Whether you’re an entrepreneur, small business owner, or just work for a small company, there are numerous technological tools to improve your business. These can help you grow your customer base, improve your productivity, and increase revenue.
Below is a list of the most popular free online tools aimed at entrepreneurs and small business owners. You can use them to create websites, manage your finances, develop marketing strategies, and much more.
Shift
Shift is the modern workstation for highly productive teams and entrepreneurs who want to get things done more efficiently. Shift lets you manage all of your apps, extensions, social media accounts, and email accounts in one beautiful desktop application. It’s the kind of productivity software that changes everything by keeping everything you’re doing right in front of you.
Plans
Basic: Free
Advanced: $99 per year
Station
Station is a next-generation dashboard that rules all of your apps. The “smart dock” as it’s dubbed, groups all of your apps, tabs, and open web pages in one place to let you context switch and multitask across different accounts, faster. Like Shift, it also comes with a focus feature that lets you turn off notifications so you can concentrate on getting things done.
Plans
Individual: Free
Teams: TBD (as of Feb. 2020)
Time Management
Time management tools help you keep track of time spent throughout the workday. This helps teams optimize effort and productivity with a deeper understanding of how profitable certain projects truly are. After all, time is money when it comes to small business growth.
TimeDoctor
TimeDoctor is the productivity cure-all for time wasted. TimeDoctor not only tracks the total amount of time spent on your work, but it also provides an analytical breakdown of how much time is spent on each project, client, or task. Time Doctor is accurate to the second, so you can easily bill clients or pay employees based on tracked time.
Plans
Basic: 14-day trial, then $10 per user/mo.
RescueTime
According to ResueTime, only 10% of people say they feel “in control” of how they spend their workday. But focusing for a long period of time on a single task or project can have a massive competitive advantage. RescueTime helps you identify how you spend your time, what you spend it on, and when you’re most likely to perform your best work.
Plans
Basic: Free
Premium: 14-day trial, then $6 per month
Slack
Slack shares many of the features as Flock but it comes at a higher cost per user, per month. Compare Flock vs. Slack.
Plans
Basic: Free
Standard: $6.67 per user/mo.
Plus: $12.50 per user/mo.
Video Conferencing
Video conferencing software and tools give small businesses the flexibility of communicating face-to-face from just about anywhere—the home, the office, or a job site—across all devices. The right software and tools integrate screen-sharing, screen-recording, and video streaming capabilities that give SMBs powerful tools to conduct professional virtual meetings.
Flock
Video conferencing is essential for globally dispersed and remote teams. Flock gives small businesses the ability to host online meetings and webinars with video-conferencing software built right into the core messenger. Start a video call directly in a conversation channel and share your screen during a live stream or presentation. Flock video conferencing lets you communicate with anyone face-to-face and in real-time from anywhere.
Plans
Basic: Free
Pro: $4.50 per user/mo.
Zoom
Zoom is one of the more popular small business video conferencing apps on the market. Its free plan lets you host unlimited 1:1 meetings or group meetings of up to 100 participants with a 40-minute limit, and includes custom meeting IDs and screen-sharing capabilities in HD.
Plans
Basic: Free
Pro: $15 per host/mo.
Business: $20 per host/mo.
Stay Connected
Host your virtual meeting on Flock with our built-in video conferencing tools.
Website Builder from Wix
If your small business needs a website (and the answer to that for most businesses is a resounding “yes, it does”) and your website building needs are basic, then try using a free website builder such as Wix, which offers a free account. Wix can help you create a full-featured, mobile-friendly website that won’t break your budget. After using the free plan for a while, if you realize that your business would really benefit from all the features a web hosting provider can provide you, then you can opt for a paid web hosting service such as HostGator Web Hosting.
Virtual Private Network from CyberGhost
Small businesses that concerned about security (and you should be) need to implement personal virtual private network (VPN) services. These services hide online activity from snoops, and limits who can and can’t access network content. Most VPNs are pay-to-play but there are a few services, such as CyberGhost ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) , that give you a bit of protection at no cost.
CyberGhost is the best free VPN service on the market. It offers reliable connection speeds and excellent network security, plus it works on most modern operating systems (OSes). It’s somewhat difficult to configure, especially for really small businesses; and if you need Mac or Linux support, you’ll need to upgrade to the paid version. But if you just need something simple, easy, and free, then CyberGhost is a great tool.
Endpoint Protection from Avast
What’s the point of growing a business if it can be shut down by viruses or hackers? Avast’s endpoint protection comes in a free and a premium ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) version, both of which protect your network well.
If you opt for the free version, keep in mind that you won’t have access to proactive controls, a firewall, or data shredding. However, you’ll still get access to solid malware blocking, security scanning, and rescue disk functionality—all of which will come in handy at some point.
