Internal · Technology & Operations · July 2026
A Mac-first, cloud-native operating stack with an AI overlay — engineered to convert market intelligence into three proprietary assets: data, intelligence, and inventory. Priced per person, scored against the mandate, with recommendations and a sequenced build plan.
The proposed stack is well-architected and on-thesis: it maps cleanly to a knowledge layer (Obsidian) → enrichment (AI) → warehouse (Snowflake) → surfacing (Hex), on Apple hardware, operable from anywhere. The recurring software and AI layer is inexpensive and best-in-class. The entire economic weight of the stack sits in one place: market data. Keep the design; make the money conversation a sequencing conversation.
Modeled on 5 employees. Software prices are current list / annual-commit rates. Market-data figures are estimates — those vendors quote privately and bundle by module and licence type; treat them as planning ranges, not quotes.
| Tool | Tier | $ / person / mo | $ / person / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace | Business Plus | 22.00 | 264 |
| Anthropic Claude | Team (annual) | 25.00 | 300 |
| OpenAI ChatGPT | Team | 30.00 | 360 |
| Perplexity | Enterprise Pro | 40.00 | 480 |
| ClickUp | Business | 12.00 | 144 |
| Obsidian | Commercial licence | 4.17 | 50 |
| 1Password | Business | 8.00 | 96 |
| Okta | Workforce Identity | 15.00 | 180 |
| CrowdStrike | Falcon Pro (~1.5 endpts) | 8.33 | 100 |
| Universal subtotal | 164.50 | 1,974 | |
| Platform | Basis | Company / mo | $ / person / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Sales Hub Pro × 3 seats | 270 | 54.00 |
| Hex | Team × 3 editors + compute | 375 | 75.00 |
| Snowflake | Standard, light usage | 500 | 100.00 |
| AWS S3 | Storage + egress | 100 | 20.00 |
| QuickBooks Online | Plus (1 company) | 115 | 23.00 |
| Banking fees | JPM / BofA / Mercury | ~50 | 10.00 |
| Google Drive | Pooled w/ Workspace | 0 | 0.00 |
| USGS data | Public | 0 | 0.00 |
| Shared subtotal | 1,410 | 282.00 | |
| Feed | Basis | Company / yr (est.) | $ / person / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bloomberg Terminal | 1 seat @ $31,980 | 31,980 | 533 |
| Benchmark Mineral Intelligence | Up-to-10-user tier | ~30,000 | 500 |
| S&P Global Commodity Insights | Platts, 1 sub | ~25,000 | 417 |
| Fastmarkets | Metals / battery pkg | ~18,000 | 300 |
| LME Data Services | Non-display licence | ~8,000 | 133 |
| CME Group Data Services | Non-pro market data | ~3,000 | 50 |
| USGS | Public reference | 0 | 0 |
| Market-data subtotal | ~115,980 | 1,933 | |
| Device | Config | Unit (est.) | Qty | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MacBook Pro 14" | M5 Max, 40-GPU, 128GB, 8TB | ~7,200 | 5 | 36,000 |
| iPhone 17 Pro | 1TB | ~1,499 | 5 | 7,495 |
| MacBook Air 13" | M5, 32GB, 4TB † | ~2,700 | 2 | 5,400 |
| One-time capex | ~48,895 | |||
| Amortized (36 mo) → per person / mo | ~272 | |||
† Spec flag: the MacBook Air currently maxes at 2TB storage (and 32GB memory), not 4TB. A 4TB build is only available on the MacBook Pro line. Confirm configured Apple prices at order.
Rated on fit to AeX's three proprietary assets — data, intelligence, inventory — plus the Mac-first and remote-operability requirements. High scores mean on-thesis and well-chosen; lower scores flag weak strategic fit or a better option below.
| Component | Score | Rationale | Call |
|---|---|---|---|
| MacBook Pro (M5 Max) | 9 | Workstation-class local compute for on-device AI and heavy analysis; anchors the Mac-first model. | Keep |
| MacBook Air (M5) | 8 | Ideal travel/remote unit — but correct the 4TB spec (Air maxes at 2TB). | Adjust |
| iPhone 17 Pro | 8 | Mobile command of ops and dashboards from anywhere; supports the remote mandate. | Keep |
| Google Workspace / Drive | 8 | Collaboration and identity backbone; Business Plus adds Vault/eDiscovery for compliance. | Keep |
| Anthropic (Claude) | 8 | Strongest agentic fit for the Obsidian knowledge layer. Core to proprietary intelligence. | Keep |
| OpenAI (ChatGPT) | 7 | Capable, but largely redundant with Claude at a universal seat. Consolidate. | Adjust |
| Perplexity | 7 | Fast sourced research and market scanning; feeds the data-gathering front end. | Keep |
| AWS S3 | 8 | Durable cloud-native store — the system of record beneath the proprietary-data asset. | Keep |
| Obsidian Vault | 9 | The knowledge layer itself: Mac-native, portable, plain-text, AI-legible. Central to the thesis. | Keep |
| Snowflake | 7 | Right long-term warehouse; likely heavier than a 5-person firm needs on day one. | Adjust |
| HubSpot | 6 | Sound CRM, but Sales Hub Pro is over-specced for a small counterparty book. Start Starter. | Adjust |
| ClickUp | 7 | Solid ops/workflow layer; watch overlap with Google Workspace and Obsidian tasks. | Keep |
| Hex | 8 | Directly delivers the executive-dashboard goal; notebook-to-app fits an analyst desk. | Keep |
| Banking (JPM / BofA / Mercury) | 6 | Necessary, but three institutions is heavy ops overhead at 5 people. Rationalize. | Adjust |
| QuickBooks | 7 | Standard, adequate; revisit vs. NetSuite only when trade accounting/consolidation grows. | Keep |
| Bloomberg | 9 | Gold standard and broadly overlapping — but $32K/seat. Defer until a live desk justifies it. | Sequence |
