Undoubtedly, SaaS tools helped companies worldwide overcome the pandemic stress test by assisting them to cope with massive shutdowns. SaaS tools gave the flexibility for organizations to allow their workforce to work from home and deliver essential goods and medicines through e-commerce. We can’t imagine what could have happened if we were stuck with only on-premise applications. The entire SaaS industry ensured that we all could go about doing our regular business despite the raging pandemic.
The last couple of years has been unarguably challenging for startups and small companies. Hybrid work and flexible work options have irrevocably changed the work environment. Small businesses and startups have to adapt to this new normal to stay competitive and to attract and retain talent. Under these trying circumstances, SaaS tools have come to play an even more significant role, and we hope this article will help you find the right toolset to maximize your employees’ productivity, which is critical for your profitability and growth in these stressful times.
The SaaS industry has done exceedingly well in the last two years, and today there is a SaaS tool for every business activity. While new SaaS tools spring up every month, the existing ones constantly improve their features and functionalities. Here’s a list of 50 of the best free SaaS tools for startups and small businesses from team collaboration to project management that can support your team’s needs
1. Collaboration
a. Clariti
Clariti is one of the best SaaS-based collaboration tools for startups and small businesses to unite their teams in different locations so they can communicate and work together efficiently. Clariti’s Workspaces allows users to Connect, Interact, Plan and Store all work with their team and stay organized by topic. Clariti provides an easy and effective way for everyone in a hybrid workplace to collaborate and interact with their team using faster, synchronous communication technologies, like chat messaging and internet calls, while not having to give up on the more traditional asynchronous ways to connect with the outside world using emails. Users of Clariti can also plan their workday with calendar events and store work documents securely on the cloud using Clariti’s built-in storage or third-party integrations. Clariti’s Workspaces is a natural way for users to organize all their work, no matter the tools they use.
Clariti users need not change the way they work. They can continue to send and receive emails in Clariti, share files, invite team members to chat or call, set to-dos, and calendar events. Clariti organizes your emails, calls, events, and chats by topic and into Workspaces. Everything on a particular topic is at your fingertips whenever you need it. There is no learning curve at all. When you use Clariti’s Workspaces, you don’t end up wasting time locating data in information silos and can be significantly more productive without any additional effort. Try it today and see the difference.
b. Slack
Slack is a cloud-based project collaboration and team interaction tool designed to facilitate communication across organizations. Slack provides public channels for members across organizations to start conversations. Private channels enable interaction within smaller teams, and direct channels help send messages directly to colleagues. Slack incorporates feeds from social media into the application and blends them with ongoing conversations in various channels.
c. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a cloud-based group chat solution that helps teams collaborate on documents. Its key features include messaging, conferencing and file sharing. Microsoft Teams has replaced Skype for Business as Microsoft’s online meeting solution.
The solution helps users store files online, manage documents, create groups and receive notifications. It is customizable for each team and users can communicate through instant messaging, online meetings, calling and web conferencing. The collaboration tool can be used to work on files within Office 365 apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and SharePoint.
2. Video Conferencing
a. Zoom
Zoom Meetings is a cloud-based video conferencing software solution that allows organizations in the educational, financial, health care, and government sectors to conduct virtual meetings and collaborate in real-time using integrated communication tools. Users can utilize HD video and audio to virtually communicate with meeting participants in any video call. Features include unlimited voice and video conferencing, screen sharing, messaging, video webinars, virtual workspaces, and more.
b. Google Meet
Google Meet is a video conferencing app. It is the business-oriented version of Google’s Hangouts platform and is suitable for businesses of all sizes. The solution enables users to make video calls with up to 30 users per high-definition video meeting. The app allows users to join pre-scheduled meetings from calendar events, choose a link, enter meeting code and even dial in from their phones if the invitation includes a phone number. Google Meet integrates with G Suite versions of Google Calendar and Gmail and shows the complete list of participants and scheduled meetings.
3. Webinars
a. GoToWebinar
GoToWebinar is a webinar and webcast tool designed to help businesses of all sizes manage online conferences and engage with clients. The platform enables professionals to generate leads, train your team, onboard customers or inform employees. GoToWebinar offers scheduling, engagement and publishing functionalities, which helps organizations host large-scale events. It offers a host of features such as custom registration pages, event management, webinar templates, video sharing, surveys, audience management and more. Additionally, it comes with white-label capabilities, which lets users personalize the webinar material using custom logos, images and colours to establish brand identity.
b. ClickMeeting
ClickMeeting is a browser-based webinar solution, that brings the power of webinars and video conferencing to organizations of any size, or freelancers. It improves team collaboration, boosts effective communication, and makes online teaching simple. The software requires no installation and works on all devices and operating systems.
