Saturday Sessions: Slashing Subscriptions

Death by 1000 cuts

Author

Kyle Balmer
October 25, 2025

Hey Prompt Entrepreneur,

I saw this tweet last week:

Linktree, a basic “social link page” tool bumped their price by 60%! 

And, as Max points out, it’s something that can now be coded up by AI in minutes.

So…never afraid of a challenge right there, in the background of my stream, I opened Lovable and said "build me a Linktree clone."

Ten minutes later I had a basic version with full functionality.

Twenty minutes later it looked and felt good for me.

Thirty minutes laters my Linktree subscription was cancelled.

Not "I'll deal with this later" cancelled. Actually cancelled.

Here’s my duplicated admin panel:

And here’s the actual AI with Kyle Links Page.

Is this impressive? No not really. But nor is a Linktree page - it’s a page of…well, links. That’s it. And this way I’m not paying $15/month for one simple page.

You might be thinking it’s only $15 a month. An extra six dollars after the 60% price rise, who cares? That’s tiny. It’s whatever when you are running a business just eat the cost. Why is he making a fuss over this.

Well, my business has 30+ active subscriptions. Most months we don't even use half of them. Do an audit every six months and there's always that moment: "Wait, what's that charge? Did they put their price up again?"

It adds up. Fast.

If you play video games this is DoTs. Damage over time. Chip damage. Chipping away at your business’ financial health.

But….we can replace most of these costs trivially easily now. Not all of them, obviously. Good luck vibe coding your own Salesforce. But Linktree? Typeform? Calendly? Absolutely doable.

Or maybe you're just starting out in business? These costs can kill you before you've got any cashflow. Typeform is £30-45 a month! For FORMS. Christ, that's greedy.

Let's get started:

✍️ Summary

  • Why subscription bloat is costing you more than you think

  • How to audit your subscriptions and find replacement candidates

  • The "strip down and rebuild" process for simple SaaS tools

  • When to replace vs when to keep paying

  • How to turn your replacement into a product for others

Your Subscription Problem

Look at your business bank statement from last month. Scroll through those recurring charges. I'll wait.

There's the obvious ones you use daily. Slack, Google Workspace, maybe your CRM. But then there's Loom (when did we last record a video?), Calendly (we could just use Google Calendar?), Grammarly (AI does this now?), and about fifteen other things you signed up for during some forgotten optimisation phase.

Each one made sense at the time. Each one is "only" £10-20 a month. It’s whatever. But multiply that by 30 tools and you're haemorrhaging £300-600 monthly on software you barely touch.

The maths is particularly brutal when you're bootstrapping. That's £3,600-7,200 yearly that could be hiring someone, buying ads, or simply staying in your pocket. And if you aren’t making profit yet? That overhead is pummelling your early growth.

And that's before companies like Linktree decide to jack prices up 60% overnight because, well, what are you going to do about it punk?

This is what you're going to do about it. Let’s get to work.

The Audit: Finding Your Targets

First, make a list. Every subscription your business pays for. Use your bank statements, credit card bills, and that folder of receipts you've been ignoring. This is boring but important - as most important things are sorry!

Now, here's the prompt I use to work out what's replaceable: 

I have these active subscriptions in my business: [paste your list with costs and what they do] 
Analyse each one for: 
1. Replaceability score (1-10, where 10 is "trivial to rebuild with AI coding tools") 
2. Core functionality (what it actually does vs all the features you don't use) 
3. Estimated time to build a basic replacement using vibe coding 
4. Annual cost saved if replaced Rank them by best ROI: highest cost savings + easiest to build first.

Run that through Claude or ChatGPT and you'll get your hit list. Linktree-style tools? Easy wins. Form builders like Typeform? Absolutely doable but some more work. Calendly-type booking systems? Bit more complex but still manageable.

On the flip side, things like Salesforce, your email platform with 50,000 contacts, or tools with deep integrations across your business? Leave those alone. The juice ain’t worth the squeeze.

The Strip Down and Rebuild Process

Right, you've picked your target. Let's say it's Typeform because you're paying £45 a month for something that collects text and emails. Sorry, you can probably tell I’m mad at Typeform!

Step One: Screenshot Everything

Open the tool. Take screenshots of:

  • The main admin interface you use

  • Any forms or templates you've created inside

  • The output/results view

  • Settings you actually care about

Get comprehensive. You want the AI to see exactly what you use, not just the marketing site.

