Best Free Tools to Run a Small Business Digitally in 2026 | Workvera
🛠️ Tools & Productivity February 2026 20 min read

Best Free Tools to Run a Small Business Digitally in 2026

You do not need a large software budget to operate professionally. This is the definitive guide to the free digital tools that cover every area of running a small business — from invoicing and project management to marketing, design, and SEO.

The cost of running a business has never been lower — not because overheads have shrunk, but because the software that used to require expensive licences and enterprise contracts is now largely available for free. In 2026, a sole trader or small business team can invoice professionally, manage projects, design marketing materials, schedule social media, track their website's Google performance, and communicate with clients — all without paying a single penny for software. You just need to know which tools to use and how to put them together.

This guide covers the best free tools across every core area of running a small business digitally. Each tool has been assessed on the quality of its free tier specifically — not the paid version. Where the free tier has meaningful limitations worth knowing about, those are flagged honestly. Where a free tool is genuinely all most small businesses will ever need, that is stated clearly.

By the end of this guide, you will have a complete, practical digital toolkit for running your business — and a recommended starter stack based on your business type to get you set up immediately.

What this guide covers — category by category:

  • Communication and email — professional business email, messaging, and shared inboxes
  • Project management — task tracking, team collaboration, and workflow organisation
  • Invoicing and basic finance — sending professional invoices and tracking payments
  • CRM and client management — managing leads, customers, and relationships
  • Design and visual content — creating graphics, presentations, and branded materials
  • Email marketing — building and sending email campaigns to your audience
  • Social media scheduling — planning and automating social posts in advance
  • SEO and website analytics — tracking your Google performance and website traffic
  • File storage and sharing — keeping documents organised and accessible
  • Video calls and meetings — remote meetings, client calls, and team communication
  • Automation and productivity — connecting tools and eliminating repetitive tasks
£0
monthly cost of a complete free digital toolkit for most small businesses
£500+
average monthly software spend for businesses using paid tools for the same functions
11
core business categories fully covered by free tool tiers in this guide
40+
individual free tools reviewed and assessed in this guide

💡 How to use this guide

Each section covers one business function with the top free tools for that category. The Master Tools Table near the end summarises every tool in one place. If you want a ready-made setup rather than building your own, jump to the Recommended Starter Stacks section for curated combinations based on business type.

📬

Communication & Email

Professional email, team messaging, and shared inbox tools

Professional communication is the foundation everything else sits on. The tools in this category handle your business email, internal team messaging, and client-facing correspondence — and the best of them are entirely free for small teams.

📧

Google Workspace (Gmail) — Free via google.com/gmail

Best for: Professional email at a custom domain | Free tier: Gmail.com addresses are free; custom domain email requires a paid Workspace plan

Gmail's free tier is the most capable free email client available — 15GB storage, powerful search, excellent spam filtering, and seamless integration with Google Docs, Drive, Calendar, and Meet. The limitation is that free Gmail gives you @gmail.com addresses, not your own domain.

For a professional custom domain email (you@yourbusiness.co.uk), Google Workspace starts at around £5/user/month — worth it for client-facing businesses where email professionalism matters. Alternatively, most domain hosting providers (Namecheap, Ionos, 123-reg) include a basic custom domain email for free or at minimal cost.

What makes Gmail the right choice for most businesses:

  • Best-in-class spam filtering — far superior to most alternatives
  • Works natively with every other Google tool in this guide
  • Excellent mobile app on both Android and iOS
  • Labels, filters, and smart categorisation reduce email overwhelm for high-volume inboxes
💬

Slack — Free tier at slack.com

Best for: Team messaging and internal communication | Free tier: 90-day message history, 10 app integrations, unlimited channels

Slack's free tier is genuinely useful for small teams of 2–10 people. Channels keep conversations organised by topic or project, direct messages replace email for internal communication, and the ability to share files and search conversations makes it a significant upgrade from group email threads.

The 90-day message history limit on the free plan means older messages disappear — which is a meaningful limitation for businesses that need to reference historical conversations. For teams where this matters, consider Discord (unlimited history on free plan, originally built for gaming but increasingly used by small business teams) or Microsoft Teams free.

