Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) online tools for designing, website building, accounting, invoicing, payment services, and whatnot have democratized the expansion of small businesses on the internet. 

Such tools may come at zero onboarding costs and help businesses instantly set up shops online and start selling. 

But prolonged dependency on DIY tools may lead to higher commission costs as you scale up your operations. Also, the limited options for customization without technical know-how may take away a significant chunk of your profits. 

It is advisable to build websites, designs & market content with the help of trusted partners, especially if you have a growing business to manage. They may be expensive for short-term requirements however promises low incremental costs in the long run and more importantly, help you stay focused on your core business activity.

13+ Must Have Saas Tools for Small Businesses

Our team at SmallBusinessWeb can help you stay competitive with affordable SaaS recommendations and resources. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the best SaaS tools we recommend for small businesses to grow their online presence.

For Customer Relation Management (CRM)

Do small businesses really need CRM? 

Until now, your online business must have survived without a CRM. However, times have changed since digital personalization is given more importance in business.  

As a small business or single-person business, you can try out spreadsheet CRM. It is as simple as organizing your customer data for streamlining sales and marketing activities in a simple excel sheet. 

However, when you find that 

• You can’t keep up with the flow of leads
• Your customer support team can’t provide customers with timely, accurate responses
• You find it difficult to locate your data
• You have a set of valuable, long-term accounts to manage

This is when the time is ripe to shift to SaaS-based small business CRM like

Best CRM Software For Small Business

Zoho CRM

Price: 

• Zoho CRM offers forever free plans for entrepreneurs (upto 3 users).

The other paid plans are

• Standard: USD 14/user/month (billed annually)
• Professional: USD 23/user/month (billed annually)

Features: 

Ease of use: Simple

No training is required to understand the software because of the user interface.

Zendesk Sell

Price:

Zendesk Sell offers 3 plans

• Team: US$ 19/user/month
• Growth: US$ 49/user/month
• Professional: US$ 99/user/month

All these are billed annually. 

Features: 

Here are the features Zendesk Sell offers. The availability of the features depends on the plan you select.

Ease of use: Simple

It is user-friendly and easy to use for beginners as well. 

Freshsales

Price: 

Freshsales offers a free plan along with paid plans. Here are the paid plans: 

• Blossom: USD 12/user/month billed annually or  USD 19/user/month billed monthly
• Garden: USD 25/user/month, billed annually or USD 35/user/month, billed monthly

Features: 

Ease of use: Simple

Sales sequencing and contact management are simple.

Monday.com

Price: 

Monday.com has a free version, but it is limited to 2 seats. There are options to choose the team size based on which the pricing for each plan is displayed. Here are the paid plans:

• Basic: $10/seat/month
• Standard: $14/seat/month
• Pro: $24/seat/month

Features: 

Ease of use: Complex

It has an intuitive and easy-to-use interface.

For Content Management on the Website

Content Management Systems (CMS) allow you to take control of your own website even when you don’t have knowledge of programming languages. This is especially good for small businesses with no in-house tech support.

Custom plugin additions & APIs can improve the functionality & design of websites as well as automate admin operations like bookkeeping, payments, invoicing, or even tax filing for small businesses to maximize productivity. 

Pure CMS tools like wordpress.org, Joomla, or Drupal can help, however, it is out of scope for today’s blog. Click here to know more. 

A modular form of CMS is managed hosting platform that offers drag-and-drop website builders, hosting accounts, and domain management. It has simplified digital transformation for home businesses & freelancers. 

Small businesses willing to accept payments or showcase their products online or simply build a marketing website can start at as low as USD 300 yearly. 

Squarespace

Price: 

• Personal: $16/month billed annually or $23/month billed monthly
• Business: $23/month billed annually or $33/month billed monthly 
• Basic Commerce: $27/month billed annually or $36/month billed monthly

Features:

• Core features like SEO, Features Site visibility, video storage, 24*7 customer support, SSL security, website metrics, etc.
• Marketing features like website analytics, promotional pop-ups, and banners, Google Ads Credits, Squarespace videos studio app
• Commerce features like fully integrated e-commerce, gift cards, product reviews, managing customer accounts, e-commerce analytics, merchandising tools, limited availability labels, etc.

