From Zoom to Slack, QuickBooks to Stripe, SaaS software has been a game changer for the business and consumer world. Your business needs these 19 products to be successful.
Gartner projects that global end-user spending on public cloud services will exceed $480 billion in 2022. Spending on software as a service (SaaS) alone will represent more than a third of that amount. SaaS, or software on demand, is a software delivery model that has been steadily gaining popularity in recent years. Through the model, customers purchase a licensed subscription, giving them access to the program, which is a vital part of the SaaS business landscape.
A SaaS tool is typically cloud-based and hosted, which means users usually don't need to download and install the program. This offers convenience, as the user can access the platform from anywhere on the internet, usually through a drag and drop editor. These tools are also affordable, flexible, easy to maintain, safe, and easy to use. They are essential for businesses of all types, complementing other project management tools.
SaaS is one of the most popular cloud technology services, although not the only one. Many companies have invested in technology for various purposes – and for good reason. So if you're working on your technology budget for the new year, be sure to include these top SaaS tools, like SaaS reporting tools, to help you streamline your operations and make your organization more productive.
Benefits of SaaS tools
There are numerous benefits to using SaaS tools. They include:
Cost
The subscription cost is clear in advance. Businesses don't have to pay high setup fees and can just choose the plan that best suits their needs. It's typically easy to scale your subscription plan if you want, often with just a few clicks. Many platforms also offer a free trial.
Access
Since the software is hosted in the cloud, users can access it from anywhere with an internet connection through a variety of devices and mobile applications. Whether users are at home, in the office or abroad, they will be able to use the program through platforms such as Microsoft Teams.
Customization
Many SaaS services, including custom SaaS solutions, offer add-ons and other features that allow you to customize your product to your specific business needs and wants. In fact, even by configuring it from scratch, you can adjust the settings of these custom SaaS solutions based on your preferences.
Security and Maintenance
SaaS software is vendor-hosted, which means simple, reliable maintenance and security, keeping your data safe. The vendor will also push automatic updates to keep your platform running smoothly and efficiently, as well as troubleshoot bugs and other issues.
SaaS tool categories
Accounting
Accounting software monitors your cash flow in a centralized, cloud-based location. From invoicing to fee notifications, there are many basic money-related tasks that are simplified through services like FreshBooks and QuickBooks. Businesses can automatically set up payments, view dashboards that present expense views, and more.
Collaboration
Whether colleagues are in the office or working remotely, collaboration is a critical component of daily and long-term operations. These tools allow people to check in and send quick messages without needing to write long, formal emails and can often be used to automate business processes. Employees can share files, organize content, and stay informed about their efforts. They can also ensure that small groups or wider audiences have access to what they need to see.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Companies are increasingly turning their attention to improving relationships with existing customers, rather than trying exclusively to attract new customers. CRMs are ideal for nurturing these relationships. They not only store information about customers, but also present insights such as meaningful interactions with the brand.
From there, companies are better equipped to personalize communications, recognize when they need to make efforts to obtain customer feedback, build relationships, and more.
Customer service
Customer support is vital to sustaining a business and today there are several SaaS tools to answer queries, respond to reviews and otherwise provide assistance to users. SaaS programs like Zendesk and ProProfs Chat incorporate chatbot technology, which allows organizations to respond to individuals automatically, without the intervention of a human professional, making communication faster and business processes more efficient.
Marketing
Marketing encompasses a huge range of efforts and segments. Hootsuite, for example, streamlines social media management tool efforts by allowing businesses to schedule posts, get an overview of their strategy and history, review analytics through Google Analytics, and more.
Hootsuite streamlines social media marketing efforts by allowing businesses to schedule posts, see an overview of their strategy and history, review analytics, and more. Mailchimp is specifically for email marketing, allowing organizations to create newsletters, store and use media, and track performance, among other important features.
There are several free marketing tools that offer great value without needing to spend any money.
Project management
Dedicated project management software and tools are essential for a successful venture. Using SaaS software like Asana, Basecamp, Proofhub, and Trello, project managers and team members can track deadlines, share important documents, view progress and timelines, assign tasks, and more.
