29 Best Business Tools for Small Businesses (Expert Pick for 2024)

At WPBeginner, we’ve spent years helping people start their own WordPress websites and grow their online businesses. Through this experience, we’ve seen firsthand how the right business tools can be a game-changer for success.

For example, we personally use Drip across our businesses to send our email newsletters, and we appreciate all the audience segmentation options it comes with. We’ve also had a great experience using Nextiva for our VoIP needs.

Whether you need help with email marketing, customer support, or customer relationship management, there are plenty of plugins and software options that can benefit your small business.

That’s why we’ve carefully researched and compiled a list of the best business tools for small businesses. We’ve broken down everything into categories so you can easily find the right tools to meet your needs.

Quick Pick: The Best Business Tools for Small Business

Here’s a quick comparison table of the best business tools for small businesses. It highlights the top options so you can easily compare categories and pricing to find the best fit for your needs:

Tool	Category	Price	Free Trial
Constant Contact	Email Marketing	$12 per month	Yes
Nextiva	Business Phone	$21 per month per user	Yes
LiveChat	Live Chat & Support	$20 per person per month	Yes
Gusto	HR & Payroll	$40 per month, plus $6 per month per additional user	No
HubSpot CRM	CRM	$90 per month per seat	Yes

How We Test and Review Business Tools

To help you find the best tools for your small business, we’ve taken a hands-on approach to testing and reviewing each option. Here’s what went into our process:

1. Real-World Experience: At WPBeginner, we actively run small businesses of our own. We’re involved in starting new projects and managing existing websites, so we’ve used and tested these tools extensively ourselves. We ensure that they meet our high standards of reliability and ease of use.
2. Comprehensive Research: We performed our own dedicated research to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in each category. We regularly update our recommendations accordingly, holding each tool to a high standard.
3. Ease of Use: A great tool should be intuitive, so we looked into how quickly you can start using it without needing extensive training or support.
4. Features: Depending on the business tool category, we looked for standout features that make each tool unique and valuable. Whether it’s automation, analytics, or customization options, we ensure these features can genuinely help your business.
5. Integration: The best business tools work seamlessly with your entire system. So, we tested each tool’s compatibility with popular website-building platforms, CRMs, email service tools, and more.
6. User Feedback: We’ve combed through various third-party sites and even performed polls for users to see how they enjoy using these tools.

Finally, value matters, so we considered whether each tool delivers a good return on investment. We included tools at a variety of price points to fit different budgets.

Why Do You Need the Best Small Business Tools?

Running a small business website is a juggling act, and the right tools can make your life so much easier. Think of them as your behind-the-scenes team, helping you save time, stay organized, and boost productivity.

For instance, an email automation tool can handle parts of your newsletter tasks, giving you more time to focus on strategy. A project management app keeps your team organized, while customer relationship management (CRM) software helps you stay on top of your leads and customer interactions.

Without these tools, you might find yourself overwhelmed by manual tasks that eat into your time and energy. Business tools simplify the process, letting you focus on what you do best: growing your small business and serving your customers.

At WPBeginner, we’ve been testing and refining our top picks for years, keeping pace with the ever-evolving market. We’ve narrowed down our favorites to a curated list across various categories.

Here are just a few reasons to add some of these small business tools to your arsenal:

• Time and Cost Savings Tools that automate functions like sending emails, answering customer support questions, and doing taxes can free up time for your business. This means that you can focus on growing your company instead of tedious and time-consuming tasks.
• Improved Collaboration: Many small business tools come with collaboration features that facilitate communication and teamwork. This is especially important in modern work environments where remote or dispersed teams are common. Collaboration tools enhance communication, file sharing, and task management throughout your business.
• Enhanced Customer Experience: Tools such as a CRM (customer relationship management) system help businesses manage customer interactions, track leads, and provide personalized services. Additionally, email marketing software and business phone services can help you contact customers through the channels they like best.
• Data-Driven Decision Making: Software with analytics and reporting capabilities provides valuable insights into business performance and customer journey. With accurate data at your fingertips, you can make informed decisions, identify trends, and adjust strategies to align with your business goals.

With that in mind, it’s time to cover the best business tools for small businesses. Feel free to use the links below to jump to any section you need a solution for:

Let’s dive right in!

Email Marketing

Every business needs to build an email list. Sure, you could keep in touch with your customers via social media, but you don’t own the audience there.

An email list is something you own and can continually contact customers or leads anytime.

