All businesses / Content site with affiliate / Tools
Most "best software" lists are written for everyone and therefore for nobody. This one is filtered to Content site with affiliate at €100–€600 of startup capital and 6–20 hours a week, which changes the answer.
At 95% net margin and 32 weeks to your first euro, every subscription you start today is a cost you carry through the unpaid months. The order that works is: get a customer, then buy the thing that customer made necessary.
Tools that exist for this kind of work and would make little sense for another.
AI assistant, writing, code, analysis
Max users get guest passes and $10 credit per paid referral. That is a referral perk, not income. The Partner Network is enterprise co-selling, not links.
Visit Claude (Anthropic) →AI assistant and API
Write about it anyway: it pulls search traffic that then converts on the tools next to it. Just never build a page expecting it to pay.
Visit ChatGPT (OpenAI) →Backlinks, keywords, site audit
Deliberately has no affiliate program. Mention it for credibility, link Semrush for income.
Visit Ahrefs →Not specific to this trade. These are the ones almost every new business ends up paying for, listed so the total is honest rather than flattering.
Software is the cheap half. These are the things this business cannot start without, and none of them are a subscription:
Right now we earn nothing from any of the 19 tools on this page, and every card says so. As programmes are approved, the ones that pay us will be labelled individually. Claude, ChatGPT, Ahrefs, Midjourney and Google Business Profile have no affiliate programme at all, and they still appear where they belong. If a recommendation only ever pointed at things that paid us, the page would be worth nothing to you.
Check the business clears your target first. Spending on tools for a model that doesn't fit your hours or your capital is the most common way people lose their first thousand euros.