The Top 50+ Online Business Tools Used by Entrepreneurs

A carpenter is only as good as his tools – and the same is true for business owners. 

If you’re trying to build a business from scratch, it helps to have a range of top online business tools on hand to help. 

To find the best tools for business owners to help you hit your goals faster, we reached out to our buzzing community of entrepreneurs and creator educators to find the top online business tools they use every day to build, manage, and grow their businesses.

To help you find exactly what you’re looking for, we’ve organized their recommendations into categories – including social media marketing, email marketing, project management, and more –  to help you quickly and easily find the type of online business tools you’re looking for. 

Here’s our pick of the best:

• Social media marketing & management tools
• Graphic design tools
• Landing page design tools
• Email marketing & CRM tools
• Project management & file sharing tools
• Market research & analytics tools
• Communication & scheduling tools
• Webinar and video conferencing tools
• Outsourcing tools
• Finance & payment processing tools

Social media marketing & management business tools

If you’re a business owner, you’ll know how important social media marketing is for engaging your target audience and generating inbound leads. But growing your follower count, scheduling posts, and managing multiple social channels at once can be extremely time consuming, especially if you’re doing it all manually. 

Take advantage of these social media marketing and management tools to help you execute your social media strategy with ease – and avoid the all too familiar dread of realizing you haven’t posted anything in days (we’ve all been there).

1. Hootsuite

One of the most powerful social media marketing tools around, Hootsuite makes it super easy to manage all your social media accounts from a single dashboard. This online business tool allows you to bulk schedule social posts to multiple accounts, including Instagram, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, and more – dramatically cutting down on the time it takes you to post and distribute your content online. 

The Hootsuite scheduling tool also provides businesses with real-time social media analytics and reporting to help you see how your content is performing and benchmark your strategy against your competitors. Use the AI-driven post and caption generator to give you some much-needed inspiration for new content too.

Best for:

• Instantly generating post and caption ideas
• Scheduling and publishing posts, videos, and ads – including YouTube videos 
• Powerful social media analytics and reporting

2. Later

The top solution for ‘set it and forget it’ social media management, Later is one of our favorite online business tools for planning and scheduling visual content for Instagram, X (Twitter),  Pinterest, and many more channels. 

Later has its own built-in link in bio tool so you can convert more followers into customers with targeted, shoppable links. It also includes a mobile app for posting and scheduling on the go. If you’re serious about posting regularly on social media, this is a real contender for the best scheduling tool on the market – and it’s affordable too. 

Best for:

• Bulk scheduling social media content
• Built-in link in bio tool
• Affordable premium plans

3. Buffer

If you’re looking for a super simple scheduling tool with zero learning curve, Buffer could be the top tool for you. Use Buffer to quickly and easily schedule posts across all of your social accounts. You can customize your posts for each channel, share posts to multiple profiles at once, and analyze the performance of your posts across all your social networks. They also have a free plan available for businesses who are just getting started with social media and are still learning the ropes.

Best for:

• Beginner-friendly scheduling tool
• Maximum ease of use
• Free plan with up to 3 social media accounts

4. CoSchedule

A top social media and content calendar, CoSchedule allows users to build out their entire content marketing strategy from one master calendar, while collaborating with team members and ironing out their entire content distribution process. CoSchedule is a fully customizable social media and content calendar that helps you get a comprehensive overview of your content strategy, including your campaigns, upcoming tasks, and more. Businesses can also take advantage of CoSchedule’s AI-powered assistant for brainstorming, researching, writing, and editing content.

Best for:

• Planning your social media and content marketing strategy
• Getting a high-level view of your social campaigns
• Drag-and-drop rescheduling tool

5. Sprout Social

If you’re a fast growing business with advanced social media scheduling needs, Sprout Social might be the right fit. As well as comprehensive scheduling and posting features, Sprout Social also includes built-in social listening tools and dedicated features for influencer marketing campaign management. Their Employee Advocacy tool allows organizations to empower their employees to become brand advocates, including a hub of shareable brand content and pre-approved messages.

