18 Best Online Business Tools Every Founder Needs in 2024

TL;DR

👉 The marketplace is bigger than ever, and there are too many options for managers and business owners to choose from.

👉 If you're struggling with finding the digital tool to improve specific work areas and cycles OR looking for an alternative to the software you're currently using, keep on reading.

👉 'Cause this article of mine will display a list of business tools that I found to have the most essential features among their competitors — quick sneak peek, my favorites are monday.com, Salesflare, and Salesforce for many of your business needs and objectives.

Every business owner and manager needs a wide range of online business tools with powerful features to rely on their services.

'Cause everyone knows that one manager cannot handle each process as smoothly as digital products can.

Perhaps, to some extent. But counting on a manager to do the work of helpful tools, such as the products of Google Workspace, would be pointless at some point.

Thus, you need a suite of tools to get the job done. 

So here are THE high-tech tools that will help you and your workflow along the road.

18 Best Online Business Tools Every Founder Needs

I will provide you with a handful of online tools with use cases to take your business to the NEXT LEVEL.

So, hang on tight...

1- monday.com - to manage all aspects of your business

monday.com is a Work OS that offers you a LOT of fruitful resources to improve your workflow; this one-of-a-kind tool manages to fit into your description and act according to your needs flawlessly.

Most of the time, I use it as a project management tool; however, I have many friends that use it for sales CRM, HR management, and task management. In other words, this tool helps you advance in business operations regardless of the type of operation.

Offering an open platform for all kinds of teams to work on, monday.com has tons of advanced features that are worth mentioning BUT let me list my favorites among these features:

• enabling @mentions as swiftly as a messaging app
• all kinds of dashboard, planning, and tracking—such as activity, applicant, and communication
• enabling deadline management, thanks to features like alerts/notifications and time tracking
• bug tracking alongside bug/issue capture
• many useful business collaboration tools
• plenty of customization options, such as custom fields, custom workflows, and custom branding
• from task creation to database creation, offering space for creativity
• allowing advanced user management, document management, and expense management through unlimited boards, including private boards and message boards
• offering a wide range of pricing plans for businesses of all sizes

⭐monday.com G2 Rating: 4.7 (out of 8,665 reviews)

monday.com Pricing

• Free CRM Plan: €0 (up to 2 seats)
• Basic CRM Plan: €24/month when billed annually
• Standard CRM Plan: €30/month when billed annually
• Pro CRM Plan: €48/month when billed annually
• Enterprise Plan: For this plan, please contact monday.com's sales team.

2- UserGuiding - to onboard your customers effortlessly without any coding

UserGuiding is a no-code user onboarding tool that can support and enhance the entire customer experience.

Throughout the customer experience, all products and services need some explanatory guide. BUT imagine having an interactive guide instead of the written guides you see everywhere; that is what UserGuiding aims with step-by-step elements that introduce you to a new product.

With UserGuiding as your customer onboarding tool, you can:

• prioritize and customize your tasks based on their urgency with ease
• take a look at Hive Analytics to see statistics concerning projects
• create a resource center to display all of your resources to enhance the customer journey
• make use of the in-depth analytics tool to get beneficial insight regarding the performance of the features that customers use
• gather valuable feedback by using NPS (Net Promoter Score) surveys
• guide your customers effortlessly throughout the onboarding process with the help of onboarding checklists, in-app interactive guides, tooltips, hotspots, and self-help resource centers
• set goals and track them with ease
• customize the onboarding journey by adding emojis, videos, GIFs, and images that will complement your product's UI
• segmentate each customer to guide them through a personalized onboarding journey that will leave a positive impact
• perform all of the things I've mentioned above and even MORE in minutes

⭐UserGuiding G2 Rating: 4.7 (out of 391 reviews)

UserGuiding Pricing

UserGuiding's pricing is based on the number of active users you have. When billed yearly:

• Basic Plan: Starting from $69/month.
• Professional Plan: Starting from $199/month.
• Corporate Plan: Custom quote.

3- Salesflare - to systematize all customer management processes without a hitch

The reason why Salesflare is on this list is that it's a CRM that's customer-centric.

With Salesflare as your business tool to observe your sales funnel, you'll be able to reach your customers' email addresses just in seconds so that you can get in contact with them — this simplicity offers great convenience to remote teams specifically.

Of course, this isn't only limited to email addresses; you can also link Office 365, Exchange, iCloud, LinkedIn, and Zapier - making it possible for you to have your customers' data in your address book for easy reach.

