May 15, 2025
Small business owners are among the busiest human beings on the planet, but you already knew that. Running a business on your own is not a job. It’s a lifestyle. Owning a small business touches every area of your life – your work, your family and friends, your long-term goals, your finances. You need a few tools in your business tool belt to be the best business owner you can be.
Here are 7 useful tools for small business owners that promise to make your life easier in exchange for a low monthly fee or a simple, free signup.
7 Useful Tools for Small Business Owners
1. Canva
Free graphic design tool for small business owners, freelancers, and anyone who needs to create professional images. We talked about Canva in a comparison of it and another graphic design tool called PicMonkey:
“The really cool thing about Canva is that it allows people without design experience to create images that not only rival those from professional graphic designers, but sometimes surpass them. That’s important because graphic design was, at one time, a skilled profession that required years of education, experience with photo and image programs like Photoshop, and an inherent ‘eye for design.’”
Canva offers two pricing structures. You can create free designs using their free images, shapes, fonts, and add ons. There are also premium elements priced at just $1 each. Canva for Work is the second option. The pricing structure is different for Canva for Work, but they’re offering a 30 day free trial.
2. Infusionsoft
Infusionsoft is one of our favorite tools for small business owners. Infusionsoft is CRM – customer relationship management – software. It helps businesses big and small automate, organize, and manage their business operations and processes. You’ll be able to automate most of your marketing and lead generation processes while taking advantage of the robust tools built to increase email and social media engagement.
Infusionsoft helps small business owners sell more by being more efficient in their marketing processes. It starts at $199/month, which can make it a concern for those on a tight budget.
3. Shopify
Shopify is a tool that enables you to build an online store to sell your products through. It’s one of the leading eCommerce providers because it can help you add a shopping cart functionality to your existing website. If you’re selling something locally, you might consider using Shopify to start selling online.
Shopify helps you track details related to your eCommerce store – payment processing, inventory management, and more. Using Shopify starts at $29/month, making it an affordable tool for most small business owners. You’ll also pay transaction fees, for which details can be found on their website.
4. Crystal
Crystal is one of the coolest and futuristic tools for small business owners – and it’s also one of the most useful.
Crystal shows you personality information about any person you come into contact with. It does this by analyzing all public data available online about that person – social media mentions, published content, etc. Crystal aggregates this information and assigns each person a DISC personality type, giving you that information to boost your odds of getting along and communicating well with someone you don’t really know.
On the right, you can see Debra Carpenter, our Marketing Director, and how she appears on her Crystal profile, which she backs 100% and calls “creepy-authentic.”
Crystal also offers an extension that tells you how to communicate via email with every person you write a message to. That’s seriously cool. The tool can be used free, and the premium plans range in price.
5. Moz
Moz offers a suite of SEO marketing tools – products, content, and services for business owners of companies of all sizes. There’s even a Moz Local option for local businesses that want extra SEO help. The Moz suite of tools will help you optimize your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) to better rank in search and start gathering more targeted leads. That’s undeniably useful for small business owners.
You can use Moz Pro for $99 per month. Moz Pro Medium is $149 per month. Moz does offer a free trial for new customers.
6. Airbnb
This is a little different from the other tools for small business owners on this list. Airbnb is a service that helps people find lodging and accommodations in homes and apartments all over the world – renting directly from the owner or landlord.
Airbnb is now focusing on small business owners and entrepreneurs, offering a $50 credit to anyone who completes one business stay (at least $75) through them. The nightly prices you’ll pay for lodging depend on the area and type of lodging, but expect to pay around $50 – $200/night.
7. Time Card Calculator Geek
This company launched in 2013 out of a need for a time card calculator that was simple and free. Both small business owners and freelancers alike can benefit from using a tool like this to track employee time or total working hours.
Time Card Calculator Geek isn’t fancy or super focused on UX, but it gets the job done free and that’s certainly a bonus. It helps you easily track your employees working hours and then calculate their total pay based on that. It’s a cinch to use!
