Best Business Software 2025: Small Business Management Tools

The best business software often stands out because of its efficiency, ease of use and affordability for many team members. Although countless options are available, understanding how each one fits into your organization’s needs is crucial to making the most of them.

In this article, I assess some of the best business software solutions for different business needs, from project management to business cloud storage solutions to other team operations. Read on as I dive into the details.

The 11 Best Business Software Solutions Explained & Compared

I consider monday.com one of the best project management tools because of its rich collection of templates and high level of automation. A highlight of monday.com for me is the ease of customizing boards to suit any type of project I’m working on.

monday.com Pricing & Value

monday.com offers four paid plans — Basic, Standard, Pro and Enterprise — and one free plan. The free plan comes with 500MB of storage, supports two-factor authentication and allows up to two users.

• Discover 10 fundamentals of project management
• Understand step-by-step plans for PM execution
• Learn tips to avoid 5 common mistakes by beginners

The paid plans are sold in user blocks, but you’ll have to contact sales to inquire about pricing for plans supporting 50 users or more. The Standard plan offers the best balance of features and pricing, including unlimited boards, guest access, 250 monthly automations and integration actions, and timeline and Gantt chart views.

monday.com’s money-back guarantee offers prorated refunds for yearly subscriptions only within the first 30 days. Read our monday.com review to learn more, or test out the service with the free plan.

Basic

• Minimum users: 3; All prices per user

Standard

• Minimum users: 3; All prices per user

More plans

Pro

• Minimum users: 3; All prices per user

Enterprise

• Enterprise-level features.

Although security and privacy are Sync.com’s major selling points, its unlimited business storage offering and Microsoft 365 integration are also key features to consider. Sync.com provides custom file-sharing portals and supports remote collaboration.

Sync.com Pricing & Value

Sync.com has six paid plans (three for individuals and three for teams), and a free plan that offers 5GB of storage and up to 30 days of file versioning. The annual subscriptions generally offer better value for money than the monthly subscriptions, offering discounts of up to 25%.

Check out our Sync.com review for more details, as it thoroughly discusses the provider’s security, privacy, user-friendliness and speed.

More plans

Pro Teams Standard

• per user, per month, billed annually
• 1TB

Pro Teams+ Unlimited

• Priced per user (3 users minimum)
• Unlimited GB

Enterprise

• Minimum 100 users, custom requirements, account manager, training options

3. IDrive — Best Business Backup

There’s no limit to the number of users and devices you can add to an IDrive Business plan. It supports various backup servers and operating systems, so I was able to use it across multiple platforms.

IDrive Business Pricing & Value

IDrive Business pricing is not tied to the number of users or devices, which is a major plus for me. With this pricing structure, you don’t have to worry about increased costs as your team grows.

Although IDrive has a free plan that offers 10GB of backup storage, IDrive Business is a paid plan. You can choose between a monthly or yearly subscription, but the yearly plans are cheaper in the long term. Read more about the plans, pricing and features in our IDrive review.

Basic

• No credit card required.
• 10GB

Personal

• One user, multiple computers. Plans starting from 5TB up to 100TB. Big discount for first-time signup.
• 5TB

More plans

Team

• 5 computers, 5 users. Starting at 5TB up to 500TB. Big discount for first-time signup.
• 5TB

Business

• Monthly Plan storage starts at 1.25TB up to 50TB Unlimited users, multiple computers and servers. NAS devices. 250GB storage. Starting at 250GB up to 50TB. Large discount for first-time signup.
• 250GB

4. Zoho One — Best Business Operations Suite

Zoho One offers an affordable, rich catalog of over 50 business applications, ranging from sales and marketing apps, to communication tools, to financial and operations systems. Its prices and plans are easy to understand, and its Flexible User plan allows you to scale your spending with the size of your organization.

Zoho One Pricing & Value

Zoho One has no free plan but does offer a 30-day free trial without requiring any payment details. You can choose from two plans — Flexible User and All Employee — depending on how many members of your team need a license.

The Flexible User plan is more cost-effective if less than 42% of your team needs a license. However, the All Employee plan is cheaper if more than 42% of your team needs a license. Read our Zoho One pricing guide for a comprehensive analysis of its cost and value.

5. Slack — Best Collaboration Suite

One of my favorite features of Slack is its intuitive user interface. You can be part of many channels and have lots of direct messages but still navigate easily around the app. Huddles comes in handy for quick meetings, and I like the text-formatting features (including basic formats and multiline code blocks).

Slack Pricing & Value

Slack has a free plan that offers limited chat history, app integrations and meeting participants. For access to its other features, you can get one of three paid plans: Pro, Business+ and Enterprise+. You can also request a 30-day free trial of Pro and Business+.

The Business+ plan offers the best value. However, its administration is not as granular as with Enterprise+, and it offers only one workspace. Read our Slack review for a deeper comparison of its plans and features.