Moreover, Salesflare counts as an online collaboration tool as it allows teams to cooperate on customer conversations, whether it's a video call or an audio call.

⭐Salesflare G2 Rating: 4.8 (out of 241 reviews)

Salesflare Pricing

• Growth Plan: $29/month per user when billed annually
• Pro Plan: $49/month per user when billed annually
• Enterprise Plan: $99/month per user when billed annually

*All the plans above include a 30-day free trial, making it possible to try them out before committing to an annual purchase.

4- Salesforce Service Cloud - to help customer service and support teams improve their workflows

A service of Salesforce, Service Cloud is a great place for customer service and support managers who need a powerful tool that includes the valuable features below:

👉 Case Management

👉 Knowledge Base

👉 Service Process and Automation

👉 Omni-Channel Routing

👉 Service Analytics

Thus, Salesforce Service Cloud helps you automate every stage of the service process WHILE giving you a platform that has the capability to customize the whole interaction with the key features it promotes.

So, if you think that benefiting from AI-powered workflows and workflows to deliver more personalized experiences is one of the key influencers in improving overall customer satisfaction, then Salesforce is the platform you should try!

⭐Salesforce G2 Rating: 4.3 (out of 3,510 reviews)

Salesforce Pricing

• Essentials Plan: €25/month per user when billed annually (up to 10 users)
• Professional Plan: €80/month per user when billed annually
• Enterprise Plan: €165/month per user when billed annually
• Unlimited Plan: €330/month per user when billed annually

*All the plans above include a 30-day free trial, making it possible to try them out before committing to an annual purchase.

5- Zendesk - to build long-lasting relationships with customers while delivering exceptional support

If what you're looking for is a tool that is capable of accelerating the response time AND offering custom interactions, this one's for you.

Zendesk is a business software for teams that provides an intuitive roadmap for each unique customer to ensure that businesses form a strong customer relationship bond.

Moreover, it offers a scalable experience - which helps out many global teams and divisions in the long run.

Let me list the top 3 features of this platform that impressed me the most:

• Agent workspace—where all agents can collaborate and reach customer data
• AI and automation—which enable personalized interactions and faster response time
• Routing and intelligence—which ensure that requests are directed to the right agents based on availability, expertise, and workload

⭐Zendesk G2 Rating: 4.3 (out of 5,739 reviews)

Zendesk Pricing

• Suite Team Plan: $49/month per user when billed annually
• Suite Growth Plan: $79/month per user when billed annually
• Suite Professional Plan: $99/month per user when billed annually
• Suite Enterprise Plan: $150/month per user when billed annually
• It Gets Even More Powerful Plan: Starting from $215/month per user when billed annually

*All plans above include a 30-day free trial, making it possible to try it out before committing to an annual purchase.

6- Grammarly - to create content that is enhanced and has no room for errors

Grammarly is one of the game changers that your website or blog needs since it not only corrects your grammar mistakes but also enhances your overall content by offering suggestions on how to advance the tone.

With a wide range of features that I'll be listing below, this online tool provides you with a blank canvas to compose, rewrite, and personalize your content with small but right touches.

Moreover, Grammarly now benefits from AI to aid teams with communication assistance TO express your brand voice on point—of course you have to input your company details first! 

Instead of putting your content on Google Docs and editing it, you can just download the widget and use it on different platforms throughout the creation process.

⭐Grammarly G2 Rating: 4.7 (out of 4,362 reviews)

Grammarly Pricing

• Free Plan: $0 (for individuals)
• Premium Plan: $20/month per user
• Business Plan: $25/month per user

*Pricing differs based on the country due to taxes. Thus, it's better to check their pricing page out before taking any actions.

7- Canva - to create stunning presentations, social media posts, and more

Canva is a graphic design tool that helps teams with graphics, presentations, social media posts, and more with the help of the templates it provides.

Without any design experience, you can create visual content, thanks to this easy-to-use platform. There are a few topics that worth mentioning when it comes to differentiating Canva from the other graphic design tools, such as inviting your team to collaborate in real-time, thousands of team templates to choose from, and content management in one place.

Enabling such things, Canva also supplies tons of powerful features:

• unlimited content, including templates, images, fonts, and colors
• branded templates for you to use again and again without having to create new templates
• brand kits that you can use on any of your content to be consistent with your branding
• comments and shares so that you can communicate with your team without changing platforms
• integrations to boost productivity and collaboration
• allow and deny access to your team according to the respective asset
• content planner with insights to help you along the way

⭐Canva G2 Rating: 4.7 (out of 4,363 reviews)

Canva Pricing

• Free Plan: $0
• Pro Plan: $14.99/month per user
• Teams Plan: $29.99/month per user

*All plans above include a 30-day free trial, making it possible to try it out before committing to an annual purchase.