Sales
Several years ago, companies like Square and Stripe revolutionized the very nature of payments and transactions. Now, businesses and individuals across industries can accept credit cards and other payments from virtually anywhere, whether selling products at a conference or conducting a virtual transaction from a remote location. Payments are secure and highly efficient.
Video conference
Last but not least is video conferencing software. This probably comes as no surprise – in light of the pandemic, companies around the world have quickly adopted communications platforms to stay in touch with employees, customers and business partners. Zoom has emerged as the most popular of these platforms, and although it continues to be the most used, it is far from the only one on the market.
19 Best SaaS Tools
#1 FreshBooks (Accounting)
FreshBooks is cloud-based accounting software designed for small businesses and freelancers. It simplifies financial tasks such as invoicing, with expense tracking and financial reporting.
Unique features
FreshBooks allows users to create and customize professional, branded invoices to accept online payments and send automated payment reminders. Users can easily track and categorize expenses. You can also capture receipts using a mobile app and generate expense reports for better financial management.
FreshBooks offers built-in time tracking functionality that allows users to track billable hours and generate accurate invoices seamlessly. The software provides various financial reports including profit and loss statements with balance sheets and tax summaries to gain insights into business performance.
#2 QuickBooks (Accounting)
QuickBooks is a widely used accounting software that serves small and medium-sized businesses. It offers comprehensive features for financial management such as invoicing with expense tracking, inventory management, and tax preparation.
Unique features
QuickBooks offers a wide range of accounting features, including bill payment invoicing, as well as financial reporting and tax management. Users can create and customize professional invoices with their company logo and personalized messages.
QuickBooks offers inventory tracking and management features, allowing businesses to track inventory levels along with purchase order management and reporting. QuickBooks integrates with various third-party applications, such as CRM software and e-commerce platforms, to streamline business operations.
#3 Bit.ai (Collaboration)
Bit.ai is a documentation platform that allows teams to create, share, and collaborate on documents, notes, and knowledge bases. It provides a centralized workspace for teams to work together, storing information and simplifying collaboration.
Unique features
Bit.ai's smart documents allow users to create interactive and dynamic content by incorporating rich media such as videos, images and live data. Multiple team members can collaborate on documents simultaneously, making it easier to brainstorm and provide real-time feedback. Bit.ai provides a hierarchical structure for organizing documents into workspaces and subfolders, making it easier to find and manage content.
Users can create and maintain a library of reusable content, templates, and assets, thereby improving efficiency and consistency across projects. Bit.ai allows users to track document engagement such as views and time spent, providing insights into audience engagement.
#4 Hubspot (CRM)
HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that provides a set of tools to manage and nurture customer relationships. It offers sales capabilities with marketing and customer service, thus enabling companies to optimize their customer-centric processes.
Unique features
HubSpot allows users to store and manage customer information with interaction tracking and contact segmentation for targeted marketing campaigns. CRM offers visual sales pipelines that allow sales teams to track deals and prioritize leads for efficient sales management. Marketing performance can be tracked by businesses through the use of HubSpot's automation features that allow them to automate lead nurturing and create specialized email campaigns.
Providing businesses with a way to manage customer support queries and track problem resolution, HubSpot CRM includes a ticketing and help desk system. Through the platform, you can track sales performance and customer interactions using a variety of analytical and reporting tools.
#5 Salesforce (CRM)
Salesforce is one of the leading customer relationship management (CRM) platforms that helps businesses manage their sales with marketing and customer service. It offers a variety of features and tools designed to improve customer engagement, streamlining workflows, and driving sales growth.
Unique features
The CRM instance in Salesforce can be tailored to meet the unique needs of each company that uses it. Provides a flexible and powerful foundation that can be adapted to the needs of companies of any size and in any industry.
Salesforce also offers robust tools for tracking leads and opportunities, as well as automating sales processes. The marketing automation features included in CRM make it easy to track and nurture leads for a highly focused marketing campaign.
