12 Essential Small Business Tools for 2025

It’s practically impossible to escape the need for business software and digital solutions these days. Even the most analogue business is likely to utilise at least some of the essential small business tools on this list.

The right software can transform a business by streamlining processes in such a way as to save money and increase productivity, so it’s important that you perform your due diligence before signing up for expensive, long-term subscriptions.

Of course, like the business world itself, tech evolves quickly. Tomorrow’s sleek new AI-powered solution can quickly become yesterday’s Netscape Explorer. That’s why we’ve compiled 2025’s best options across a range of tasks so your business can stay up to date.

 

Best tools for small businesses 2025

Top communication tools for businesses

Many communication tools now offer similar features to one another. As such, any decisions on software for speaking to third parties should rest on compatibility and how well it’s been adopted elsewhere.

Using the same communication software that your clients and collaborators are already comfortable with will ensure that meetings and calls go much smoother. You may be able to find something marginally better that’s less well-known, but if your important call is derailed by an attendee that can’t figure out how to unmute themselves, then it’s of little use.

 

Microsoft Teams– Best for collaboration

Despite Apple and Google’s best efforts, Microsoft Windows still reigns supreme as the platform of choice for businesses. Employees and clients are familiar with it, and other businesses are likely to be using it too. Because of this, Teams is likely to be the go-to for most when looking to set up video conferencing and group chats.

Because it’s part of Microsoft’s Office Suite, it plays well with Outlook and is happy with all the usual file types you’d expect from Office too. Send a Word doc through Teams, and the recipient can easily pick it up and edit it, with you seeing changes in real time.

Pros

• Clients and third parties are likely to be familiar with it
• Seamless integration with other Microsoft Office tools
• Available across multiple platforms (iPhones and Macs don’t miss out)

 

Cons

• Free version offers a time-limited experience
• Doesn’t always deal well with larger files
• Having everything in one place may overwhelm some

 

Pricing

The free plan includes everything, but limits group calls to 1 hour and 100 participants. Upgrading to one of Microsoft’s 365 Personal or Family plans at £8.49 per month, or £10.49 per month respectively ups call lengths to 30 hours with 300 participants

 

Slack– Best for team communication

If your company’s group chats can quickly go off topic, the Slack’s forum-board-style interface may work better for your team.

Users can subscribe to different chats, and save themselves the bother of scrolling through posts about departments and work they have no involvement with

Pros

• Best for large, segmented teams
• Video calling and file sharing available
• Able to integrate with over 2000 apps

 

Cons

• Expensive for big teams
• Free plan doesn’t save messages for long

 

Pricing

There’s a free plan available, but it only saves message history for 90 days.

The paid-for plans start at £7 per month, but as this rate applies to each individual user, large teams can quickly run up equally large bills.

 

Zoom– Best for video conferencing

After breaking through during the pandemic, Zoom still stands as one of the best options for video conferencing around. Cisco’s Webex and other platforms may be making a push for their top spot, but Zoom’s sheer number of existing users ensures that it keeps its crown.

Pros

• Easy to use and user-friendly interface
• AI assistant can summarise meetings
• Can accommodate up to 1000 meeting participants

 

Cons

• Expensive paid plans
• Questions over data privacy

 

Pricing

Zoom has a free plan that is limited to 40 minutes.

Its paid-for offerings start from £10.83 per month, per user. This allows meetings of up to 30 hours and 100 participants. For those extra-large 500 or 1000-participant meetings mentioned, you’ll need to add £40 or £72 respectively per month to your package.

 

Top project management tools

Project management tools make it easy to organise workloads and identify which stage each project is at.

There’s an array of different methods (Gantt, Kanban, etc.) used in order to do this, and it may take a few free trials with different platforms to see which is right for your business.

 

Monday– Best for supervising workflow

Monday makes it simple for managers to see at a glance how each employee’s workload is coming along.

Projects show in a simple list with a Gantt-style bar chart next to each to show how close to completion it is.

Pros

• Great for overseeing multiple staff and projects
• Ability to grade the priority of each project
• Automation features that will notify others when tasks arrive or are completed

 

Cons

• Mobile app lacks some features
• Onboarding could be more streamlined
• Filters could have more options

 

Pricing

A free plan gives two users up to three boards.  Paid plans vary between £8 per user, per month to £17 per user, per month which unlocks everything.

 

Asana– Best free option for small teams

Asana has a heavily AI-based interface that will even allow you to ask it to create automated workflows for you. Many of the usual features one would expect from project management software are here, but it’s Asana’s pricing that really makes it stand out.

Their free tier is easily among the best around, offering unlimited projects, tasks, messages, assignees, and even file storage for up to ten people.

Pros

• Generous free tier
• Intuitive AI assistant
• Comprehensive suite of tools

 

Cons

• Time tracking on available on most expensive tiers
• Only one user at a time can be assigned to a task

 

Pricing

While the free tier may be enough for some, you’ll need to opt for a paid plan to unlock AI, workflow, and other features. Paid plans start from £9.49 per user, per month.

 

Wrike– Best for managing personal workloads

Wrike utilises Kanban-style boards to allow employees to manage their workloads effectively. Beyond that, however, it also contains several tools such as scheduling aids that make it perfect for large teams and complex projects.