💡 Use Slack channels to replace internal email entirely

Create a channel per project, a channel for general chat, and a channel for each client or account. Internal discussions move to Slack, and email is reserved for external client communication. Teams that make this switch consistently report feeling less overwhelmed by their inbox within two weeks.

📋

Project Management

Task tracking, team workflows, and keeping work organised

Project management tools replace the combination of scattered emails, WhatsApp messages, and vague verbal agreements that cause work to fall through the cracks. Every small business with more than one person — or more than a handful of concurrent projects — benefits significantly from having one central system for tracking what needs to happen, who is doing it, and when.

📌

Trello — Free tier at trello.com

Best for: Visual task management, simple project tracking | Free tier: Unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per workspace, unlimited users

Trello uses a Kanban board interface — columns representing stages (To Do, In Progress, Done) with cards for individual tasks. It is the most intuitive project management tool available and requires no training to start using effectively. Its free tier is genuinely generous: unlimited cards, unlimited users, and up to 10 boards per workspace covers most small businesses entirely.

Best uses for Trello's free tier:

  • Client project tracking — one board per client or per major project
  • Content calendar — planned, in-progress, and published content in columns
  • Onboarding checklists — a reusable template board for each new client or staff member
  • Personal task management — your own weekly to-do list with priorities
🗂️

Notion — Free tier at notion.so

Best for: All-in-one workspace — notes, projects, wikis, and databases | Free tier: Unlimited blocks for personal use, up to 10 guests for collaboration

Notion is the most versatile free tool for small businesses — a single workspace where you can build a project tracker, a client database, a team wiki, meeting notes, a content calendar, an invoice tracker, and a personal knowledge base, all connected and searchable. Its flexibility makes it slightly harder to get started with than Trello, but once set up it replaces multiple separate tools.

The free tier limits real-time collaboration to 10 guests (non-workspace members), which is sufficient for most sole traders and small teams. The unlimited personal use is unmatched in the category.

✅ Notion as a free CRM alternative

With its free tier, Notion can function as a lightweight CRM — a database of clients with columns for contact details, project status, last contact date, and notes. For small businesses with under 50 clients that do not need automated pipelines or email tracking, a well-designed Notion database outperforms many basic paid CRM tools for practical day-to-day use.

ClickUp — Free tier at clickup.com

Best for: Growing teams needing more structure | Free tier: Unlimited tasks, unlimited users, multiple views (list, board, calendar, Gantt)

ClickUp's free tier is the most feature-rich of any project management tool — offering multiple task views (list, kanban board, calendar, Gantt chart, mind map), time tracking, and goal tracking at no cost. It is more complex than Trello to configure initially, but far more powerful as a business grows. The unlimited tasks and unlimited users on the free plan make it the best choice for teams of 5 or more that have outgrown Trello's simplicity.

🧾

Invoicing & Basic Finance

Send professional invoices, track payments, and manage basic bookkeeping

Getting paid professionally and on time starts with the right invoicing setup. The tools below allow any small business to send professional invoices, set up payment reminders, and track outstanding payments — all without the cost of full accounting software like Xero or QuickBooks.

💷

Wave — Free at waveapps.com

Best for: Freelancers and small businesses needing free invoicing + basic accounting | Free tier: Unlimited invoices, unlimited clients, income/expense tracking

Wave is the most comprehensive truly free invoicing and accounting tool available. Unlike most competitors that offer a limited free tier to upsell a paid plan, Wave's core features — invoicing, income and expense tracking, and basic reporting — are permanently and completely free. There is no invoice limit, no client limit, and no time limit on the free plan.