Salesforce's customer service module aims to improve support and satisfaction. Includes case management, knowledge base management, and self-service portals. Businesses can link Salesforce with other systems and applications to improve data flow and automate operations thanks to Salesforce's extensive ecosystem of third-party connectors and add-ons.
#6 Zoho (CRM)
Zoho CRM is a cloud-based CRM platform that helps businesses manage their sales and customer service along with marketing. It provides a set of tools and features designed to streamline customer relationship management processes and improve overall efficiency.
Unique features
Zoho CRM allows businesses to track and manage leads and contacts throughout the customer lifecycle by providing a centralized database for customer information. CRM offers visual sales pipeline management to enable sales teams to track deals to monitor progress and forecast revenue. Zoho CRM includes automation features that allow businesses to automate repetitive tasks to streamline workflows and improve productivity.
Zoho CRM offers email marketing features that allow businesses to create and run targeted email campaigns, monitor engagement, and analyze campaign effectiveness. CRM offers built-in analytics and reporting tools that provide insights into sales performance, along with lead conversion rates and other important metrics.
#7 ProProfs Chat (Customer Service)
ProProfs Chat is live chat software that allows businesses to provide real-time customer support and interact with website visitors. It offers a range of features designed to enhance customer service, increase customer satisfaction, and improve the overall user experience.
Unique features
ProProfs Chat allows businesses to interact with website visitors through live chat and messaging, thus enabling real-time communication for instant support. The software supports chatbot integration that allows businesses to automate customer interactions and provide quick answers to frequently asked questions.
ProProfs Chat includes co-browsing and screen sharing features that allow support agents to help customers by navigating web pages together and visually guiding them. The software integrates with knowledge base platforms to enable support agents to quickly access relevant information and provide accurate answers to customer queries. ProProfs Chat provides reporting and analytics capabilities, offering insights into chat volume and response times.
#8 Zendesk (Customer Service)
Zendesk is a cloud-based customer service platform that helps businesses manage customer interactions and support requests. It provides a variety of tools and features to streamline customer service processes to improve customer experience with response times and increase customer satisfaction.
Unique features
Zendesk allows businesses to track and manage support tickets, ensuring customer queries and issues are properly documented and resolved. The platform allows companies to provide customer support across multiple channels to ensure a seamless and consistent support experience. Zendesk offers a knowledge base feature that allows businesses to create an FAQ repository with help articles and resources to let customers find answers on their own.
The platform also includes automation features to streamline repetitive tasks and workflows, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing manual efforts. Zendesk provides reporting and analytics capabilities that offer insights into your support team's performance, along with customer satisfaction metrics and response times.
#9 Hootsuite (Marketing)
Hootsuite is a platform for managing a company's presence on various social media networks. Hootsuite also allows you to monitor multiple accounts at the same time. Hootsuite is quite popular because using Hootsuite makes it easy to analyze social media campaigns. You can also interact with targeted audiences.
Unique features
Hootsuite allows organizations to save time and ensure even content distribution by scheduling and publishing social media posts across multiple platforms. Providing a centralized location for a company's entire social media presence. This simplifies access and distribution, as the platform acts as a virtual content library.
Businesses can listen to online conversations about their brand or any topic of interest by following mentions and hashtags with Hootsuite. It also includes reporting and analytics tools to monitor social media activity and evaluate the success of a company's social media marketing campaigns.
#10 Mailchimp (Marketing)
MailChimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that offers email marketing with a marketing automation tool for audience segmentation and campaign management. It is designed to help businesses create and run effective email marketing campaigns and engage with their audiences.
Unique features
Mailchimp's automation tools allow businesses to schedule automatic email sequences in response to certain customer actions, such as signing up for a newsletter or abandoning a shopping cart. The tool helps organizations create targeted and personalized email messages by dividing their audience into subgroups based on factors such as purchase history and engagement levels.
Creating unique landing pages for lead generation or targeted marketing campaigns is a breeze with MailChimp's drag-and-drop landing page builder. Businesses can connect their marketing collateral to other tools and systems thanks to Mailchimp's compatibility with a wide range of external applications, such as ecommerce platforms, customer relationship management systems, and content management systems. The platform's reporting and analytics tools let you monitor things like audience engagement and click-through rates.
