Best Small Business Software

Sign Up Now

Wave Accounting was created in 2010 by co-founders Kirk Simpson and James Lochrie who were frustrated by the lack of free and easy-to-use financial software for small businesses. Today Wave has more than 250 employees serving small businesses around the world. We chose it as the best accounting software because it lets small businesses track income and expenses, send invoices, scan receipts, track sales taxes, and more, all for free.

Wave helps users connect multiple bank accounts and credit cards and set up profiles for multiple businesses to help keep track of income and expenses. The software organizes accounts, payments, and invoices to make tax time easier and also offers robust reports to help identify cash flow trends.   

Users can create and send professional, branded invoices from Wave’s dashboard or mobile app. The invoicing software can set up recurring invoices and automatic credit card payments for repeat customers and automatically syncs invoice and payment information with its accounting software.   

Wave’s mobile app lets users scan receipts anywhere and sync them seamlessly with their Wave account to help keep track of business expenses. Users can also scan receipts offline to be synced the next time the device is online.

Although Wave is completely free to use, it also offers additional paid services, including accepting credit cards and bank payments and setting up payroll for employees and contractors. 

Wave Accounting

• Free accounting
• Free invoicing
• Free receipt scanning

Wave Payments

• All Wave Accounting features
• 2.9% + 60¢ per transaction for Visa, Mastercard, Discover
• 3.4% + 60¢ per transaction for American Express
• 1% per ACH transaction ($1 minimum fee)

Wave Payroll

• All Wave Accounting features
• $40 plus $6 per employee/contractor per month (tax-service states)
• $20 plus $6 per employee/contractor per month (self-service states)

Sign Up Now

Wix was founded in 2006 by three entrepreneurs frustrated with the difficulty and expense of creating a website. Today, the company has a staff of 5,000 employees worldwide and 200 million users in 190 countries. We chose it for the best website builder since it lets users create professional-looking websites with no coding knowledge for an affordable price.

Wix comes with hundreds of professional templates and a drag-and-drop editor, making it easy to create a professional business site in just minutes. Every website is designed to look great on mobile devices and features engaging effects including animation, video backgrounds, and scrolling.

Businesses that want to sell online can take advantage of Wix’s advanced e-commerce features. Users can set up an online store, manage inventory and orders, and get revenue and conversion rate reports using a simple, intuitive dashboard. Wix also lets store owners accept payments via Wix Payments, PayPal, and Stripe and integrates with Instagram and Facebook.

Although creating a basic website is free, upgrading to a paid plan is the only way to unlock Wix’s business and e-commerce features. All of Wix’s paid plans include a 14-day free trial, free hosting, Google Analytics, and the ability to link a custom domain.

Business Basic Plan

• $27 per month
• Accept online payments
• Unlimited bandwidth
• 50GB storage
• Connect your domain
• Remove Wix ads
• Five video hours
• Google Analytics
• Free domain for one year
• $600 ad vouchers
• Visitor Analytics app

Business Unlimited Plan

• $32 per month
• 100GB storage
• All Business Basic Plan features
• 10 video hours

Business VIP Plan

• $59 per month
• Accept online payments
• Unlimited storage
• All Business Unlimited Plan features
• Unlimited video hours
• Priority Response
• VIP Support

Sign Up Now

Mailchimp was created in 2001 by web design agency owners Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius who wanted to create an affordable email marketing service for small businesses. It has grown into a full-fledged marketing platform offering landing pages, websites, postcards, and more. We chose it as the best email marketing software because it offers small businesses high-level email marketing with both free and affordable paid plans.

Mailchimp’s free email software makes it easy for business owners new to email marketing to get started. The platform offers premade email templates, opt-in popups and signup forms, audience segmentation, and basic personalization. Users also get a mobile app that lets them view campaign performance and send emails with just a few clicks.  

Mailchimp’s drag-and-drop templates let users create professional, branded emails with no design skills. A built-in analytics tool also keeps track of open rates and clicks, and segments data to help show what’s working and what’s not. Users can automatically send out targeted emails based on user behaviors, like a welcome message for new signups or a related product recommendation for a recent buyer.       

Most small businesses can get pretty far using Mailchimp’s free plan. The paid plans add more subscribers and lists as well as more detailed automations:

Free Plan

• FREE
• 500 subscriber limit
• 1,000 emails per month
• Basic email templates
• Integrations with 300+ apps
• Landing pages and popup forms
• Single-step automations
• Segmentation
• Basic reports  

Essentials Plan

• $13 per month (based on the number of subscribers)*
• 50,000 subscriber limit
• Monthly email sends: 10x plan’s contact limit.
• All Free Plan features
• Access to all email templates
• A/B testing
• Remove Mailchimp footer
• 24/7 email and chat support

Standard Plan

• $20 per month (based on the number of subscribers)*
• 100,000 subscriber limit
• Monthly email sends: 12x plan’s contact limit.
• All Essentials Plan features
• Behavior-based automations
• Multi-step automations
• Send time optimization
• Delivery by time zone

* Use the Mailchimp calculator to determine pricing based on the size of the email list.

Mailchimp also offers a premium plan that starts at $350 per month, but this is geared more toward larger businesses.

Sign Up Now

In 2011, a company called Fog Creek Software launched a prototype of a project management tool designed to solve high-level planning issues. Later named Trello, the software grew to over 500,000 users in just one year and 4.75 million by 2014. We chose it as the best project management software because it offers a free, flexible, and visual way to manage projects.