I like BambooHR because it doesn’t silo users into hiring and applicant tracking. It has useful features like employee data management, analytics and benefits tracking. Plus, navigation is easy, even on the applicant interface, and you can bundle features like payroll, time tracking and benefits administration.

BambooHR Pricing & Value

BambooHR has two pricing thresholds: If you have 25 employees or fewer, you’ll pay a flat rate starting at $250 per month. On the other hand, you’ll pay at least $10 per employee per month if you have more than 25 employees. BambooHR has no annual plans. It does offer volume discounts, though, so you may spend less per user for a larger workforce.

From a business perspective, Salesforce is superb because it has virtually everything you need for thorough visibility of your customers. However, it’s not the easiest to navigate out of the box due to its many features, such as analytics, AI-driven insights and engagement management. The platform does get easier to navigate as you get used to it, though.

Salesforce Sales Cloud Pricing & Value

Salesforce Sales Cloud has no free plan but offers a 30-day free trial. The five paid plans are billed per user, with the Enterprise plan offering the best value. Subscriptions are generally charged annually, but you can reach out to the sales team to ask about custom terms.

8. Xero — Best Financial Management Automation

To me, what makes Xero stand out is its ability to import and integrate bank transactions for a holistic view of my finances. Moreover, Xero supports automated invoicing, payment reminders and data capture, and it has a real-time inventory management dashboard. There is no built-in report automation, though.

Xero Pricing & Value

Although it doesn’t have a free plan, Xero does offer a 30-day free trial. It also has three paid plans: Early, Growing and Established, all of which are billed monthly. The Early plan comes with invoicing, bill management and analytics limits, and the Growing plan offers the best value for access to Xero’s core features.

9. HubSpot — Best Marketing Automation Software

The best part of using HubSpot is creating workflows. In addition to having an easy-to-use workflow creation interface, it provides many templates. You’ll be ready to go almost right from the start. I like that it has native features like customer relationship management (CRM) and live chat, which some other platforms support only via third-party apps.

HubSpot Pricing & Value

HubSpot Marketing offers four plans, including one free plan that supports up to 2,000 emails per month. However, if you’re a small business owner, I recommend opting for the Starter plan — it offers higher limits than the free plan, and you can scale as your team grows.

If you have a larger team, consider the Professional Plan, which includes social media marketing and more reporting. The Enterprise plan is great for large businesses that want more control, deeper reporting and increased flexibility.

10. Zoho Inventory — Best Inventory Management Software

Zoho Inventory feels like more than just a stock-tracking app thanks to features like invoicing, shipping and payment management. Its integration with accounting tools such as Zoho Books makes it easier to manage financial records and reconcile them with your inventory.

Zoho Inventory Pricing & Value

Zoho Inventory has a free plan that gives you limited access to core features like the API, order management and invoicing. It also has a 14-day free trial for all four paid plans: Standard, Professional, Premium and Enterprise.

All paid plans are billed either monthly or annually, with annual billing offering up to 20% off the monthly rates.

QuickBooks Online comes with more built-in features than Xero, the other finance reporting tool on this list. In addition to analytics and automated reporting features, QuickBooks Online has AI-powered insights that automate repetitive tasks and proactively identify trends, helping you nip unwanted outcomes in the bud.

QuickBooks Online Pricing & Value

QuickBooks Online offers a 30-day free trial and four plans: Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced. Of these four plans, Plus offers the best value, including five users, AI insights, budgeting help and more. However, it doesn’t include features like forecasting or a custom report builder, which can be found on the Advanced plan.

How to Choose the Best Business Software

Follow these steps when choosing your business software: 

1. Evaluate your business needs: Evaluate your current workflow for potential improvements and fixes, then let the result guide your choice.
2. Create a shortlist: Draw up a list of tools that offer solutions to your needs. Having more than one option reduces the risk of confirmation bias.
3. Assess your options: Use free plans and free trials to test the tools. However, if these offer only limited access, verify that money-back guarantees are available before springing for a paid plan.
4. Train your team: After choosing a tool, train your team to use it, focusing on the core functions and leaving room to learn other functions on the job.
5. Implement the tool: After the team has been trained to use the tool, implement it in your day-to-day operations.
6. Monitor performance: Once you’ve implemented the tool, monitor its performance to ensure you’re getting your money’s worth.

Final Thoughts

The best software for your business may not be what’s most popular. When choosing a software solution, assess your business needs and match them to what these tools have to offer.

Which tool is currently most crucial to your business’s daily processes and why? Did we overlook a tool you would have liked to see on this list? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below. As always, thanks for reading.

• What Is the Most Popular Business Software?

  Google Workspace is the most popular business software worldwide. It has some of the most widely used services, including Gmail, Google Meet and Google Drive.

• Which Business Plan Software Is the Best?

  The best business plan software is the solution that offers all or most of the features you need for the lowest price possible.

• Is QuickBooks Worth It for Small Business?

  Yes, QuickBooks is worth it for small businesses. It offers many third-party integrations, affordable pricing, automation and useful built-in features.