4. Project Management
a. Trello
Trello is a visual collaboration tool for planning tasks and projects. While commonly used by agile software development teams, the solution is also used in other departments such as marketing, sales, support and HR. The web-based solution provides tools to define projects, their requirements and the workflow to ensure projects are completed in a planned sequential manner. Trello offers a digital board to create, organize and prioritize actions. Administrators or managers can even define workflows, assign tasks to individuals or teams, set deadlines and monitor progress. Trello cards allow users to collaborate with each other. Users can add comments, add members, and attach documents to the tasks assigned to them.
b. ProjectManager
ProjectManager is a project management software solution that offers features including project planning. budgeting, time tracking, task management, document management and reporting. ProjectManager also offers Gantt chart functionality that updates automatically. The software integrates with MS Project, allowing users to import MS Project plans and customize security settings. It also integrates with MS Excel, Word and Project Server, as well as Google Docs.
c. monday.com
monday.com, an award-winning collaboration and project management platform, helps teams plan together efficiently and execute complex projects to deliver results on time. monday.com team management and task management tool allow for ease of use and flexibility to onboard any team and manage multiple projects across the entire team. With a variety of productivity features such as time-tracking, an integrated kanban board, automated notifications, workflow automation, dependencies, multiple views and calendar integration, teams can achieve better and faster results for every project milestone.
d. Workzone
Workzone is a project management solution that offers document management, project collaboration, customizable reporting, resource and task management and time tracking. The software is cloud-based and offers automated emailed reports with up-to-date project status information. Workzone provides project information at various levels of detail to accommodate different user roles on the project. Users can see cross-project summaries that give organization-wide visibility to projects and resources as well as automated and personalized project to-do lists to see at a glance what’s next on each project.
e. Basecamp
Basecamp is a real-time communication tool that helps teams stay on the same page; it’s less for traditional project management tasks (e.g., resource planning and long-term scheduling). With to-do-lists, calendaring, due dates and file-sharing, Basecamp provides a way for teams to keep track of priorities and actionable items.
5. Software Development Issue & Project Tracking
a. Jira Software
Jira Software is a business process management tool used by agile teams to plan, track and release software. Jira Software supports Scrum, Kanban, a hybrid model or another unique workflow. Jira enables users to create project roadmaps to map out all projects in progress. The project board includes a drag-and-drop interface that allows teams to manage every project detail. The system offers functionality to create user stories and issues, plan sprints and distribute tasks across the team. Users also have access to information from thousands of business apps, from design and monitoring tools to source code and productivity apps.
b. Asana
Asana helps teams orchestrate their work—from daily tasks to strategic initiatives. With Asana, teams are more confident, move faster, and accomplish more with less—no matter where they are located or how many different departments are involved. More than 119,000 paying customers and millions of free organizations across 190 countries rely on Asana to manage everything from company objectives to digital transformation to product launches and marketing campaigns.
c. Backlog
Backlog is a cloud-based project management and issue tracking solution that caters to development teams working with design, marketing and IT teams. The key features of the solution include project and issue management, sub-tasking, bug tracking and burndown charts. Backlog offers features like watchlists, file sharing and comment threads. It integrates with Git and SVN which helps developers to manage a project’s source code along with project tasks. Backlog enables users to visualize their daily timeline and project workflows using Gantt charts. It also helps users to propose and compare changes to the project, comment on pull requests, track changes taking place in the project and document changes.
6. Accounting Software
a. FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a web-based accounting solution that caters to small businesses. FreshBooks serves various industries, such as marketing, legal services and business consulting, trades and home services and information technology (IT). Key features of FreshBooks include invoicing, expense tracking, time tracking, reporting and payments management. Users can brand their invoices, accept online payments and set auto payment reminders. Expenses can be tracked by attaching receipts to invoices, creating recurring expenses and taking snapshots of receipts.
b. Sage Intacct
Sage Intacct is a provider of cloud-based financial management and accounting software. Sage Intacct’s software solution is suitable for small to midsize accounting firms and can provide financial reporting and operational insights as well as the ability to automate critical financial processes. Sage Intacct cloud financial management solution manages all core financials and provides professional services to help implement Sage Intacct software.