| Benchmark Mineral Intelligence | 10 | The most on-thesis feed listed — battery/rare-earth supply-chain and price intelligence. Lead here. | Keep |
| Fastmarkets | 9 | Deep critical-minerals price assessments; core to proprietary pricing intelligence. | Keep |
| S&P Global Commodity Insights | 8 | Broad Platts coverage; strong but overlaps Bloomberg/Fastmarkets — sequence. | Sequence |
| LME Data Services | 8 | Authoritative for exchange-traded base metals; licence-tier (display vs. derived) matters. | Keep |
| CME Group Data Services | 7 | Useful for futures/hedging; low cost. Add when hedging activity begins. | Keep |
| USGS | 8 | Free, foundational reference on production, reserves, and trade. No reason not to. | Keep |
| Okta | 7 | Right identity backbone; arguably early at 5 people when Workspace SSO + 1Password covers most. | Adjust |
| 1Password | 9 | Essential, cheap, Mac-native secrets management. No change. | Keep |
| CrowdStrike | 8 | Enterprise-grade endpoint protection consistent with a security-conscious posture; premium but justified. | Keep |
Two structural observations. First, there is a clean split between unstructured intelligence (Obsidian, S3) and structured data (Snowflake, Hex) — good, and it maps to the proprietary-data vs. proprietary-intelligence assets. Second, the proprietary-inventory asset has no dedicated system in the stack yet: physical position, offtake contracts, warehouse receipts, and reserve accounting have nowhere structured to live. That is the notable gap (Recommendation 10).
Sequence market data to commercial reality. This is 73% of run-rate and the only real lever. Lead with the on-thesis, team-priced feeds — Benchmark + Fastmarkets + USGS — which cover critical-minerals pricing and supply chains for a fraction of the total. Add LME/CME when hedging begins. Defer Bloomberg ($32K/seat) until a live trading desk needs real-time cross-asset depth; it broadly overlaps LME, CME, and Fastmarkets for this use. Deferring Bloomberg + S&P in year one saves ~$57K.
Buy data as shared, licensed seats — and scrutinize the licence tier. Exchanges and price-reporting agencies charge very differently for display vs. non-display / derived use, and redistribution — surfacing a price inside a Hex dashboard others view — can trip a higher tier. Negotiate on intended use before signing; at this size it moves price more than seat count.
Consolidate the AI layer. Three universal AI subscriptions ($95/person/mo) is redundant. Recommended: Claude as the universal agentic + knowledge-layer tool, Perplexity for sourced research, and ChatGPT on just 1–2 power seats. Give 1–2 heavy users Claude Max ($100–200/mo) instead of a universal ChatGPT seat. ~$1,500–2,000/yr saved with no capability loss.
Defer Snowflake; start on a Mac-native warehouse. At 5 people and early data volume, DuckDB / MotherDuck gives a columnar warehouse that runs locally on the M5 machines and in the cloud, at a fraction of Snowflake's cost — and Hex connects to it natively. Graduate to Snowflake when volume, concurrency, or governance demands it. ~$5–6K/yr deferred with no loss of the dashboard layer.
Right-size HubSpot. Sales Hub Pro ($90/seat + $1,500 onboarding) is built for outbound sales teams. A merchant with a concentrated counterparty book can start on Starter (~$20/seat) and upgrade when pipeline complexity — not headcount — demands it. ~$2,500/yr + onboarding saved.
Hold Okta until ~10 people or a compliance trigger. Google Workspace SSO plus 1Password covers identity and secrets for a 5-person firm. Okta earns its keep at scale, on lifecycle/de-provisioning volume, or when a counterparty or regulator requires it. Keep it on the roadmap, not the launch list. ~$900/yr deferred.
Add the missing layer: Mac fleet management (MDM). A remote, security-conscious Mac fleet needs device management — Kandji or Jamf (~$4–9/device/mo) — to enforce disk encryption, push CrowdStrike, and remote-wipe a lost machine. This is the notable omission in an otherwise strong security posture. Pair with Tailscale for zero-config secure remote access.
Formalize backup and continuity. 8TB local drives holding proprietary research need an offsite backup path beyond S3 (e.g. Backblaze + Time Machine). Define it before, not after, the first drive failure.
Rationalize banking. Three institutions at 5 people is operational drag. A common pattern: Mercury for day-to-day operating and cards, one money-center bank (JPM) for trade finance, LCs, and scale as inventory grows. Revisit BofA's role — banking redundancy is deliberate at scale, premature at five people.
Give "proprietary inventory" a home. The third asset has no system. Before physical trading begins you'll need somewhere to hold positions, offtake contracts, warehouse receipts, assay/QA records, and reserve accounting — plus a virtual data room for deal diligence. Options range from a structured Snowflake/DuckDB schema + Hex to a purpose-built commodity trade & risk management (CTRM) tool as volume justifies. Decide the day-one version now.
Directional planning tool, not a procurement quote. Market-data costs in particular are estimates pending vendor negotiation. Prepared July 2026.
AeX internal · Technology stack brief · July 2026 · not legal, tax, or investment advice