Trello uses Kanban-style boards for task and project tracking and makes it easy to manage both individual projects and ongoing workflows. Its simple and intuitive interface lets users create custom boards and lists with cards that can include images, files, links, checklists, due dates, and more.

Users can get started in seconds with a blank board or choose from hundreds of categorized templates created by other users that can be modified as needed. Trello offers integrations with Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, and dozens of other third-party platforms as well as mobile apps to streamline collaboration and workflows.

Trello offers a lot with its free plan including unlimited personal boards, lists, and cards. The free plan is limited to 10MB per file attachment, 10 team boards, and one third-party integration (Power-up) per board. Three additional plans add features:

Free Plan

• Free
• Unlimited cards
• Up to 10 boards per workspace
• Unlimited power-ups per board
• Unlimited storage (10 MB/file)
• 250 workspace command runs per month
• Custom backgrounds and stickers
• Unlimited activity log
• Assignee and due dates
• iOS and Android mobile apps
• Two-factor authentication

Standard Plan

• $5 per user per month
• All Free Plan features
• Unlimited boards
• Advanced checklists
• Custom Fields
• Unlimited storage (250MB/file)
• 1,000 Workspace command runs per month
• Single board guests
• Saved searches

Premium Plan

• $10 per user per month
• All Free and Standard plan features
• Views: Calendar, timeline, table, dashboard, and map
• Workspace views: Table and calendar
• Unlimited workspace command runs
• Admin and security features
• Workspace-level templates
• Collections
• Observers
• Priority support
• Simple data export

Enterprise Plan

• Up to $17.50 per user per month, depending on total number of users
• All Free, Standard, and Premium plan features
• Unlimited workspaces
• Organization-wide permissions
• Organization-visible boards
• Public board management
• Multi-board guests
• Attachment permissions
• Power-up administration
• Free SSO and user provisioning with Atlassian access

Sign Up Now

Slack was originally built as an internal communication tool for a game development company started by Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield in 2009. Launched in 2014, it has millions of users in over 150 countries. We chose it as the best team communication software because it offers real-time messaging, feedback, and collaboration in a free, online platform.

Slack was developed to eliminate the inefficiencies and delays of email communication. The software lets users create channels that can be organized around a topic, team, project, or even a client. Channels can be public and open to all users of a Slack account or private and accessed by invitation only.

Besides communicating in real-time, Slack offers tons of integrations letting teams share files, create polls, schedule meetings, and connect to third-party project management, cloud storage, and productivity tools. The platform offers free, one-click voice and video calls and even lets users spin-off discussion threads to keep larger conversations focused and uncluttered.

One of Slack’s most useful features is its search function. No more sorting through emails or written notes hoping to find that one valuable piece of information. Slack lets users search for a conversation, mention, or user and share or bookmark it no matter how long ago it took place.        

Businesses that only need a single workspace, one-on-one video calls, and only a few app integrations can get by with a free Slack account. The free account also limits searches to 90 days of message history:                

Free Plan

• FREE
• Access to up to 90 days of message history
• Up to 10 third-party app integrations
• One-to-one video and voice calls

Pro Plan

• $7.25 per user per month
• Unlimited message search
• Unlimited third-party app integrations
• One-to-one video and voice calls
• Group video calls up to 15 people
• Screen sharing
• 10GB storage per user
• Guest accounts and shared channels
• 24/7 support

Business+ Plan

• $12.50 per user per month
• All Pro Plan features
• 20GB storage per user
• User management
• 24/7 support with four-hour first response time

Sign Up Now

Formerly Google Suite, Google Workplace is a collection of online office tools, including email, document creation and management, cloud storage, calendars, chat, video meetings, and more. We chose it as the best document management software because it offers secure, branded, cloud-based document creation, storage, collaboration, and sharing.

Google Workspace is a great option for small businesses that want to create an efficient, collaborative, cloud-based work environment without having to pay for expensive software or worrying about everyone having the same computer. Because every tool in the Google Workspace platform is a Google product, users can move seamlessly from app to app.

Businesses can start by creating a branded email address using Gmail, one of the most popular mail apps on the marketplace. Other tools include Google Calendars for team scheduling; Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides for creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with real-time collaboration; Google Drive for cloud storage; Google Chat for team messaging; and Google Meet for video meetings. 

Aside from the integrations between each app, Google Workspace also lets users connect to hundreds of third-party platforms, including Zoom, DocuSign, Salesforce, Trello, Asana, and many more. Google Workspace add-ons only access the minimum required data needed to complete an action to ensure that each business’s information stays secure.

Although anyone can get access to all Google Workspace apps by signing up for a free Gmail account, Google Workspace paid plans allow businesses to create business email addresses, get more cloud storage, and increase security. Google also offers a 14-day free trial on any Google Workspace paid plan:

Business Starter

• $6 per user per month
• Business email accounts
• Google Chat and Google Meet
• Shared calendars
• 30 GB Google Drive cloud storage per user
• Admin controls
• 24/7 standard support

Business Standard

• $12 per user per month
• All Business Start Plan features
• 2 TB Google Drive cloud storage per user
• Cloud Search 1st party data

Business Plus

• $18 per user per month
• All Business Standard Plan features
• 5 TB Google Drive cloud storage per user
• Vault and advanced endpoint management
• eDiscovery and Retention Policies

Enterprise

• All Business Plus Plan features
• Customizable with no limit on storage
• Cloud Search 1st & 3rd party data
• Security Center
• Enhanced management and compliance tools
• 24/7 enhanced support