Best for:

• Bigger businesses with advanced social media needs
• Additional social listening tools
• Influencer marketing campaign management

Related: 12 Top Social Media Courses to Level-Up Your Marketing

Graphic design tools

Unless you’re an experienced designer, graphic design can be a real headache. The good news? There are now a wide range of online business tools that are tailor-made to help non-experts create beautifully designed content and marketing assets. Here are some of the top tools on the market for creating beautiful graphics, logos, and more…

1. Canva

One of the most popular graphic design tools around, Canva has everything you need to create polished, professional graphics for your business. Canva is great for creating content for social media – from Instagram Stories to LinkedIn Carousels, and more. Their integrations with top social media scheduling tools like Hootsuite, Later, and Buffer make it easy to instantly share and post your designs too. 

There are plenty of pre-built templates, styles, fonts and images to choose from on Canva and the simple user-interface makes it ideal for beginners. If you want to access all their content and design tools, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid Pro plan.

Best for: 

• Pre-built professional-quality templates
• Integrations with social media scheduling tools
• User-friendly drag-and-drop builder

2. Adobe Express

If you’re looking for a graphic design tool that’s designed for complete beginners, Adobe Express is the way to go. You’ve probably heard of Adobe’s suite of design tools before – but unlike other Adobe products, Adobe Express is made for entry-level graphic design. It’s affordable, streamlined, and super easy to use. 

Use this online business tool to design your logo, create certificates, edit images for social media, and more. And to give your content that extra wow factor, take advantage of over 200M+ royalty-free Adobe Stock photos, videos, music tracks, and design elements, as well as 25,000+ custom fonts.

Best for:

• Adobe-driven tool designed for beginners
• Huge library of stock images and custom fonts
• AI-powered content creation tools

3. Snappa

Another top tool for non-designers, Snappa makes it simple to create graphics and visual content for your business. Snappa is designed for speed, so you can quickly and easily design everything from YouTube thumbnails to ebook covers, and more.

On Snappa’s paid plans, users have the option to upload custom fonts, remove image backgrounds, and download unlimited assets. Snappa also integrates with Buffer for easy posting to social media scheduling.

Best for:

• Access to 5M+ free photos and graphics
• Upload your own custom fonts
• Quick and easy to get started

4. Visme

If you’re looking to personalize your presentations, white papers, forms, infographics, and more, Visme is a top graphic design tool designed to save business owners time and money. Choose from 1000s of templates and add interactive features like animations and 3D characters to your designs. Visme also lets you create wire frames and mockups to test your ideas before implementing them.

Best for:

• Creating design-led presentations and documents
• Range of data visualization tools
• Visualizing ideas with wire frames and mockups

5. Piktochart

Designed for creating infographics, Piktochart’s AI-driven infographic builder lets you turn complex data into simple, eye-catching visual designs – without hiring a graphic designer. Use this online business tool for easy data visualization and create branded reports, presentations, posters, and more. The Piktochart video editor lets you quickly and easily edit and optimize your videos for separate social channels too, including automatically transcribing content, adding subtitles, and cropping clips.

Best for: 

• Turning your data into infographics
• Easy video editing tools
• Automatically optimize content for different channels

Landing page design tools

Need a slick landing page for your product, service, or online course? Unless you’re an experienced web designer, don’t bother trying to build your landing pages from scratch. The following companies have plenty of proven templates to choose from to help you boost traffic, drive conversions, and put your best foot forward online. Here’s our pick of the best.

1. Leadpages

A dedicated lead generation platform, Leadpages is a great online business tool for creating high-quality landing pages quickly and easily. Build your own landing page using any of the 70+ customizable templates on the site and deploy them on any platform including WordPress and non-WordPress websites – and even Facebook. Do your own testing with their A/B split-test feature and see all your conversion rate stats and analytics in their handy dashboard. Leadpages also gives you access to real-life marketing experts to answer any questions you have and get personalized feedback on your landing pages.

Best for:

• High performing landing page templates
• Conversion-optimized designs
• Access to marketing experts

2. Unbounce

Powering billions of conversions for users worldwide, Unbounce has helped entrepreneurs, marketers and agencies alike increase their website and campaign conversions. The Unbounce landing page builder is great for minimizing the time it takes to design and publish high-converting landing pages for your business. Unbounce is more expensive than other landing page builders but it comes with AI-powered features like an automatic copy generator and A/B testing tools, as well as a wide range of integrations, including Mailchimp, Hubspot, and more.

