“Give us the tools, and we’ll finish the job.” That’s what Winston Churchill said during World War II, but it’s also true for you today. 🤷♂️
Running a small business is no cakewalk. You’ve got to be a multitasking pro. Every day you don many hats and play many roles. You design banners and run ads. You bring in leads. You manage projects, big and small. You talk to customers day in and day out—prospecting, negotiating, and troubleshooting.
It’s enough to make anyone go mad—unless, of course, they have the right tools to get the job done.
Tools . . . plural . . . because there’s no “one ring to rule them all” when it comes to small business software. But we live in a time of plenty. Whether it’s design, marketing, sales, support, or project management—thanks to the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) boom, we’ve got a variety of tools for every need, catering to businesses of every size. Some of the most innovative CES tools, showcased at global consumer electronics shows, are now tailored specifically for SMBs—bringing cutting-edge functionality and smarter integrations right to your fingertips.
The challenge? Finding software that is just right for you—tools that do exactly what you need them to, work well with each other, don’t require constant upkeep, and fit into your budget so you can multitask like a pro and set your small business up for growth.
From good old email and calendar apps to CRM and marketing automation software, here are 24 essential tools to grow your small business. From good old email and calendar apps to CRM and marketing automation software, there’s a wide range of tools available to help small businesses streamline their processes. Legal contract automation tool, for instance, can significantly simplify the contract management process.
Communicating through the right channels at the right time is key to growing your business, and nothing helps you do it like business email. While many SMBs believe that a professional email address such as you@yourbusiness.com is a luxury, it really isn’t. Free email costs you credibility and more.
You also want a robust calendar to schedule meetings and organize your day. Fortunately, most business email services come paired with a calendar app. The best ones are packed to the gills with advanced features such as multi-account support, priority inbox, and templates that help you spend less time on triage and more time building meaningful customer relationships.
Our recommendations: Gmail and Outlook need no introduction, but we aren’t biased at all when we say that Neo and Titan is the best fit for growing small businesses.
QuillBot’s ChatPDF tool simplifies the analysis of business documents, allowing users to quickly gain insights and retrieve information. Instead of manually going through large files, you can instantly summarize main points, examine reports, and get answers to your questions in just a few seconds. Just upload your PDF, type your question, and the AI will find the most relevant information. This tool is extremely useful for reviewing contracts, analyzing financial statements, or quickly understanding proposals, enabling businesses to concentrate on important details without getting sidetracked by unnecessary information.
Whether it’s an email campaign, a landing page, or a social media post, a good visual makes it more engaging. If you’ve got the design chops (or you work with someone who does), you go chop chop chop. But when you can’t design your way out of a paper bag, there are plenty of tools that make creating designs for your blog banners, Instagram posts, and letterheads easy and fun.
The best design tools offer lots of templates, logo ideas, and stock photography to help small business owners and professionals bring their ideas to life. They’re built to be fast, collaborative, and easy to use, often hosted on the cloud and accessible on both desktop and mobile devices. Some (see below) are even free.
Our recommendations: Canva is great for pretty much every kind of design, but we also love Pablo for its simplicity and Piktochart for repurposing video content—no skills needed.
For small businesses looking to make a splash with video content, Movavi Video Suite offers a robust solution. Whether you’re crafting engaging social media posts, informative YouTube Shorts, or professional presentations, this software brings a suite of powerful editing tools to your fingertips. Its user-friendly interface, coupled with advanced features like AI-driven background and noise removal, direct TikTok uploads, and specialized YouTube effects, makes it an ideal choice for businesses of all sizes. Plus, the inclusion of tools like a VHS capture tool and media player, along with educational media-editing courses or even support resources like a homeschool math tutor, provides added versatility. Movavi Video Suite is the go-to tool for creating compelling video content that resonates with your audience.
6. VEED
A versatile online video editing tool, VEED is perfect for small businesses looking to create and enhance their video content. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy to trim and convert videos, ensuring your content is concise and compatible with various platforms. Whether you’re creating promotional videos or editing team presentations, VEED’s video trimmer and video converter streamline the process, giving you professional results without the need for extensive editing knowledge. With a range of pricing plans, including a free option, VEED caters to businesses of all sizes and budgets.