What Wave's free tier includes:

  • Unlimited professional invoices with your branding and logo
  • Automatic payment reminder emails to clients with outstanding invoices
  • Income and expense tracking with transaction categorisation
  • Basic profit and loss reports
  • Connect bank accounts (in supported regions) for automatic transaction import
  • Recurring invoice setup for retainer clients or subscription billing

⚠️ Wave is for basic invoicing and bookkeeping — not full accounting

Wave does not replace an accountant for year-end tax submissions, VAT returns, or payroll (which requires Wave's paid add-on). For UK small businesses, Wave handles day-to-day invoicing and basic bookkeeping well — but when your accounts become complex or you register for VAT, dedicated UK accounting software (FreeAgent is free with some UK bank accounts, including NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland) becomes necessary.

📄

Zoho Invoice — Free at zoho.com/invoice

Best for: Businesses that want a polished dedicated invoicing tool | Free tier: Up to 1,000 invoices per year, 5 clients, full feature access

Zoho Invoice became completely free in 2021, removing all paid plans for the invoicing-only product. It offers a more polished, feature-rich invoicing experience than Wave, with more customisable invoice templates, better client portals, and stronger multi-currency support. The 5-client limit on the free plan is the key restriction — if you work with more than 5 active clients simultaneously, Wave's unlimited free tier is the better choice.

🤝

CRM & Client Management

Track leads, manage customer relationships, and never lose a follow-up

A CRM — Customer Relationship Management tool — is the central database for your customer and lead information. It replaces spreadsheets of contacts with a system that tracks every interaction, follow-up, and deal stage in one place. For growing businesses, a CRM is one of the highest-leverage tools available — and HubSpot's free tier is exceptional.

🏆

HubSpot CRM — Free at hubspot.com

Best for: Small businesses that want a proper CRM at no cost | Free tier: Unlimited contacts, deal pipeline, email tracking, meeting scheduling — permanently free

HubSpot CRM's free tier is one of the most genuinely useful free tools in this entire guide. It includes everything most small businesses need from a CRM without any time limit or contact cap:

  • Unlimited contacts: Store every lead, client, and prospect with full contact details, interaction history, and notes
  • Deal pipeline: A visual board showing every active deal and its stage — from initial enquiry to closed
  • Email tracking: See when a prospect opens your email, with notifications in real time
  • Meeting scheduling: Share a booking link that connects to your calendar and lets prospects book meetings without the back-and-forth
  • Basic reporting: Deal conversion rates, sales activity summaries, and pipeline value reports
  • Gmail and Outlook integration: Log emails and calls directly from your inbox to the CRM contact record

✅ HubSpot free — what it replaces

  • A spreadsheet of contacts (replaced with a searchable, filterable database)
  • Mental tracking of where each deal is (replaced with a visual pipeline)
  • Uncertainty about whether emails have been read (replaced with open tracking)
  • Email back-and-forth for booking meetings (replaced with a booking link)
🎨

Design & Visual Content

Create professional graphics, presentations, and branded materials without a designer

Canva — Free tier at canva.com

Best for: All visual content creation | Free tier: Thousands of templates, 5GB storage, basic brand kit

Canva is the most impactful free tool for non-designers running a small business. Its drag-and-drop interface and library of thousands of professionally designed templates allow anyone to produce polished social media graphics, presentations, proposals, flyers, business cards, email headers, and more — in a fraction of the time it would take to work in traditional design software.

What you can create with Canva's free tier:

  • Social media graphics for every platform (Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, X) — pre-sized correctly for each
  • Presentations and pitch decks — professional layouts without PowerPoint
  • PDF proposals and service brochures for sending to clients
  • Business cards, flyers, and print-ready materials
  • Email newsletter headers and marketing banners
  • Basic video content — short animated graphics and simple reels

💡 Create a brand kit in Canva free

Even on the free plan, you can set up brand colours and upload your logo to use across all designs. Create one set of blank-canvas brand templates — a social post, a document header, a presentation slide — and duplicate them for every new piece of content. This ensures visual consistency across all your materials without starting from scratch each time.

Adobe Express
Free tier available

Adobe's Canva competitor with strong templates and access to Adobe Stock free images. Particularly good for video content and animated social posts.

Figma
Free — 3 projects

Professional UI and design tool. Free tier allows 3 projects. Better than Canva for complex layout work, branding documents, and anything requiring precise typography control.

