3 Ways To Make Money Online
As a small business owner or side hustler starting out, you’ll have to wear many hats and juggle a lot of activities.
But luckily, you don’t have to do everything manually while running your business.
There are several apps you can fall on for certain tasks.
Most of these apps are free and they help you become more productive, record your business activities, get more sales, and much more.
In this post, we’ll take a look at the best 10 apps for small businesses and side hustlers.
Let’s dive in and see which apps made the list.
9 Apps for Small Businesses and Side Hustlers
1: Freshbooks
2: Canva
3: DropBox
4: Evernote
5: Slack
6: Zoom
7: Invoice 2 Go
8: MailChimp
9: Asana
#1: Freshbooks
FreshBooks is an app that helps small business owners easily manage their accounts and finances. They describe themselves as the best cloud-based small business accounting software and they’ve been used by 24+ million people worldwide.
What I like about it is it’s super easy to use and it’s ridiculously affordable.
You’ll be able to send invoices, record income and expenses, do time tracking, and more.
FreshBooks is fast, easy to use, and secure for managing finances which is why it’s one of the best apps for small businesses and side hustlers.
It comes with some interesting features which give you the ability to:
- Create professional invoices (and estimates) in minutes and get paid fast
- Get paid securely and natively in the software with a credit card
- Track the hours you spend on a job
- Create simple reports to see how you’re doing financially
- Create proposals to win more business
- And much more
Also, the app lets you create proposals, prepare end of year reports, and set up recurring (or one-time) invoices for your customers. If you have a small business or side hustle and need accounting with ease, having FreshBooks is a no-brainer for you.
FreshBooks comes with a 30 day free trial and you can upgrade to any of their three plans including:
- Lite Plan (for professionals with basic needs) for only $4.50/month
- Plus Plan (for owners looking for more automation and insights) for $7.50/month
- Premium Plan (for growing businesses that want to empower employees) for $15.00/month
#2: Canva
Let’s face it, most of us don’t have graphic design skills but it can be too expensive for many small businesses to hire a graphic designer, especially if you’re just working on a side hustle.
That’s where Canva comes in.
This is hands down the easiest design app to use and you can churn out stuff that looks amazing. Plus, the basic plan is free!
It comes with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, which is pretty easy to use, and fun too!
And just so you don’t start from scratch all the time, you get a ton of customizable templates for you to choose from in various categories. Some of these categories include social media posts, letters, infographics, business cards, posters, and much more.
Plus, if you’re curious to know more about design and using the Canva tool, they have a learning section where you’ll get a mountain-load of learning resources on design, business, marketing, branding, and more.
Canva is free to use at the core for anyone to create downloadable designs. The free plan will work for most people, but they have some premium plans if you need additional features:
- Basic Plan – FREE!
- Pro Plan – $12.95/month
- Enterprise Plan – $30.00/month
#3: DropBox
Dropbox is the storage place for your digital files. Trusted by 500,000+ teams, the company describes itself as a modern workspace designed to reduce busywork so you can focus on the things that matter.
This is an essential app for small business owners and side hustlers to store digital files online safely and securely. Your files are kept safe and backed up in DropBox and they can be accessed from your devices.
Here are some useful features of DropBox:
- Store all your digital files safe and secure with powerful online cloud storage
- Share your file (or folder) with anyone easily
- Stay productive in work with DropBox’s productivity tools for work
- Integrate your favorite third-party tools with Dropbox to have your data and content in one place
- Collaborate with team members online with ease
- And much more
The Basic plan gives you 2 GB of space and it’s free.
For personal use, you can try DropBox across three plans:
- Basic Plan (for individuals) – Free
- Plus Plan (for individuals) – $11.99/month
- Family Plan (for families) – $19.99/month
And for business use, you get to use DropBox across three plans:
- Professional (for individuals) – $19.99/month
- Standard (for smaller teams) – $15/user/month
- Advanced (for larger teams) – $25/user/month
#4: Evernote
Evernote is like a digital notebook, and there is so much you can do with it.
If you want to get organized in your business or personal life (or both), this is how you do it.
It comes with the tools that help you stay focused, keep your work organized, and store all your documents, notes, and files in one place. It can be used as your digital notepad and word processor to document your thoughts and ideas as they come.
I love that you can easily drag photos or links into it. Super handy!
Here are some of the things you can do with Evernote:
- Document and capture your ideas with notes, checklists, and to-do lists
- Keep all your important business information handy when you sync your notes to all your devices.
- Include files such as images, video, audio, scans, web clippings, and documents to your notes.
- Style your notes with formatting tools
- Find the notes you need, when you need it
- Scan and digitize your paper documents using your camera with ease.
- Sync your notes and files automatically across your computer, phone, tablet, and any device
- Share your ideas and collaborate productively with others in one app
- Create an agenda, to-do list, presentation, memo, and more for your business
- And more
Evernote has a basic plan that’s completely FREE to use. On the Basic plan, you get to take notes, format your notes, and sync up to 2 devices.
