier and Make replaced by BullMQ + Redis. Job queues on the same VPS. Redis is free. BullMQ is free. You get retry logic, dead letter queues, and concurrency control. Zapier gave me none of that.
ElevenLabs kept, but only the Starter tier. 30,000 characters per month at $5. Enough for 60 scripts per brand per month. When RunPod vLLM is live, I will replace this too with a self-hosted voice model.
Airtable replaced by Supabase. See above.
The Real Cost
The $140 breaks down as:
- Vultr VPS (4 vCPU / 8GB / 160GB SSD): $28/month
- Supabase Pro: $25/month
- VoIP.ms Flat Rate: ~$6/month for 6 DIDs
- VAPI per-minute usage: ~$30/month average
- ElevenLabs Starter: $5/month
- Miscellaneous domain and DNS: ~$8/month
- RunPod GPU (per job, not per month): ~$20/month estimated
What You Need to Replicate This
One Linux VPS. Ubuntu 22.04. 4GB RAM minimum. Node 20, Python 3.12, Redis, Asterisk, and Playwright installed.
One Supabase project. Free tier handles most workloads. Pro if you need more compute.
One VoIP.ms account with KYC approved. Takes 24-48 hours.
VAPI account for AI voice agents.
That is it. Everything else is code you write once and own forever.
The Part Nobody Tells You
The hard part is not replacing the tools. The hard part is rebuilding the workflows you depended on.
GoHighLevel had a visual workflow builder. Your replacement is Python and SQL. If you cannot write basic scripts, this transition will hurt.
Zapier had point-and-click integrations. Your replacement is BullMQ workers and HTTP calls. You will spend 2-3 weekends getting it right.
But after that weekend? You own everything. Nobody can raise your prices. Nobody can deprecate a feature you depend on. The workflow runs exactly how you wrote it.
That trade is worth it.
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