We consolidated our PMM tech stack from 12 tools to 4

I opened my laptop Monday morning to find seventeen browser tabs already loaded. Each one was a different tool I needed to do my job as a product marketer.

Klue for competitive intelligence. Crayon for tracking competitor changes. Google Docs for battle cards. Notion for launch planning. Asana for project management. Gong for customer call recordings. Dovetail for research synthesis. Canva for one-pagers. Google Sheets for metrics tracking. Slack for everything else.

And those were just the tools I used daily. We had subscriptions to six more tools that various team members used occasionally.

Our PMM team of five was spending $84,000 annually on tools. More concerning: we were spending 10+ hours per week per person just managing the tools instead of using them.

"Where did we document that competitor's new pricing?" became a scavenger hunt across four different systems. "What was the launch timeline for Product X?" required checking Asana, Notion, and someone's Google Doc. "Do we have research on this buyer persona?" meant searching Gong, Dovetail, Google Drive, and hoping you found it.

We'd accumulated tools incrementally over three years. Each solved a specific problem at a specific moment. None of them talked to each other. The result was a Frankenstein stack that made simple tasks complex and knowledge impossible to find.

I spent two months consolidating our PMM tech stack from 12 tools down to 4. We cut annual costs from $84K to $41K. More importantly, we eliminated probably 30 hours per week of collective time spent managing tools instead of doing actual work.

Here's how we did it, what we learned, and what I'd do differently.

How We Got to 12 Tools (The Slow Boil Problem)

Tool sprawl doesn't happen overnight. It accumulates slowly, one reasonable decision at a time.

Year 1: We were two PMMs. We used Google Workspace (free), Asana (team already used it), and Gong (sales already had it). Total cost: $0 incremental to PMM.

Year 2: We hired two more PMMs. Someone said "we should track competitors better" so we added Crayon ($6K/year). Someone else said "we need better battle cards" so we added a template tool ($2K/year). We wanted customer research capabilities so we added Dovetail ($5K/year).

Year 3: New VP Marketing joined with strong opinions about tools. "You need proper competitive intelligence" → Klue ($15K/year). "Launch management needs structure" → Productboard ($12K/year). "You should test messaging" → Wynter ($8K/year).

We were now at 9 subscribed tools plus Google Workspace, Asana, and Gong. Nobody had paused to ask whether we needed all of them or whether there was overlap.

Then the questions started:

"Why are we paying for both Klue and Crayon? Don't they do the same thing?"

Kind of. Klue was better for deep competitive analysis. Crayon was better for automated tracking. We used both.

"Why are we using Notion, Productboard, and Asana for project management?"

Different use cases. Notion for documentation. Productboard for roadmap visibility. Asana for task management. (In retrospect: this was insane.)

"Where is our source of truth for customer research?"

Uh... Gong for call recordings, Dovetail for synthesis, Google Docs for reports, Notion for insights repository. (No wonder we couldn't find anything.)

We'd optimized for point solutions instead of integrated workflows. Each tool was great at one thing. Together they created chaos.

The Wake-Up Call: Calculating True Tool Cost

I thought we were spending about $50K on tools. When I actually audited our subscriptions, it was $84K.

But the real cost wasn't the subscription fees—it was the productivity tax.

Time spent managing tools instead of using them:

• Searching for information across multiple systems: ~4 hours/week per person
• Duplicating work because we couldn't find existing work: ~2 hours/week per person
• Reformatting content to move between tools: ~2 hours/week per person
• Training new team members on our tool stack: ~8 hours per new hire
• Maintaining integrations and workflows: ~3 hours/week total

For a team of 5 PMMs, that's 40 hours per week spent managing tools. At $150/hour fully-loaded cost, that's $6K per week or $312K annually in wasted productivity.

The tool subscriptions were $84K. The productivity cost was $312K. We were spending $396K annually on a tool stack that made us less efficient.

That calculation made the consolidation project a no-brainer.