To enjoy more Evernote features, you need to upgrade to any of their paid plans which include:
- Premium Plan for $7.99/month
- Business Plan for $14.99/user/month
#5: Slack
Slack is a great name, and kind of funny that it does the opposite of letting you slack off.
With this app, teamwork is easier. As they say, it’s a place where people get work done, together.
It’s a platform for instant messaging to aid effective communication between team members. With it, you can erase endless, back-and-forth emails in communication and is one of the top apps for small businesses and side hustlers.
You can use Slack as an online messaging platform for your business on Windows, Android, and iOS.
Slack allows you to create teams on your user account to manage your business and employees. Inside your team, you can then create multiple channels for various departments of your business.
Apart from having general discussion channels for your business, Slack also allows direct or private messages between team members.
The app has a notifications system that keeps you informed when you have a direct message or when you’ve been tagged in a discussion channel.
It allows you to sync your devices, upload files, invite unlimited team members, integrate with third-party services, and more.
They have a free plan that is perfect for small teams trying out Slack for an unlimited time. And then you can upgrade to unlock more features to any of the following plans:
- Standard Plan (for small and medium-sized businesses) for $6.67/month
- Plus Plan (for larger businesses or those with additional administration needs) for $12.50/month
- Enterprise Grid (for extra large businesses or those in regulated industries) at custom pricing
#6: Zoom
Zoom is the most popular app to use for video conferencing.
It’s a cloud-based software service that allows us to have virtual meetings with clients or team members via audio, video, or both.
On the app, you can host webinars and video conferences from any device (whether mobile phone, tablet, or laptop), have live chats, and even record sessions to watch later on.
In 2020, Zoom had a record of 300 million daily meeting participants and it was reported that over half of Fortune 500 companies used the video conferencing service in 2019.
Zoom’s core features include the ability to host unlimited one-on-one meetings (even on the free plan), have group video conferences, and share your screen with meeting participants.
The app is free for one-on-one meetings and group meetings with a 40 minute and 100 participants limit. To get more features and fewer restrictions, you need to upgrade to any of the two paid plans including:
- Zoom Pro Plan for $14.99/month
- Zoom Business Plan for $19.99/month
The Zoom mobile app is available for Android and iOS and you can also get the desktop app for Windows and macOS.
#7: Invoice 2 Go
This app allows you to create and send invoices instantly on your smartphone.
It’s one of the best apps for small business owners and side hustlers because it comes with tools for you to create invoices and estimates on the go so you can get paid easily.
Invoice 2 Go is pretty easy to use. All of your information is synced across your devices and is accessible anytime you need it.
With it comes simple tools you need to create invoices and run your small business, including the ability to:
- Create and send professional invoices in minutes
- Create and send professional estimates that win you jobs faster
- Get paid easily and fast from the invoice via PayPal, debit, or credit cards
- See financial analytics and performance for your business
- And more
The app is very affordable, and there are four pricing plans (Lite, Standard, Advanced and Unlimited) ranging from $49.99 a year to $149.99 a year with varied feature offerings.
#8: MailChimp
Mailchimp helps you as a small business and side hustle owner to do email marketing the smart and easy way.
They provide you with the right tools and resources you need to market your products, get more sales, and manage your audience.
Starting out as a new small business owner, you can get your business online with MailChimp for free! They give you the ability to create and launch a website for your brand with a custom domain.
Then, you get tools to market your business, build landing pages, run social ads, collect email addresses, and send the right emails to your audience from one dashboard.
Of course, the best part about MailChimp is the FREE forever plan.
On this plan, you get all the multi-channel tools you need to do email marketing and build your business for an audience of up to 2,000 contacts.
To get more features, you’ll have to upgrade to any of their paid plans including:
- Essentials Plan for $9.99/month
- Standard Plan for $14.99/month
- Premium Plan for $299/month
#9: Asana
And last but not least on our list of best apps for small businesses and side hustlers is Asana.
Used and loved by over 80,000 organizations all over the world, Asana is a free, cloud-based app that helps you manage your projects, manage your team, and increase productivity in your team.
The app helps you manage your business activities and work so your team can stay focused and organized.
You get to keep all your projects in sync and share files with other team members. Asana also lets you set to-do lists and track individual tasks to boost productivity.
You can try Asana for free on the Basic plan which is free forever and suitable for individuals or small teams just starting with project management.
For more features, you’ll need to upgrade to paid plans which include:
- Premium Plan for $13.49/month (per user)
- Business Plan for $30.49/month (per user)
- Enterprise Plan (custom pricing)
Final Words
To stay productive, run your business smoothly, and achieve your business and side hustle goals, choose from this list to find the best apps for small businesses and side hustlers.
Over to you! Let me know which app(s) are your must-haves for running your small business and side hustle!
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