Best Small Business Tools for 2026

With the rate of technological advances becoming somewhat dizzying, it pays to occasionally evaluate whether your current suite of tools is still the best option for your business.

While there’s something to be said about using software that’s familiar to you and your staff, if you haven’t considered changing up for a few years you may be surprised at just what is possible now.

So put down your PalmPilot and add this page to your Netscape Navigator favourites, because we’re about to delve into the best that 2026 has to offer.

 

 

Top communication tools for businesses

 

Slack – best for internal comunication

As a means of communicating internally, slack has become the gold standard. Different channels allow staff members to subscribe only to the conversations that are of relevance to them, making it more user-friendly than some peers.

This is one of the reasons why it’s great for large enterprises. With so much stuff going on across multiple departments, one single channel runs the risk of being ignored if it’s loaded with content that doesn’t involve the user.

Pros

• Good free plan
• Excellent search feature

Cons

• Cheaper alternatives when it comes to paid tiers
• Now a market leader, Slack will be targeted more by those looking to steal data.

 

Google Workspace – best for tools

Google Meet and Google Chat are perfectly competent communication tools on their own, but look beyond them and you’ll find a comprehensive suite of business tools that integrate seamlessly with one another.

MS Office-esque apps such as Docs and Sheets have already been incorporated by many firms sick of paying for basic word processing or spreadsheet creation, and staying within that ecosphere may appeal to some businesses. Meanwhile, newer apps such as Tasks for project management and the AI-powered NotebookLM fill some of the gaps that previous incarnations of Google workspace had.

Pros

• Good pricing and excellent free plans
• User-friendly

Cons

• Chat’s 200MB limit on file sharing means that some files will need to be uploaded to Drive first
• Meet’s free plan limits meetings to 60 mins

 

Loom – best for training

Sometimes it’s just easier to show rather than tell.

Loom’s screen recording tool is perfect for showing others EXACTLY what you mean, making it perfect for those who need to train others. It’s easy to talk through what you’re doing too, which allows complex messages to be sent far quicker than trying to explain processes or problems without a walkthrough.

Pros

• Paid plans can remove ‘filler’ words
• Automatic storage to the cloud

Cons

• Free plan is quite limited
• Editing tools are basic

 

 

Top project management tools

 

Wrike – best for scalability

One of the mainstays in the project management sphere, Wrike remains a solid option for any business looking to organise its operations.

It offers plenty of features for both SMEs and large corporations alike, with plenty of opportunity for scaling between the two.

Pros 

• Easily scalable
• Strong reporting tools

Cons 

• Free version only offers 2gb of storage
• Some features are locked behind higher tiers that require significant hikes in price

 

Clickup – best for automation

ClickUp leans heavily on its AI ‘super agents’ that allow simple tasks such as sending emails and scheduling events to be automated simply.

The gripes some users had about bugs in earlier versions seem to have been cleared up now, and the platform provides real scope for saving time on straightforward but time-consuming jobs.

Pros 

• Excellent automation tools
• Customisable to different businesses

Cons 

• The dizzying array of different tools should be a boon but tends to clutter the UI instead.
• There’s a steep learning curve required to make the most of the platform.

 

 

Jira – best for software teams

Those involved in software development really shouldn’t waste their time anywhere else. As a former tech support company, Jira knows its way around this sector, and you can still see some evidence of their former guise in features such as bug tracking, support tickets, and technical problem solving.

Pros 

• Perfect for tech/software firms
• Over 3,000 app integrations available

Cons 

• Perhaps too ‘techie’ for businesses in other sectors
• Lacks the direct collaboration options that others provide

 

 

Top finance tools

Quickbooks – best for a comprehensive suite of tools

An all-in-one finance solution, Quickbooks has gained popularity as a means of offering payroll processing, invoice management, inventory tracking, and more under the one roof.

Pros

• Intuitive UI
• Strong reporting capabilities

Cons

• Lower tiers don’t allow more than a handful of users
• Occasional downtime reported for cloud users

 

 

Freshbooks – best for service-based project tracking

While other accounting software platforms tend to cater for inventory tracking and similar tasks, Freshbooks is made for those selling time and expertise instead. Integrated time tracking and one-click invoicing makes Freshbooks the chouice for most service-based professionals.

