What we use, what we rejected, and why
We pick tools for a living and the reasoning usually dies in a document nobody reads. These are the decisions, dated, with the prices and licence terms that actually decided them.
Including the ones we rejected — and who they would suit anyway. A tool being wrong for us is not the same as it being wrong for you, and a page that cannot say so is an advert.
GoHighLevel
RejectedAll-in-one agency platform
We exited after the per-sub-account costs made client pricing impossible to quote, and the AU rate card was never supplied after two written requests.
We paid for thisVerifiedCal.com
ConditionalScheduling and booking
Excellent self-hosted for your own bookings, and the wrong choice for client bookings — API-key creation is an Enterprise feature on self-hosted, so the free cloud tier is the cheap answer.
We ran this in productionVerifiedn8n
ConditionalWorkflow automation
We run it and rate it — and hosting client workflows on it requires a commercial agreement that the Sustainable Use Licence does not cover, confirmed to us in writing.
We ran this in productionVerified
Every entry carries an evidence grade, because “we ran this in production for months” and “we read the pricing page” are not the same claim. Oldest verification in this library: . Anything older than six months is due a re-check.