Remove.bg
Free — limited

AI-powered background removal. Upload a photo of your product, yourself, or your team and get a transparent background version instantly. Free for lower-resolution outputs.

Unsplash / Pexels
Completely free

High-quality stock photography at no cost, with licences that allow commercial use. Use for website imagery, presentations, social media, and documents.

📨

Email Marketing

Build your email list, send campaigns, and nurture customer relationships

Email marketing consistently delivers the highest return on investment of any digital marketing channel for small businesses — and the free tiers of the best platforms are sufficient for most businesses well into their growth phase.

📩

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) — Free at brevo.com

Best for: Growing email lists with generous daily sending limits | Free tier: Unlimited contacts, 300 emails/day, automation, transactional email

Brevo offers the most generous free email marketing tier available in 2026 — unlimited contacts (most competitors cap contacts on the free plan), 300 emails per day (9,000 per month), basic marketing automation, and transactional email for order confirmations and notifications. For a small business sending a monthly newsletter or occasional campaigns, the free tier is functionally complete.

Brevo free tier highlights:

  • Unlimited contacts stored — no list size limit
  • 300 emails per day (9,000/month) — sufficient for newsletters to lists under 9,000
  • Drag-and-drop email builder with professional templates
  • Basic marketing automation — welcome emails, drip sequences for new subscribers
  • Transactional email (order confirmations, password resets) included in the free plan
  • Real-time reporting — open rates, click rates, and unsubscribes
🐵

Mailchimp — Free at mailchimp.com

Best for: Beginners who want the most beginner-friendly email tool | Free tier: Up to 500 contacts, 1,000 emails/month, basic templates

Mailchimp is the most widely used email marketing platform in the world and remains the easiest to learn. Its free tier is more restrictive than Brevo's — 500 contacts and 1,000 emails per month — but for businesses just starting to build an email list, it is more than sufficient. As a list grows beyond 500 contacts, either upgrading to Mailchimp's paid plan or switching to Brevo (which has no contact limit on the free plan) is the natural next step.

💡 Brevo vs Mailchimp — which to choose?

Start with Brevo if you expect your list to grow quickly or already have more than 500 subscribers — its unlimited contacts on the free plan means you will not hit a wall as your list grows. Start with Mailchimp if you are building a list from scratch and want the most guided, beginner-friendly setup experience. Both are excellent — the contact limit is the deciding factor.

📱

Social Media Scheduling

Plan, schedule, and publish social media content in advance

📅

Buffer — Free at buffer.com

Best for: Scheduling posts across multiple social channels | Free tier: 3 social channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel, basic analytics

Buffer's free tier allows you to connect three social media profiles (e.g. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook) and queue up to 10 posts per channel at a time — scheduled to publish automatically at the times you choose. For a small business publishing 2–4 times per week, this workflow covers the full month in a single weekly planning session.

How to use Buffer's free tier efficiently:

WEEKLY SOCIAL MEDIA WORKFLOW

  1. Monday morning: Create the week's content in Canva — 3–4 graphics or images for the week
  2. Write captions for each post — include relevant hashtags and a clear call to action where appropriate
  3. Upload to Buffer — drag and drop images, paste captions, and set publish times for each channel
  4. Review the queue — confirm each scheduled post looks correct on preview
  5. Let Buffer publish automatically — check engagement daily and respond to comments from the Buffer mobile app or natively in each platform
Later
Free — 1 profile/platform

Visual content calendar with a strong Instagram focus. Drag-and-drop scheduling interface shows a preview of your Instagram grid before posting. Free for 1 profile per platform.

Meta Business Suite
Completely free

Facebook's own free tool for scheduling posts and stories to Facebook and Instagram simultaneously. No third-party limitations or scheduling delays. Best for Facebook/Instagram-focused businesses.

