The 26 Tools That Run Our AI Newsletter Business

After completely tearing down my other businesses, this is what’s left of our tools.

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Most new AI tools today aren’t worth paying for.

Very few of them work well…but most will slow you down.

Rather than spend the time to research, use, and determine whether or not you want to keep the software, I figured it would be helpful to show you what’s under the hood here at The Autopreneur.

I’ve spent thousands of dollars on software and AI tools in the last 2 years alone.

My background in Data Science allows me to quickly try out new tools, and then determine whether or not it should be used inside our business.

If you read last week’s deep dive on my “1 Goal Theory”, then you know I’m in the process of tearing down my other businesses and offers…

In order to pursue 1 Single Goal.

I’ll be focusing all my energy, capital, and labor into helping 100,000+ readers inside our newsletter.

If you subscribe, we’ll teach you how to build more efficient businesses with simple tech & tools.

So after combing through all the software we use, and eliminating stuff we won’t need…I decided to make a comprehensive list that will help you build a lean operation, without wasting time with the wrong tools.

My priority with our newsletter business is to keep the software as simple as possible, using only battle tested software that will still be around in 3 to 5 years.

Here’s what’s in store for this week’s Sunday Spotlight:

• The 26 Tools I Use to Automate My Newsletter Business

• 5 Unique Ways I’m Planning to Monetize this Newsletter

• Sharing My 2025 Revenue Results - Establishing the Baseline

…plus a free dashboard I built just for you.

Let’s dive in.

Our Brand New Tools Dashboard

Here’s a comprehensive list of the tools I’m currently using inside my newsletter business:

https://airtable.com/appOT4PeAX3qFObZB/shra6xSjoOueJTiFm

**This dashboard looks best on desktop, mobile isn’t great for viewing.**

I’ll also be updating this list often with new AI & Automation tools we’re researching, and providing demos inside of our Friday newsletter edition, The Founder’s Digest.

You can bookmark and use this dashboard whenever you want to lookup a new recommended tool.

If you have any suggestions for software that we should research → please comment below and we’ll add it to the list.

Costs of Our Current Tool Stack:

As of January 5th, 2025…

• 26 total in active use

• 7 tools we’re researching and testing

• Monthly subscriptions = $236.40

• Yearly subscriptions = $19.00

• One-Time Payments = $970.00

• Monthly Costs of Tools in Testing = $188.00

• NOTE:

  • Make = Free Until November 2025

  • Airtable = Free Until $2000 in credits are used up.

  • Keep reading below for more info on this…

The 26 Tools We’re Using to Run The Autopreneur

Here’s a list sorted from cheapest to most expensive.

For more detailed analysis on these tools, please watch this video and follow along with the dashboard or list below.

1. Substack

   • Newsletter hosting platform

   • One-time $50 payment for custom domain

   • Moved my newsletter from ConvertKit over to Substack to get more visibility & growth.

2. Cal

   • Free plan

   • Booking system

   • Replacing Calendly’s basic plan with Cal’s free plan for same usage.

3. Airtable

   • $30/month per user, but I now have it free for 3 to 4 years.

   • Content calendar, CRM, Automation capabilities, Data Analysis, and a ton more use cases.

   • Want $2000 of Airtable credits free? Join the Automation Lab and find out how…

4. Make

   • $19/month, but I have this free for a year.

   • No-Code Automation platform of choice. 

   • 99% of my business automations run through Make

   • Want 240,000 tasks and the premium tier free for 1 year? Join the Automation Lab and find out how…

5. Thrive Cart

   • $500 one-time payment, then you own it forever.

   • Checkout pages & simple funnels. Also has course hosting capabilities.

   • Using it for my 1v1 coaching checkout pages.

6. Telegram

   • Free

   • Internal team communication

   • Replaced Slack, we have a small team and most people like simple messaging platforms over large teamwide comms platforms.

7. OpenAI API & Claude API

   • One-time credit purchases.

   • Used for insert automation prompts and AI modules inside of Make or Zapier workflows

   • Can automatically “top up” your credit balance with putting a card on file.

   • **Different than ChatGPT or Claude’s chat product

8. Stripe & PayPal

   • Payment processors

   • Revenue-based fees

   • I like that PayPal gives you a business debit card too.

9. Tally Forms

   1. Free form builder

   2. Simple forms that you can create from scratch for websites or Notion docs.

   3. Been recently using this for agency (before shutting it down) proposals and having clients provide signature inside the Notion doc.

10. Fathom

• Free version

• Meeting recorder with great prompts & summaries attached

• Automation capabilities and can build inside of Zapier

11. OBS (Open Broadcasting Software)

• Free video streaming & recording

• Higher quality video recording than loom, most streamers use this.

• This is for my high production value youtube videos.

12. TurboTax

• Yearly tax filing software

• Pay one time, per use basis, no subscription. Maybe $280 last year?

• Been using for like 10 years and don’t see myself changing anytime soon.

13. Apify

• Limited, but useful free plan.

• Web/social media scraping, Content research

• Can setup scraping “actors” built by experts and use them in your make automations

14. Gamma

• Free plan is all you need

• Lead magnet creation, simple documents, embedded links & pay links. Their AI value adds are complete trash.

• I use this for YouTube presentations, workshops, sharing documents, and lead magnets.

15. Whimsical

• Free Flowchart software - one of my new favorites

• Using it for building internal operations workflows, and training others on processes.