8- WordPress - to build a website that you can operate effortlessly with everything in one place

WordPress is one of the musts in the SaaS business IF YOU'RE to publish content.

This publishing platform also serves as a content marketing tool that helps teams with blog posts, social media posts, and designs to increase their online presence.

How to do so?

As an open-source tool with robust features, it operates however you like to support you throughout this process. For example, you can change layouts, use a color palette that you like, add functions that you see fit, and utilize the fonts of your choice—basically customize the whole page on your own.

By the way, all I mentioned above are supported with:

• themes,
• patterns,
• portfolios,
• social feed,
• analytics and more.

⭐WordPress G2 Rating: 4.4 (out of 8,606 reviews)

WordPress Pricing

WordPress is an open-source tool that offers its services for free. On the other hand, you'll need extra services from a third-party hosting provider to make your website accessible online.

9- Help Scout - to improve your customer support completely

Help Scout is a help desk that improves customer communication by providing users with a platform that offers customer support.

When your customers need help, Help Scout helps you move faster by allowing you to work in a platform where several great features are located in. For example, it presents its users with a shared inbox, reporting abilities, knowledge base, live chat, messages, workflows, customer management, and integrations.

To deliver outstanding support while improving customer experience becomes child's play, thanks to the features that I have mentioned above. For instance, you can boost productivity and team collaboration with ease by making use of the shared inbox that gathers emails in a multi-channel communication channel for your team to respond; you might benefit from assignments, private notes, saved replies, and tagging your teammates within this process.

With Help Scout as your customer support software, you can:

• increase team collaboration on tickets that your customers leave
• build valuable relationships with your customers to boost customer loyalty
• automate actions
• create custom folders to make tracking of communication easier
• send bulk replies with a single click
• make use of collision detection, notifications, and advanced search and security
• get reports to gain insight regarding conversations, chats, documents, emails, and company
• take your data wherever you go with Help Scout's mobile application
• create blog posts to answer frequently asked questions with ease on your own site or even on Google Docs
• launch a help center with custom CSS to promote self-help
• provide live chat support, and many more

⭐Help Scout G2 Rating: 4.4 (out of 398 reviews)

Help Scout Pricing

• Standard Plan: $20/month per user when billed annually ($25/month per user on monthly subscriptions)
• Plus Plan: $40/month per user when billed annually ($50/month per user on monthly subscriptions)
• Pro Plan: $65/month per user when billed annually

*All the plans above include a 15-day-long free trial, making it possible to try them out before committing to an annual purchase.

10- Freshservice - to find top talent and recruit effortlessly

Freshservice is a business tool that specializes in HR so that you can hire new employees and manage them with ease; Freshservice is a part of Freshworks, a software company that produces multiple solutions.

Reducing HR workload, Freshservice is a total need for managers that are looking for a HRMS since it streamlines your HR processes with robust features: applicant tracking system, time off, employee information system, onboarding and offboarding, mobile app, and HR reports.

Thus, you will be able to utilize from smart candidate sourcing, making it easy to keep track of your job openings and channels. Besides, you will save tons of time during the screening process as you will benefit from the talent pool where all the data regarding current and past candidates will be gathered.

With Freshservice as your smart HR software, in a few clicks you will be able to:

• check, interview, and hire candidates from several job boards, referrals, social media, career sites, and vendors
• create your own hiring team to help the process go smoothly with specific elements like application forms, interviews, and workflow
• reach all the required information regarding candidates in only one place
• automate your hiring tasks by enabling employee self-service
• onboard your new employees virtually with checklists, reminders, and tasks
• keep track of your employees' time offs by creating and implementing time off policies
• get updates anywhere and anytime by accessing the mobile app on-the-go

⭐Freshservice G2 Rating: 4.6 (out of 1,114 reviews)

Freshservice Pricing

• Starter Plan: $19/month per agent when billed annually
• Growth Plan: $49/month per agent when billed annually
• Pro Plan: $95/month per agent when billed annually
• Enterprise Plan: $119/month per agent when billed annually

*All the plans above include a 21-day-long free trial, making it possible to try them out before making a monthly purchase.

11- Hive - to create workflows that help teams progress swiftly

Hive is an agile project management tool that helps you create workflows to monitor what you have on your plate, especially projects.

One of Capterra's Emerging Favorites of 2023 under the category of Remote Work Software, Hive simplifies the way you work by offering a platform to manage your projects for teams, regardless of their size. 

