TLDR: Spend one afternoon listing every tool you pay for, who uses it and which of five jobs it does (plan, create, publish, engage, report). Cut or merge any job that two tools share, then check the billing basis. Per seat and per channel prices grow with your team. Flat prices do not.
A stack grows one useful purchase at a time. A scheduler here, a design tool there, a separate inbox, a reporting add-on. Two years later you pay for six logins and still copy numbers into a spreadsheet by hand.
The audit below takes about three hours. You need access to your card statement and your team's login list.
List every tool and its owner in one sheet
Open your bank or card statement for the last three months and pull every software line. Add the free tools too, because free tools still cost time.
Use these columns:
| Column | What to write |
|---|---|
| Tool | Name |
| Job | Plan, create, publish, engage or report |
| Owner | The one person who decides to renew |
| Billing basis | Per seat, per channel, per workspace or flat |
| Last used | Date of the last login or last action |
If you cannot name an owner, that tool is your first cut. Nobody is accountable for it.
Mark overlaps by job, not by brand name
Sort the sheet by the Job column. Any job with two or more tools is an overlap. The most common ones in social teams are:
- Two schedulers, because an agency and an in-house team each bought their own
- A design tool and a separate template tool
- A standalone inbox next to the scheduler's inbox
- A reporting tool that only repackages data from a scheduler
You do not have to drop one immediately. Write down which of the two the team actually opens and why.
Check the billing basis before you check the price
The headline price is less useful than what you are charged for. In Mydrop's September 2026 pricing check of eight tools often compared with it, plans are billed per channel, per user, per seat or per workspace. All of those grow when you add a client, a freelancer or a brand.
Ask one question for each tool: what happens to this bill if we add three people and two brands next quarter? A flat plan stays the same. The others do not. The compare pages show how popular tools charge.
Cut by evidence: last login, last post, last report
Use your sheet and apply three rules.
- Not opened in 60 days: cancel.
- Only one person opens it and it duplicates another tool: move that person's work and cancel.
- Does a job that no one can name: cancel.
Keep a short list of "tools we are keeping and why" so the next audit is faster.
Merge the publishing, inbox and reporting jobs first
These three jobs sit closest together, and they are where the biggest savings usually are. A tool that schedules posts, receives comments and builds reports means fewer logins, fewer exports and one set of permissions.
Mydrop covers scheduling across 14 networks, a social inbox, approvals and white-label reports in one workspace. Consolidating reporting is its own project, which this 60-minute guide walks through.
Count the hidden costs, not only the invoice
Every extra tool also costs time. Someone resets passwords, someone exports data, someone explains which tool holds the final version. Add a rough hours per month to your sheet next to the price. A cheap tool that eats three hours a month is often the most expensive one in the stack.
Plan the switch so nothing breaks mid-campaign
Never cancel before you have moved the work. Do it in this order:
- Pick a quiet week with no big launches.
- Move the content calendar and templates first.
- Run both tools in parallel for one week.
- Export history you need, then cancel at the next renewal date.
Set a calendar reminder 30 days before each annual renewal. Most overspend happens because nobody remembered to look.
Book the audit this week
Block three hours, make the sheet, and cut at least one tool that has no owner. If you want to test a single tool for scheduling, inbox and reporting, start with Mydrop free and run it next to your current setup for a week before you decide.
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