I personally only pay for three tools for my online business. I have those three tools listed below with a couple links to a few of the best options to go with. 1. Hosting: http://www.hostgator.com http://www.hastyhost.com http://www.gmdhosting.com 2. Auto responder service: http://www.aweber.com http://www.emailaces.com 3. Link tracking service: http://www.hitsconnect.com http://www.google.com/analytics That's it. Those are the only tools that I use and the only money I ever pay to any program that is not mine. The rest of my money gets spent on targeted advertising, script modifications, and graphics. If you take your business seriously you will invest in these tools for you business. These are the tools that are essential to any successful online business. If you do your marketing correctly and make the most of these tools, you will find that they will eventually pay for themselves.
Host Gator loses my vote, they were screwing me around for so long that I decided to quit yesterday, and instead get a host that can actually handle customer service. To date, they have stuffed up simple requests 4 times.