That’s why you need an email marketing service. These services allow you to send bulk automated emails to your subscribers. Not only that, you can segment users into groups, track their performance, and create marketing workflows.

1. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is the most beginner-friendly and fastest-growing email marketing service out there. It boasts an impressive 97% deliverability rate and offers a handful of time-saving automation that every small business could use.

We’ve tested it out thoroughly over the years. For more details, you can see our extensive Constant Contact review.

Out of the many email service providers we’ve tried, we really like Constant Contact’s user interface. From the moment you make your account, the tool guides you through its simple process. You can create email newsletters, social media posts, landing pages, and events in just a few minutes.

In our experience, one of Constant Contact’s most unique aspects is its ability to segment the audience based on engagement level. Sure, it has all the standard segmentations, such as dividing contacts by location, membership, sales, email activity, and more.

Plus, we like that Constant Contact lets us group your audience into four categories: most engaged, somewhat engaged, least engaged, and everyone else.

For example, you can upsell or cross-sell to your most engaged customers, like loyal subscribers, to encourage more purchases.

Pros:

• Very affordable pricing
• It offers powerful integrations such as Facebook ads and eCommerce platforms.
• Constant Contact offers 200+ templates to fit your needs.

Cons:

• No advanced dynamic tags.

Pricing: Plans start at $12 per month, and the good news is that WPBeginner readers can use our special Constant Contact coupon code to receive an additional 20% off. If you need more storage, users, and advanced features, there are also higher-tiered plans.

Why We Recommend Using Constant Contact: You can’t go wrong with Constant Contact as it’s good at just about everything. We especially like that it offers outstanding customer support via live chat, email, phone calls, and community support, along with a large library of helpful resources. That way, you’ll always get your questions answered.

2. Brevo

Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, is an email and SMS marketing software perfect for small businesses. You can get more information about our experience with using the platform in our comprehensive Brevo review.

One of the best things about Brevo is that you receive unlimited email lists and contacts no matter which plan you choose. Our personal favorite is contact segmentation, which lets you easily target smaller groups and engage them with relevant content.

During testing, we found that Brevo’s advanced plans go well beyond just email marketing.

They offer a sales CRM, live chat, landing page builder, and Facebook Ads integration. This means that for the price you are paying, you’re getting a lot more value than most email marketing services can offer.

Brevo is known for high deliverability, guaranteeing up to 97%. Compared to the industry standard, this makes a big difference for anyone relying on email marketing.

Then, the platform offers various setup options, including email API, SMTP relay, webhook, and plugin. This flexibility is perfect if you need more control over your bulk emails, helping ensure your messages reach the right people without any issues

Pros:

• You will receive access to an unlimited number of contacts on any plan.
• A built-in CRM app is included.
• You can send advanced automation campaigns based on list-based behaviors.

Cons:

• You have to pay for a higher-tiered plan to get access to more advanced reporting features.

Pricing: Brevo is free to get started, however it has a daily sending limit of 300 emails per day. The Starter plan begins at $9 per month, which allows you to send 5,000 emails monthly with no daily send limit.

Why We Recommend Using Brevo: We like Brevo as an all-in-one marketing automation software that can do a little bit of everything. For instance, you can send timely SMS messages to promote your products and personalize them accordingly.

3. Drip

Drip is the best email marketing service for advanced users, especially for businesses looking to send highly personalized campaigns. We use Drip across our different brands and can confidently recommend it as the best option for businesses that need powerful automation and easy-to-use segmentation features.

One of Drip’s standout features is its ability to create seamless workflow automation. The visual workflow builder makes it easy to visualize and customize user journeys.

When building your workflows, there are intuitive trigger options based on page visitors, tags, and other on-site behaviors that start the flow. In our experience, this flexibility allows you to create highly targeted campaigns that feel more personal to your audience.

Then, you can choose from dozens of actions to build the desired automation sequence, whether it’s sending a follow-up email, applying tags, or adjusting contact scores. This ease of customization helps ensure your messages are timely and relevant.

If you’re running an online store, Drip offers integrations for WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify. That allows you to send strategically segmented campaigns to visitors and customers.

For example, there are templates for just about everything, including cart abandonment emails and workflows.

Pros:

• Drip has plenty of merge tags that dynamically replace content within an email based on the info you’ve collected in your contact or lead forms.
• You can A/B split test automation workflows to see which one performs better and ultimately provides the best conversion rates.
• It offers an eCommerce revenue attribution feature, so you know exactly how much revenue is generated from your email marketing campaigns.