• This may replace Notion for our internal SOPs and onboarding documents. Still in debate.

16. Google Workspace

• $7.20 per inbox

• Gmail, Google Drive, Google Meet currently

• Hate google meet recordings, debating adding Zoom instead

17. Twitter Blue

• $9/month

• Gives you the Verification checkmark, analytics, Grok access

• Probably also gives you more impressions but impossible to know

18. Canva

• $12/month

• Design assets, content, visuals

• My entire brand creatives are inside, I use for youtube thumbs, content, all of it.

19. YouTube Premium

• $14/month

• Ad-free viewing

• The time it saves me from clicking skip and not getting interrupted during learning and education.

20. Loom

• $15/month

• Video & screen sharing, simple editing.

• I use loom multiple times a day, providing client updates, whipping up content quickly, community videos & courses.

21. Carrd

• $19/year

• Simple Landing pages & websites

• Hosts my 5 day free email course (recently deprecated to focus only on newsletter)

22. Notion

• $28/month ($18 plan + $10 for AI add on)

• Project and task management

• Internal documentation, SOPs, Onboarding new members, training. Not sure if we’ll continue using as we downscale the infrastructure.

23. Linked Helper

• $45/month

• Safest LinkedIn automation tool

• I use for both outreach and email scraping for cold email campaigns. Lead gen is my primary use case.

24. Skool

• $99/month

• Community & course hosting platform

• Currently hosting our Automation Lab community, with all my templates, systems, and courses inside.

5 Unique Ways I’m Monetizing this Newsletter

Here’s how I plan to monetize The Autopreneur and my portfolio of newsletters.

Community + Courses:

• Instead of promoting individual courses and sending spammy email campaigns to offer them…I’ll simply tell you when a new course is launched here.

• All my best courses, systems, downloads, templates, automations, AI tools, etc will be located inside our Skool community for 1 monthly price.

• Join the community here: https://www.skool.com/the-automation-lab

• Network with other entrepreneurs, learn & install what systems & automations you need to improve your business, and get the bi-weekly coaching help from me during our Q&A calls.

Coaching 1v1:

• I’ll still continue to keep my private 1v1 coaching offer going throughout the year.

• It’s great data, feedback, and allows me to feel personally fulfilled in my life…just for helping someone else win. Probably the greatest feeling ever.

• Coaching is first come first serve, and there’s still 2 available spots left on my calendar for this month.

• Watch this video for more info on my coaching program.

• DM or email me with any questions.

Affiliate Links:

• I hate writers that spam affiliate links inside of generic newsletters. They give you zero knowledge or use case, not fair warnings or risks.

• Just because there’s an affiliate code, doesn’t mean you should promote it.

• Some of the tools you’ll see inside the dashboards and articles will have affiliate links, but you know how much I value these tools by the transparency we provide when reviewing them. I tell you exactly what I’m using or have used before.

• If ever I find a tool becomes outdated, you’ll hear about it from me first.

Sponsored Placements:

• Contrary to what the entire industry thinks…carving out a top location for a sponsored ad in your newsletter is not the only way to sell sponsorships.

• How many times do you just fast forward or scroll right past the ad placement? This benefits neither the audience, the buyer, nor the seller…

• We’ll do sponsored deep dives, live reviews and case studies, early access tool demos, and strategic ad placements for companies & creators that who want to get traffic.

Joint Ventures:

• Perhaps another author, creator, or business owner is looking for valuable B2B business traffic? Maybe they need help getting signups for a new product launch? Or to beta test an AI SaaS?

• You, the loyal subscriber, will get early access and discounts to various programs, courses, communities, cohorts, and software…just for being a fan of the Autopreneur.

• My network is extensive, and I’m constantly sourcing for mutually beneficial joint venture. I enjoy helping other entrepreneurs grow their revenue & their audience. If you’re interested, please email or DM me for more info.

My 2025 Revenue Results

This is our first official “Sunday Spotlight” of 2025.

Since we’re only 5 days into the new year…there isn’t much revenue to share lol.

I’ll be adding to a public dashboard that displays our revenue, goals, and milestones we’ve hit along the way.

I love the “build in public” style articles…

So once a month, I’ll send you an update on how my newsletter business is doing.

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I’m stoked to share this journey with you.

As we demo more AI tools & Automations, the curated list of software will continue to be updated every week.

If you’re someone who doesn’t have the time to research the thousands of new AI tools, then stay tuned…and bookmark this dashboard.

I dunno about you…

But I’ve got a really great feeling about 2025.

It's time to give up the old baggage…

To give yourself permission to finally achieve that 1 Huge Goal you’ve been obsessing over.

While you’re getting after it…

Don’t forget to read “The Autopreneur” every week…

I’ll give you all the tools you need to succeed, and nothing you don’t.

See you at the top, Autopreneur.

Ryan Hutchinson

P.S. If you found this breakdown helpful, feel free to share it with a fellow entrepreneur who might benefit from it.

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Whenever you’re ready, here’s 2 ways we can help you grow your brand or business online:

• Community + Courses:

  • Want to use more Ai tools and Automations in your business? Join today and get instant access to all the tools, systems, automations, and templates I used to get to $40k per month.

• 1v1 Coaching with Ryan:

  • I’ve got a systems methodology that will help your business grow in any niche. Click below to learn about some of my coaching clients and their success stories.

  • NOTE: Only 2 more coaching seats available for Q1. DM me with any questions