Project Management from Wrike
Wrike’s ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) project management solution is one of the best on the market regardless of which tier you choose. The free version supports up to five users, an unlimited number of collaborators, and 2 GB of free storage. With this plan, you can manage tasks, share files, and monitor your group’s activities in a real-time feed.
If you need customizations and reporting, you’ll have to upgrade to a higher tier. But if you’re just getting started and your team is small, the free project management tool will be perfect for you.
Video Conferencing from join.me
If you’re looking to connect with clients, prospects, and remote workers, you’ll need a reliable video conferencing solution to help you get the job done. Join.me ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) offers a free plan that lets you invite up to 10 video participants, share screens, and supports up to five video feeds.
Join.me isn’t the most robust offering on the market, but it’s definitely a strong competitor among the free solutions. If you don’t have money to spend, and you need the cream of the free crop, try join.me.
Applicant Tracking from Zoho Recruit
Small businesses that don’t have job openings often will love Zoho Recruit ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) . This applicant tracking tool gives you access to one recruiter and up to five open positions at once. You’ll be able to input, publish, and track jobs until you find the right candidate for your company’s specific needs.
You’ll also be able to send emails to applicants via five free email templates, which will make your life easier if you have to send the same (or similar) messages over and over again.
Human Resources Management from Deputy
Once you’ve found the right candidate, you’ll need to track his or her progress via a human resources (HR) management tool. Deputy ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) offers a starter plan that costs just $1 per employee per month. Yes, I know, this isn’t free. But at only $1 per month, it’s an incredibly solid investment.
Deputy will allow you to schedule employee shifts, make company announcements, and manage tasks, all within one easy-to-use tool. Unfortunately, at this price tier, you won’t be able to add timesheets or payroll integration. For that, you’ll have to spend an extra $2 per employee per month.
Accounting from Wave
Your employees definitely want to get paid. So does your landlord and your utilities provider. To keep your books balanced, you can use Wave ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) . With the free version of Wave, you’ll receive accounting and reports functionality, you’ll be able to create and scan invoices, and you’ll be able to scan receipts directly into the system.
No, this isn’t a one-stop shop for all of your bookkeeping needs. But if you keep things simple, you’ll be able to get pretty far using this basic service. For things such as payments and automatic integration with direct deposit payroll, you’ll have to pay $19 month.
Business Planning from EquityNet
If your company is still looking to lure investors, EquityNet ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) offers a free crowdfunding platform that will help you plan, analyze, and share your business plan with investors. You’ll create your plan using EquityNet’s plan and analysis software, and you’ll publish it onto the website and share it with anyone who is willing to read your pitch.
Although this is more of a funding tool than a planning tool, the software is good enough to get you through the initial ideation stages (and, who knows, you might even get lucky and find a deep-pocketed investor).
Asana
Asana is an essential small business tool that teams use to stay focused on the goals, projects, and daily tasks of a growing business. The ability to view all of your projects in calendar view, list view, or board view, and assign tasks with due dates to multiple stakeholders is a beautiful thing. Asana’s aesthetically pleasing user interface and versatility are a few reasons why it’s one of the more popular project management tools on the market.
Plans
Basic: Free
Premium: $11 per user/mo.
Business: $25 per user/mo.
Trello
Like Asana, Trello lets you work more collaboratively with boards, lists, and cards that help you to visually organize and prioritize team projects like a pro should. Small businesses use Trello for a lot—from product planning to content strategy to budgeting. There’s not a whole lot that Trello can’t do to improve the way your small business works and collaborates.
Plans
Basic: Free
Business: $10 per user/mo.
File & Document Manager
Data management and file-sharing systems are essential to small business operations and team collaboration. File sharing software backs up all of your important files and documents in the cloud and syncs them across all your devices—all the while keeping a record of relevant and shareable data accessible throughout the entire company.
Google Drive
Google Drive is the most popular cloud-based small business file management and sharing software, and it’s absolutely free. You can create, store, and share all types of files from documents to slide presentations to spreadsheets to images and edit them collectively as a team in real-time. Google Drive even lets you sync your files across all your devices and share them publicly or privately with external stakeholders.
Plans
Basic: Free, 15GB
G Suite: $6 per month, 30GB
Google One: $2 per month, 100GB; $3 per month, 200GB; $10 per month, 2TB
Conclusion
Awareness of business tools and technology helps you make the right decisions while expanding your business to the next level. Most successful companies use a system which they call “The Business Infrastructure”. Pulling together multiple tools and technologies can help you to get a decisive edge over the others in the industry. In order to get an ideal setup for your small business, you have to invest considerable time in finding out your requirements and then searching for the best possible solutions online.