The mid-market consolidation we predicted in February is now visible in invoices. Twelve teams shared their before/after stacks with us under NDA. The median: $412k annual to $138k annual, with comparable or better output.
The five tools showing up most often: a workflow runtime (Make or n8n self-hosted), a typed data layer (a single Postgres + dbt), a single LLM gateway (with usage caps per team), a vector store collocated with the data layer, and a lightweight CDP that does identity resolution but not orchestration.
What's notably absent: the all-in-one suites. Not because they're bad, but because the integration tax of one suite locks the team into that suite's roadmap. The unbundled stack moves at the team's pace.
Switching cost was real, a median of nine weeks of parallel-running before the old stack could be retired. None of the twelve teams went back.
"The stack didn't get cheaper because the vendors got cheaper. It got cheaper because one operator with five well-chosen tools replaced four seats and a service contract."