7. Renderforest
Renderforest is a huge platform for everyone who wants to create professional videos FREE or with spending fewer resources. Renderforest’s animated video maker is a user-friendly tool that empowers creators to bring their ideas to life through captivating animations. It has a library of pre-designed templates, a wide range of customizable options, and an advanced interface, it allows users to effortlessly craft professional-quality animated videos for various purposes. Whether you’re a business professional, a content creator, or a casual user, this tool provides the creative freedom and flexibility to produce animated videos that leave a lasting impact.
8. BeFunky
BeFunky is a cloud-based graphic design and photo editing tool that can help you create professional-looking graphics for your website, social media channels, and marketing campaigns.
With BeFunky’s easy-to-use photo editing tools, you can easily edit images, add text, apply various effects and filters, and create custom canvas photo prints to enhance your visual content. It also provides an easy-to-use interface that allows users to create and customize designs without the need for advanced design skills.
Overall, BeFunky can be a great option for small businesses that want to create high-quality graphics quickly and easily.
Plans
Basic: Free (basic design tools and limited access to templates and features)
Plus: Full access to all the templates and more advanced features and design elements – $4.99 per month (billed annually) or $9.99 per month (billed monthly). Cancel any time.
9. Wepik
Wepik is an easy-to-use online design tool that offers a wide range of customizable templates for social media posts, banners, flyers, and more. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, you can create professional-looking designs quickly and effortlessly. The free version provides access to a vast library of design assets, while the premium plans offer additional features such as premium templates, stock photos, and priority support.
10. Brush Galaxy
Procreate is a digital art powerhouse, revolutionizing creativity on tablets. This versatile tool offers a seamless blend of powerful features and intuitive interface, empowering artists to bring their visions to life. With extensive Procreate brushes library out there and customizable settings of the tool, it caters to diverse styles and projects. Advanced capabilities like multi-layer support, precise selection tools, and real-time performance make complex tasks a breeze. Its fluidity and responsiveness ensure a natural drawing experience, enhancing productivity and artistic expression. Whether a novice or a seasoned professional, Procreate is a go-to tool, unlocking boundless potential for digital artistry.
You need CRM software to manage contacts, record interactions with prospects and customers, manage deals, track sales, and more. It’s the nexus of all your marketing and sales efforts. It’s your live customer database with all contact, company, and opportunity data. As the name says, a CRM tool helps you manage customer relationships and grow your business—in theory.
In the real world, updating CRM is one of the most hated jobs ever. It’s essential, but no one likes doing it. Worse, many CRM apps look and act like glorified spreadsheets and aren’t easy to work with. The result? Poor CRM hygiene, lost revenue, and sales forecasts that go awry.
Your choice of CRM can make or break your revenue machine, so the first two things to look for are cost and ease of use. You also don’t want a CRM tool that needs a specialist to implement and manage it, so ease of implementation is an important consideration. Finally, you want to automate as much data entry as possible, so it’s crucial that your CRM integrates with your sales and marketing tech stack.
Our recommendations: HubSpot CRM is very good. It’s almost surprising that they give it away for free. Zoho CRM and Freshsales are both easy to use and offer a free plan with a few limitations.
Privyr is a light yet powerful mobile-first CRM specifically designed for small businesses to efficiently receive, contact, distribute, and manage leads directly from their smartphones. The tool seamlessly integrates with lead sources, such as Facebook, websites, and Google Ads, eliminating the need for third-party integration tools. It also provides real-time notifications of new leads, enabling users to immediately respond through popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, iMessage, SMS, and modern alternatives such as RCS messages that support richer mobile communication.
Privyr offers free and paid plans. The free plan includes integration with lead sources and unlimited leads download, and distribution to up to three team members. Opt for a paid plan (starts at $25) to run your entire sales process from the comfort of your smartphone.
11. Hubspot CRM
HubSpot CRM is 100% free, straightforward, and easy to use. You can add up to a million contacts, and there are no limits on users or customer data. It also has a few features such as email tracking, meeting scheduler, and live chat that are usually found only in more expensive software. And it works with pretty much every popular sales and marketing tool.
Need even more features? Paid plans start at $50 per month.
12. Zoho CRM
A feature-rich sales CRM with loads of customization options for growing teams, Zoho CRM also offers add-ons for live chat, lead scoring, sales automation, and more. It can even notify you in real time when a prospect interacts with your business on social media! If you already use another Zoho product, the CRM software plays nicely with all popular sales and marketing tools.