Best for:

• Suite of AI-driven tools for landing page design and content
• Seamless integrations with other online business tools
• A/B testing features

3. ConvertKit

Designed for creators, ConvertKit is a top online business tool for creating high-converting landing pages, emails, and more. ConvertKit is built to help you grow your audience without increasing your work load with customizable landing pages, email tools, and automation features for organizing your subscribers, setting up email sequences, and customizing your customer journey.

Best for:

• Building customized landing pages in minutes
• Email marketing design and management
• Simple marketing automation tools

4. Instapage

Instapage is a top landing page tool for creating conversion-centered pages for every campaign you have. Take inspiration from hundreds of industry-specific templates, start from scratch, or import your own templates. Instapage offers a wide range of customization features, advanced analytics and reporting, and easy experimentation, including A/B testing and on-page user behavior analytics. The Instapage AdMap tool lets you connect ads to relevant landing pages so you can optimize your customer journey from start to finish.

Best for:

• Tailored landing pages for every channel
• Advanced experimentation tools
• Cloud-based collaboration features

5. Carrd

Built with simplicity at its heart, Carrd offers a suite of free tools to design your own landing pages and increase traffic to  your website. Carrd is easy to use and ideal for creating a simple and streamlined one-page site, including opt-in forms to collect email addresses from your website.

Best for:

• Simplified landing page builder
• Range of free features
• Dedicated sign-up forms

Email marketing & CRM tools

You’ve likely heard us say it before, but we’ll say it again – one of the most valuable assets in your online business is your email list. Growing and building your email list is essential for the long-term growth of your business. Use your email list to connect with and convert potential and existing customers. You can even monetize your newsletter to set up an additional revenue stream for your business. 

Here’s our pick of the top email tools and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms for businesses – and why you’re going to want to start using them.

1. MailChimp

MailChimp is a great starting point for building your first email marketing campaigns. This online business tool offers a range of tools to create and automated personalized customer journeys for your brand. Use their AI-powered tool to create your emails, segment your audience, and set up automated email flows. Monitor your email performance with analytics and reporting features to help you continuously improve and optimize your campaigns for better engagement. 

MailChimp has powerful features that are used by  Fortune 500 companies and small businesses alike – at a price point that works for everyone.

Best for:

• Easy email marketing automation
• AI-driven tools for easy content creation
• Custom reports for analyzing email campaign performance

2. Beehiiv

Beehiiv was first set up to make the process of starting, growing, and monetizing a newsletter super easy and user-friendly. With over 7500 active newsletters already using Beehiiv, they’re quickly becoming a top choice for creator educators and online entrepreneurs. Use Beehiiv’s tools to edit, design, and publish your own newsletter and get a customized, integrated website that automatically publishes your latest newsletters for users to access on-demand.

Best for:

• Simple, streamlined newsletter set-up
• Built-in monetization tools
• Integrated website with custom domain

3. Sender

Looking for an affordable and easy to use email marketing platform? Sender is a great choice for email newbies. Use this online business tool to set up email and text message flows and take advantage of their library of pre-made ready-to-use automation sequences to turn more prospects into customers. Sender also makes it straightforward to segment your subscribers into groups according to demographics and behavior, so you can tailor your messaging to different audiences in your email list. 

Best for:

• Easy pre-made automation sequences
• Beginner-friendly interface
• Segment subscribers for targeted messaging

4. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is the happy middle ground between a standard email service provider and a robust customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Basically, it’s both powerful AND easy to use – a rare combo. Use this tool for integrated email marketing, marketing automation, and a small business CRM.

Best for:

• Simple marketing automation
• Boost customer engagement through emails and SMS
• 900+ marketing integrations

5. ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is a top online business tool that combines a CRM, email marketing platform, landing page builder, membership site, and online store into one solution. Definitely not for beginners (there’s a serious learning curve), ClickFunnels aims to be a one-stop-shop for marketing your business and winning more customers for your business. If you’re up for the challenge, there are plenty of powerful features and capabilities you can take advantage of for marketing your business.