Pros

• 9% uptime for reliability
• Migration tools to make moving from other platforms simple
• Interactive Gantt charts

 

Cons

• No note-taking facility
• Expensive for smaller workforces
• No chat option

 

Pricing

There’s a free version available, but that doesn’t extend beyond a solo user. Paid plans range from $10 per user, per month for up to 15 users, and $24.80 per user, per month for up to 200.

 

 

Top financial and accounting tools

Almost every business needs to track their income, create financial reports, and submit tax documents.

Specialist software tools can make such tasks far simpler and reduce both mistakes and the amount of time spent on them.

 

QuickBooks– Best for bookkeeping

Intuit’s QuickBooks has been one of the market leaders in bookkeeping for a while, and that’s one of its strengths. Because it’s so well-established now, you’re likely to find that your accountant is familiar with it.

It also means that it integrates well with other popular platforms, including Shopify, PayPal, and Amazon Business.

Pros

• Integrates well with 3rd party applications
• Easy to access from any device, phone, tablet or computer
• Regularly updated

 

Cons

• Need extra subscriptions for multiple businesses
• Limited number of users
• Risk of data loss as the information is not backed up

 

Pricing

£10 per month for sole traders and £16 per month for limited companies registered for VAT. They often run promos that provide half-price fees for the first few months too.

 

Zoho Invoice– Best for invoicing

There are several other platforms we could have mentioned here, but Zoho Invoice takes the crown for one simple reason – it’s free.

Others may have fancy AI-tools and slicker interfaces, but while Zoho Invoice provides everything you could really need, and works well, why bother paying more?

Pros

• Mobile app
• Customisable
• It’s free!

 

Cons

• Some of the deeper functions require developer skills
• Design could be a little cleaner

 

Pricing

Free for UK businesses

 

 

Top marketing tools

Without the right tools around them, you can seriously hamper your marketing team’s progress. The right software solutions can not only save your team valuable time, but also open up opportunities that would otherwise be closed off.

 

Assembly– Best for managing social media networks

Assembly beats out the competition by doing all of the simple things well. You want to cross-post across different networks? A couple of clicks and you’re done. Looking to schedule several posts as part of a campaign? It’s got you covered.

The platform also boasts a pretty helpful analytical section that provides metrics on how your posts have performed on different networks.

Pros

• Simple to link multiple platforms
• Calendar-like interface makes scheduling easy
• AI helper

 

Cons

• Time zones can sometimes be a little off
• AI Draft Generator is a little clunky

 

Pricing

$45 per month gets you 50 scheduled posts a month. To extend that to 250 posts, the standard plan will set you back $140 per month instead.

 

Canva – Best for designing graphics

For the longest time, Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator were the only real players in the graphics game. The problem with both is that they both require a steep learning curve to be able to use.

Canva filled a gap in the market by providing the ability to produce professional-level graphics without having to be a trained graphic designer.

Pros

• Good selection of royalty-free images
• Useful AI features
• Simple to use

 

Cons

• AI feature still has limitations in what it can generate
• Video features could use some refinement

 

Pricing

The free tier is actually pretty useful and may be enough for some small businesses. Otherwise the pro account unlocks premium images and templates, and costs £100 per year.

 

Ahrefs – Best for SEO

There’s a glut of keyword finding platforms available to SEO specialists, with many offering much the same as one another. Because of this, the best course of action is often to go for an established name with plenty of help online to find.

At some point, there’s bound to be an obscure site health issue or something else that you haven’t come across before, and when it does, you’ll be glad for the tutorials on how to fix it online all using Ahrefs.

Semrush is another tool that performs similarly, and is also a regular fixture among SEO circles, but Ahrefs just nicks the crown with its useful lists of semantically similar keywords and domain ratings.

Pros

• Strong keyword finding feature
• Their domain ratings have become an industry metric
• Helpful site health reports

 

Cons

• While considered one of the best at estimating traffic, Ahrefs can still be way off sometimes, especially on smaller sites.
• Using credits to update SERPs that haven’t loaded is a little cheeky

 

Pricing

There’s a fair amount of difference in the pricing of Ahrefs’ plans. The ‘Lite’ subscription at £99 per month provides 500 credits and may be enough for many small businesses. Other tiers come in at £199 or £359 per month and top out with the ‘Enterprise’ plan at £11,990 per year.

 

DaVinci Resolve – Best for video editing

There’s a case for saying that DaVinci Resolve is actually too good for office use. The video editor has been used for Oscar-winning movies and huge TV shows in recent years, so its more than capable of knocking up a LinkedIn video post.

Professional-level video editing software is nothing new though. The real beauty of DaVinci Resolve is in its free version. While it lacks some of the advanced features of the paid tiers, the free plan is still generous enough to provide everything you need to produce professional-looking videos.

Pros

• Compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux
• A host of powerful tools and features
• Generous free tier

 

Cons

• All that power comes at a price: Da Vinci Resolve commands a steep learning curve
• Can be a bit of a system resources drain while running

 

Pricing

It’s free! DaVinci Resolve Studio is their premium product and commands a one-off fee of £255.

 

 

Additional tools

While they don’t necessarily fit in the categories above, you may find that some of the following could be beneficial for your business.

• 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
• Zapier- Best for automating workflows
• HubSpot- Best for inbound marketing
• Evernote – Best note-taking platform
• Quillbot – Best AI checker
• Perplexity – Best AI tool

 

A great way 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 975 0380, or email [email protected] for a free consultation.