The Consolidation Strategy: Integrated Over Point Solutions

I made a list of every workflow PMM needed to do:

1. Track competitor changes (product, pricing, messaging)
2. Analyze competitive positioning and create battle cards
3. Plan and execute product launches
4. Create sales enablement materials
5. Conduct and synthesize customer research
6. Manage messaging and positioning documentation
7. Track PMM team projects and deadlines
8. Measure impact (win rates, launch metrics, adoption)
9. Collaborate with Product, Sales, and Marketing

Then I mapped which tools we were using for each workflow. Most workflows touched 3-4 different tools.

Example workflow: Creating a battle card

1. Pull competitor intel from Klue
2. Check recent updates in Crayon
3. Write battle card in Google Docs
4. Design one-pager in Canva
5. Upload to shared drive
6. Announce in Slack
7. Track usage in... nowhere, we didn't track it

Seven different tools for one workflow. No wonder it took days to produce a battle card.

The new strategy: Find integrated platforms that handled multiple workflows in one place instead of point solutions for each workflow.

This meant accepting that no tool would be "best-in-class" for every individual feature. Instead, we'd optimize for:

• Workflow integration (less tool-switching)
• Single source of truth (less searching)
• Reduced training time (less complexity)
• Lower total cost (fewer subscriptions)

The Consolidation: From 12 Tools to 4

Here's what we cut, what we kept, and what we consolidated into:

Kept (already company-wide):

1. Google Workspace - Docs, Sheets, Slides for cross-functional collaboration
2. Slack - Communication and integrations hub

Consolidated into: 3. Notion (kept and expanded) - Now our single source of truth for:

• Launch planning and tracking
• Competitive intelligence repository
• Customer research insights
• Messaging and positioning docs
• Process documentation
• Meeting notes and decisions

4. Integrated PMM platform - Consolidated competitive intelligence, launch management, and enablement workflows that were previously spread across Klue, Crayon, Productboard, and internal docs

Cut (eliminated entirely):

• Klue ($15K) - competitive intelligence functionality now in consolidated platform
• Crayon ($6K) - competitor tracking now centralized
• Productboard ($12K) - launch planning moved to Notion + PMM platform
• Dovetail ($5K) - research synthesis now in Notion
• Wynter ($8K) - reduced messaging testing frequency, use when needed
• Canva Pro ($2K) - free version sufficient for our needs
• Battle card template tool ($2K) - templates now in main platform
• Two random subscriptions people had forgotten about ($3K)

Cost reduction: $84K → $41K annually (saved $43K)

Productivity gain: Estimated 25-30 hours per week recovered across team

The Migration: Harder Than I Expected

Consolidating tools sounds simple. It's not.

The technical migration was the easy part. The hard part was changing team habits and dealing with loss aversion.

Week 1: Announced the consolidation plan

Team reaction: "But I love Dovetail for research synthesis!"

Me: "Notion can do 80% of what Dovetail does. The other 20% isn't worth maintaining a separate tool."

Team: "But it's so much better!"

Me: "Better at research synthesis, yes. But we'll save 4 hours per week not having to search across Dovetail, Notion, and Google Docs for insights. That's worth the tradeoff."

This conversation happened for every tool we cut. People get attached to their tools.

Week 2-4: Migrated content

I created a migration plan:

• Competitive intel: Migrate last 12 months from Klue/Crayon to consolidated platform
• Launch documentation: Migrate active launches from Productboard to Notion
• Research insights: Migrate key findings from Dovetail to Notion
• Archive everything else (searchable but not actively migrated)

The rule: If we haven't referenced it in 6 months, we archive it rather than migrate it. This prevented us from spending weeks migrating content we'd never use.

Week 5-6: Retrained the team

Built workflow guides for common tasks in the new stack:

• How to create a battle card (now one system instead of four)
• How to plan a launch (now Notion + PMM platform instead of Productboard + Asana + Docs)
• How to document research insights (now Notion instead of Dovetail + Docs)

Ran training sessions showing side-by-side comparisons of old workflow vs. new workflow and the time savings.

Week 7-8: Enforced the change

The hardest part: getting people to stop using old tools and commit to new ones.

I canceled the subscriptions. This felt aggressive but was necessary. As long as old tools were available, people defaulted to familiar workflows.