7. Payroll & Benefits Software
a. ADP Workforce Solution
ADP Workforce Solution is suited for businesses with more than 50 employees looking to streamline HR processes. ADP Workforce Now includes capabilities such as payroll processing and tax filing, performance management, compensation management, talent acquisition, time and labor management, benefits management, analytics, plus more.
b. Gusto
Gusto is a modern, online human resource platform that helps any small business owner take care of all HR tasks. Gusto offers HR tools and HR services to help with managing employee onboarding, running payroll, administrating health benefits, and engaging employees and teams using one integrated, easy-to-use platform loved by over 100,000 modern employers. Any business owner will feel like a pro no matter how complicated the situation.
c. Patriot Payroll
Patriot Payroll from Patriot Software is an integrated human resource (HR) and payroll management solution that helps to streamline the different processes associated with managing payroll payments and tax submissions. The solution offers tools to maintain payroll records, print checks, establish direct deposits into bank accounts, generate payroll reports and submit state and federal taxes. Patriot Payroll offers the ability to issue payrolls through direct bank deposits and electronic cheques. The software offers personalized portals for employees to access their payroll and related financial information.
8. CRM
a. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a cloud-based business management platform that caters to businesses of all sizes. It offers sales and marketing automation tools with helpdesk, analytics and customer support functions. Zoho CRM helps users respond to customers across channels in real-time. Zia, Zoho CRM’s AI-powered sales assistant, can predict an appropriate time to contact customers. It scans emails for urgency and can display relevant statistics or documents when performing searches. Users can integrate with G Suite, WordPress, MailChimp, Evernote, Unbounce and other third-party systems.
b. Microsoft Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based CRM ecosystem for small, medium and enterprise organizations, with a focus on Sales, Field Service, Customer Service complete with strong integrations with Microsoft’s other Office 365 offerings like Teams, Outlook, Excel & Word. The Microsoft Dynamics 365 ecosystem has offerings ranging from lead and opportunity management, marketing, field service, IOT, customer service, mixed reality and project service automation all allowing for a more frictionless engagement with your customers. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is available for software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployment as well as on-premises complete with a nice user interface for mobile and desktop as well as a technology stack that ensure database security.
c. HubSpot
With its cloud-based, customer relationship management (CRM) platform, HubSpot CRM helps companies of all sizes track and nurture leads and analyze business metrics. HubSpot is suitable for any B2B or B2C business in a variety of segments, including accounting, marketing, sales, construction, retail, real estate and more. It offers features including outbound and inbound marketing, sales automation, sales pipeline management, customer relations management, email tracking, lead management, contact management and more. HubSpot CRM offers a visual dashboard with a real-time view of the entire sales funnel.
9. Sales Acceleration
a. HubSpot Sales Hub
Sales Hub is a powerful and easy to use sales CRM that includes sales engagement tools, configure-price-quote functionality, and robust sales analytics and reporting for growing teams. Optimize your sales process with HubSpot CRM. Achieve total visibility with sales analytics and reporting. Streamline your outreach with sales engagement tools. Close more deals faster with configure-price-quote functionality. Sales Hub is built on the HubSpot Growth Platform, where you can bring your customer data, tools, and teams together in one central system of record. You can connect the tools you use with Sales Hub with over 500 apps in the HubSpot App Marketplace, APIs, and solutions partners.
b. Zendesk Sell
Zendesk Sell (formerly Base) is the web and mobile-based customer relationship management application that allows B2B and B2C sales professionals to manage sales, track leads and engage proactively with customers from anywhere. The system features a standalone sales automation module with options for integrated channel management and web self-service capabilities. Zendesk Sell enables sales teams to capture, organize and properly track leads. Sales personnel can funnel leads from multiple sources including websites, spreadsheets or any marketing platform. Users can track sales and have full visibility into the sales pipeline with robust sales reporting feature.