Get Zoho CRM for free (up to three users) with a few limitations, or upgrade to a Standard plan that costs $12 per user per month.
13. Freshsales
Another easy-to-use CRM that checks all the boxes and has a generous free plan for small businesses is Freshsales. It offers strong analytics as well as built-in live chat, email tracking, and a dialer app so you can reach out to prospects and customers directly from the CRM and streamline communications.
You can add unlimited contacts in Freshsales’ free plan or upgrade to the $15 per user per month Growth plan for advanced features such as lead scoring and sales sequences.
It’s 2022, and you can’t think of “marketing” without adding “automation” to it. How else would you reach your customers with the right message at the right time?
From nurturing leads to sending product newsletters to delivering personalized customer experiences, marketing automation CRM helps small businesses streamline workflows across channels and tools, with analytics to measure the impact of marketing campaigns.
When evaluating marketing automation tools, you want to look for three things: features, integrations, and pricing. That means asking questions like these:
Our recommendations: Mailchimp is a feature-packed monster that’s super easy to use, but we love HubSpot Marketing Hub more because it works perfectly with our tech stack.
14. Snov.io
Meet Snov.io, your all-in-one marketing buddy. It makes email lead generation, verification, tracking, and warm-up a walk in the park. Plus, it comes with a handy CRM to keep your follow-ups on point. It’s like having a personal marketing assistant in your pocket!
What sets this platform apart as a game-changer in your marketing efforts is Snov.io’s Email Drip Campaigns. Not only does it empower you to create triggered email campaigns tailored to your recipients’ behavior, monitor email performance, and optimize follow-ups, but it also delivers unparalleled email personalization.
These Email Drip Campaigns come equipped with GPT-powered AI Email Writer, eliminating the need to open Chat GPT. With AI Email Writer, your email sequences only require your input, as the AI takes care of the rest. Plus, the icing on the cake is that Snov.io offers a forever-free plan!
15. SendPulse
SendPulse is an integrated marketing automation platform designed to help businesses of all sizes manage their marketing campaigns more efficiently. The software combines multiple channels like email, SMS, web push notifications, CRM and chatbots in one platform, thereby making it easier to reach your target audience through different mediums. With SendPulse, you can automate your marketing tasks, run A/B tests, make use of advanced segmentation, and track your results in real time. It also comes with ready-to-use email templates and a drag-and-drop editor, making it user-friendly even for those without any technical expertise. It’s a cost-effective solution for small businesses aiming to scale up their marketing efforts.
Robust and easy-to-use, HubSpot Marketing Hub is a marketing automation platform with built-in CMS (for landing pages and blogs), automated email campaigns, shared inbox, Hubspot survey forms, UTM tracking, and more. It works perfectly with HubSpot Sales Hub (yay!) and also plays nicely with other sales and marketing tools, including Salesforce. You can acquire it through salesforce consulting partners.
You can use some of the tools included in HubSpot Marketing Hub for free, but paid plans that start at $45 per month give you more features and customization options.
17. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is a user-friendly marketing automation software for automated email campaigns, SMS marketing, transactional emails, landing pages, and ad campaigns. It integrates with dozens of third-party tools such as WordPress, Appy Pie Website, PayPal, Stripe, Intercom, Zapier, and Wix.
Sendinblue’s free plan has a daily sending limit of 300 emails and doesn’t include the web page builder or A/B testing features. Paid plans with automation features start at $25 per month with unlimited contacts and a higher sending limit of 100,000 emails per month.
18. Sleekflow
Introducing SleekFlow, your comprehensive solution for streamlined communication and automation, now featuring the powerful Flow Builder. Designed to simplify your business’s messaging processes, SleekFlow seamlessly integrates with your existing workflows, enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction.
SleekFlow’s versatility shines through its multi-channel capabilities, allowing you to manage interactions across various platforms, including social media, messaging apps, and more.
“He who fails to plan is planning to fail” is something else Sir Winston Churchill said. That has never been truer than when you’re growing your business.
Yes, there are fewer people involved in your projects in a small business (and fewer processes to navigate), but there are hardly any project managers around. No one’s going around talking to stakeholders and coordinating work to keep everything on track. It’s all on you.
