109 tools reviewed for small business owners

Social Media
Visual social media planner for Instagram
Later started as an Instagram scheduler and has grown into a full social media calendar. Its visual grid planner is unmatched for Instagram-heavy brands. Includes AI caption writing, analytics, and a link-in-bio tool.

Customer Service
Chat marketing automation for Messenger & Instagram
ManyChat automates conversations on Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, WhatsApp, and SMS. It's widely used for e-commerce support and marketing automation combined. Free plan supports up to 1,000 contacts.

AI Agents
Build AI employees that run your workflows 24/7 โ no code required

Analytics & Data
Digital analytics for product-led growth
Amplitude provides deep product analytics including funnel analysis, user journey mapping, and retention cohorts. Free plan supports up to 10M events/month. The go-to for product-led growth SaaS companies alongside Mixpanel.

AI Agents
Build, test, and deploy voice AI agents in minutes

HR & Hiring
Skills-based hiring to find the right people
Toggl Hire uses skills tests and video questions to help SMBs screen candidates before reviewing CVs, reducing bias and saving interview time. The free plan allows 3 active jobs. Strong for roles where skills matter most.

Scheduling & Admin
Open-source Calendly alternative
Cal.com is an open-source scheduling platform with a generous free hosted plan and self-hosting option for privacy-first businesses. It supports all major calendar integrations and video conferencing tools.

Social Media
All-in-one social media analytics and scheduling
Metricool combines scheduling, analytics, competitor analysis, and ad management across multiple social platforms. Its free plan is quite generous. Popular with freelancers and small agencies for its combination of features at low cost.

Sales & CRM
Feature-rich CRM for growing businesses
Zoho CRM offers a free plan for 3 users and an AI assistant (Zia) that predicts deal outcomes and recommends the best time to contact leads. Deep integration with the Zoho suite makes it compelling for businesses already in that ecosystem.

Design & Creative
Online video editing and creation
Veed.io makes video editing accessible to non-technical users with automatic subtitles, AI avatars, screen recording, and social media export presets. Great for SMBs creating marketing videos without a video editor.

E-commerce
Reviews, loyalty, and SMS for e-commerce
Yotpo provides product reviews, loyalty programmes, referrals, and SMS marketing in one e-commerce marketing platform. Its reviews widget boosts conversion rates, while the loyalty programme drives repeat purchases.

Writing & Content
AI writing assistant for marketing teams
Jasper uses AI to help small businesses write blog posts, ads, emails, and social copy faster. It offers 50+ templates and a brand voice feature to keep content consistent. Ideal for marketing teams that need high-volume content without a full writing staff.

SEO
Technical SEO crawler for site audits
Screaming Frog's SEO Spider crawls websites to identify technical SEO issues like broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags. Free for up to 500 URLs. The go-to technical SEO tool for agencies and developers.

Video & Media
Personalised video for sales and marketing
Vidyard enables sales teams to record personalised videos for prospects and track when they watch them. AI script writing and video messaging integrate with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Gmail. Free plan available.

Video & Media
Video hosting for marketing teams
Wistia hosts marketing videos with customisable players, lead capture forms in videos, chapter menus, and detailed viewer analytics. Its SEO-friendly embeds keep traffic on your own site rather than YouTube.

Social Media
Modern social media tool with review management
Vista Social is a newer social media platform that includes review management (Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor), making it unique for local businesses. AI writing tools and affordable pricing make it a strong Buffer alternative.

Marketing Automation
Email marketing for creators
ConvertKit is designed for creators, bloggers, and online educators, offering simple automation, landing pages, and a commerce platform for selling digital products. Free up to 1,000 subscribers. Beloved for its simplicity.

E-commerce
SMS marketing for Shopify brands
Postscript is a leading SMS marketing platform built exclusively for Shopify, with advanced segmentation, campaign analytics, and a conversational SMS feature. Particularly strong for DTC brands with high customer lifetime value.

AI Agents
Build, deploy, and manage AI agents and multi-agent teams without writing code

Social Media
Social media collaboration for teams and agencies
Planable focuses on team collaboration and client approvals, letting agencies and marketing teams preview, comment on, and approve social posts before publishing. The free plan supports 50 posts. Loved by agencies for streamlined client sign-off.

Accounting & Finance
Complete accounting for growing businesses
Zoho Books is a GST/VAT-compliant accounting platform with a free plan for businesses under $50k annual revenue. It integrates deeply with Zoho CRM, Inventory, and other Zoho tools. Strong for businesses already in the Zoho ecosystem.

Social Media
Advanced social scheduling at a fair price
Publer is a feature-rich social media scheduler with watermarking, UTM tracking, Instagram grid planner, and bulk scheduling. Free plan supports 3 accounts. Very competitive with Buffer and Later at lower price points for paid plans.

Sales & CRM
AI-powered CRM from Freshworks
Freshsales includes Freddy AI for lead scoring, deal insights, and activity suggestions. The free plan supports unlimited users with basic features. Part of the Freshworks suite, making it easy to pair with Freshdesk for support.

Workflow Automation
1-click automation for small businesses
Integrately offers 20 million+ ready-made automations you can activate with one click, making it the easiest automation tool for non-technical SMB owners. Cheaper than Zapier for comparable use cases.