Below, you’ll find tools and software I use in my business – both to make my own business run smoothly, and to make life and work easier for my clients.

If all goes well, all of these tools will get a review of their own on this website sometime, but let’s start with a simple list…

Note of caution: I believe that when it comes to tools and software, there’s no “one size fits all”. A tool that feels intuitive and straightforward for one person, “does not compute” in another person’s brain. And software that fits one type of business to a T and is recommended as “the best software for this purpose” all over the internet, might be total waste of your money. The tools below are simply what I use, for myself and my clients.

#1 – Essentials

Slack is where it happens: it’s the “hub” for my business.

• It’s where I communicate with (most) clients and team members;
• I bookmark messages for later to remind me to get back to them later that day or week (and I try to check bookmarks at the beginning and the end of every day)
• I schedule reminders – to myself, or to clients or team members (e.g. one of my clients gets a message every Monday, asking her what she worked on that weekend – so she doesn’t forget to keep me updated :-))
• I get notifications from other tools and software – e.g. I get notified when a client submits a new request, or when a team member changes the status of a task
• I have my own workspace on Slack, but I’m also a member of a bunch of other communities: some of my clients have their own workspace, there’s a very active Slack workspace for Certified Storybrand Guides, one for Sessions support, a community of copywriters I’m a member of,…

Airtable is where I keep track of all the things.

• I create a portal for every client – with a client-facing, clean-looking interface – and the backend where I keep track of all the things
• I created different Airtable bases for all the things as needed, both for my clients and for myself. Marketing planning, SEO and content planning, project tracking for websites and launches, email marketing setup, finances, etc. If you’ve worked with me in the past 5 years or so, you probably know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t, chances are I was secretly planning everything in Airtable anyway 🙂

I use other “basic” tools as well, of course – Calendar, Mail, browser, etc – not here to talk about that.

#2 – Website, Domain, Hosting, Legal, Accessibility

Our own websites + the websites we build for our clients are all either built on WordPress, or on Squarespace. While WordPress offers a lot more possibilities and functionalities, you can’t beat Squarespace for a website that requires zero maintenance and that is straightfoward to manage (including adding pages).

Our main website, smartalpacamarketing.com, is built on Squarespace. An earlier version was designed on Webflow which is probably the best platform for designers… but not very end-user-friendly if you’re not a designer and you don’t know the first thing about CSS, but you still want the flexibility of adding pages or making considerable changes to existing ones. Squarespace allows me to make those changes within minutes.

In general, I recommend Squarespace to most freelancers and solo business owners who need a website to showcase their company and services, and want to be able to build and manage it themselves. It’s also my #1 choice for a simple webshop, for digital or physical products. It’s just so easy to set up, at no extra cost.

This website here is built on WordPress.org using the Divi builder. We use Divi for about all our WordPress websites, because both (WP expert) Mellissa and myself love the versatility and reliability.

WordPress is the best choice if you have a lot of content (e.g. a blog, a database or directory of some sort, a podcast) as it has advanced content management and SEO options. I also recommend WordPress if you want advanced functionalities on your website – e.g. a self-hosted course or membership site, 100% customised design, or basically anything custom-built.

Read my big post comparing Squarespace vs WordPress here.

For domain names and website hosting, I’ve been using One.com for probably over 25 years now and am generally super happy with it; their plans for simply holding a domain name are a bit of the expensive site though, so I register most domains with Namecheap nowadays.

Worried about accessibility? With AccessiBE, you can simply add a code to make your website not just ADA compliant, but also let website visitors choose to visit your website in a slightly different way that makes it easier for them to use it.

And last but not least, the one tool every website should use to simplify their legalese is Termageddon. It’s a subscription that generates foolproof terms of service, privacy policy, disclaimers etc for your business (based on your industry and other requirements). You then receive a code to embed it on your website. And the best part?