Best for:

• Building a relationship with your customers
• Setting up automated funnels based on customer behavior
• Proven funnel templates

Project Management & File Sharing

Whether you’re managing an external project with a client or an internal project with multiple team members, a project management tool is essential for helping you stay on track and on schedule. Without one, you run the risk of dropping the ball and missing deadlines – not ideal when you’re trying to grow a business. 

Here are our recs for the top online business tools to help you manage projects with multiple team members and/or collaborators.

1. Trello

Trello is a popular collaboration tool that lets you organize projects into boards. At a glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in the production process. The simple drag-and-drop interface is highly visual and user-friendly. Unique Trello boards, lists, and cards allow you to organize and prioritize your projects in a fun, flexible and rewarding way. It’s also accessible on any device so you can project manage on the go.

Best for:

• Visualizing projects as cards and lists
• Drag-and-drop interface
• Flexible and user-friendly

2. Asana

Asana is a top tool for managing complex projects with multiple collaborators. Organized by tasks, projects, calendars, and users, Asana allows remote teams to see projects at a glance from start to finish – and keep track no matter how big your organization (or client) is. Easily create tasks for yourself or assign one to a teammate, organize your tasks into shared lists or boards, and set deadlines for each stage of the project. Asana is super customizable to match your unique workflows and add structure to any project.

Best for:

• Managing complex projects with multiple collaborators
• Designed for remote teams
• Over 300+ integrations

3. Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management and team communication software that’s built for small businesses. Trusted by millions of users worldwide, Basecamp puts everything you need to get work done in one place. It’s a calm, organized way to manage projects, work with clients, and collaborate with team members and contractors. Simple, centralized, and clear, Basecamp is designed so everyone knows what to do, when to do it, and what assets and docs they need to use – without having to ask you all the time. Ideal for delegating and outsourcing.

Best for:

• One-page dashboard for easy project management
• To-do lists for tracking work and responsibilities
• Store, share, and discuss files in the platform

4. Google Workspace 

If you like to keep things simple, you can’t go wrong with Google Workspace. With Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Calendar, and Google Drive, as well as a whole range of other helpful tools, Google  Workspace has you covered for your next project.

With the Google Workspace apps, your work is always with you and always in sync – including documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and visual content. And it’s highly shareable too, so you can collaborate with team members, clients, and stakeholders, wherever you’re working from.

Best for:

• Comprehensive suite of office tools 
• Cloud storage and automatic syncing across devices
• Easy sharing and collaboration

5. Dropbox

With over 700 million registered users, Dropbox is a well-established online business tool that’s earned its reputation as a top choice for file sharing. Dropbox lets you safely and securely store and share your business files, with additional features like trackable links to see who’s viewing your content and when. 

If you’re working with other people, Dropbox also makes it easy for you to collaborate on shared documents, including editing PDFs. This tool is designed to bring all your files together in one central place and with their AI-powered search function, your content is easy to find and utilize – so no more wasting the day tracking down old content.

Best for:

• Easy and secure file sharing
• Trackable links for content
• AI-driven search tool

Market Research & Analytics

Understanding what your audience are doing and thinking day-to-day is an essential part of running a successful business. If you want to understand what’s happening when customers land on your website, see what people are searching for, survey your audience, and more, these  are the top online business tools you need in your toolkit.

1. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic. It is one of the most widely used web analytics tools on the internet and an invaluable resource for gaining insights about your website visitors and customers, with a super easy-to-use interface that’s ideal for beginners. 

Best for:

• Tracking and understanding customer behavior across your sites and apps
• Get data to help optimize your marketing performance
• Straightforward beginner-friendly interface

2. BuzzSumo

Keep your finger on the pulse of your industry with BuzzSumo. This online business tool helps you discover and track the most shared content and key influencers for any topic. It’s ideal for analyzing what content is performing best for any niche or competitor and getting fresh ideas for new content. You can also use BuzzSumo to find influencers and journalists to promote and share your content online.

Best for:

• Find and connect with journalists and influencers
• Discover and track engaging topics and real-time trends
• Generate fresh content ideas

3. Semrush

Known primarily as a keyword research tool, Semrush offers businesses a range of tools for market research and analytics. For example, their Traffic Analytics tool allows you to track and analyze competitors’ traffic to understand where their site visitors are coming from and how they’re interacting with their website content. Use Semrush for SEO, content marketing, market research, and more to get a leg up against your competitors. 

