10 Small Business Growth Tools You Should Use

Running a small business can be anything but trivial, especially in highly competitive industries with dozens of new players entering the market weekly or even daily.

If you want to win, you must work efficiently with minimal effort. That's where small business tools come into play.

Let’s explore the ten best growth tools that can become game-changers for your business.

How to choose growth tools for your business

Growth hacking tools help companies with diverse business fields, from sales and marketing to reputation management, communications, human resources, finance management, and supply chain analytics.

Most such tools help automate and streamline operations while saving time and other resources.

Among hundreds of software available, you need to understand how to choose the right one. There are three key factors when considering growth tools for your business:

For small businesses, budget is critical. That's why the first step is to assess your budget and focus on growth marketing software offering a pricing plan that aligns with your financial capabilities.
Secondly, evaluate the features of each tool to ensure they meet your specific needs and goals. Remember to ensure these tools are compatible with your existing systems or can be easily integrated.
Lastly, consider the tool's scalability options to ensure that your business can grow sustainably.

10 top small business tools in 2024

Of course, growth software costs money, but the good news is that we've collected mostly free tools or those with free trials and unique offerings so that you can test a tool affordably.

1. ReviewsOnMyWebsite: online reputation management

ReviewsOnMyWebsite can help you protect your business’s reputation by allowing you to manage customer reviews more effectively.

It monitors 27 review platforms (including Google, Facebook, and Yelp) and notifies you as soon as your business receives a new review.

You can then reply to the review right from the software.

Or generate a personalized reply using AI.

You can also use ReviewsOnMyWebsite to display customer reviews on your website with the review widget feature.

Or share them on social media in just a couple of clicks.

ReviewsOnMyWebsite can also help you generate more reviews for your business by sending automated reminders to customers.

ReviewsOnMyWebsite offers a free trial you can use to test out the software. Paid plans start at $9/month.

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2. Google Workspace: operations and collaboration

Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) is probably the most popular suite of collaboration tools. Small businesses use it to streamline operations and enhance teamwork.

The essential tools available in Google Workspace include:

Google Docs (GDocs): a word processing tool for creating, editing, and sharing documents.
Google Sheets (GSheets): a spreadsheet software that supports diverse formulas and functions, chart creation, and data import/export.
Google Business Profile: a platform for managing your Google Business profile and online presence across Google, including Search and Maps.
Google Calendar: an online tool for scheduling events and time management.
Google Drive: a cloud-based storage with flexible access control options and synchronization across devices.

As these small business tools are cloud-based, real-time collaboration is possible from anywhere as long as you have Internet access. But if you have problems with a web connection, the pros may become cons.

This solution is suitable for covering rather regular business processes, and if you have specific needs, the Workspace would likely not be enough.

Except for an individual free plan, Google Workspace offers Starter, Standard, and Plus plans for businesses ranging from $6 to $18 per user/month.

3. HubSpot: customer relationship management

HubSpot is one of the world’s most popular CRM tools. It is a genuine Swiss-knife small business marketing tool with multiple capabilities.

Some of HubSpot’s most popular features include:

Meeting Scheduler App
Email Tracking Software
AI Content and Email Writer
Lead Management Software
Sales Email Templates
Website and Chatbot Builder

With HubSpot, you can manage leads and sales pipelines, interact with customers, and engage them. It also has a well-developed knowledge base with numerous use cases and guidelines. These are the significant advantages of the tool.

Speaking of disadvantages, mature businesses would need expensive extra features.

The basic plans start at $15 per user per month, and if you need enhanced functionality, you would have to pay $50 per month or more. However, HubSpot also offers free tools for small businesses.

4. Coupler.io: analytics and reporting

Coupler.io is an analytics and reporting platform that helps small businesses manage and analyze their data integrated from various sources in a single place, either a spreadsheet, database, or data visualization tools.

Using the tool, you will be able to:

Enjoy export from over 60 apps – from ad platforms to accounting software.
Join, preview, transform, and organize your data right within the app.
Create custom or templated live dashboards in multiple BI platforms
Use the automatic data-refresh feature

The diversity of supported integrations, the easy setup process, and the dashboard gallery are some of the best features of the software. For instance, if you want to analyze the performance of your ads, use one of PPC report templates and create your live report in a few clicks.

Coupler.io has a free plan for one active data flow. Depending on your data volume and flows, you can choose one of the paid plans and test the software on a 7-day trial, starting from $49 per month if paid annually.