#3 – CRM incl. Invoicing, Email Service, and Scheduler

While I know there are some great all-in-one tools out there, these are often either more expensive than what I’m willing to pay AND they don’t do any of it as well as separate tools. So why pay €200/month for something that does it all but doesn’t do it well, when I can pay less than half and work with tools I love? I’ve tried many, and these are the ones I am currently using:

17hats is my main CRM. I switched from Dubsado years ago and while 17hats’ big downside is the fact it doesn’t allow for elaborate proposals, it’s big upside is it keeps everything super simple. Most clients will go from accepting the quote and signing the agreement to paying the invoice in a matter of minutes.

I like 17hats as an invoicing tool as well: it allows people to pay with credit card (if that’s what I want), makes it easy to create recurring invoices, automatically sends clients an invoice after they accepted a proposal (if I want to), etc.

But I don’t love the way 17hats manages my calendar: it’s pretty much one-way (if I want to delete an appointment, I need to do it in 17hats, not in my calendar app) and a bit limited…. That’s why I use Acuity as a scheduler. Acuity syncs with my calendar and allows clients and other people (basically I want to share the link with) to book appointments with me directly. I switched from Calendly to Acuity years ago and love everything about Acuity!
Read the full review discussing Acuity and other schedulers here.

17hats also can’t send bulk emails. While I can create one template email and send it to all my leads and clients, I would still have to go into each client account separately to actually send the email. That’s why I use ConvertKit as an email service provider; I switched from MailerLite at the end of 2023 because while I love MailerLite (and I still 100% recommend it for a free account, or for clients who need a super-simple email setup or who want to support European companies), you can’t beat ConvertKit’s combination of user-friendly (those visual automations! The tag list! Everything!) and advanced functionalities (segmenting, automations, integrations, everything).

I use Zapier to add new leads from Acuity into ConvertKit, or new clients from 17hats into ConvertKit.

#4 – Tools I use for Client Work

Aside from websites, I tend to use a bunch of different tools in most client projects:

Acadium is a platform where people can take online marketing courses, then get connected to companies who want to work with them as unpaid interns (“apprentices”). You get an apprentice for 3 months (up to 10 hours of work per week), and in exchange you guide them through this first working experience.
Apprentices are often students in marketing or design in their last year of school, or other professionals who are pivoting their business or going from paycheck to self-employed and looking for hands-on experience working with clients.

Draftium is the platform I use to quickly and easily create a “content wireframe”. It offers dozens and dozens of template sections that you can move around on your mockup websites – and switch the “lorem ipsum” copy for your own. While you can do something similar in Google Docs, or skip the wireframing and do this directly in Squarespace or Divi, Draftium is quick and hassle-free: it takes a minute to create a website that you can easily share with your clients or team.

MarkUp is the platform I use to get feedback from clients – and give feedback to team members and DIY clients (when I review their work). It allows you to put anything from a PDF to a full website in the app, then browse and comment on specific sections, adding images or links when relevant.

Coolors is a super-simple platform that saves my clients’ colour palettes, so I can easily grab their colour codes whenever I need them. It also allows you to create a new colour palette from an image, from their palette generator, or from their library. You can even put in a colour palette, and they’ll come up with a bunch of mockup designs based on those colours to show your clients!

#5 – Saving and Sharing Content and Files

I’ve used Dropbox since forever, so it’s only logical that it’s the one paid storage tool I work with. It automatically uploads my phone photos to the cloud, clients can share their own Dropbox folders (even if they contain lots of videos or other big files). I’ve worked with subcontractors who didn’t have a paid Dropbox account and it’s just inconvenient if your client has to jump through hoops just to share their content so if you build websites for a living or do anything related to video production, Dropbox is a great investment.

Talking about jumping through hoops though – not all my clients use Dropbox. A lot of them use Google Drive and honestly if they haven’t used either, I would often simply create a Google Drive folder for them to share their materials with me. It’s just user friendly for absolute tech noobs.

I also love Google Drive for the Google Docs (we write most of our content in Google Docs) and Slides (easier to create and share online than Powerpoint).