Cons:

• There is some learning curve involved. For example, there are countless Liquid tags to learn about, which can be a lot of information if you’re used to using simpler email marketing services.

Pricing: Pricing starts at $39 per month for up to 2,500 people on your email list. The price increases the more subscribers you have. All plans come with a 14-day free trial.

Why We Recommend Using Drip: At WPBeginner, we switched from MailChimp to Drip because of its more advanced segmentation and personalization features. That allows us to send more relevant and targeted campaigns to our readers.

Business Phone

While adding your mobile number to your WordPress site might seem convenient, it’s unprofessional and exposes your personal privacy.

That’s why you want to get a virtual business phone number and use a dedicated business phone service. This is a secure and professional solution. It allows you to:

• Make calls over the internet: Eliminate expensive phone bills.
• Use call forwarding, routing, and recording: Enhance team collaboration and capture valuable customer interactions.
• Track call metrics: Gain insights into wait times, hold times, and call duration to optimize your customer service strategy.

In essence, a business phone service is essential for any business that wants to improve customer service and effectively manage inbound and outbound calls.

4. Nextiva

Nextiva is the best business phone service, and it makes it easy to manage communication between you and your customers. We use it across our business, which you can learn more about in our Nextiva review.

When we were first using the tool, we were impressed by how highly efficient and reliable it is. You’ll also get helpful features beyond voice calling, such as advanced call routing, voicemail to email and text, unlimited free domestic calling, text messages, and more.

Nextiva offers a treasure trove of data to help support your decision-making. You get critical information such as talk time, net promote score, first-time resolution rate, etc. From our experience, this data is incredibly valuable for understanding performance and pinpointing areas for improvement.

Call center and sales team managers can easily interpret the data, allowing them to come up with actionable solutions to boost team efficiency and customer satisfaction.

If you’re using a traditional landline office phone system, then you’ll appreciate Nextiva for making it easy to transition to a VoIP system. This means that you can run your calls over the internet rather than complex landlines.

Plus, they support a wide range of VoIP phones, headsets, and other call devices, making the switch even more seamless and flexible.

Pros:

• Nextiva provides 99.99% uptime for excellent reliability.
• They offer 24/7 customer support, so you always get the help you need.
• It’s an all-in-one phone system with a wide range of features to handle both outbound, inbound, and internal team communication.

Cons:

• Somewhat pricy, but the value is definitely there for what you pay for.

Pricing: Nextiva pricing starts at $30 per month per user for unlimited voice calling. As a WPBeginner reader, you have a special Nextiva Coupon to unlock an additional 44% off your purchase.

Why We Recommend Using Nextiva: Nextiva gives you everything you need to handle communication across your business. They offer a comprehensive set of VoIP service features that help you take your customer service to the next level. That way, your agents can work efficiently, and your customers can get their issues resolved quickly.

5. RingCentral

RingCentral is an affordable alternative to RingCentral that offers high-quality business phone services. Despite its cost-effective price, it doesn’t skimp out on quality.

We have tested it thoroughly to learn about all its features, which you can see in our extensive RingCentral review.

With the entry plan, you get unlimited calls and texts, team messaging, file sharing, and other basic features you need. In our opinion, the $20 per user per month price point is a great deal, especially for smaller teams of 20 people or less. It offers excellent value while covering all the essentials to keep your team connected and productive.

We like the call routing capabilities, which let you direct callers to the right departments and extensions. You can easily create and manage custom answering rules, ensuring that calls reach the right person. Plus, you can route priority calls directly to your mobile device for added convenience.

Pros:

• RingCentral comes with video meetings, team messaging, and screen sharing.
• It integrates with useful tools like Google Workspace and Microsoft, so you can easily connect data across platforms.
• Enjoy a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to understand where and how to use all of its features.

Cons:

• To access Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu options, you must pay for the higher-priced tiers.

Pricing: Plans start at $20 per user per month, billed annually. Pricing varies depending on number of users and features available. The good news is that WPBeginner users get 33% off when they use our special RingCentral coupon code.

Why We Recommend Using RingCentral: RingCentral is a good beginner-friendly option for small businesses just getting started with phone services. It lacks a few advanced capabilities that Nextiva has but gives you all the essential features needed for any business phone service.

6. Ooma

Ooma is one of the top VoIP providers for small businesses. It offers virtual numbers, collaboration tools, call forwarding, voice mail, and more. It’s great for small businesses without IT teams because it provides everything you need in an easy-to-use way.