Whether you’re working on a client project or collaborating internally on one, having the right project management or professional services automation tool is key to organizing work so everyone knows what to do and how to get it done.
Our recommendations: Trello and ClickUp offer fantastic value, especially with the free plans. Asana’s free plan is just right for businesses that need flexibility.
19. Dealfront
If there’s any platform that deserves the slogan “closing deals made easy,” it’s Dealfront. It is a sales prospecting software that helps you identify and attract your ideal customer. It’s able to find accounts you’re likely to win, removing the guesswork from lead generation. You can get these benefits, as well as its website visitor tracking and B2B advertising features, starting at €199 ($220) per month. Each tier includes a certain number of seats and credits, but you can add additional seats or credit packages at any time.
20 Asana
Asana’s clean, intuitive interface makes it a breeze to use, even for newbies. You can manage projects and tasks as a simple list, on a Kanban board, or in a timeline view—whatever works for you. This flexibility makes it easy to manage all kinds of projects and gives you full control of how you visualize and organize your work. When integrated with timesheet software, it also becomes easier to track time spent on each task, enhancing overall productivity and accountability.
The best part? Asana’s free plan includes all the basic features with up to 15 team members and three views, which is just right for most small businesses. For advanced features such as custom fields and timeline view or to add more team members, consider upgrading to Premium at $10.99 per user per
21. ClickUp
What sets ClickUp immediately apart is its customizability. There are more than 11 task views (Kanban, Scrum, Gantt, workload, etc.) even in the free plan. It also has more than 20 widgets to build your own dashboard and just as many ClickApps (add-ons) for time tracking, custom fields, screen recording, and so on.
ClickUp is free for unlimited tasks and users, time tracking, and Kanban boards. Or you can pay $5 per user per month for unlimited storage, Clickup integrations, and dashboards.
22. Teamly
Teamly stands out as a comprehensive tool for remote project management, perfect for small businesses. It offers an array of features like real-time chat, Kanban boards, and detailed time tracking, all within a user-friendly interface. Ideal for keeping remote teams in sync, Teamly ensures smooth project progression and efficient workflow management, making it a valuable asset for businesses managing virtual teams.
Teamly’s pricing structure is designed to cater to the needs of small businesses. The platform offers a free plan, making it accessible for startups and small teams. For businesses requiring more advanced features and greater capacity, Teamly’s paid plans start at a competitive rate of $47 per month.
23. Calday
Calday is the best online free appointment scheduling software for small businesses. This Calendly alternative offers seamless integrations with Google Calendar, Outlook, iCloud, and more. Its premium plan is $12 with unlimited event types and integrations.
HRMS is a comprehensive solution streamlines various HR tasks, making them more efficient and organized. HRMS software plays a pivotal role in small businesses by automating processes like payroll management, employee onboarding, attendance tracking, and leave management. To simplify paycheck documentation, businesses can use a pay stub template for generating accurate and professional pay records effortlessly.
This reduces administrative burdens and enhances accuracy, ensuring compliance with regulations. Additionally, HRMS software provides valuable insights into workforce data, facilitating informed decision-making for small businesses striving for growth and productivity.
24. Zimyo
Zimyo, a leading HR tech firm, boasts a robust HRM trusted by over 2000 organizations and serving 5,00,000+ employees globally. The company is dedicated to delivering the #1 employee experience, empowering organizations of all sizes to manage their workforce efficiently.
Offering a diverse range of modules covering HRMS Software & Payroll Software, Attendance and Leave Management, Performance Management, Talent Acquisition, and more, Zimyo consolidates these functions into a unified platform. This integration has significantly elevated HR productivity for renowned organizations such as Bajaj Capital, Yashraj Films, TVF, Burger Singh, Paras BuildTech, City Mall, and many others.
25. PeopleHR
A people management platform PeopleHR was created to make routine HR duties for small and medium-sized enterprises easier. Using a single, clear dashboard, it assists teams with hiring, onboarding, performance reviews, payroll, and attendance monitoring.
PeopleHR, a leading HR software provider, keeps developing with features that suit contemporary hybrid teams. Its built-in AI assistant helps HR teams save hours each week by automating tedious tasks like report generation and answering various HR questions.
