# Running the business

> Payments, analytics and the daily tools. Nicolas Dao's picks for this job (Cloudless Labs, Sydney), in order of preference, what he would avoid, and what to use instead.

- Use case 21 of 21 in The Stack, last reviewed 21 October 2026
- Web page: https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/use-cases/business/

Picks, in order of preference:

1. **[Stripe](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/stripe/index.md)** (My default): Payments.
2. **[PostHog](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/posthog/index.md)** (My default): Analytics.
3. **[GitHub](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/github/index.md)** (My default): Notes and docs as Markdown.

Don't:

- ~~Slack~~: A distraction: always-on chat fragments the day. Email and WhatsApp are enough for clients, and notes and docs live as Markdown in GitHub. Instead: [GitHub](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/github/index.md).
- ~~Jira, Asana, Monday.com and heavy project-management software~~: Process for the sake of process. Jira, Asana and Monday.com turn a small team into ticket administrators. A minimal board is enough. Instead: [Trello](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/trello/index.md).

## The picks in brief

- [Stripe](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/stripe/index.md): My default. Payments, mine and my clients'. Pricing: Australian cards: 1.65% + A$0.30 domestic, 3.5% + A$0.30 international, plus 2% when currency conversion applies. No setup or monthly fee. Disputes A$25 each. Billing (subscriptions) adds 0.7% of billing volume on pay-as-you-go; Managed Payments (Stripe as merchant of record) adds 3.5% per transaction.
- [PostHog](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/posthog/index.md): My default. Product analytics, feature flags and session replay in one tool. Pricing: Free every month: 1M analytics events, 5,000 session recordings, 1M feature-flag requests, 100,000 exceptions and 1,500 survey responses. Then usage-based, falling with volume: $0.00005 per event and $0.005 per recording at the first paid tier. Events tied to a person profile cost extra. Optional platform add-ons from $250 a month.
- [GitHub](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/github/index.md): My default. Code, notes and docs. Everything integrates with it first. Pricing: Free: unlimited private repos and 2,000 Actions minutes a month. Team: $4 per user a month, with 3,000 minutes and protected branches on private repos. Secret push protection on private repos is an add-on (GitHub Secret Protection, $19 per active committer a month).

## Related

- [Build and test](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/layers/dev/index.md): every tool in this layer
- [Business tools](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/layers/business/index.md): every tool in this layer
- [Every use case and tool in one file](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/brief.md)
- [Map of every Markdown file on cloudlesslabs.com, with what each one answers](https://ask.cloudlesslabs.com)