109 tools reviewed for small business owners

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.

SEO
SEO software and tools trusted since 2004
Moz Pro offers keyword research, link building, site audits, and rank tracking with a strong educational community. Its MozBar browser extension is widely used. MozLocal is a popular local SEO tool for brick-and-mortar businesses.

AI Agents
Design, build, and ship AI agents for customer support and conversations

Video & Media
AI video generator for any use case
InVideo offers an AI video generator that creates complete videos from text prompts, plus a traditional template-based editor. Free plan includes watermarked exports. Covers everything from social media clips to promo videos.

Accounting & Finance
Expense reports that don't suck
Expensify automates expense reporting with SmartScan receipt capture, automatic expense categorisation, and one-click approval workflows. Its free plan covers individual use. Integrates with QuickBooks, Xero, and Netsuite.

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.

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.

Analytics & Data
Automatically capture every user interaction
Heap auto-captures every click, tap, and form submission on your website or app without needing manual event instrumentation. AI surfaces insights from captured data. Retroactive analysis lets you answer questions using historical data.

Social Media
Social media management with an inbox
Agorapulse provides social media scheduling, monitoring, and a unified inbox for managing all messages and comments. Its ROI reporting shows which social activities drive business results. Generous free plan for solo users.

Scheduling & Admin
Booking system for service businesses
SimplyBook.me is a feature-rich booking platform for salons, spas, clinics, and fitness studios. It includes class bookings, membership management, and a client app. The free plan supports 50 bookings/month.

Design & Creative
Create presentations, infographics, and more
Visme is a visual content creation platform for presentations, infographics, charts, and interactive content. Its AI slide generator and data visualisation tools are strong for B2B content marketers and trainers.

Accounting & Finance
Business banking built for small businesses
Relay is a business bank account with built-in budgeting tools, multiple sub-accounts, and direct Xero/QuickBooks sync. Free to use with no monthly fees. A modern alternative to traditional business banking for digital-first SMBs.

AI Agents
Automate complex workflows with AI nodes โ no code, no limits

Workflow Automation
Native automations inside your project management
ClickUp's built-in automations trigger actions based on task changes, dates, or incoming emails, keeping projects moving automatically. Free tier includes 100 automation runs/month. No separate tool needed for ClickUp users.

AI Agents
Orchestrate multi-agent AI crews that collaborate to complete complex tasks

Customer Service
Context-aware helpdesk from Zoho
Zoho Desk offers a free plan and deep integration with the broader Zoho ecosystem. Its Zia AI assists agents with sentiment analysis, response suggestions, and anomaly detection. Great for Zoho CRM users who want connected support.

SEO
Find what your audience is searching for
AnswerThePublic visualises search questions and queries around any keyword, helping content teams uncover what their audience wants to know. Now owned by Neil Patel. Great for content ideation and blog planning.

Marketing Automation
Email, automation, webinars, and more
GetResponse is an all-in-one platform covering email, automation, landing pages, webinars, and paid ads. Its AI-powered email generator and subject line tool speed up campaign creation. Good for businesses running multiple marketing channels.

SEO
Visualise PAA questions for content planning
AlsoAsked maps out Google's People Also Asked questions in a visual hierarchy, helping content teams plan topic clusters and FAQ sections. Highly affordable and focused on a specific but valuable use case.

Design & Creative
AI video generation and editing
Runway offers text-to-video, video-to-video, and AI-powered video editing tools. Its Gen-2 model is used by creative agencies and marketers for generating short-form video content without filming. Free plan includes limited credits.

Design & Creative
Quick, impactful content creation from Adobe
Adobe Express offers professional templates, AI generative fill, text-to-image, and brand kit features in a simplified interface. Free plan is strong; premium unlocks Adobe Stock and full Creative Cloud integration.

SEO
SEO tool for budget-conscious marketers
Ubersuggest by Neil Patel offers keyword research, site audits, and competitor analysis at a fraction of Ahrefs' cost. Free plan provides limited daily searches. A great entry-level SEO tool for SMBs starting out with SEO.

Video & Media
Turn content into compelling video, fast
Lumen5 uses AI to transform articles, blogs, and social posts into branded video content. Its free plan produces watermarked videos. Popular with content teams that want to repurpose written content into video without a videographer.