Putting importance on what its users want and say, Hive lets its users lead the way when it comes to new features. Thus, feature requests are very crucial for this tool; but, don't think that it doesn't have enough on its platform. Hive has features that aid users when it comes to: project management, time management, team collaboration, automations, and integrations.

With Hive as your project management tool, you can:

• create unlimited tasks and projects, add action items and sub-tasks as you wish, and assign people and due dates to tasks
• change the way you see projects with a click; for example, from Gantt to Kanban
• use forms to collect information that you need, both from internal and external resources
• generate to-do lists for your own and your remote or hybrid team to spend your time according to your workload
• make use of time tracking to see productivity in general
• automate recurring tasks in order to avoid repeating the same action manually by setting triggers
• collaborate better in real-time with Hive's in-app messenger, whether it's messaging or getting feedback
• prioritize and customize your tasks based on their urgency with ease
• take a look at Hive Analytics to see statistics concerning projects

⭐Hive G2 Rating: 4.6 (out of 476 reviews)

Hive Pricing

• Solo Plan: $0 
• Teams Plan: $12/month per user when billed annually
• Enterprise Plan: For this plan, please contact sales.

*All the plans above include a 14-day-long free trial, making it possible to try them out before committing to an annual purchase.

*All the plans above include a 7-day-long free trial with a 30-day money-back guarantee, making it possible to try them out before committing to an annual purchase.

12- Slack - to communicate with all teams in a single place

Slack is a messaging program that helps internal communication with team members flow smoothly.

One of Capterra's Top Performers of 2023 under the category of Collaboration Software, Slack became a popular platform due to the intuitive UI and features it offers. For example, bringing your team together is really easy since it includes huddles, channels that you can add and remove people from depending on workline, and many more, like file sharing, and screen sharing.

Trusted by famous companies, such as Airbnb, NASA, Uber, Etsy, and The New York Times, Slack improves communication no matter the size of the team as a digital HQ with a high level of accessibility.

⭐Slack G2 Rating: 4.5 (out of 31,967 reviews)

Slack Pricing

• Free Plan: $0
• Pro Plan: $7.25/user per month when billed annually
• Business+ Plan: $12.50/user per month when billed annually
• Enterprise Grid Plan: For this plan, please contact Slack's sales team.

13- Google Workspace - to run your business in a single space

Google Workspace is a collection of software that is developed in order to boost productivity by Google.

Including Google apps, such as Google Drive, Google Chat, and Google Sheets, Google Workspace offers a vast platform with a great performance with integrations for teams to derive value from. Knowing that these business tools are produced by Google, it makes it easier to set up data tracking with analytics services, such as Google Analytics.

In other words, Google Workspace offers users an all-in-one solution that makes connecting and collaborating with teammates, customers, suppliers, and partners possible so that you can easily manage all your tools and workflow in a single place.

⭐Google Workspace G2 Rating: 4.6 (out of 40,659 reviews)

Google Workspace Pricing

• Business Starter Plan: $6/month per user when billed annually
• Business Standard Plan: $12/month per user when billed annually
• Business Plus Plan: $18/month per user when billed annually
• Enterprise Plan: For this plan, please contact Google's sales team.

*The first two plans above include a 14-day free trial, making it possible to try it out before committing to an annual purchase. However, for the last plan, it would be best to contact sales.

14- QuickBooks Online - to systematize your accounting process with smart features

QuickBooks Online is an essential tool when it comes to accounting.

Let me dig deeper by saying that this platform manages every little process from invoicing to bank feeds — with a very user-friendly interface. Thanks to its interface, accountants with no experience can adopt this solution effortlessly since it's a learn-on-the-job kind of platform.

All you need is to connect your bank to QuickBooks so that this software can handle operations in your stead to save you time and reduce possible errors along the way. This way, tracking transactions will be less difficult since it will appear on QuickBooks' timeline as well.

⭐QuickBooks G2 Rating: 4.0 (out of 3,160 reviews)

QuickBooks Pricing

• Simple Start Plan: $15/month
• Essentials Plan: $30/month
• Plus Plan: $45/month
• Advanced Plan: $100/month

*All plans above include a 30-day free trial.

In Conclusion

The SaaS marketplace has grown BIGGER THAN EVER.

There are many useful business tools BUT this does NOT hide the fact that there are many that you SHOULD avoid.

This is the sole reason that I have provided you with a list of online business tools that you WILL need in the long run.

So, check them out because they might be the ones to help you achieve your goals faster.

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