Over the years, we’ve used a lot of different small business software/apps/tools to help us grow. We’re often asked what specific tools we use. This blog post, we’ve outlined the best small business software that we personally use regularly in the day-to-day operations of our business. These tools we can’t live without! You’ll notice we’ve also included what year we started to use each tool. Many we have been using for years, in fact, some go all the back to 2012, and then others are recent additions to our tech stack.
We’ve grouped this vast range of software into the following categories, including marketing software, content creation software, website tools, productivity tools, data storage & security tools, financial management and other software. All these areas contain tools that have helped us capture leads, manage data, help boost conversions, increase sales, save time, improve efficiencies, gain visibility and the list goes on… Some of these tools are completely free, however others will incur additional costs with ongoing monthly costs, particularly if you’re after more advanced features. Either way, for any tool we pay for, it is worth the business benefit and ROI for us. We’ve included links for all software throughout the article so you can find out more information or sign up for a free trial.
Some are our affiliate links if you wish to use, and as mentioned, we only share what we actively use in our business, and we hope if you find this information valuable for your small business. Just remember considering your specific business needs and investigate further as there are no doubt more features/functionality available with these tools that we haven’t listed here.
Top 5 Best Small Business Software By Category
The list of the best small business software is definitely extensive! Therefore, we’ve grouped them into the following categories. For each software category we’ve shared the top 5 tools we use, plus details on how long we’ve been using it for, key functionality, why it made the list and our favourite features. Now we can’t list all the standard and additional features of every software, so we’ve just highlighted the main functionality that we use and definitely recommend checking them out for your specific needs. We hope you get inspired by what’s possible with small business technology to help you in your business, particularly other service-based small businesses like ours, and perhaps consider some of these proven tools in your business.
Small Business Software Categories:
- Best 5 Small Business Software – Marketing
- Best 5 Small Business Software – Content Creation
- Best 5 Small Business Software – Website Tools
- Best 5 Small Business Software – Productivity Tools
- Best 5 Small Business Software – Data Storage & Security
- Best 5 Small Business Software – Financial Management
- Best 5 Small Business Software – Other
- Summary
BEST 5 SMALL BUSINESS SOFTWARE – MARKETING
These tools are critical in our marketing efforts, particularly around lead capture, nurture and reporting of marketing activities. As you can see, I’ve used some for many years, that’s because they’re still good, and they are still the lifeblood of our small business marketing activities.
Here are our best 5 marketing software/tools that we use:
Yep, we use some other marketing software tools in our business, but these were the top 5 that we can’t live without!
Sign up here for notifications on future software reviews and recommendations.
BEST 5 SMALL BUSINESS SOFTWARE – CONTENT CREATION
Most of the content creation marketing tools we use, are fairly new in our tech stack. We were previously using other tools that we’ve outgrown, got better deals on or some are brand-new tools that offer functionality that we haven’t used at all before. Content marketing is an important part of our digital marketing strategy. All of these tools have been critical for us to create relevant content, have it make sense, create imagery/graphics that are relevant and get captions added to our videos. All contribute to making our content more engaging, on brand and targeted to our audience.
Here are our best 5 content creation marketing software/tools that we currently use:
We also use a few other content creation tools, plus a few more new ones that we’re evaluating. If you’re keen to be kept up to date, sign up here for more info.
Sign up here for notifications on future software reviews and recommendations.
BEST 5 SMALL BUSINESS SOFTWARE – WEBSITE TOOLS
As mentioned, with our strong focus on content marketing, it’s critical that our website plays a starring role in this strategy. This website launched back in 2014, and we’ve created close to 100 blog articles in that time, not to mention all the other pages on the site. Here is our website tech stack outlining the major tools that support our website backend. We focused on reliable and lightweight website tools to help improve our websites performance to leverage the organic traffic that we receive.
Here are our best 5 website tools/plugins that we use.
Sign up here for notifications on future software reviews and recommendations.
BEST 5 SMALL BUSINESS SOFTWARE – PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS
Like any business, there are tools that boost our productivity and are used on a day-to-day basis. We would be absolutely lost without them! Most you’ve probably heard of or use yourself, but they make our lives easier and more efficient. Some you may not have heard of, so highly recommend you check them out, as they can save you hours every single month.
Here are our best 5 productivity tools/software that we use.
Sign up here for notifications on future software reviews and recommendations.
BEST 5 SMALL BUSINESS SOFTWARE – DATA STORAGE & SECURITY
This small business software category outlines a bit of a mixture of tools we use for data storage, security and backups. Over the years we’ve learned some valuable lessons with our business being online. Our data is everything! Whether we need to access files on the run, share files with others – our team or clients, or just be safe and know our information is secure and backed up.
Here are our best 5 data storage, backup and security tools/software that we use.
Sign up here for notifications on future software reviews and recommendations.
BEST 5 SMALL BUSINESS SOFTWARE – FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Financial management software (FINTECH) is a massively growing software area, and as any small business knows, it’s critical to have these tools in place to improve and automate their business financials. There aren’t a lot of tools we use to date, but all the top 3 are critical to our operations. The final 2 are processing platforms to receive or make payments that are worthy mentions based on the high fees banks charge, particularly for international transfers.
Here are our best 5 financial management tools/software that we use.
Sign up here for notifications on future software reviews and recommendations.
BEST 5 SMALL BUSINESS SOFTWARE – OTHER TOOLS
The final category to showcase the software we use as a small business, falls under Other Tools. These are again critical to running our business but didn’t neatly fit into the categories above or in a separate category of their own. These tools fall under marketing/sales and/or customer service delivery. Most have dual purposes so didn’t want them to be pigeonholed into one category.
Here are our best 5 other tools/software that we use.
Sign up here for notifications on future software reviews and recommendations.
BEST SMALL BUSINESS SOFTWARE SUMMARY
Ok, that’s it! We’ve covered over 30 tools/software that we regularly use in our business in the various categories about – WOWSER!! These apps we cannot live without! Here is the overall summary of our list, feel free to click for further information or a free account.
New tools are being released all the time, as you saw above, some software we deem critical to our day-to-day operations we have only been using within the last 12 months.
Be sure to sign up here to receive future updates to this post or other software reviews/recommendations.
We hope you found this information helpful!
Sign up here for notifications on future software reviews and recommendations.
Have friends or colleagues that might find this information useful? Feel free to share this article via the social media links below.
