When you’re a small business owner, you’re constantly looking for ways to help your business grow and become more efficient. The good news is that there are tons of productivity tools available. 

We’ve gathered a list of some of the best tools out there to help you get things done better and faster. 

Let’s dive in!

1. ProofHub

The Best Software For Managing Projects And Teams

ProofHub is an all-in-one productivity solution designed to meet every need of a growing business. It’s one of the best project management and collaboration platforms available today. With ProofHub, managers and teams get access to a scalable feature list that eases their job and improves their productivity at every stage of a project—planning, scheduling, organizing, collaboration, executing, monitoring, controlling, and delivering. 

“Great tool for saving time on project management, automate tasks, communicate with team members, clients and track time.” 

Exceptional features:

• Chats and discussions
• Announcements
• @mention
• To-do lists and tasks
• Workflows and Boards
• Gantt charts
• Custom reports
• Custom roles
• File management system
• Online file proofing
• Time tracking
• Timesheets
• Multiple timers
• Notes
• White labeling
• Advanced search

Pricing:

Essential—$45 per month (billed annually) or $50per month (billed monthly) for unlimited users 

Ultimate Control—$89 per month (billed annually) or $99 per month (billed monthly) for unlimited users and unlimited projects

2. Google Hangouts

The Best Software For Video Conferencing And Online Meetings

Google Hangouts is a tool to connect. It’s a communication software by Google that lets people (especially remote teams) engage and interact via text, voice or video chats. From one-to-one chats to online meetings and conferences, the Google Hangouts feature list has every functionality that a business or team may need to work together effectively. 

“G Suite enabled our teams to collaborate more closely and the business to operate more efficiently, which was extremely important in enabling us to transition to a modern organization…”

Exceptional features:

• Voice/video calls
• Group conferencing for up to 15 people
• Auto screen focus
• Instant messaging
• Screen sharing
• Intelligent muting solution
• Hangout on air feature
• Custom administrative control options
  

Pricing:

Basic—$2.93 per user per month 

Business—$9.96 per user per month 

Enterprise—$23.02 per user per month

3. Wrike

The Best Software For Task Automation

Wrike is an award-winning solution for project management and collaboration. It’s a simple productivity tool that lets you schedule, prioritize, discuss, monitor, and deliver work effectively from a single location. 

”With everything contained in Wrike, we were able to leverage Wrike’s functionality to increase the quality of our assets across the board, make sure they were consistent, and also see where we were being efficient.”

Exceptional features:

• Customizable dashboards
• Task management
• Interactive Gantt chart
• Kanban board
• Access controls and permissions
• Real-time newsfeed
• Document management
• Document collaboration
• Discussion boards
• Customized reports
• Recurrent tasks
• Milestone tracking
• Time and expense tracking
  

Pricing:

Basic—FREE for 5 users 

Professional—$9.80 per user per month for 5-15 users 

Business—$24.80 per user per month for 5-200 users 

Marketers and Enterprise—custom pricing

4. Toggl

The Best Software For Tracking Your Work

Toggl is a popular productivity app for time-tracking. With Toggl, individuals and teams get a handy overview of how they’ve been spending their time across various tasks and activities. The app can be used both online and offline, thereby making it easier to keep your work and time in sync at all times. 

“It’s always hard to predict how much time a project is going to take. Having stats on how much time different things have taken in the past is great for getting accurate predictions for the future.”

Exceptional features:

• Charts
• Share reports
• Offline time tracking
• Billing and invoicing
• Employee database
• Mobile time tracking
• Multiple billing rates
  

Pricing:

Starter—$9 per user per month (billed yearly) 

Premium—$18 per user per month (billed yearly) 

Enterprise—Available by quote 

5. ZipBooks

The Best Software For Accounting And Online Invoicing

ZipBooks is a modern solution that small businesses and accountants can use everyday for accounting, invoicing, and time-tracking. With ZipBooks, you can keep all your bank accounts synced, make smarter financial decisions for your business, and keep all your financial data safe in one centralized place. Want managing business to be simpler? Start using ZipBooks. 

“After trying multiple platforms, ZipBooks proves to surpass all expectations. They make bookkeeping a breeze. Would recommend a thousand times over because it has been crucial to my business growth.”