We made an account for this roundup and went through all the features, which you can see in our Ooma review.

Ooma features a virtual receptionist feature, which is great for directing calls for your small business. You can easily set up a custom greeting, provide a menu of options that guides callers to the right departments, and send them to various extensions. We also learned that it helps to reduce the call load and average wait times, which your customers will appreciate.

Another great thing to highlight is that every Ooma plan has a mobile app so that your agents can easily answer or make calls while on the go. You can do all the important tasks, such as checking your voicemail, reviewing stats, and more.

One critique we have for Ooma is that, when comparing Nextiva vs. RingCentral and Ooma, it isn’t ideal for call centers because it doesn’t support desk and conference phones.

Pros:

• Ooma offers unlimited domestic calling in the US, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Canada.
• Pricing is relatively affordable.
• Easy to use mobile app.

Cons:

• Missing a few advanced features unless you upgrade to the higher plans.

Pricing: Plans begin at $19.95 per month per user. No contract is necessary, so you won’t be tied to a year-long commitment.

Why We Recommend Using Ooma: We like Ooma because it’s ready to use out-of-the-box. It requires zero technical installation, and just about everything is already configured when installed. They use an auto-configuration technology that automatically detects all the settings needed for your system to work.

Live Chat & Support

Live chat software is a tool that helps connect customers to an actual human support representative so that you can resolve their issues in real time. That way, your customers can get the answers they’re looking for quickly.

They’ll spend less time sifting through your knowledge base and waiting to find a solution.

This goes hand-in-hand with your business phone services. By offering live chat on your website, you provide a more omnichannel customer experience, reducing your call load and average handling time.

7. LiveChat

LiveChat is an all-in-one customer service software that works seamlessly for WordPress website owners. With over 35,000+ businesses that trust LiveChat, it’s a very popular tool for building live chatbots.

For more details on our experience with testing it, feel free to see our LiveChat review.

During testing, we discovered that you can create a chatbot that asks the user questions before automatically transferring them to the right agent.

While chatting, agents can share files, send calendar links, or even help complete a purchase, making the interaction smooth and efficient. Plus, you can create pre-written responses for frequently asked questions. In our experience, it has saved us time and allowed our team to focus on more complex issues.

Beyond that, you can add pre-chat survey forms before and after each live chat session. That way, you’re able to evaluate your sales reps and customer support agents and how they’re performing.

We also like that it integrates with popular tools like HubSpot, Zendesk, and Google Analytics, so you can better understand where your customers are coming from and who they are.

Pros:

• Plenty of integrations to seamlessly connect data across platforms.
• You can initiate a chat with a visitor as they are browsing on your site.
• There are lots of customization options to help users find a solution.

Cons:

• Price can quickly add up for large teams.

Pricing: LiveChat starts at $20 per person, billed annually, with higher-priced plans that track more users and better features. There’s also a free plugin available.

Why We Recommend Using LiveChat: LiveChat is an AI-powered help desk software that has a lot of advanced tools to help you sell more. For example, their custom forms, product cards, and AI automation can help turn inquiries into actual sales.

8. Heroic Inbox

Heroic Inbox is a top WordPress-powered help desk for managing customer emails and support tickets. It keeps all your support tasks in one place within your WordPress site, making it easier and faster to respond to customer inquiries.

Note that Heroic Inbox is part of HeroThemes. If you want more details about our experiences with it, you can read our HeroThemes review.

After testing the inbox, we found that it comes with all the features you’ll need to manage support emails. For instance, you can create canned responses, add notes to conversations, track your ticket history, and assign messages to team members.

Best of all, it pulls multiple inboxes into one place. You may have various inboxes to respond to, such as sales, support, customer service, and partnerships. This allows you to ensure that an important message is never missed.

If you want to add knowledge base capabilities to your site, then you’ll simply need to download Heroic KB. It allows you to easily create a searchable knowledge base.

Pros:

• Manages customer service inquiries directly in WordPress.
• You can connect multiple inboxes in one place.
• It offers the ability to add notes and assign tickets to users.

Cons:

• It doesn’t have live chat capabilities.

Pricing: Starts at $199.50 per year.

Why We Recommend Using Heroic Inbox: Juggling a lot of software can be a problem for a lot of small businesses. With Heroic Inbox, you can manage all inquiries in your WordPress dashboard. Since it lives within the WordPress ecosystem, it also seamlessly connects with other plugins, such as WooCommerce.