#11 Asana (project management)
Ásana is a project management tool that helps teams organize and manage their projects and workflows. It offers a range of features designed to increase collaboration, improving productivity and efficiently tracking project progress.
Unique features
Team members can collaborate more effectively using Asana's centralized platform for generating and assigning tasks and the ability to prioritize tasks. Kanban-style boards allow teams to get a snapshot of the current state of their project's various tasks. In Asana, teams can interact and collaborate thanks to tools like file sharing with comments and notifications.
The platform's timeline view makes it easy to establish relationships between tasks and create a visual representation of project development over time. Through these integrations, Asana can expand its capabilities and connect project management with other workflows, such as communication platforms and document management systems.
#12 Basecamp (Project Management)
Basecamp is a project management and team collaboration tool that allows teams to centralize project communication with task management and file sharing. The goal is to streamline project management tools and workflows and keep teams organized.
Unique features
Basecamp acts as a central hub for teams to organize projects with their tasks and discussions. It also includes a message board feature where teams or individuals can post data updates and interact in project-related discussions, consequently ensuring transparent and accessible conversations. Basecamp offers task lists that allow teams to create and assign tasks and track progress to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Basecamp allows teams to upload and share files and media to ensure easy access and collaboration on project-related materials. Basecamp also allows teams to schedule automatic check-ins, where team members can provide status updates or flag any issues or concerns.
#13 ProofHub (Project Management)
ProofHub is a project management and team collaboration software that helps companies streamline their projects and communication. It provides a centralized platform for project planning along with task management and file sharing.
Unique features
ProofHub allows companies to create project plans while setting milestones and deadlines to ensure clarity and alignment on project goals and timelines. The platform provides a visual task management interface to allow businesses to create tasks and assign them to team members and track progress.
ProofHub provides a resource for reviewing and revising documents and projects, as well as facilitating collaboration and feedback between team members and clients. The platform includes features like discussions and real-time group chat, allowing teams to share updates and communicate effectively. ProofHub offers Gantt charts that provide a visual representation of project timelines and progress, helping companies with project scheduling and resource allocation.
#14 Trello (project management)
Trello is a flexible project management software and collaboration tool that uses boards, lists, and cards to organize and track tasks and projects. It provides a visual and intuitive interface that helps teams manage their work effectively.
Unique features
Trello uses a Kanban-style approach, allowing teams to create boards and cards to represent tasks and projects, providing a visual representation of workflow and progress. Teams can customize Trello boards and lists to meet their specific workflow and project management needs. You can also adapt the tool to different project methodologies. Trello includes features for team collaboration, such as file attachments and task assignments, making communication and information sharing easier.
Trello integrates with several third-party apps, allowing teams to connect their project management workflows to other tools and systems. Trello offers automation features and power-ups that are add-ons that extend its functionality to allow teams to automate repetitive tasks or add additional features to their boards.
#15 Square (Sales)
Square is a comprehensive sales and payment processing platform designed for businesses of all sizes. It provides tools to accept payments while analyzing sales data and creating custom point-of-sale solutions.
Unique features
Square makes it easy for merchants to accept credit and debit card payments. With their cash registers and mobile point-of-sale systems, businesses can create unique checkout processes to attract customers.
Square also provides tools for managing inventory levels that help businesses keep track of their supplies. These functions also help you manage purchase orders, which is crucial for accurate inventory monitoring. Square's reporting and analytics tool sheds light on important business metrics like inventory turns and sales volume. Square's connectivity with ecommerce platforms makes it easier for businesses to integrate their physical and online sales and payment processes.
#16 Range (Sales)
Stripe is an online payment processing platform that allows businesses to accept and manage payments securely. It offers a set of features designed to handle online transactions and complex payment flows.
Unique features
Stripe makes it easy to accept payments from a variety of payment methods, such as digital wallets and credit/debit cards for online merchants. They provide companies with the means to manage trial periods and prorated prices associated with subscriptions.