#6 – Video Calls and Webinars

While most solopreneurs are using Zoom these days, I switched to a tool called Sessions in 2023. I don’t think I need to explain Zoom to anybody, but this is where I think Sessions is just a better fit for coaches (who have 1:1 video calls with their clients) and anyone hosting group calls:

• Sessions offers instant transcripts in different languages*
• All attendees can automatically access the recordings*
• The screen sharing options are more elaborate;
• You can use other tools like notes (for your eyes only), takeaways (that will be shared with everyone present)*
• There’s a built-in scheduler – you can share the link with your clients, so they can book a call with you directly in Sessions (there’s no need for Calendly or Acuity anymore)*
• You can create an event for which people have to register ahead of time…
• Or you can create “rooms” = evergreen links that you can use again and again for the same type of meetings. E.g. I have a link for 1:1 meetings with people, a link for coworking sessions, and a link for the biweekly calls I host for fellow Storybrand Guides.

* = if that’s what you want, you can turn those features on and off

If you’re not planning to use Sessions, and you’re looking for a tool that allows people to sign up for (group) calls, I would suggest either Lu.ma or AddEvent. Each have slightly different functionalities so it’s worth comparing them – when in doubt however, go with lu.ma.

#7 – Accepting Payments and Financial Tools

Ah, the million dollar question: what platform should you use to accept payments?

Most US-based service providers will choose Stripe: sure, they charge a fee and when you first start using them, it can take a while for your money to get into your bank account (I guess they want to make sure they don’t get a lot of refund requests?), it’s super simple to install, integrates with almost anything, and is 100% glitch-free in my experience.

Your invoicing software probably integrates with Stripe so your clients can pay with one click; you can use it for one-off payments and recurring subscriptions; you can even create payment links and checkout pages for your products and services.

Paypal is also very popular, but slightly less user-friendly than Stripe – and as a multi-currency user, I loathe their unnecessary currency exchange fees. More than once, they’ve made it impossible for US-based customers to pay into my Paypal US account – instead, people pay dollars, I receive euros, and I lose not just the Paypal transaction fees – but also the extra currency exchange fees. I don’t use Paypal if I can avoid it, but it’s safe (and free) to have an account just in case.

My very favourite, however, is Wise (formerly Transferwise).

• The main perk is for anyone working with international clients: you can turn most currencies into yours (and vice versa) at no or little extra cost.
• Once you have an account, you can create multiple bank accounts in multiple currencies (note: there’s a fee for opening a business account in a new currency, but it’s worth it if you’re going to receive multiple or high payments in that currency)
• Pre-paid Visa cards can be ordered for the whole team, for a one-time fee
• I now use my Wise account as my main bank account – it’s extremely simple to pay the team & receive payments all in one account.

#8 – Hosting Courses and Digital Products

To be added soon: a short comparison of my favourite tools for hosting online courses, membership content, and digital products: Kajabi, Thinkific, Teachable, MemberVault, Mighty Networks, and Searchie.

#9 – Marketing & Analytics Tools

I used to have a long story about preferred social media schedulers and strategy tools for Facebook and Instagram… but Meta did a great job at (mostly) replacing them. The only tool I’d still consider (while still keeping things simple) is Later as a scheduling tool for Instagram.

That being said, I still love Tailwind as not just a scheduler for Pinterest, but it’s also great for sharing content and getting more traction, creating content, etc. You can now schedule pins to your account without Tailwind though so if your strategy is not 100% focused on getting traffic from Pinterest, then Tailwind (although it’s pretty well-priced!) is probably not worth the yearly investment.

The other social media tool I can wholeheartedly recommend is Social Insider. It provides you with analytics, content suggestions and even AI content created for you, news on best practices, and much more. I used it intensively when it was smaller and would just provide me with monthly content ideas and news, I stayed on it for a couple of years because I was grandfathered in at beta price, but honestly – it grew way beyond what I actually needed and I stopped using it. Which I regret every time I go on the website (but I never miss it otherwise).

I use Metricool now for simple analytics – and have used it for clients as well, although it’s not as robust as other tools I’ve worked with, it’s definitely simpler and budget-friendly.

#10 – Design Tools

There really isn’t any competition: unless you’re a train (or very well self-taught) graphic designer, Canva is the #1 tool I use to create graphics (social media, website, banners, you name it), nice-looking presentations (e.g. client project briefs), and basically anything that has something to do with design.