Some team members were frustrated. "I was in the middle of something in Productboard and now I can't access it!"

I held firm. We'd migrated active projects. Anything else could be recreated in 30 minutes or wasn't important enough to justify maintaining the old tool.

After two weeks of forced use, people adapted. After a month, they preferred the new stack.

What We Learned: Integration Beats Features

The most common pushback: "Tool X was better at Y than the consolidated solution."

This was often true. Dovetail's research synthesis was more sophisticated than Notion's database views. Klue's competitive battle card templates were more polished than what we built internally.

But "better" in isolation doesn't mean better for overall workflow.

Example: Research synthesis

Old workflow with Dovetail:

1. Record customer call in Gong (Tool 1)
2. Pull transcript from Gong (Tool 1)
3. Upload to Dovetail (Tool 2)
4. Tag themes in Dovetail (Tool 2)
5. Export insights summary (Tool 2)
6. Write research report in Google Docs (Tool 3)
7. Share in Slack (Tool 4)
8. Create insight entry in Notion repository (Tool 5)

New workflow with Notion:

1. Record customer call in Gong (Tool 1)
2. Create research note in Notion with transcript (Tool 2)
3. Tag themes in Notion (Tool 2)
4. Insights automatically appear in searchable database (Tool 2)
5. Share in Slack (Tool 3)

Yes, Dovetail had better tagging and theme analysis. But Notion eliminated three tool switches and kept everything in one searchable place. The integration more than compensated for the feature gap.

The principle: 80% functionality in an integrated workflow beats 100% functionality in a fragmented one.

The Unexpected Benefits of Consolidation

Beyond the obvious cost savings, consolidation delivered benefits I hadn't anticipated:

Onboarding time cut in half

New PMM hires used to spend their first two weeks learning our tool stack. Now they spend 3-4 days. The rest of the time goes to actually learning the business.

Knowledge became findable

With a single source of truth in Notion, "Where did we document X?" has an actual answer. Search one place, find what you need.

Previously, that question meant searching 4-5 tools and hoping you found it. Half the time we'd give up and redo the work.

Collaboration improved

When everything lives in the same system, it's easier to connect related work. Launch plans automatically link to competitive intel and customer research instead of referencing "see separate doc."

Product and Sales can access our Notion workspace. They couldn't access Klue, Dovetail, and Productboard. Now they see our work instead of just the outputs.

We stopped duplicating work

Before consolidation, two PMMs would unknowingly research the same competitor because they couldn't find each other's work across different tools.

After consolidation, the Notion database shows what research exists before you start. Duplication dropped to near zero.

What I'd Do Differently: Start with Workflows, Not Tools

If I were consolidating again, I'd start with workflow mapping instead of tool auditing.

The mistake: I began by listing all our tools and asking "which can we eliminate?"

Better approach: Map out key workflows end-to-end, identify where tool-switching creates friction, then design ideal workflows and find tools that support them.

Example workflow: Competitive battle card creation

Ideal workflow:

1. Identify need for battle card (competitor showing up in deals)
2. Gather competitive intel (product, pricing, messaging, customer feedback)
3. Synthesize into positioning and talk tracks
4. Design visual one-pager
5. Distribute to sales with context
6. Track usage and iterate based on feedback

Then ask: What's the minimum number of tools required to execute this workflow seamlessly?

The answer: 2-3 tools (competitive intel source, creation/collaboration tool, distribution/tracking).

We were using 7 tools. Most of the consolidation opportunities became obvious once we mapped workflows.

The Build vs. Buy Decision We Made

Some teams build internal tools instead of buying commercial software. We considered this.

What we built in-house:

• Battle card templates in Notion
• Launch planning frameworks
• Research synthesis templates
• Metrics dashboards

What we continued to buy:

• Competitive intelligence automation (tracking competitor changes)
• Collaboration platform (Notion)
• Communication (Slack)
• Customer call recordings (Gong)

The decision framework:

Build when:

• The workflow is unique to our company
• Commercial tools don't match our process
• We need full customization
• The cost of building is less than annual subscription

Buy when:

• Commercial tools offer automation we can't build cheaply
• The workflow is standard across companies
• We need integrations with other tools
• Support and updates are valuable

We've found most PMM workflows fall into the "buy" category. Building competitive tracking automation would cost more than subscribing to a platform. Building collaboration infrastructure would be insane when Notion exists.