With Stripe's powerful application programming interface (API) and developer tools, organizations can seamlessly integrate Stripe's payment processing capabilities into their own websites or apps. To protect businesses and their consumers from fraudulent activity, Stripe provides built-in fraud prevention techniques and security features that include machine learning algorithms and superior encryption.
#17 Google Meet (video conferencing)
Google Meet is a video conferencing and collaboration tool developed by Google. It allows users to organize and participate in virtual meetings through audio and video calls and share screens along with documents in real-time.
Unique features
Google Meet offers high-definition video and clear audio quality that ensures smooth communication during meetings. The platform allows users to share their screens, making it easy to present documents or videos to meeting participants. It also supports real-time collaboration in Google Docs and Slides.
Users can schedule meetings and join calls immediately from their calendar or email, thanks to the seamless integration Google Meet offers with other Google Workspace services like Google Calendar and Gmail. Meetings are more accessible with Google Meet's real-time captions. Participants who speak different languages can have their conversations translated in real time.
#18 Zoom (video conferencing)
Zoom is a widely used video conferencing and collaboration platform that allows users to host and participate in virtual meetings and online events. It provides a variety of features designed to enhance communication and collaboration.
Unique features
Zoom supports meetings with a large number of participants, which makes it suitable for webinars and virtual conferences. Users can share their screens and collaborate in real time by delivering interactive presentations and taking notes while sharing documents.
Zoom offers breakout rooms where the meeting host can divide participants into smaller groups for group discussions or activities and then bring them back to the main meeting. The platform offers the ability to record meetings and upload the recordings to the cloud. It also offers automatic transcription for recorded meetings. Zoom allows users to customize their video backgrounds with virtual backgrounds or apply filters that add a touch of personalization and fun.
#19 Slack (Collaboration)
Folga is a popular team communication and collaboration platform that brings conversations, project updates, and file sharing together in one place. It provides a centralized hub for teams to collaborate so they can discuss ideas and streamline communication.
Unique features
Slack allows teams to create channels for specific projects or topics, facilitating specific discussions while supporting direct messaging for one-on-one or smaller group conversations. Users can easily share files and media on Slack, enabling seamless collaboration and reducing the need for separate file sharing platforms.
Slack offers a vast library of integrations with other business apps and tools, allowing users to bring notifications and updates from various sources into Slack. Slack also stores chat history, making it easy to search and find previous conversations and information, ensuring knowledge retrieval and continuity. With Slack's workflow automation features, teams can automate repetitive tasks and create custom workflows to increase productivity.
SaaS software is essential for your business
While SaaS software isn't the only technology a business needs to thrive, it is one of several tools that have become an important investment for organizations of all shapes and sizes. Next year, as you plan your budget and expenses, don't neglect these critical tools.
To choose the best tools for various purposes for your business – from social media to resource management and knowledge management – explore the options available. In most cases, there are numerous options per category that offer different benefits and advantages. The best approach is to explore these tools to find the one that best aligns with your business goals.
Common questions
How can I determine if SaaS tools are a good fit for my business needs?
To determine whether SaaS tools are a good fit for your business needs, you must start by evaluating your business goals and requirements. Determine which areas are scalable and evaluate which tools will help you grow. Furthermore, evaluate the cost-benefit ratio and analyze the different models available.
Are there possible disadvantages or limitations to using SaaS tools?
While there are numerous benefits to using SaaS tools, there are also some disadvantages. For example, depending on the tool, customization options are often limited. Additionally, you need to rely on the security of the SaaS provider as well as the support they offer. This can be somewhat restrictive. Furthermore, to access these tools, you must have an internet connection.
How can companies ensure the security and privacy of their data when using SaaS tools?
There are many ways companies can ensure the security and privacy of their customers' data when using SaaS tools. They may use two-factor authentication systems, for example. They should also research any suppliers they are considering using and select those with strong reputations and reviews. Researching vendors' security practices is also vital. Additionally, consistently backing up your data prevents unforeseen losses. You can also evaluate the security of internal systems and integrations.