9. HubSpot Chat

HubSpot Chat is an all-in-one marketing platform that also offers a chatbot builder and live chat feature. When we first activated the plugin, we thought it was pretty basic, but we soon realized just how quite powerful it was on its own. You can get more information about the platform in our HubSpot review.

With HubSpot Chat, you can customize the live chat design to route leads and customers to the right person on your team. The live chat widget can also be edited to match the look and feel of your brand.

You can even send targeted welcome messages on your live chat widget based on segments of your audience or different web pages.

The routing feature works seamlessly during a chat, allowing the services team to pass a lead directly to a sales rep. We’ve found this feature to be incredibly helpful in streamlining workflows.

Additionally, it provides useful automation tools, like canned responses, which can help significantly improve response times and efficiency.

Since HubSpot is an all-in-one tool, all chats are automatically stored in the CRM. This means your team will always have a clear, organized view of every customer interaction, making follow-ups and communication smoother.

Pros:

• HubSpot Chat is free to use.
• You can connect the tool to Slack so your team gets immediate notifications when a visitor requests to speak with your support team.
• You’re able to route leads to anyone on your team.

Cons:

• It’s missing advanced features such as post-chat survey forms.

Pricing: It’s free to get started. But if you want the suite of marketing tools or CRM, you’ll need to buy the entire package. Prices vary based on what suite you choose.

Why We Recommend Using HubSpot Chat: We like HubSpot Chat because it offers all the essential features of live chat software and is absolutely free to use. That said, if you want more advanced automation or more sales-related features like product recommendations, then you may want to consider LiveChat or ChatBot instead.

10. ChatBot

ChatBot is the best helpdesk software for creating AI-generated answers to customer questions. For more details on our experience with testing it, you can check out our ChatBot review.

Where ChatBot stands out is its ability to build visual workflows that help customers get their questions answered and guide them to a sale.

It comes with pre-built templates so that you can use them out of the box. For example, after a customer asks a question about a specific product category, you can immediately offer a limited-time discount to incentivize visitors to take action.

If site visitors want to chat with a real person, then you can easily forward them to a live customer support representative.

That said, we found the customization options are quite limited compared to LiveChat.

The good news is that when it comes to AI automation, ChatBot can make your life easier.

For example, depending on how users interact with your site and chatbot, you can add them to a segmentation and then import them to a CRM or email marketing service. In our opinion, this can be great for nurturing leads and sending follow-up emails.

Pros:

• ChatBot saves time with its powerful and expansive automation features.
• It allows you to segment lists and trigger actions based on visitor behavior.
• It integrates with WooCommerce and WordPress.

Cons:

• ChatBot lacks high-level live chat features.

Pricing: Chatbot starts at $52 per month, billed annually or $65 month-to-month. However, there is a 14-day free trial, with no credit card required.

Why We Recommend Using ChatBot: If you want to automate your helpdesk and chat support, ChatBot is the way to go. It has many templates that help guide users into a sale.

HR & Payroll

Managing your team members is arguably one of the most important functions of a business. No matter what type of business you run, you’ll need to pay your employees and manage their hours.

With HR payroll software, you can automatically send out paychecks through bank direct deposit, manage PTO and bonuses, streamline employee onboarding, withhold a percentage for taxes, and more.

When your HR and payroll are organized, employees know what to expect, and you don’t have to worry about running into tax compliance issues.

Best of all, HR software streamlines all the tedious admin tasks that you would otherwise have to do by yourself.

11. Gusto

Gusto is the best payroll and HR software that helps you automate both basic and advanced payroll tasks for employees and contractors. With its beginner-friendly approach to payroll management, it’s definitely a tool to have in your corner to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Even if you’re a small business without a full accounting team, Gusto simplifies payroll in ways we’ve personally found incredibly helpful. It automatically runs payroll as often as needed each month. Taxes are filed automatically, too, which means fewer worries about compliance.

We believe that the seamless syncing of health insurance, workers’ compensation, time tracking, 401K, PTO, and more is a great feature. These integrations save time and reduce errors, allowing you to focus more on growing your business instead of juggling admin tasks.

Besides payroll, Gusto makes hiring and onboarding a breeze. Features include custom offer letters, onboarding checklists, document signing, and even software account creation.

