One Sunday morning while reconciling my books during a slow cash flow month, I was shocked to realize that I was paying nearly $300 a month in subscriptions to run my freelancing gig! Things like invoicing, project management, contracts and growing – it was seriously getting out of control.

Sure $7-$35 here and there was harmless, maybe even unnoticed most times. But after seeing all the subscriptions categorized (especially during a slow month) and knowing there’s over 40,000 plugins available in WordPress, I couldn’t help but wonder “What can WordPress replace?”

And with that, I started a journey into creating (even though I didn’t realize at the time) an extranet that my clients and I both could use, all with the ultimate goal of reducing my monthly operating costs.

This topic is about what I learned while creating my extranet and what monthly subscription services WordPress could totally replace, what it might be able to replace (depending on circumstances), what it should not replace and the unexpected benefits and head bumps I uncovered!

Presentation Slides »