At the risk of sounding like a latter-day Andy Rooney, have you ever noticed how many web services are priced at a mere $9.95 a month? Hosting packages, sitebuilding tools, monthly subscriptions to premium content areas: it's no accident, of course. $9.95 must be the most-beloved price point of marketers everywhere.

$9.95 on the Internet is the new millineumm version of the 20th century dollar store.

Here's a couple of $9.95 a month web aps that have recently tempted me:

- Blinksale: It's an online service for customizing, tracking and trafficking your invoices. Technically, it's free, that is if you only send out three invoices a month. Of course, if you're sending out only three invoices a month than free is probably all you can afford. The up to 50 invoices option is, you guessed it, $9.95 a month. I almost bit. As my editors know, I clearly need an intervention in managing my invoices. After playing with the customization candy on a free account, I sobered up realizing I could use the invoice feature on my Quicken softwware. It doesn't have all the pretty skins to choose from, but its part of my financial software and I don't have to pay a $120 a year for the honor of using it.

- SimulScribe: Everybody and their brother is writing about this one, from PC Week to the Wall Street Journal. SimulScribe is a monthly service that uses voice recognition technology to transcribe your voicemails into text (delivered via email, mobile device, etc.). Sweet! But again, $9.95 a monthl.

It may not sound like much, but one of the sidebars to the Web 2.0 revolution is that with all these nifty little tools and toys often comes a nifty little monthly nut. And, it can kill your bottomline if you're not careful.

Remember:

- $9.95 adds up to roughly $120 a year.

- Free trials are free, well, only for a trial period. Then what?

- Business tools should pay for themselves. If it doesn't save you $9.95 a month in billed time, move on!

- A lot of online companies have the nerve to charge what others are giving away for free. Check around before you commit.

- Keep an eye on your staff. Set policy that online tools and services must be approved as a business expense before signing up with the corporate card. Imagine everyone in the office signing up for SimulScribe on their corporate Amex just because the guy in the next cubicle did so and it sounds cool. Now you have a $120 annual bill times fill in the blank.

- Willing to gamble with a little money to sample new online tools and services? Nothing wrong with that. It's a great way to discover new core tools and aps to help your business function better at a modest cost. Truly! Just set a budget first. Limit your business to a set amount of money each month to explore new technologies and choose carefully who will be the guinea pig user to evaluate them.

- Last piece of advice: never ever commit vital data or operations until you're sure you've picked a winner. The last thing you want to do is migrate all your account information to a new invoicing company (not to pick on Blinksale which is highly regarded by a number of online reviewers) and then discover two months later you hate the service. Better to stick your foot in the water one tootsie at a time.