Pros:

• Relatively affordable to use.
• Very beginner-friendly for both business owners and employees.
• Gusto is a self-service tool for employees where they can hop online to check their pay stubs and important documents and request time off without the need for HR to intervene.

Cons:

• Gusto is only available in the United States.

Pricing: Gusto starts at $40 per month, plus $6 per month per additional user you add.

Why We Recommend Using Gusto: Gusto is an all-encompassing tool for payroll and HR tasks. You don’t have to worry about the nitty-gritty tasks like filing payroll and tracking all the taxes withheld. Plus, its higher plans offer next-day deposits, so employees get paid faster.

12. BambooHR

BambooHR is an excellent HR software and payroll solution for small businesses. The program is better suited for human resource tasks like compensation, hiring, onboarding, and company culture.

We use BambooHR for managing many of the HR tasks for our company, and we like that it’s super easy to use.

Inside, you’ll find an application tracking system (ATS) that helps filter out applicants who don’t meet job requirements, saving you time from manually sifting through resumes.

During setup, we also found that the automated alerts are a great feature. They will help keep you on track and ensure candidates stay informed at every stage of the hiring process. In addition to improving efficiency, it makes the experience more professional for candidates.

Once you’ve made your decision, you can use one of the many offer letter templates that come with auto-fill features so the new hire can sign and accept everything digitally.

One more great thing about Bamboo HR is that it also does all of the essential payroll tasks. It automates tax filing, so you don’t have to do it manually. As a result, you’ll avoid tax penalties and ensure you accurately report your employee earnings and taxes withheld.

Pros:

• BambooHR offers self-service tools so employees can access information such as tax forms and pay stubs online.
• It automates the payroll process to avoid mistakes.
• The ATS makes hiring much easier and faster.

Cons:

• BambooHR is not as contractor-friendly as Gusto since it doesn’t have many features that cater to freelancers.

Pricing: BambooHR offers free pricing quotes. To receive customized pricing, you must complete their contact form.

Why We Recommend Using BambooHR: BambooHR is a great choice if you have a remote team based internationally (outside of the U.S.). It makes it easy to manage your hiring and payroll across multiple countries.

13. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is a payroll software designed to make life easier for small business owners. It’s primarily used for accounting tasks, allowing you to calculate all your balance sheets and perform payroll.

One key area where QuickBooks shines is that it offers same-day or next-day direct deposit processing, depending on the plan you choose. You also get useful features such as automated tax calculations and payroll, business receipt capture, paycheck creation, and more.

There’s a dedicated mobile app, so employees can easily access their PTO and health information and even look into their paystubs on the go. For administrators, we appreciate that it lets you manage payroll from anywhere, ensuring your team never misses payday.

Pros:

• Quickbooks offers a 30-day free trial.
• For Elite users, QuickBooks Payroll provides a tax penalty protection of up to $25,000 per year.
• QuickBooks Payroll integrates with QuickBooks Online, meaning you get a payroll and accounting system in one.

Cons:

• There are limited third-party integrations.

Pricing: Price starts at $17.50 per month for the base software. You need to purchase full-service payroll as an addon, starting at $25 per month, plus an extra $6 per additional employee per month.

Why We Recommend Using QuickBooks: If you’re focused on getting your accounting and payroll right, then QuickBooks is the way to go. With the tax penalty protection, you’re getting great coverage. That means if you make an error, they’ll not only help you to fix the issue but also cover any penalty and interest fines along with it.

CRM

Juggling customer data across scattered Excel sheets can be chaos. You may deal with missed follow-ups, forgotten birthdays, unsent emails, mixed signals, and frustrated teams and customers.

CRM apps eliminate this nightmare. They consolidate all customer data into a single, accessible platform. This empowers your sales, marketing, and customer support teams to:

• Effortlessly access information: No more scrambling for details.
• Personalize the customer journey: Deliver targeted experiences based on customer history.
• Boost efficiency: Automate tasks and free up time for strategic work.

Sales reps can prioritize high-value opportunities and close deals faster. Plus, marketers can leverage customer insights to craft impactful campaigns. Customer support gains a complete view of each interaction, providing exceptional service every time.

14. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is the most popular CRM software on the market. It is cost-effective and offers a wide range of features, making it a great choice for most small businesses. Plus, the free plan gives you access to unlimited users and contacts.

For more information about HubSpot CRM, you can go to our comprehensive HubSpot review.

Where HubSpot really shines is in its all-in-one capabilities. It seamlessly combines sales, marketing, customer service, CMS, and operations hubs, making it easy to keep all your data connected.

