Switched from manual pen testing checklists to Burp Suite Pro at my last gig and the difference was night and day
Spent two weeks chasing a blind SQLi on a client's login flow with nothing but my notes and sqlmap before we finally ponied up the $449 for Burp Pro, and it flagged the exact same injection in under 20 minutes. Has anyone else had a tool that made them feel stupid for waiting so long to switch?
That feeling is the worst. Paying for Burp Pro is one of those things where you kick yourself for not doing it sooner. The scanner alone makes back the cost on the first job honestly. Manual testing still matters of course, but tooling just removes so much of the boring blind guessing. Two weeks vs 20 minutes is brutal though, that's a painful lesson. At least you know now.