Best for:

• Finding content topics that resonate with your audience
• Competitor research
• SEO keyword research and SEO audits

4. Google Trends

Google Trends is another great free service provided by Google that displays how often specific keywords, subjects, and phrases have been searched for on Google over a set period of time. See if a particular topic is trending upwards or downwards in popularity and see related queries people are also searching for. Google Trends also offers a Trending Searches tab providing a snapshot of the top 20 fastest-rising search queries by country.

Best for:

• Quick snapshots of trending topics
• See top searches by region
• Understand search trends over time

5. Typeform

Typeform is a top online business tool for creating surveys, contact forms, and quizzes to share with your audience and customers. Create forms that your target audience will want to complete – and gather valuable content for market research. All Typeform surveys are mobile optimized and customizable, so you can create beautiful, interactive forms for all your research needs.

Best for:

• Creating and distributing customized surveys
• Built-in analytics for easy reporting
• Beautiful, interactive form designs

Communication & scheduling tools

Whether you’re communicating with your team, customers, freelancers, or your network, having the right tools for the job can make a huge difference to your conversations. Collaborate and chat with ease with these top communication and scheduling tools.

1. Slack

If you’re not already familiar with this online business tool, Slack is a cloud-based team collaboration platform used by millions of companies to manage communication among teams. Slack brings all your team’s communication together into one platform, giving everyone a shared workspace where conversations are organized and accessible thanks to separate channels and threads. It’s a great way to avoid using email – and save yourself from inbox hell.

Best for:

• Quick messaging between team members
• Organize chats into separate channels
• A faster alternative to email

2. Pumble

Choose how you want to communicate with Pumble. This online business tool gives you the chance to chat via text, voice note, video message, 1:1 calls, and more. Pumble’s top feature is its unlimited message history, available even on its free plan – so you can refer back to past messages, conversations, ideas, and details for years to come.

Best for:

• Sharing messages and files with team members
• Quick video conferencing tools
• Unlimited message history

3. Miro

Designed for hybrid and remote teams, Miro is a simple collaboration tool that provides a whiteboard-style interface for managing projects and communicating with your team members. Choose from chat features, comments, sticky notes, and even video to boost communication. Miro also offers over 200+ pre-built templates to help you manage your projects – whatever you’re working on.

Best for:

• Communicating and collaborating with remote team members
• Use comments, sticky notes, and video to chat and share
• Pre-built templates for easy project management

4. Calendly 

Calendly provides super straightforward scheduling software that’s ideal for setting up meetings with prospective customers and team members. It eliminates the need to use email and phone tags for scheduling appointments, calls, interviews, demos, and more. Create different appointment types and availability on your calendar, then share the link to your calendar so anyone can book a call with you in a matter of minutes – ideal for posting across your social media channels.

Best for:

• Scheduling meetings to connect with potential customers
• Easy communication between teams
• Eliminate back-and-forth emails 

5. Google Meet

If you’re already using Google Workspace, Google Meet makes sense as a straightforward video calling and communication platform. Google Meet is perfect for making 1:1 and group video calls, including instant messaging, screen sharing, and AI-driven translation tools. It also works on any device and the people you’re calling don’t even need a Google account to join.

Best for:

• Quick and easy calls (if you’re already a Google Workspace user)
• Seamless syncing with Google Calendar
• Choose from scheduled or spontaneous calls

6. Help Scout

Communicate better with your customers with Help Scout. Offering help desk software at an affordable price point, Help Scout lets you manage customer communication via email, live chat, and a dedicated help center. You can also take advantage of their email marketing tools for building closer connections with your customers. Thanks to its user-friendly interface, this customer-focussed online business tool makes it possible for companies of all sizes to offer excellent customer support.

Best for:

• Improving customer support and communication
• Offer email support, live chat, and a help center
• Affordable pricing

Webinar and video conferencing tools

Whether you host webinars to educate your audience, pitch your product or service, or generate income for your business, you need a reliable webinar platform to deliver your presentations. Here are some of the top webinar and video conferencing tools that came most recommended by our community – and why they made the list.

1. Zoom

One of the best known online business tools around, Zoom offers users remote conferencing services including video calls, web conferencing, webinars, and screen sharing. Zoom is ideal for connecting with prospects, customers, contractors, and team members alike. Use it for free for up to 40 minutes per call or sign up for a paid plan for more flexibility.

