How to Audit Your Marketing Stack and Cut Hidden Costs
- Kristen Hrabcsak
- Nov 19, 2025
- 4 min read
(For Business Owners Ready to Finally Stop Wasting Money)
If you're like most small to mid-sized businesses, you’re paying for far more marketing tools than you realize. Your team probably doesn’t fully utilize these tools or they overlap in features, and so they sit on your credit card quietly draining hundreds (or thousands) every month.
As a marketing company in Rhode Island, I see this constantly during our consulting audits. An under utilized marketing stack is one of the many red flags of a disorganized marketing system. If your marketing system is in chaos, your burning money, derailing strategy, and leaving teams reacting instead of executing with intention.
Today, I’ll walk you through How to Audit Your Marketing Stack and Cut Hidden Costs, using real world examples and actual price ranges so you know exactly where to look.
Why Most Businesses Bleed Marketing Dollars
Most teams inherit a patchwork of tools over the years:
A designer signed up for a Canva Pro account (or three)
Someone on the team bought a plugin for a WordPress feature that no one uses anymore
A former employee used software that’s still billing
Email platforms grow with your list but nobody checks the bill
Multiple analytics tools are collecting data that nobody reads
These are symptoms of Disorganized Marketing Systems and they’re costing your business more than you think.
Step 1: Conduct a Full Marketing Stack Inventory
Start by pulling every subscription tied to:
Company credit cards
Personal employee cards
PayPal
App Store / Google Play
Hosting accounts
Domain registrars (GoDaddy, Namecheap)
WordPress / Wix / Webflow site dashboards
Example of Marketing Stack Inventory:
A restaurant came to us for marketing consulting in Rhode Island because their costs “felt too high.” After auditing:
They were paying for 3 email platforms (Mailchimp + Constant Contact + Toast Marketing) = $326/month
Two different Canva Pro accounts = $25/month
Old reservation widget plugins still billing = $29/month
A legacy SEO tool nobody used = $119/month
Total savings after the audit: $499/month ($5,988/year) cut immediately.
Step 2: Review Website Technology & Plugin Costs
If your website was built quickly or by different teams over time, you probably have plugin bloat.
For businesses, here’s what we commonly uncover:
Real Costs to Watch For
Tool / Plugin | Typical Cost | Hidden Issue |
Yoast SEO Premium | $99/year | Paying for features not used properly |
Elementor Pro | $59-199/year | Multiple licenses across employees |
Scheduling Widgets (Calendly, Acuity) | $15-30/month | Using both when only one is needed |
Image Optimizers | $49-99/year | Duplicate plugins doing the same job |
Security Plugins | $60-250/year | Purchased because “it sounded important” |
Example of Plugin Costs:
A local retail store paid for 18 plugins, many duplicates.After consolidating, their plugin costs went from $1,046/year → $287/year.
Step 3: Audit Your Design Tools & Creative Subscriptions
Design subscriptions are the most common source of hidden spending.
Typical Design Subscription Costs
Canva Pro - $12.99/month per seat
Adobe Creative Cloud - $59.99/month per user
Shutterstock / iStock - $29–99/month
Remove.bg - $10–39/month
Creative Fabrica / Envato - $29–39/month
Real Example of Creative Subscriptions Overload:
A business with four employees had:
4 Canva Pro accounts
3 separate stock photo subscriptions
1 Adobe account nobody used since the designer left
After consolidating and centralizing oversight, they saved:$252/month ($3,024/year).
Step 4: Email Marketing & CRM Team Bloat
Email platforms are sneaky:When your subscriber count goes up, your bill goes up.
Typical Costs
Mailchimp = $69–$299/month
Klaviyo = $30–$1,000+/month (based on list size)
ActiveCampaign = $79–$149/month
HubSpot = $800–$3,600/month (yes, really)
Step 5: Ads, Analytics & Reporting Tools
Most businesses pay for analytics tools because someone said they “needed it” without understanding why.
Common Costs
SEMrush - $129-$499/month
Moz - $99-$179/month
CallRail - $45-$145/month
Heatmap tools (Hotjar, Clarity) - $39-$79/month
Where Waste Happens
Duplicate analytics tools
Call tracking for numbers that nobody uses
Paying for A/B testing tools without running tests
Paying for reporting dashboards no one reads
Example of Analytics Subscriptions:
A local service business had SEMrush and Moz and AgencyAnalytics.None of it was connected properly.
Cutting the redundancies saved $297/month.
Step 6: Evaluate Project Management Tools
Teams often have multiple platforms doing the same job.
Common PM Tools
Asana - $10-$25/user
Monday.com - $9-$29/user
ClickUp - $7-$19/user
Notion - $8-$15/user
Teams may have all of these, even if they only use one.
Step 7: Final Step - Build a Centralized, Strategic System
Once you identify waste, you create:
A Unified Marketing System That:
Has one source of truth
Uses one design platform
Has one email system
Uses one reporting dashboard
Aligns all tools with specific marketing goals
This is exactly what we build when businesses hire us for marketing consulting in Rhode Island: a streamlined, intentional system that no longer reacts, but executes.
Where the Hidden Costs Come From
Here’s your cheat sheet for the biggest money leaks:
Duplicate subscriptions (Canva, email platforms, CRMs)
Plugin bloat on WordPress
Multiple domain renewals you don’t use
Analytics tools and dashboards
Abandoned user accounts
Legacy tools from past employees
App Store purchases nobody checks
Ad platforms with unmonitored billing
Most businesses overspend 20-40% on their marketing stack simply due to disorganization.
Final Thoughts: It's Time to Audit Your Marketing Stack and Cut Hidden Costs
Auditing your marketing stack cuts costs, removes noise, gives clarity, and finally rebuilds your marketing strategy with intention.
When you eliminate Disorganized Marketing Systems, your team stops reacting and starts executing.
If you want help performing a full audit, optimizing your stack, and building a scalable system, Khrab Marketing & Design is your dedicated marketing company in Rhode Island that offers marketing consulting in Rhode Island and throughout the country. We’re ready to guide you through the process. Email info@khrab.com or contact us through our website.