Ease of use: Medium

It completely drags and drops, which makes it easy to add content and rearrange the pages.

Unicorn Platforms

Price: 

Unicorn Platforms has a free plan called Lurker; apart from that, here are the paid plans: 

• Maker: $72/year or $8/month
• Startup: $180/year or $18/month
• Business: $276/year or $28/month

Features: 

Ease of use: Simple

It is easy to build a fully functioning landing page, and you can instantly start creating a landing page. 

Wix 

Price:

Wix has four pricing plans that are billed annually as below: 

• Business Basic: USD 27/month
• Business Unlimited: USD 32/month
• Business VIP: USD 59/month 

Features: 

Ease of use: Medium

It is intuitive, and even beginners with no prior website-building experience can also use it.

For Lead Generation

Leadfeeder

Price: 

Leadfeeder has two plans, Lite and Premium. Lite is the free version. And Premium costs €79/month

Features: 

Ease of use: Complex 

It is easy to keep everything organized. 

Boomerang for Gmail

Price: 

There is a Basic plan that is free, and here are the paid plans

• Personal: $4.98/month billed annually
• Pro: $14.98/month billed annually
• Premium: $49.98/month billed annually

Features: 

Ease of use: Simple

It works well with Gmail. And setting reminders and scheduling outgoing mail is easy.

Sumo

Price: 

Sumo has a Pro pricing plan of $39/month, $468 is paid annually. It also has a free version

Features: 

• Features for growing the list like email opt-in forms, fully customizable design, visitor targeting, A/B tests, etc. 
• For contacts already on the list, there are features like 10k emails per month, welcome emails, email campaigns, email integrations, etc. 
• Other e-commerce features include connecting the store, reducing cart abandonment, increasing average age order value, discount codes, and e-commerce design templates. 
• Apart from that, there are features for analytics, 1-on-1 onboarding, etc.

Ease of use: Complex

It is simple to prompt users to take action and fill out forms to subscribe to newsletters.

ConvertPlus

Price:

US $23 for 6 months of support

Features: 

Ease of use: Medium

The templates are highly customizable and can be tweaked easily

Livserv

Price: 

• ALL-in-ONE: USD 180/month (hybrid system- interaction with human and AI bot)
• Free conversational AI: Full bot platform

Features: 

Ease of use: Simple

Integrating channels like Facebook and WhatsApp is easy

For Social Media Designing 

Canva

Price:

Canva free is available at no cost all year round. The other paid packages are:

• Canva Pro:  USD 12.99/month for one person
• Canva for Teams:  USD 14.99/month for the first five people. 

Features: 

• Various features are available for designing and publishing, like free stock photos, graphics, videos, and audio, free fonts, free templates, design creation with custom dimensions, custom templates, media tagging, magic resize, etc. 
• Real-time collaboration with link sharing, comments, approvals and notifications, team management tools, etc. 
• Brand content planner, designing insights, and workplace tools for brand management

Ease of use: Simple

It is intuitive and helps in exploring design tools at your own pace, 

Adobe Express

Price:

Adobe express has a free version and a premium version for US$9.99/month or US$ 99.99/year

Features: 

Ease of use: Medium

Easy to get started with numerous templates and assets for social media content.

Why Consult with Us if these are DIY Tools? 

Remember only some premium features of SaaS tools are available in the free version. 

You may need an experienced team to unlock the best features of SaaS tools and get the best ROI on lead generation, graphics & logo designing, or website development. 

If not for SmallBusinessWeb or other consultants catering to small businesses online, hiring individual resources to look after everyday activity under website designing, development, and digital marketing would be costlier. 

Whether you’re looking to take your small business online or grow your existing online business, we can significantly help you stay frugal and competitive. 

We have an integrated working environment with ColorWhistle technical experts who work on medium to large online business applications. With that advantageous working synergy, our technical consultants at SmallBusinessWeb provide great resources and recommendations for small business use cases.

Give us a call at +1 (919) 234-5140 or write to us, or request a price quote and we will be happy to discuss the prospects with you.