For example, it can pass leads from the marketing team directly to sales without needing extra syncing or third-party tools.

Another thing we learned is that HubSpot is really easy to navigate. It provides a full picture of customer interactions and comes with customizable reporting dashboards so that you can see how your team is performing.

By looking at the opportunities and deal stages, you can quickly see what’s currently in the pipeline and focus on high-leverage prospects who are ready to buy.

Pros:

• HubSpot has an easy-to-use interface.
• There are tons of features and even apps that you can download to make your experience better.
• Visual dashboards and reporting make it very easy to track team performance and spot opportunities for growth.

Cons:

• While HubSpot has a very generous free plan, its pricing gets steep quickly if you wish to upgrade.

Pricing: Hubspot CRM is free to get started. If you want the entire marketing suite, it’s $800 per month for 3 seats, billed annually, and an extra $45 per month per additional user. HubSpot Sales suite costs $90 per month per seat.

Why We Recommend Using HubSpot: HubSpot is one of those can’t-miss tools for beginners. Sure, it could be more customizable or offer more affordable plans. But with that said, its free plan is enough to get small teams started.

15. FunnelKit Automations

FunnelKit Automations is the best CRM and marketing automation engine for WooCommerce. It’s filled with a wide range of features to help get your online more repeat sales and higher order values.

We did a deep dive into its features, which you can see in our FunnelKit Automations review.

Geared towards eCommerce business owners, this tool offers a complete 360-degree view of your customers, which we think is a major benefit for managing relationships. You can easily access details like their name, gender, email, tags, lists, geographical location, and custom field data all in one place.

We really like this feature because having this depth of insight makes it much easier to personalize marketing efforts and provide exceptional customer service.

In addition to the CRM tool, you can build high-converting checkout pages and flows. The drag-and-drop builder connects with other major page builders, such as Divi, Elementor, Oxygen, and Gutenberg.

Then, once customers complete the purchase, you can create upsell pages to showcase higher-tier products, which can help increase your total order value.

Pros:

• You get plenty of automation templates and workflows to increase conversions.
• You can view the customer’s complete profile, including purchase history, order placed, etc.
• Everything can be tracked, including what pages and workflows led to revenue.

Cons:

• You’ll need a mailer plugin, such as WP Mail SMTP since WordPress isn’t built for high-volume email.

Pricing: FunnelKit starts at $99.50 per year. That said, there is a free version as well.

Why We Recommend Using FunnelKit Automations: If you’re running an online store, adding FunnelKit Automations is a no-brainer. Keep your opt-in leads and customers organized so that you can send them more relevant product recommendations.

16. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM app for small businesses. It’s an all-in-one sales platform to boost revenue and track all of your leads and customers. What we like about Pipedrive is its smart, in-platform tips. Its sales assistant provides performance tips and recommended features to help your team get acclimated to the software.

For example, if you’re not sending follow-up emails after demo calls, it might send reminders to your reps.

After testing it further, we found that Pipedrive offers more than just a basic CRM. It includes powerful automation features that let you automatically nurture leads with timely emails, assign tasks, and move deals seamlessly through your pipeline.

These automated workflows can free up your sales reps to focus on closing high-value deals, not repetitive tasks.

Pros:

• Fairly affordable to use.
• The smart assistant feature helps you improve your team performance.
• It has a lead enrichment feature, which scrapes data online to find information about your prospects based on the email you’ve collected.

Cons:

• It lacks phone support.

Pricing: Pipedrive begins at $14 per seat per month, billed annually. But there’s a free 14-day trial you can get started with.

Why We Recommend Using Pipedrive: If you want a comprehensive sales tool to help manage your leads and drive home more revenue, Pipedrive is a solid choice. They offer many AI-powered features to make your life easier and save a lot of time.