Step Two: Build It

Open Lovable, Cursor, or Claude Code (I use all three depending on mood). Attach those screenshots and describe what you want: 

I want to build a replacement for [tool name]. 

I need these specific features:
- [What you actually use feature 1]
- [What you actually use feature 2]
- [What you actually use feature 3]

See the attached screenshots for the UI and functionality.

I don't need [list the features you never touch - teams, advanced analytics, integrations, etc]

Build it with a clean, modern interface similar to the screenshots. Make it mobile-responsive.

Notice how I’ve stripped out features. Why? Well, most of the time you don’t use all the features in a tool - they tend to be bloated. For instance Linktree. I just want a nice look link page where I can easily swap links in and out. That’s….kinda it.

But over the years Linktree has added social schedulers, IG DM response bots and lots of other stuff that I just don’t need or want. But I’m still paying for.

For the simplicity of the duplication I tell me tool “leave all that crap out and focus on these important parts”. That way we aren’t wasting time build stuff we don’t need. And the build will go much smoother as a result!

Step Three: Iterate Until It Works

Your first version won't be perfect. Mine rarely are.

With Linktree, the initial version was functional but bland. I wanted that little "jiggle" animation they use to draw attention to priority links. Wasn't in my prompt, wasn't in the screenshots (subtle animation doesn't capture well in still screenshots obviously!).

So I told it: "Add a gentle bounce animation to the top link that loops every 3 seconds." Done in 30 seconds.

Found a bug on mobile? "The buttons are too close together on iPhone, add more spacing." Fixed.

This is the normal process. Prompt, test, refine, repeat until you're happy.

Usually takes 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on complexity and how specific your initial prompt was. Make sure each fix is one thing and specific.

Step Four: Cancel That Subscription

The satisfying bit. Log into the original tool, hit cancel, and watch that monthly charge disappear. Tada!

When to Replace vs When to Keep Paying

Again, not everything is worth replacing. Don’t come at me and tell me that it’s stupid to try to vibe code your own version of Stripe. I 1000% agree. So…chill!

Here are some basic rules of thumbs.

Replace if:

  • You use less than 30% of features

  • It's a simple input/output tool

  • The monthly cost genuinely bothers you

  • You have 2-3 hours to build and test a replacement

  • The original tool isn't deeply integrated into your workflow

Keep paying if:

  • It's your core business tool (ie. your CRM with years of data)

  • Integration with other systems is crucial

  • The time to rebuild is better spent elsewhere

  • Your team uses it extensively and retraining costs matter

  • It's complex enough that vibe coding would take weeks

I'm not suggesting you rebuild Salesforce in an afternoon. I'm suggesting you stop paying £45/month for a form builder when you can make your own in an hour.

The Bigger Play: Build Once, Sell Many

Here's where it gets interesting.

You've just solved your own problem. Nice. But guess what? If you're feeling this subscription pain, thousands of others in your industry are too. You just found a potential product.

That Linktree replacement you built for yourself? Clean it up, add user authentication, and you could sell it for £5/month to people who think £15 is mental for a link page. Maybe niche it down for you particular niche too.

The form builder that replaced your Typeform? Add a backend so each user can save their own forms. Now you're competing with Typeform at a fraction of their price.

Is this more complex than your personal replacement? Absolutely! You'll need:

  • User authentication

  • A database for each user's data

  • Security considerations

  • Payment processing

  • Support systems

It's 100 times more complex than a personal tool. But it's also doable, especially since you've already worked out the core functionality. You know what matters because you've been the user. Soooo…if you've solved a problem your industry has, build it for yourself first, then build it for others. And charge for it. It can be that simple at times - don’t make life more complex than it has to be!

Tell Me What You're Replacing

Right, here's where I need your help.

I want to start building these replacements publicly. For fun. Live streams, step-by-step guides, the full process from "I'm sick of paying for this" to "subscription cancelled."

But I want to build the ones YOU're actually struggling with. The subscriptions that are genuinely painful for your business.

Reply to this email and tell me:

  • What subscription you want to replace

  • What it costs monthly

  • What you actually use it for (not what it can do, what YOU do with it)

I'll pick the most requested ones and build them live. You'll get to watch the entire process, ask questions, and walk away with the process to run yourself.

Oh and if you've already replaced something yourself? Even better. Tell me what you built and how it went. I'll feature the best ones in future newsletters (if you don’t mind sharing?)

Keep Prompting,

Kyle