Exceptional features: 

• Online invoicing
• Time tracking
• Expense tracking 
• Recurring billing
• Team management
• Online accounting software
• Invoice maker
• Payroll management
• Tax management
• Online payment processing 
• Customizable invoices 
• Budgeting and forecasting 
  

Pricing:

Starter—FREE 

Smarter—$15 per month 

Sophisticated—$35 per month 

Accountant—custom pricing

6. Dropbox 

The Best Software For File Storage and Sharing

Dropbox Business is productivity software for storage backup, file sharing, and collaboration. It’s a file-sharing package by Dropbox, designed to help businesses conveniently store, access, and collaborate on files on the cloud. 

“Dropbox Business gives us a secure, unified place to store all of our work, and helps reverse the friction that can come with having hundreds of computers in one company.”

Exceptional features:

• Document management
• Project management
• Real-time editing
• Version control
• Access control
• Archiving and retention
• Backup
• Data synchronization
• Encryption
• Audit trail
  

Pricing:

Standard – $12.50 per user per month, starting at 3 users 

Advanced – $20 per user per month, starting at 3 users 

Enterprise – Available by quote

7. GanttPRO

The Best Software For Planning And Scheduling

GanttPRO as the name itself suggests, is a project management solution that utilizes a Gantt Chart approach. The software simplifies planning, improves communication, and makes it easier for teams to deliver work within desired estimates. 

“Helps for effective planning and decision making in an organization. Ability to drag and expand the task, assign people and costs. Easy to handle multiple projects and to delay tasks that are linked.”

Exceptional features:

• Gantt charts 
• Kanban board 
• Time and expense tracking 
• Collaboration tools 
• Budget management 
• Milestone tracking 
• Resource management 
• Dependency tracking 
• Templates 
• Color coding 
• Percentage-complete tracking 
• Product road mapping 
  

Pricing:

Individual — $15 per user per month (for 1 user) or $7.90 per user per month (for 5 users) 

Team — $6.90 per user per month (for 10 users) or $5.90 per user per month (for 15 users)

8. Evernote

The Best Software For Note-Taking

Evernote is a note-taking app loaded with a number of tools and functionalities that let you manage everything from big projects to personal moments. With Evernote, you won’t have to worry about losing track of your ideas, deadlines, and tasks. 

“Why is it cool and why should you use it? Because it allows you to share your notebook with others, which can be edited together in real-time, as well as share articles and webpages.”

Exceptional features:

• Collaboration tools
• Customizable templates
• Idea management
• Annotation and markup
• Task management

Pricing:

Basic—FREE 

Premium—$2.65 per month 

Business—$14.99 per user per month 

9. Hubspot

The Best Software For Marketing

HubSpot is great productivity software for inbound marketing, sales, and CRM. It’s basically marketing, sales, and service software designed to help businesses/teams/individuals grow without compromise. With HubSpot, you not only grow traffic or convert more visitors, but you also ensure that you exceed expectations and convert customers to potential promoters for your business. 

“It makes our employees’ lives easier, simplifies their processes and allows them to focus on helping the customer.”

Exceptional features:

• Integrated social publishing
• Social media monitoring
• Social media publishing
• Social media analytics
• Social Media Bookmarklet
• Search Engine Optimization
• Calls-to-Action
• Progressive profiling
• A/B testing landing pages
• Custom lead scoring
• Predictive lead scoring
• Event-based segmentation
• Event-based scoring
• Branching
• Email lead nurturing
• Automation templates
  

Pricing:

Starter—Starts at $35 per month (includes 1,000 contacts) 

Professional—Starts at $560 per month (includes 1,000 contacts) 

Enterprise—Starts at $2,240 per month (includes 10,000 contacts)

10. Zoho CRM

The Best Software For Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Zoho CRM is a web-based CRM solution designed to help businesses attract, retain, and satisfy target customers. The solution is highly customizable and user-friendly. It provides you a 360° view of your business so that you can identify and seize amazing sales and marketing opportunities. 

“Zoho has played an important role in standardizing our program. We now have more than 15,000 sellers using our services. The functionalities we’ve added have evolved Zoho CRM beyond just lead and contact management to more of a complete operational platform.”

Exceptional features:

• Sales force automation 
• Sales forecasting 
• Lead management 
• Account management 
• Social CRM 
• CRM workflow management 
• Document library 
• Sales tracking 
• Mobile CRM 
• Real-time sales updates
  

Pricing:

Starter—$6.98 per user per month (billed annually) 

Standard—$10.05 per user per month (billed annually) 

Professional—$16.74 per user per month (billed annually) 

Enterprise—$29.30 per user per month (billed annually)

So, what’s your favorite productivity app or tool? Have you tried any of the ones on this list? Let us know your choices and experiences in the comments below.