Japanese free-stack specifics
Japan has slightly fewer free SaaS options than Korea, but (1) free initial tiers for accounting (freee, MF), (2) Sansan's Eight is free for personal business cards, (3) global free tiers (Notion, Slack, HubSpot) support Japanese.
Free by category
CRM HubSpot Free, Zoho Bigin Free.
Business cards Eight (Sansan personal) — free.
Support Channel.io free (Japan plan).
Email Benchmark Email free (250/month), Brevo free, Mailerlite free.
Docs / project Notion free, Backlog free for 10 users (1 project), Slack free.
Automation Make free, n8n self-hosted, Yoom premium trial.
Accounting freee free trial, MF Cloud free plan, Yayoi free trial.
Analytics GA4, Microsoft Clarity, Yahoo! Ads free analytics.
AI ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini free, ELYZA free trial.
Meetings / video Zoom free (40-min cap), Notta free (120 min/month).
Recommended zero-yen stack
- HubSpot CRM Free
- Eight (business cards)
- LINE Official Account Free plan
- Notion Free
- Make Free or self-hosted n8n ($5/month)
- GA4 + Microsoft Clarity
- Claude Free
- Zoom Free
When to upgrade?
- 2+ team members: Slack/Notion paid
- 100+ customers: CRM paid
- Invoice System full compliance: freee paid
Pitfalls
- Unprepared migration after freee free trial: plan the upgrade up front
- Zoom 40-minute cap disrupting customer meetings: upgrade as soon as you have a team
- Hitting LINE Free friend cap: broadcasts get throttled
"Free start → validate → migrate" is the pattern here too. Early foundations: freee, Eight, LINE.