🔍

SEO & Website Analytics

Track your Google rankings, website traffic, and search performance

🔬

Google Search Console — Free at search.google.com/search-console

Best for: Tracking how your website performs in Google search | Free tier: Fully free, no limitations

Google Search Console is the single most important free SEO tool available — and it is made by Google itself. It shows you exactly which search queries are showing your pages, your average ranking position, your click-through rates, which pages are indexed, Core Web Vitals scores, and any technical errors Google has found. No SEO work is complete without it.

Setup takes 20–30 minutes. Every small business with a website should have Search Console connected before doing any other SEO work — it provides the baseline data that makes all other SEO decisions evidence-based rather than guesswork.

📊

Google Analytics 4 — Free at analytics.google.com

Best for: Understanding website visitor behaviour | Free tier: Fully free, no limitations

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tells you how many people visit your website, where they come from (organic search, direct, social media, referral), which pages they visit, how long they stay, and which pages they leave from. It is the standard website analytics platform used by businesses of every size — and it is completely free with no meaningful limitations for small business use.

Connect GA4 to your Google Search Console account to see combined data — which search queries brought visitors to your site, and how those visitors behaved once they arrived. This combination makes it possible to identify which pages and keywords are working and where you are losing potential customers.

Ubersuggest
Free — limited searches

Keyword research tool with monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, and content ideas. Free for 3 searches per day — sufficient for regular keyword research without a paid subscription.

Google PageSpeed Insights
Completely free

Google's official page speed testing tool. Measures Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) and provides specific, prioritised recommendations for improving your website's performance and rankings.

AnswerThePublic
Free — 3 searches/day

Shows every question people ask on Google related to your keyword. Invaluable for blog content planning, FAQ sections, and understanding what information your potential customers are searching for.

Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Free for your own site

Ahrefs' free tier allows you to analyse your own website's backlink profile and identify technical SEO issues — data that normally requires an expensive Ahrefs subscription.

☁️

File Storage & Sharing

Keep documents organised, accessible, and shareable across devices

📁

Google Drive — Free at drive.google.com

Best for: Document storage, creation, and collaboration | Free tier: 15GB storage, Google Docs/Sheets/Slides included

Google Drive is the most practical free cloud storage solution for small businesses — not just because of the 15GB free storage, but because it comes bundled with Google Docs (word processor), Google Sheets (spreadsheets), and Google Slides (presentations), all of which are free, real-time collaborative, and stored automatically in the cloud. For most small businesses, this replaces the need for Microsoft Office entirely.

  • Google Docs: Proposals, contracts, reports, SOPs — share with a link or collaborate in real time with clients and team members
  • Google Sheets: Budgets, trackers, client lists, project plans — the free alternative to Excel with live collaboration
  • Google Slides: Pitch decks and presentations — free alternative to PowerPoint with link-based sharing
  • Google Forms: Client intake forms, feedback surveys, quote request forms — connects to a Google Sheet automatically
🎥

Video Calls & Meetings

Client calls, team meetings, and remote collaboration

Google Meet
Free — 60 min meetings

Free video calls with up to 100 participants and 60-minute meetings. No download required — clients join via browser link. Integrates directly with Google Calendar for instant meeting links on every calendar event.

Zoom
Free — 40 min limit

The most familiar video call platform for clients and prospects. Free tier limits group calls to 40 minutes but allows unlimited 1-to-1 calls with no time limit — suitable for most client meetings.

Calendly
Free — 1 event type

Scheduling tool that lets clients book meetings without email back-and-forth. Free for 1 event type (e.g. a 30-minute discovery call). Share one link and clients self-book from your available slots.

Loom
Free — 25 videos

Record and share short screen+camera videos — ideal for sending client walkthroughs, feedback on work, or explaining something complex without scheduling a meeting. Free for up to 25 videos.

Automation & Productivity

Connect your tools and eliminate repetitive manual tasks

🔗

Zapier — Free tier at zapier.com

Best for: Connecting two or more tools to automate repetitive tasks | Free tier: 5 Zaps (automations), 100 tasks per month

Zapier connects different tools together so that an action in one app automatically triggers an action in another — without any code. The free tier allows 5 active automations (called Zaps) with 100 tasks per month. For a small business, five well-chosen automations can save several hours of manual work each week.