When working on a website, I will occasionally sign up for a month of icons8: their icons library is much more versatile and easier to search and use than Canva’s, and it’s also easier to apply brand colours to all icons. BTW it has a free version as well, with slight limitations on file sizes you can download.

#12 – Writing, Video & Audio

Let’s get this out of the way: if you’re a marketer (as in, you offer marketing services to clients), HotGoss is the only AI tool you should look at. Sassie (= the name of the AI) has an answer to everything: from doing market research and coming up with lead gen ideas to actually writing content, the applications are countless. And the support you get from founder Stacey (in the Slack channel) is simply phenomenal, from the onboarding call to the moment you can’t imagine life without Sassie 🙂

I used to use Otter to record audio messages and get a transcript, that I could then easily turn into blog posts; Slack has now replaced this function for me though, I simply send voice messages to myself when I’m on the go.

Lumen5 is still my favourite tool to turn a client’s existing blog post into a video. Very little learning involved, great results in no time. But if you’re a bit more productive in your content creation, check out Repurposehouse – they get great results for anyone needing daily videos.

Last but not least here: Loom is the one tool every single business owner should be using.

• With a click on a button, you can record a video (your face, your screen, or a combination of both).
• As soon as you’re done recording, you get a direct link to share it…
• And it creates an automated transcript (which is great if you’re sending videos to people who don’t actually want or have time to watch them).
• The receiver can choose the playback speed too.
• The videos can be embedded anywhere
• Or you can create a folder with videos to share with one person or group (which is what we do with e.g. a series of walkthrough and instruction videos after delivering a new WordPress website)
• If you don’t record that many videos and you’re ok with a 5-minute limit, you can use the free plan.

#13 – Productivity & Project Management

I used Toggl and other timer apps, but the #1 problem for me is – I forget to turn it on and off, or even hit pause when I get distracted. True, it’s a matter of habit – but this is one I’ve never been able to make.

Enter the “Timing App” (that’s what it’s called, timingapp.com). If you allow it, it will track your activity across platforms and even devices, and tell you exactly how much time you spent on what. You can then manually assign it to clients or projects – and/or use “rules” to auto-assign it (e.g. every time I work on something with [client name] in the name, assign it to this client project).

The Timing App has revolutionised how I work: in a month’s time, it gave me unseen clarity on how I was actually using my time. I could easily see which clients were taking up more of my time, and it helped me get confident about raising my rates for certain types of projects. It also showed me how much time I was spending on managing my team, working on proposals, and other peripheral tasks – and allowed me to make our processes more efficient and save a LOT of time that way.

One last group of tools I’d like to mention here, are the actual productivity and project management tools.

• I would 100% recommend ClickUp for any team project – the versatility is incredible, you can add advanced automations, and it’s literally built so you and your team can collaborate smoothly and communicate about work in progress so no balls get dropped, ever. But ClickUp is probably too complicated for someone who just needs a project management tool for their own projects…
• That’s where Asana comes in: very similar in setup to ClickUp, it’s more user-friendly for individual users.
• My own to-do list lives in Trello: I love dragging tasks across boards and while I could do what it does in Asana or ClickUp, the simplicity of Trello just works for me. One life, one board. Trello is great to collaborate with a team as well, as long as everyone is on board with its uses.
• While I am a MASSIVE Airtable geek and I will use Airtable to plan and organise specific projects, I don’t use it for keeping track of ongoing (or recurring) tasks: it’s just not made for it and while you could program it so it will create recurring tasks for you etc, it’s extra hassle I don’t need.
• Have you ever tried using a simple spreadsheet to keep track of all the things? I used this system for years and several of the people I showed it to “back when” are still using it and loving it.
• Notion is also very popular as it allows for a high level of organisation. In my experience though, it can get confused when you’re collaborating with others and not everyone is on board with how you’re using it.

If you’re looking for more insights into your productivity style and which tool might best suit how you work, check out Tiago Forte’s video on this topic, below! It will also introduce you to the PARA method which I’ll be writing about on a different occasion.