Personally, I'm a fan of pre-biased transistors for your usage. These are transistors that include base or base/base-emitter resistors integrated into the same package.
Unit cost is comparable to discrete parts. The big savings is that you have fewer parts to place, so smaller total footprint and lower population cost.
They're available with different resistance values and ratios to fit many application.
They come in single or dual configurations, as NPN, PNP (and NPN/PNP in the dual package.) Made by many manufacturers.
DigiKey's list of single pre-biased transistors.
DigiKey's list of pre-biased transistor arrays.