High-value Zaps for small businesses on the free plan:

  • Google Forms → Trello: When someone submits a contact form, automatically create a card in your Trello project board — no manual copying required
  • New email in Gmail → Slack notification: Get a Slack message when an email arrives from a specific client, so urgent emails are never missed even when you are not in your inbox
  • Calendly booking → HubSpot CRM: When a prospect books a meeting, automatically create a contact record and deal in HubSpot
  • Wave invoice sent → Google Sheets: Log every invoice sent to a spreadsheet tracker automatically
  • New HubSpot contact → Brevo list: Add new CRM contacts to your email marketing list automatically

💡 Make.com (formerly Integromat) as a Zapier alternative

Make.com's free tier offers 1,000 operations per month compared to Zapier's 100 tasks — significantly more generous. Make is slightly more technical to set up than Zapier but gives considerably more automation power for free. For businesses that need more complex multi-step automations or higher task volumes, Make.com is the better free choice.

Master Tools Reference Table

Every tool covered in this guide, in one place — with the key free tier limit and the best alternative for each category.

Category Top Free Pick Key Free Limit Best Alternative
Email Gmail @gmail.com address (not custom domain) Outlook (free)
Team messaging Slack 90-day message history Discord (unlimited history)
Project management Trello 10 boards per workspace ClickUp (unlimited tasks)
All-in-one workspace Notion 10 guests for collaboration Coda (free tier)
Invoicing Wave No meaningful limits on free Zoho Invoice (5 clients free)
CRM HubSpot CRM Limited reporting on free Zoho CRM (3 users free)
Design Canva Some premium elements locked Adobe Express (free tier)
Email marketing Brevo 300 emails/day Mailchimp (500 contacts)
Social scheduling Buffer 3 channels, 10 posts queued Meta Business Suite (Facebook/Instagram only)
SEO / Search analytics Google Search Console No limits — fully free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Website analytics Google Analytics 4 No limits — fully free Plausible (paid, privacy-focused)
File storage Google Drive 15GB storage OneDrive (5GB free)
Video calls Google Meet 60-minute meetings Zoom (40-min groups, unlimited 1-to-1)
Meeting scheduling Calendly 1 event type HubSpot Meetings (free with CRM)
Automation Make.com 1,000 operations/month Zapier (5 Zaps, 100 tasks)
Keyword research Ubersuggest 3 searches/day AnswerThePublic (3 searches/day)
Page speed testing Google PageSpeed Insights No limits — fully free GTmetrix (free tier)

Recommended Starter Stacks by Business Type

Rather than choosing tools one-by-one, these curated combinations cover the most important functions for each common small business type — all using the free tools in this guide.

Recommended Free Tool Stacks — By Business Type

Freelancer or Sole Trader

  • Email: Gmail (professional, free)
  • Projects & notes: Notion free (everything in one place)
  • Invoicing: Wave (unlimited invoices, payment reminders)
  • Client meetings: Google Meet + Calendly free (one booking link)
  • Design: Canva free (proposals, social, brand materials)
  • Social media: Buffer free (3 channels, scheduled content)
  • SEO: Google Search Console + Google Analytics 4

Small Service Business (2–5 people)

  • Communication: Gmail + Slack free (email external, Slack internal)
  • Projects: Trello free (per-client boards) or ClickUp free
  • CRM: HubSpot CRM free (leads, pipeline, email tracking)
  • Invoicing: Wave (unlimited clients)
  • Email marketing: Brevo free (unlimited contacts, 300/day)
  • Design: Canva free + Unsplash for photography
  • Storage & docs: Google Drive + Docs + Sheets
  • Automation: Make.com free (connect HubSpot → Brevo → Trello)
  • SEO: Google Search Console + Google Analytics 4

Product or E-commerce Business

  • Email: Gmail or custom domain with hosting provider
  • Orders & fulfilment tracking: Notion free (custom order database)
  • Customer management: HubSpot CRM free
  • Email marketing: Brevo free (product updates, promotional campaigns)
  • Social media: Buffer + Meta Business Suite (organic content scheduling)
  • Design: Canva free (product graphics, promotional imagery)
  • SEO: Google Search Console + Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
  • Analytics: Google Analytics 4 (enhanced e-commerce tracking)
  • Automation: Make.com (new order → CRM → email confirmation)