10. Websites
a. Wix
Wix is a cloud-based landing page solution that helps users create and manage websites. The solution provides multiple templates with video backgrounds, fonts and animation. It allows users to customize the website with their own logo and branding. With the system, users can display images, videos and text in a gallery layout and add zoom-in or fade-in scrolling effects. Wix offers an Artificial Design Intelligence module that creates personalized websites for users with text and images.
b. GoDaddy Website Builder
GoDaddy Website Builder is designed to help businesses create websites to handle operations related to online bookings, sales, payments and more using custom layouts, fonts and colors. The application enables organizations to design online eCommerce stores and manage social media and email marketing operations on a unified platform. Store owners can add website banners to promote upcoming sales and contact forms to capture information of website visitors. Features of GoDaddy Website Builder are custom templates, image library, data backup, search engine optimization, reporting and more.
11. Chat Bots & Messengers
a. LiveHelpNow
LiveHelpNow multi-channel help desk/call center software facilitates real-time customer service communications via Live chat, Chat Bot, SMS/Text, Email, Facebook, VoIP(Phone) as well as provides ability to publish self-help knowledge base portal for customers to help themselves. LiveHelpNow chat support suite is a chat-based support application embedded into business websites.
b. Talkative
Talkative is a live chat solution that enables businesses and organizations worldwide to manage communication with customers by embedding audio/video calling, chat and co-browsing capabilities into business websites. Agents can utilize the platform to handle multiple chats, instantly translate messages into over 100 languages in real time and more as the customer browses through the website.
c. Zendesk
Zendesk is a cloud-based help desk management solution offering customizable tools to build customer service portal, knowledge base and online communities. The solution offers a customizable front-end portal, live chat features and integration with applications like Salesforce and Google Analytics. Zendesk is used across a wide range of vertical markets including technology, government, media and retail, from small to large.
12. Marketing Automation
a. SendInBlue
Sendinblue is an all-in-one marketing platform for engaging with your contacts and building better customer relationships through targeted and meaningful communication. Cover your entire marketing funnel with our all-in-one solution for marketing automation, email marketing, SMS marketing, chat, Facebook Ads, CRM and for sending transactional messages via email and SMS.
b. Mailchimp
Mailchimp’s all-in-one Marketing Platform helps small businesses market smarter so you can grow faster. As the backbone for your customer relationships, they provide AI-powered, user-friendly tools anyone can use to be successful. Mailchimp puts your audience at the center so you can send marketing emails and automated messages, create targeted ad campaigns, build landing pages, send postcards, facilitate reporting and analytics, and sell online.
13. Email Marketing
a. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign gives businesses of all sizes access to 500+ pre-built automations that combine email marketing, marketing automation and CRM for powerful segmentation and personalization across social, email, messaging, chat and text.
b. Campaigner
Campaigner is a cloud-based email marketing solution that caters to small and midsize businesses across various industry verticals. Professionals can create automation workflows using a drag-and-drop interface and improve customer engagement through conditional, behavioral and event-based triggers.
14. Content Marketing
a. Contently
Contently is a content marketing platform that provides users with options that help them create unique brand stories and attract new audiences. Users can set up roadmaps for their content and assign top grade editors to get the desired results in terms of attracting new customers. Contently organizes the editorial process with calendars, editorial assets and by creating customized approval processes.
b. Contentful
Contentful is a cloud-native content platform that enables medium to large-sized businesses to build digital experiences at scale. It allows teams to unify content in a single hub, structure it for use in any digital channel, and integrate seamlessly with hundreds of other tools through open APIs.
15. Landing pages
a. Sunny Landing Pages
Sunny Landing Pages is a cloud-based solution designed to help businesses in fitness, healthcare, travel and other industries create customizable landing pages. Professionals can track the activities and details of website visitors’ such as last/first seen time, the number of visits, location, browser, device and operating systems.
b. Geo Landing Pages
Geo Landing Pages is a cloud-based solution for WordPress, Shopify and other content management systems (CMS), which leverages a proprietary text stack to parse and compile large amounts of data. The platform helps businesses bulk geocode images and produce highly optimized landing pages for SEO and Pay Per Click (PPC).
16. Customer Support
a. Live Support
Live Support is a cloud-based and on-premise solution that helps enterprises streamline customer service processes via live chat and texts. Professionals can embed customizable chat widgets into business websites and handle clients’ inquiries in real-time. Organizations can use Live Support to create proactive campaigns, minimizing cart abandonment and improving overall conversion rates.
b. Customer Thermometer
Customer Thermometer is the powerful survey tool for maximizing customer success. Boasting some of the highest response rates in the industry, CT works by making it super-easy for customers to rate your brands, products, services and people with just one click. Customer Thermometer is used by more than 10,000 support, service and help desk teams around the world to keep track of customer satisfaction, chart NPS and measure a range of other KPIs and metrics. It can even drive employee engagement and pulse surveys.