PeopleHR is used by thousands of companies in the UK to centralise employee data, expedite hiring, and enhance engagement through lucid, data-driven insights. The software’s strength is its ability to strike a balance between depth and simplicity, which makes it perfect for expanding businesses that require structure without sacrificing flexibility.
25. Upmetrics
Upmetrics is an AI business plan generator where you have to answer a few simple questions about your business, and your business plan will be ready in a few minutes.
The tool also has 400+ customizable business plan templates and other resources, so you can write your business plans smoothly.
Upmetrics provides all these features and resources for just $7/month which is the most affordable option for writing an investment-ready business plan.
26. Planwiz
PlanWiz is a comprehensive digital planner designed to enhance productivity and wellness by helping users manage tasks, goals, and schedules across personal, work, and creative domains. It features customizable layouts, business planner templates, and tools for efficient planning, goal tracking, and stress relief. These business planning templates allow professionals to structure their workday, set clear objectives, and monitor progress effectively.
PlanWiz supports priority management and creativity while offering cross-platform access and data security. The platform provides over 10,000 ready-to-use templates for streamlined planning, making it ideal for organizing all life aspects.
The QR Code Generator is an essential tool for small businesses looking to simplify their digital connections. QR codes have become a necessity for various applications, including employee onboarding, asset management, marketing campaigns, contactless payments, and more. This platform offers a free version for basic QR code creation, while premium plans provide enhanced features to support business growth.
What sets this tool apart is its user-friendly design and flexibility. With a free QR code generator that you can create fully customizable QR codes tailored to your brand, ensuring consistency across all marketing materials. Whether you need QR codes for product packaging, restaurant menus, or customer engagement, this tool provides a seamless way to connect physical and digital experiences without any hassle.
The QR Code Generator serves various industries including restaurants, retail, real estate, education, and solopreneurs, making it a versatile yet uncomplicated addition to any small business toolkit. By focusing on core functionality without extraneous features, it provides the perfect balance of capability and simplicity that busy small business owners need.
Uniqode’s QR code generator can be a valuable tool in business planning by improving marketing, customer engagement, and operational efficiency. Uniqode is a versatile and powerful tool for businesses aiming to leverage QR Codes for marketing, networking, and operational purposes. Users can create dynamic QR Codes, enabling real-time editing of linked content without the need to regenerate or redistribute the codes.
Priced at $5 per month, this plan includes 3 dynamic QR codes, supports a single user, and offers basic customizations along with access to over 15 QR code types and scan analytics.
For small businesses looking to create professional marketing materials without hiring a designer, DesignWiz is the perfect solution. This easy-to-use flyer maker offers a wide range of customizable templates, allowing businesses to design eye-catching promotional materials in minutes. Whether you’re announcing a sale, hosting an event, or promoting a new service, DesignWiz’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor makes the process simple and efficient. Stand out from the competition and elevate your branding with high-quality flyers – without the hassle or high costs.
Whether it’s for intakes, quotes, sales orders, applications, or feedback, forms are the go-to method for getting data. Form tools can help you do all these online, and they are usually quite easy to integrate into an automation system. To simplify access, businesses often create qr code forms that link directly to digital questionnaires. Users scan and submit information instantly from any device. For example, you can make it so that whenever someone fills out a form, you get a notification and they get a copy of their responses. And that’s just one example; you can easily build automations with forms as your trigger. Below, you will find dedicated form tools that can help you with the form and survey process.
forms.app is an all-around form builder tool, which means you can use it for online requests, intakes, collecting payments, getting signatures, and capturing feedback. It offers an AI creation feature, so you can simply tell forms.app the form you would like to create, and it will generate one for you, or you can select from over 5000 free templates. Once you create your form, you have 30+ form fields to choose from and many customization options.
forms.app has quite diversified uses and integrations to support this. It has a free plan and affordable higher plans. On the free plan, you can collect 100 responses per month, which is enough to start with in most cases. As for larger-scale needs, forms.app offers up to 100k responses per month on higher plans, which most tools require an enterprise plan.
Time is money, and even more so when you are running your own business or prioritizing growth. Using these tools and being productive can rescue you when you’re faced with challenging situations. With mobile apps for every tool, you can now work on the go pretty much from anywhere on this planet, something that wasn’t possible three decades ago. With the right tools, you can catch up on important updates and get things done to make every moment count.
Did we miss a tool that your small business can’t live without? Let us know.