Consultant or Coach

  • Scheduling: Calendly free (discovery call booking page)
  • Video calls: Google Meet or Zoom free
  • Proposals & contracts: Google Docs (shareable link, free)
  • Invoicing: Zoho Invoice or Wave
  • Notes & client docs: Notion free (one page per client)
  • Email marketing: Mailchimp or Brevo free (newsletter, insight emails)
  • Content & LinkedIn: Buffer free + Canva free
  • SEO for content: Google Search Console + AnswerThePublic

These stacks are starting points — not fixed rules. Add or swap tools as your business needs evolve. The principle is to cover every core function with one reliable free tool before considering whether any paid upgrade is genuinely justified by the business return it delivers.

The businesses that use free tools most effectively are not the ones that use the most tools — they are the ones that pick the right tool for each function and actually embed it into how they work every day. Ten tools used inconsistently deliver less value than five tools used with discipline.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best free tools for running a small business?

The most impactful free tools for running a small business are: Google Workspace (Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets) for communication and documents; Trello or Notion for project management; Wave for invoicing; HubSpot CRM for customer management; Canva for design; Brevo for email marketing; Buffer for social media; and Google Search Console plus Google Analytics 4 for website and SEO performance. Together these cover every core operational area without any software cost.

Is there a completely free invoicing tool for small businesses in the UK?

Yes — Wave is the best completely free invoicing tool for UK small businesses, with unlimited invoices, unlimited clients, automatic payment reminders, and basic income and expense tracking all available at no cost with no time limit. Zoho Invoice is the strongest alternative, completely free for up to 5 clients and 1,000 invoices per year. Both are fully usable without any paid upgrade for most small businesses.

What free CRM tools are available for small businesses?

HubSpot CRM's free tier is the most capable free CRM available — it includes unlimited contacts, a visual deal pipeline, email open tracking, meeting scheduling links, and Gmail or Outlook integration, all permanently free with no contact limit. Zoho CRM offers a free tier for up to 3 users. For very small businesses or sole traders, Notion's free tier can function as a lightweight CRM through a custom database structure — a practical option before dedicated CRM software becomes necessary.

Can I run a small business entirely on free software?

Yes — for most small businesses, especially in the early stages, it is entirely possible to run on free tools. The free tiers of Gmail, Google Drive, Trello or Notion, Wave, HubSpot CRM, Canva, Brevo, Buffer, and Google Search Console together cover every core business function. Many businesses operate entirely on free tools for years. The point at which paid tools become worthwhile is when a specific free tier limitation is actively creating a business problem — not simply because the paid version offers more features.

What is the best free design tool for small business owners?

Canva is the best free design tool for small business owners who are not professional designers. Its free tier includes thousands of professionally designed templates for social media, presentations, documents, print materials, and more, with a drag-and-drop interface that requires no design skills. The free tier is sufficient for most small business design needs. Adobe Express is the strongest free alternative with particularly good video and animation features. Figma's free tier is the best choice for more complex design work requiring precise typography and layout control.

Brevo or Mailchimp — which free email marketing tool is better?

For most small businesses, Brevo is the better free choice because its free tier has no contact limit — you can store and manage an unlimited number of email subscribers, sending up to 300 emails per day (9,000 per month). Mailchimp's free tier caps contacts at 500, which quickly becomes a limiting constraint as a list grows. Start with Mailchimp if you are building a list from scratch and value its beginner-friendly setup experience, but plan to migrate to Brevo (or upgrade Mailchimp) once your list approaches 500 contacts.

Not sure which tools are right for your business — or how to set them up?

Workvera's digital advisory service helps small UK businesses build their complete digital toolkit — recommending the right tools for your specific workflow, connecting them together, and making sure everything is set up to support your growth from day one.

Book a Digital Advisory Session