17. Social Media Management
a. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a cloud-based social media management solution for organizations and businesses to collaboratively carry out campaigns across various social networks such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube. Hootsuite powers social media for organizations around the world—from the smallest businesses to the largest enterprises. Build your brand, strengthen connections with customers, and drive business results business leaders care about by integrating social seamlessly across your whole organization.
b. Buffer
Buffer is a social media management platform for small to midsize businesses that helps users publish content, engage clients and analyze their social media performance. Buffer integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. Social media posts can be customized for each platform and then sent out to all platforms at once. Buffer can also automatically publish social media posts at predetermined times. Buffer has a browser extension and mobile apps so that users can share and create social media posts from anywhere.
18. Graphic Designing
a. Venngage
Venngage is a graphic designing software that helps businesses create infographics using built-in templates. The platform enables managers to collaborate with colleagues on various infographics and share designs in PNG format. Users can utilize the drag and drop editor to add icons, charts, images and more on a unified interface. Additionally, Venngage allows teams to create shared folders and save personalized designs as templates.
b. Canva
Canva is a cloud-based graphic design tool used to create on-brand marketing content, sales presentations, training videos and more by companies of all sizes. This solution includes features such as drag-and-drop design and photo editing with access to custom fonts, frames, shapes, grids, and icons. Search our stock library to find what you need, with thousands of pre-licensed photos, videos, illustrations, soundtracks and more. Canva’s pre-built templates include logos, posters, presentations, infographics, social media posts, newsletters, menus, plus thousands more.
19. Surveys
a. Zoho Survey
Zoho Survey is a cloud-based 360-degree feedback surveying solution that caters to small, midsize and large organizations. The solution offers templates and a library of questions to create custom surveys. Survey creators can also customize themes to match their branding. It also offers multilingual support.
b. SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is a cloud-based survey tool that helps users create, send and analyze surveys. Users can email surveys to respondents and post them on their websites and social media profiles to increase response rate. Users can run customer satisfaction surveys to get feedback on products and services, and they can send employee engagement surveys to understand employee satisfaction within the company. The tool allows users to send surveys and check on results from a mobile device.
20. Screen Recording
a. Screen Recorder
Screen Recorder Pro is an on-premise recording solution that allows users to create screencasts and record online content. The solution can be used by business professionals looking to create instructional videos, such as demos and tutorials, or record live streaming video. With this Screen Recorder Pro, users can record using multiple modes. Recording modes include custom areas of the screen, mouse movement, full screen, specific application windows, and webcam captures.
b. Icecream Screen Recorder
Icecream Screen Recorder is a solution that allows businesses to record and edit videos using screen recording tools. With Icecream Screen Recorder, users can record online content including tutorials, online meetings, games, plus more. Webcam videos can also be recorded and edited with this solution. Users can add sounds to screen recordings as well as record audio-only files.
21. Data Storage and File Sharing
a. Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage is a data storage platform, which helps businesses of all sizes store data with multiple automatic redundancy options. Features include object versioning, data backup, geo-redundant storage, object and bucket-level permissions and audit log. Google Cloud Storage comes with a shippable storage server, transfer appliance, which facilitates offline data transfer for users. Employees can store data across different storage classes such as standard, nearline, coldline, and archive storage.
b. MEGA
MEGA is storage and communication management software designed to help businesses of all sizes upload and manage images, videos, documents and more in a centralized repository. The platform includes end-to-end encryption, which enables users to securely transfer and store files on a unified portal. MEGA automatically decrypts media files, enabling users to stream audio and video files on mobile devices.
Conclusion
These were our top picks for SaaS tools for startups and small businesses that you can use to help improve your business growth in 2022. SaaS has become the default business model for modern-day tech companies due to the ease of customization, payment plans, scalability, accessibility, low investments, etc. We hope you will find what you need in this list. If you think that some other application should find a place in this blog, let us know and we will include them in our list the next time. Now it’s time to sign up for these tools and maximize your business’ potential.
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