The Spreadsheet
Editorial clarification — October 11, 2026: This essay was originally titled “$890,546 is My 30-Year SaaS Tax.” The $2,400 monthly subscription spend is the author’s reported amount; a supporting subscription ledger and currency breakdown are unavailable here. The calculations below are explicit scenarios, not measured lifetime spending or investment results. The original headline amount is retained in the text as the historical reported output.
I added up my subscriptions last month.
Opened a spreadsheet. Listed every tool. Every monthly charge. Every annual plan divided by 12.
$2,400.
Knew it was a lot. But it felt manageable. Spread across a bunch of tools. Each one "only" $50 or $100 or $200.
Then I looked at a 30-year scenario.
The Number
The original calculation showed $890,546. With the stated $2,400 monthly spend held flat for 30 years, the reproducible total is $864,000.
I stared at it for a while.
That is a spending scenario, not an amount I have already paid. It assumes I keep the same $2,400 monthly spend for the full 360 months, before taxes, price increases or discounting.
For tools. Software. Things that could disappear tomorrow if the company gets acquired or shuts down or decides to 10x their pricing.
The Invisible Tax
Here's what makes this insidious.
A $20/month tool feels like nothing. Coffee money. Round up error.
A separate scenario: starting at $20 a month and increasing the price by 5% after each year produces $15,945 in nominal payments over 30 years. The 5% increase is an assumption, not a forecast.
I have maybe 15 subscriptions running right now.
Each one felt reasonable when I signed up. "Just $50/month." "Only $100/month." "Worth it for the time savings."
Nobody shows you the 30-year number. Because if they did, you'd think twice.
The Visibility Problem
We don't have a tools problem. We have a visibility problem.
The cost is real. But it's spread across decades, hidden in monthly charges, buried in annual renewals you forgot about.
You never see the full number because it never hits you all at once.
Until you sit down with a spreadsheet and do the math. Which almost nobody does.
The Calculator
So I built something that does it for you.
Enter your tools—or just your total monthly spend if you don't want to list them. Answer three questions about how you use them.
Get the 30-year number. The category breakdown. The opportunity cost if you invested instead.
And your "SaaS personality type." There are 7 archetypes. I'm the "Tool Collector." Reformed, apparently.
Here's the link: founderreality.com/tools/saas-tax
What Changes
This isn't about being cheap.
Some tools are worth paying for forever. I'll pay for Figma until I die. Same with a few others.
But some tools? I'm renting something I could own. Paying monthly for something I could build once. Subscribing to convenience I don't actually need.
The calculator doesn't tell you what to cut. It just makes the invisible visible.
What you do with that is up to you.
The Question
I also looked at a hypothetical investment comparison.
Investing $2,400 at the end of each month for 30 years, at an assumed 7% nominal annual return compounded monthly, produces about $2.93 million before fees and taxes. The return is an assumption; this is not a forecast or a guaranteed outcome.
That comparison shows a possible opportunity cost under those assumptions. It doesn't establish what I will spend or what an investment will return.
Every subscription is a choice about where today's money goes. Its value still depends on what it helps me do.
Some tools earn their cost. Others don't.
Conclusion
Go run your numbers: founderreality.com/tools/saas-tax
Takes 2 minutes. No login. Free forever.
The number will probably surprise you.
Mine still does.