Pros

• Simple invoicing
• Great time/expense tracking functions

Cons

• Not as much scope for customisation as there is with competitors like Quickbooks
• Lacks the in-depth reporting features that some may require

 

 

Xero –  best for scalability

Designed to grow alongside a company all the way from startup to enterprise, Xero offers as little or as much as you need as your business scales up. Add to that the integration with over 1,000 different apps such as Shopify and Stripe and you can see how Xero has become a major player in accounting software.

Pros

• Unlimited users on all tiers
• Integrates with almost any app you can through at it

Cons

• Users have reported frustrations with online customer service and can struggle to speak to a real person
• No built-in debtor chasing facility

 

 

Top marketing tools

 

Klaviyo – best for Shopify integration

Klaviyo is a very capable email marketing tool in and of itself, however, if your business is based around a Shopify model, Klaviyo quickly becomes indispensable. One-click integration syncs everything you could need over. Real-time customer information such as browsing history and purchases is shared with Klaviyo to allow hyper-personalised mail.

Pros

• Great integration with Spotify
• Strong inbox placement rates

Cons

• Email templates can be clunky
• Reviews suggest that customer support could be better

 

Canva – best for simple graphic design

The saviour of non-Photoshop users everywhere, Canva continues to be an essential tool in many marketeers’ arsenals. Professional-quality images can be created with little effort thanks to its wide range of templates covering many different styles.

Pros

• Intuitive interface
• Brand kit allows users to make designs their own

Cons

• Graphic designers may get frustrated with limitations for more advanced work
• Its popularity means that templates and fonts may be picked up by many different businesses at the same time

 

Profound – best for GEO

Is SEO dead? Maybe not quite, but the influence of Google’s old ‘ten blue links’ model is certainly waning. With AI doing the searching for users now, the race is on for companies to feature in the answers it returns to users. Profound has quickly moved itself into position to be one of the big names in monitoring and improving brand visibility in AI LLM platforms.

Pros

• Deep reporting and analytics
• Actionable insights provide scope to improve visibility

Cons

• With the ‘Lite’ plan starting at $499 a month, it certainly isn’t cheap
• No free trial. The most basic option that only looks at ChatGPT is $99 per month

 

 

Top AI tools

 

Fireflies – best for transcription

It still feels like we’re searching for useful applications of AI. While lots of vague ideas continue to cloud the AI space though, simple use of it in things like note taking make perfect sense. Unlike other ideas, the technology is already at a stage where it can perform tasks like this brilliantly, saving hours of manpower.

Pros

• Great free plan
• Very accurate transcripts and good meeting summaries

Cons

• Lack of an auto-language detector seems an obvious misstep
• Doesn’t work so well in noisy environments

 

Zapier – best for automating tasks

Zapier aims to bring the convenience of automating digital tasks to those that aren’t so digitally savvy. Simple requests written in normal language are interpreted by an AI agent that creates workflow automations for you.

Pros

• Integrates with over 7,000 different apps
• Simple UI plays to its audience

Cons

• Expensive
• Manual automation coding still wins out on more complex tasks

 

Descript – best for video production

An AI video editor that promises to cut the time it takes to create sharable videos, Descript boasts a few interesting features. Chief among them is the ability to delete parts of the transcript and have the corresponding video clip disappear at the same time. It automatically alters the timeline of the video to fit the script.

Pros

• Automatic removal of filler words and ‘umms’
• Easy to share and collaborate with other users

Cons

• Lacks the professional-grade tools of non-AI rivals such as Final Cut
• Reports of transcription struggling with heavy accents.

 

Other tools

Tools that don’t necessarily fit in the categories above.

• Dropbox- Best for sharing large files
• Brevo – Best free platform for email automation
• WordPress- Best for creating websites or blogs
• Calendly- Best for scheduling meetings
• ZeroGPT – Best for exposing AI-generated content in text
• Claude – Best for AI coding tasks

 

Looking for ways for your business to evolve?

SaaS has allowed many businesses to experience game-changing solutions that skyrocket their productivity and saves countless hours of work. This, in turn, provides a great starting point for growth plans.

We have specialists on hand that can help you to create and implement effective growth strategies that take your business to the next level. Call us on 0800 060 8505, or email advice@forbesburton.com for a free consultation.