We build templates and frameworks on top of platforms, but we don't build platforms themselves.

For Teams Facing Similar Tool Sprawl

If you're drowning in tools like we were, here's the consolidation playbook:

1. Audit true cost (subscriptions + productivity tax)

Calculate hours spent managing tools, not just subscription fees. That's your real cost.

2. Map workflows end-to-end

For each key workflow, document every tool involved and every handoff between tools. The fragmentation will be obvious.

3. Define integration requirements

What workflows must be connected? Where does tool-switching create the most friction?

4. Evaluate consolidated platforms

For teams looking to consolidate competitive intelligence, launch management, and messaging workflows, platforms like Segment8 demonstrate how integrated approaches can replace multiple point solutions while maintaining the functionality teams need across core PMM workflows.

5. Migrate systematically

Don't try to migrate everything at once. Active content first, archives second, old stuff never.

6. Enforce the change

Cancel old subscriptions once migration is complete. People won't fully commit to new tools while old ones are still accessible.

7. Measure impact

Track time saved, cost reduction, and team feedback. Prove the consolidation was worth it.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Tool Consolidation

Here's what nobody tells you: consolidating tools will make some people unhappy.

There will always be someone who loved the tool you're cutting. They'll argue passionately for keeping it. They'll claim productivity will suffer without it.

Sometimes they're right about individual features. They're usually wrong about overall impact.

The hard conversation I had:

Team member: "Dovetail is essential for research quality. We can't cut it."

Me: "How many research projects have we done in the last 6 months?"

Team member: "Eight."

Me: "And how many times have you gone back and searched those insights in Dovetail?"

Team member: "Maybe... twice?"

Me: "So we're paying $5K annually for a tool we reference twice in six months. And when we need those insights, we're searching Dovetail, Notion, and Google Docs. Consolidating to Notion means we'll actually find and use the research we've already done."

Team member: "But the synthesis capabilities..."

Me: "...are great. And worth it if we were doing 50 research projects per year. We're doing 16. The better synthesis doesn't justify the cost and fragmentation."

They weren't happy. They were right that Dovetail was better at research synthesis. But I was right that consolidation mattered more than marginal feature improvements.

As the person driving consolidation, you have to be willing to make people temporarily unhappy for long-term team benefit.

Most resistance fades after 4-6 weeks of using the new stack. People adapt. Workflows become familiar. The initial friction disappears.

But those first few weeks require conviction and clear communication about why you're doing this.

The Real Impact: Time to Do Actual Work

Six months after consolidation, I asked the team: "How much time do you spend managing tools versus using them?"

Before consolidation: ~10 hours per week managing tools, ~30 hours doing PMM work.

After consolidation: ~2 hours per week managing tools, ~38 hours doing PMM work.

We'd recovered 8 hours per person per week. That's 40 hours per week for the team—equivalent to hiring a full additional PMM, except we did it by cutting tools instead of adding headcount.

The CFO noticed. When I requested headcount for another PMM role the following quarter, they approved it without the usual lengthy justification process. We'd demonstrated operational discipline. That credibility paid off.

Tool consolidation isn't just about saving money—it's about proving PMM can operate efficiently and scale thoughtfully.

The teams that scale PMM successfully are the ones that build lean, integrated stacks instead of accumulating point solutions. They say no to tools that solve marginal problems. They optimize for workflow integration over feature completeness.

The teams that struggle are the ones that keep adding tools without removing any. They end up with 20+ subscriptions, spend half their time managing the stack, and wonder why they're not making strategic impact.

We went from 12 tools to 4. We saved $43K annually. We recovered 40 hours per week of productive time.

But the biggest win was proving that PMM could operate with the kind of operational rigor that earns credibility with finance and leadership. That credibility matters more than any individual tool.

Audit your stack. Consolidate ruthlessly. Get back to doing actual PMM work instead of managing tools.