Our team has been fully remote for four years. We’ve tried everything.

Here’s what survived.

Communication

Slack: $8.75/user/month (Pro)

Still the standard. Tried Discord, Twist, Microsoft Teams. Nothing beats Slack’s UX and ecosystem.

Tips:

• Fewer channels is better
• Default to public channels
• Use threads religiously
• Async by default, meetings by exception

Loom: $15/user/month (Business)

For things too complex for text, too simple for meetings.

I record 5-10 Looms per week. Product demos. Feedback. Explanations. Saves hours of calls.

Zoom: $15.99/user/month (Pro)

For actual meetings. Google Meet and Slack Huddles work but Zoom is more reliable.

Keep meetings short. 15-25 minutes. Never an hour.

Project Management

Linear: $10/user/month

We switched from Jira. Never looked back.

Linear is fast. Opinionated. Less configurable than Jira, which is actually a feature. Less time configuring, more time building.

For engineering teams who value speed over customisation.

Notion: $10/user/month (Team)

Wiki, docs, databases, light project management.

Everything lives in Notion except code and development tasks. Meeting notes, company handbook, processes, proposals.

Tips:

• Create templates for everything
• Assign page owners
• Archive aggressively

Development

GitHub: $4/user/month (Team)

Industry standard. Code hosting, PRs, issues for non-Linear stuff, actions for CI/CD.

Vercel: $20/user/month (Pro)

Deployment platform. Push to main, site deploys. No DevOps required.

Worth every penny for small teams without dedicated infrastructure people.

Cursor/GitHub Copilot: $20/user/month

AI coding assistance. Different devs prefer different tools. We expense whichever they choose.

Design

Figma: $15/editor/month (Professional)

Non-negotiable for design work. The collaboration features are essential for remote teams.

Viewers are free. Only pay for people who create.

Finance & Admin

Xero: $51/month

Accounting. Covered in another post. Works well.

Gusto: $40/month base + $6/employee

Payroll and HR. US-focused but cleaner than Australian alternatives.

For Australian companies, Employment Hero or KeyPay.

Deel: Variable

For international contractors. Handles compliance, payments, contracts.

Essential if you hire outside Australia.

Productivity

Calendly: $12/user/month (Standard)

External meeting scheduling. Removes the back-and-forth.

Internal scheduling through Slack/calendar. Don’t need Calendly for team members.

1Password: $7.99/user/month (Business)

Password management. Not optional. Security baseline.

Team sharing features prevent “what’s the login for X” questions.

What We Dropped

Monday.com: Too cluttered. Switched to Linear.

Asana: Similar to Monday. Too much for our needs.

ClickUp: Tried to do everything, did nothing well.

Microsoft Teams: UX from 2005.

Basecamp: Good philosophy, limited features for development teams.

The Total Stack

Tool	Monthly Cost (10 people)
Slack Pro	$87.50
Loom Business	$150
Zoom Pro	$16
Linear	$100
Notion Team	$100
GitHub Team	$40
Vercel Pro	$200
AI Coding	$200
Figma	$45
Xero	$51
Gusto	$100
Calendly	$36
1Password	$80
Total	~$1,200/month

$120/person/month for the full remote work stack.

Not cheap. But cheaper than office rent, utilities, commute subsidies, and the other costs of physical workspace.

The Real Investment

Tools don’t make remote work succeed. Culture does.

Write everything down. Over-communicate. Trust people to manage their time. Measure outputs, not hours.

The tools just enable the culture you build.