5. Buffer: social media management

Buffer is a social media management toolkit that helps you schedule, publish, and analyze posts across various social media platforms, includingfrom Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and more.

Buffer allows you to:

Build and organize a database of content ideas for social media
Plan, collaborate, and publish posts
Analyze the performance of social media posts
Generate content with the AI assistant feature

Buffer supports multiple social media accounts, so you can manage your social media channels easily.

Still, this small business marketing tool may not be sufficient if you want to capitalize on social media and use it, for example, as a direct sales channel. In this case, you would need additional tools.

The good news is that Buffer is an inexpensive tool. A free basic plan is available, and paid options start at $6 per month for 1 channel and go up to $120 per month for 10 channels.

6. HelpCrunch: customer service

HelpCrunch is a customer service software that helps businesses support their customers and engage with them effectively.

You can enhance your customer service using these features:

Real-time live chat to communicate with your customers
Chatbot to qualify leads and provide instant answers 24/7
Shared inbox to integrate all communication channels in one place
Knowledge base to create use cases and tutorials for customer self-service
Mobile Apps & SDK to provide in-app support

HelpCrunch is a multi-feature customer care tool that allows businesses to engage with clients and leads through different platforms, like websites, apps, or email. At the same time, some users highlight the lack of integrations and absence of a free plan as the cons.

Regarding pricing, the Basic plan starts at $15 per month. Depending on the number of team members and features, the pricing may grow significantly. There are discounts for annual billing.

7. Mailchimp: email marketing

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing tools. It helps businesses create and automate email campaigns.

Here are a few of Mailchimp's key features:

Campaign conversation management
Generative AI assistant for email creation
Easy audience management with automatic integration capabilities
Email campaign performance reporting

Mailchimp is user-friendly, supports extensive customization, and provides powerful analytics. It makes it easy to create beautifully designed email campaigns with no code.

However, if you want advanced features to work with large email lists and multiple audiences, Mailchimp would hardly be the most price-savvy tool.

A 500-subscriber plan would cost only $20 per year, but if you're scaling up to thousands of subscribers, you would have to pay 2x or more annually.

8. Moz Local: local SEO

Moz Local empowers small businesses to boost online visibility, attract more customers via search engine optimization, and stand out in crowded markets.

Moz Local's key products include:

Local business listings management
SERP tracking and analytics
Business profile optimization

Besides the paid products, Moz offers plenty of free tools, like Keyword Explorer or Domain Analysis, that you might need, especially when running SEO without external vendors' help.

Moz Local's pricing starts with the Lite plan at $14 monthly. One of the main disadvantages is that the pricing depends on the number of locations you need to cover. So, if you operate in several locations, it may turn the pricing of this growth marketing software relatively high.

9. Textmagic: SMS texting

Textmagic goes beyond simple SMS tools, offering small businesses a comprehensive platform to enhance their communication. With Textmagic, you can easily send and receive SMS messages, implement SMS-based verification, or manage mobile notifications.

Here are a few of the major features provided by Textmagic:

Bulk SMS messaging
Two-way SMS chat
Mobile number verification
Mobile number lookup
Personalized SMS templates
SMS campaign analysis

Textmagic covers almost every use case of SMS in business. However, you must be aware of the tool's learning curve. It might take time and effort for your team to learn to use Textmagic seamlessly.

Textmagic offers flexible pricing with various plans. Essential functions are available for $0.04 per credit. You will have to pay more if you need to work with large message volumes and extra features.

10. Canva: design and creatives

Canva is a creative platform that empowers businesses to create stunning visuals, captivating presentations, and professional designs.

Some of Canva's features include:

Brand kit creation
Automatic logo or image replacement
Brand guidelines creation
Design assets access management

Canva has indeed revolutionized the corporate design segment with its intuitive interface, extensive library of assets, and collaboration capabilities. So small businesses can make ad creatives, social media posts, other marketing and promo materials following their brand guidelines.

However, if you truly want to stand out, Canva's functionality may not be enough due to a lack of design elements and management features.

Canva offers a free plan with limited capabilities for those who need only basic functions. Paid plans start from $100 per year.

What are your favorite small business growth tools?

Exploring and experimenting with various small business growth tools is critical to finding your favorites. As most vendors offer free plans or trial periods, you can test and try diverse marketing tools for small businesses before buying them.

Plan, organize, and manage the process of testing different tools to discover what works best for you and your team. Eager to explore, you'll eventually find the best blend of solutions that will help your business thrive.