Best for:

• Easy communication via video call
• Suitable for meetings, webinars, and conferencing
• Basic free plan available

2. Demio

Designed for webinars, Demio is tailor-made to help marketers boost their webinar conversions. Use Demio to host live Q&A sessions, interviews, web summits, and live training or product demos. With advanced segmentations, real-time engagement tracking, actionable analytics, and conversion-focused features like Call-To-Actions, Handouts, Featured Chat and more, Demio is optimized to make your webinars more effective and impactful. Plus, Demio is 100% browser-based so your attendees don’t need to worry about downloading yet another app. Phew.

Best for:

• Built-for high converting webinars and demos
• In-webinar CTAs, Handouts and Featured Chat functions
• No-download  webinar tool

3. BigMarker

If you’re hosting webinars, conferences, or virtual events, BigMarker is a top platform to help you drive conversions. This online business tool is designed to make event management and marketing easy with a range of demand generation features, including webinar landing pages, email invites and reminders, and marketing integrations. Bonus features include Call-To-Action popups and public and private chat options.

With BigMarker, you can manage and set up your whole marketing  funnel to make sure every webinar is optimized for converting watchers into customers. Make your webinar recordings available on-demand and live stream sessions to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook to get more eyes on your content. 

Best for:

• Optimizing your webinars for conversions
• Create a customized webinar marketing funnel
• Use in-webinar CTAs and audience engagement tools

4. Crowdcast

Give your webinars maximum impact with Crowdcast. This online business tool gives you the chance to live stream to multiple platforms at the same time – including Facebook Live, YouTube Live, LinkedIn Live, and Twitch. This means you have the chance to meet your audience where they hang out the most, without asking them to download or sign up to another app. 

Crowdcast also offers built-in live production tools like overlays, videos, and CTAs to engage your audience at every event. You can also monetize your webinars with flexible ticketing options and integrations with Patreon and Stripe.

Best for:

• Live streaming across multiple platforms
• Audience engagement tools
• Option to host free or paid events

5. GoTo Webinar

Part of the GoTo suite of business tools, GoTo Webinar is a comprehensive virtual event platform. Yes GoToWebinar is one of the more expensive webinar solutions out there – but in return for the cost you get a reliable and robust product that’s super versatile. 

With built-in reports and analytics, GoToWebinar helps you generate a list of your most engaged attendees, so your sales team can turn qualified leads into customers. You can also breathe easy knowing your webinar is covered by enterprise-grade security, so all your customer data stays safe and secure. 

Best for:

• Safe and secure hosting
• Host up to 3,000 attendees in your webinars
• Create custom, personalized registration forms

Outsourcing tools

Looking to hire a freelancer to help you out? Whether you’ve got a one-time task or an ongoing project where you need support, hiring a freelancer can be an easy way to take advantage of outside talent while freeing up your time to focus on other tasks. Here are some top online business tools to find, recruit, and manage highly skilled freelancers – and get the job done.

1. Fiverr

Working on a tight budget? Check out Fiverr’s talent marketplace, where you can outsource thousands of different tasks to freelancers from all over the world, starting at just $5 per gig. Fiverr takes you step-by-step through the process of hiring a freelancer with all the ins and outs of project management taken care of. It’s easy to stay on track thanks to transparent deadlines and approval dates. Contact freelancers, provide a brief, give feedback, and issue payment all within the platform.

Best for:

• Hiring freelancers on a budget
• Easy communication and project management
• Meeting tight deadlines

2. Upwork

One of the best known platforms for hiring freelancers, Upwork connects you with highly skilled freelance writers, programmers, web designers, and more. Start by posting a job, Upwork will analyze your needs, and then send you a shortlist of likely candidates. You can also search the site for talent and freelancers can view your job and submit proposals too.

Best for:

• Multiple ways to find suitable freelancers
• Designed for longer-term projects
• Sliding fee scale

3. Wing

If you’re looking for a high-quality virtual assistant (VA), Wing is a quick and easy service for finding and hiring a dedicated assistant for your business. They’ll match you with an assistant based on your ideal requirements – and all communication, project management, and training is handled within the Wing Workspace app.