Bonus Small Business Tools

Aside from these top business tools that we mentioned above, we also use and recommend the following plugins to better manage our WordPress sites:

17. WPForms is the most beginner-friendly contact form plugin used by over 6,000,000 sites. It features an intuitive drag-and-drop form builder, allowing you to build beautiful contact forms, payment forms, user registration forms, multi-page forms, and more.
18. All in One SEO is a WordPress SEO plugin that helps you optimize your site for search engines. It provides powerful on-page SEO optimization tools to help search engines better crawl and index your site, among many other capabilities.
19. SeedProd is the ultimate drag-and-drop page builder plugin for WordPress. With this software, you can design high-converting and beautiful pages that convert visitors into leads and leads into customers. You can create everything from landing pages and custom home pages to 404 pages and more.
20. MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It brings the power of Google Analytics right to your WordPress dashboard, so you can get detailed reports of important metrics to see what’s working and what could be improved.
21. OptinMonster is the best lead generation and popup plugin that helps you convert website visitors into subscribers and customers. With this tool, you can create a wide range of campaigns, including popups, scroll boxes, floating bars, and fullscreen welcome mats.
22. MemberPress is a popular WordPress membership plugin for building membership sites. It has advanced membership features, including the ability to create gated content, add member levels, accept payments, create members-only forums, and more.
23. PushEngage is a web push notification software that helps you engage and retain visitors once they’ve left your site. When users leave, you can send them all types of reminders, such as product announcements, blog post notifications, cart abandonment reminders, and more.
24. RafflePress is a WordPress giveaway and contest plugin that lets you run all sorts of competitions. For example, you can run a giveaway to grow your email list.
25. WP Mail SMTP is the best WordPress SMTP plugin for improving the deliverability and security of your emails.
26. WP Simple Pay is the best Stripe payments plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily create payment forms or buttons that accept 13+ payment methods and collect recurring payments.
27. Smash Balloon is a suite of social media plugins for WordPress websites. It allows you to display custom Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube feeds on your site to boost followers and engagement.
28. WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is cost-effective, super-flexible, and easy to use for beginners. You can easily create product pages, accept payments, manage orders, and much more. Basically, you can create your entire online store from scratch.
29. SEOBoost is the best content optimization tool. It allows you to do keyword research, create detailed content briefs, optimize your work for keywords, and audit your existing content for improvements. Essentially, it helps you write better-ranking content for your business blog.

Frequently Asked Questions About Business Tools

Before we wrap up, let’s address some common questions we often get about choosing and using business tools.

What should you look for in a business tool?

The most important factors to consider when selecting a business tool are:

• Integration with WordPress: If you own a WordPress site or WooCommerce store, you’ll want a business tool that easily connects the platforms. That way, no crucial information is lost in translation.
• Ease of Use: The tool should be user-friendly and have an intuitive interface. Small businesses often have limited resources and may not have dedicated IT personnel, so it’s essential that the tool is easy for anyone on the team to use.
• Scalability: Will it be able to grow with your business? Make sure the software can accommodate increasing data, users, and business complexity.
• Cost-effectiveness: Evaluate the cost of the software pricing and its value for your business. Consider both upfront costs and ongoing fees. Some tools offer scalable pricing plans, which can be beneficial for small businesses.
• Feature Set: Identify the specific features that are essential for your business. Whether it’s task management, CRM, eCommerce capabilities, or content marketing, make sure the service aligns with your business needs.
• Customization: Look for a tool that allows some level of customization. This ensures that the tool can be adapted to meet your business’s unique requirements.
• Customer Support: Reliable customer support is crucial. Check the availability, response times, and level of support provided. This is especially important when technical issues arise.
• Security: Security is vital, especially when dealing with customer data. The tool should adhere to industry security standards and have measures in place to protect your business and customer information.
• Mobile Compatibility: With an increasing number of users accessing websites through different devices, the software should be mobile-friendly.
• Community and Reviews: Check for testimonials and user feedback to gain insights into the experiences of other small businesses using the tool.
• Data Backup and Recovery: Make sure the software has reliable data backup and recovery mechanisms to prevent data loss in case of unexpected events. That said, if you don’t already have a WordPress backup plugin, Duplicator is our go-to recommendation.

Do business tools integrate with your WordPress site?

Yes, the best WordPress plugins should seamlessly integrate with the most popular third-party business tools. However, if there isn’t an integration, we recommend using Uncanny Automator.

It is the best automation plugin, allowing you to create unlimited automated workflows in WordPress. That means you can connect your website to a specific tool to complete an action.

Let’s say every time someone completes your contact form, you want to automatically add those contacts to your prospects list to your CRM tool. You can create an automated workflow through Uncanny Automator that will easily execute that action for you.

Are there any free business tools available?

Yes, many of these tools offer a free version with limited features. That means you can test the product and see if it meets your needs. That said, you can also check out our list of the best free business tools for small businesses.

We hope this article helped you find the best business tools for small businesses. You can also check out our list of the must-have WordPress plugins for business websites or our guide on how to build customer loyalty in WordPress with gamification.

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