Best for:

• Hiring pre-vetted virtual assistants
• Straightforward pricing
• Dedicated platform for project management

4. 99Designs

For businesses needing to hire a professional graphic designer, 99Designs offers an easy way to connect with experts. 99Designs has thousands of highly skilled graphic designers on their books covering everything from logos to labels and packaging. When you submit a design task, dozens of designers compete for your business by submitting their work to you – and you only pay for the one you like the best. 99Designs is paired with VistaPrint, so you can easily print your completed designs on business cards, brochures, stickers, and more.

Best for:

• Connecting with graphic designers
• Tailored to logos
• Instantly print designs via VistaPrint

5. Penji

Penji gives businesses access to unlimited graphic design help for a flat monthly fee. That includes unlimited revision requests, fast turnaround times, and no contracts. Penjii is a great solution for content creators,startups, and agencies with regular graphic design needs working on a tight budget. Get graphic design support for presentations, ads, illustrations, branding, and more.

Best for:

• Hiring graphic designers for a fixed monthly fee
• Unlimited projects and unlimited revisions
• Super fast turnaround

Finance & payment processing tools

If you’re building a business, you need to be able to send, receive, and track payments easily and seamlessly. Take the headache out of payment processing with these online business tools – including payment infrastructure, budgeting, and invoicing software.

1. Stripe

Operating in 47+ countries and supporting 135+ currencies and payment methods, Stripe allows both individuals and businesses to accept payments over the internet. Stripe is particularly popular among entrepreneurs selling digital products online. It’s ideal for launching faster, automating workflows, and scaling as you grow. Plus, there are a wide range of integrations available to make your life as a business owner even easier.

Best for:

• International payment processing
• Send and accept payments in multiple currencies
• Wide range of software integrations

2. PayPal

One of the best known payment processing tools on the market, PayPal is a veteran in the world of online payments. It was first set up as a faster, safer way to send money, make a payment, and receive cash – and it’s still a top tool today. Securely link your bank accounts and credit cards and send money or accept money from almost anyone in the world. Simple as that (just beware of the fees).

Best for:

• Secure international payment processing
• Send and receive money from any device
• Request payment from clients and customers

3. Freshbooks

Freshbooks offers accounting software that makes running your business straightforward, fast, and secure. Built for small business owners, Freshbooks helps you automate repetitive tasks like invoicing, expenses, time tracking, and following up with clients. Sign up to access their dedicated accounting tools and get up and running in just a few clicks. And since Freshbooks is  cloud-based, you can securely access your financial data wherever you are.

Best for:

• Small business-friendly accounting software
• Automate invoicing, expense tracking, and time tracking
• Dedicated app store with 100+ integrations

4. Square

Targeted at retail and hospitality businesses, Square is a payment processing tool that includes both software and hardware for your business. Chances are you’ve come across Square’s point-of-sale (POS) system in your local coffee shop or retail store – but Square also offers online ordering, delivery, and shipment options for businesses, as well as invoicing software, customer analytics, and more. The payment possibilities are endless.

Best for:

• In-person and online payment processing
• Offers both hardware and software for accepting customer payments
• Includes built-in customer analytics tools

5. Helcim

Helcim is a payment processing service that lets you invoice, accept online payments, and manage subscriptions all in one place. If you’re interacting with your customers face-to-face, you can also use their flexible POS system too. This affordable, easy to use online business tool helps you manage payments, inventory, invoices, and more.

Best for:

• Setting up automated subscription plans and recurring payments
• Accept online and in-person payments
• Transparent pricing structure

Start building your business today with the best tools on the market

Save yourself time, energy, and money by using these top online business tools to streamline your tasks, projects, payments, and business management. The truth is, you’re going to struggle to build a business if you don’t use tools and software to help you do it, especially if you’re working solo or with a small team.

These online business tools are tried and tested by our community of entrepreneurs and creator educators – so you can rest assured they’re truly the best in the business.

And when you’re ready to start creating digital products to open up a new revenue stream for your business and bring your unique expertise and experience to a wider audience, Thinkific is here to help. Join a community of 70,000+ small businesses – try Thinkific for free today.

This blog was originally published in June 2019, it’s since been updated in May 2024.