Most small business owners end up paying for five overlapping tools that all do the same three things, because every SaaS company bundles in a monthly fee and it’s easy to lose track of what’s actually being used. The good news: the free tiers of major business software are genuinely capable in 2026, and the paid tools worth their price are cheap.
Table of Contents
This guide walks through the eight categories every small business actually needs — website, email, accounting, CRM, payments, scheduling, communication, and design — and prices out a real stack that stays under $100 a month, with current 2026 pricing for each pick.
Quick Answer
You can run a complete small business tech stack — website and hosting, business email, accounting, a CRM, payment processing, scheduling, team chat, and design tools — for roughly $60–$90 a month by pairing a couple of essential paid tools (email and hosting) with free tiers of Wave, HubSpot CRM, Slack, Trello, and Calendly.
The 8 Categories Every Small Business Stack Needs
Website and hosting: A basic Squarespace plan runs about $16/month billed annually and includes hosting, a template, and SSL — you can also go cheaper with WordPress on budget hosting, but Squarespace saves setup time. Pair it with a domain name, which typically costs somewhere in the $10–$20/year range regardless of registrar, so budget roughly $1–$2/month.
Business email and productivity: Google Workspace Business Starter is about $7/user/month on an annual plan (around $8.40/month if billed monthly) and gets you a professional @yourdomain.com inbox, shared calendar, and pooled cloud storage — worth it over a free Gmail address for credibility alone.
Accounting: Wave’s Starter plan is free and covers unlimited invoicing, expense tracking, and bookkeeping records — and reconciliation isn’t locked behind a paywall, either. On the free tier you import bank and credit card statements manually via CSV and match transactions yourself. Wave Pro (around $19/month, cheaper if billed annually) doesn’t add reconciliation — it adds a live, automatic bank feed via Plaid so transactions import and get categorized without manual CSV uploads, plus support for multiple users and lower payment-processing rates. Most very small businesses can start on the free tier and only upgrade once the manual CSV workflow becomes a time drain.
CRM: HubSpot’s free CRM plan is genuinely usable for up to two users and includes contact management, deal tracking, and basic email tools — no monthly fee. It carries HubSpot branding on forms and emails until you upgrade to Starter (about $20/month), which most businesses can live without at the start.
Payments: Square’s free plan has no monthly subscription — you only pay processing fees per transaction (roughly the 2–3%-plus-flat-fee range typical of card processors). It’s the simplest way to accept cards without committing to a fixed monthly cost.
Scheduling: Calendly’s free plan covers one event type and one connected calendar, which is enough for a single-service booking page. If you need multiple meeting types or automated reminders, Standard runs about $10/seat/month.
Team communication and task tracking: Slack’s free plan (limited searchable message history, direct messages, and huddles) and Trello’s free plan (a capped number of boards, unlimited cards) cover most small teams without paying anything.
Design: Canva Pro is about $12–$15/month billed annually and covers social graphics, presentations, and basic brand kits — the free version of Canva is often enough if you don’t need premium templates or background removal.
A Sample Stack That Stays Under $100/Month
Putting it together for a one-to-three person business: domain (~$1–$2), Google Workspace Business Starter (~$7), Squarespace Basic (~$16), Canva Pro (~$12), and everything else — Wave, HubSpot CRM, Slack, Trello, Calendly, Square — on their free tiers. That lands around $35–$40/month, leaving plenty of headroom under the $100 budget to add a paid scheduling tier, email marketing, or a second Workspace seat as the business grows.
Because payment processing and some accounting features scale with usage rather than a flat fee, your actual monthly bill will move a little with sales volume — but the fixed subscription core rarely needs to break $50/month for a business just getting off the ground.
Tips / Common Mistakes
Bill annually where you can. Most of these tools charge more on month-to-month billing, and the annual discount is one of the easiest ways to stay under budget.
Don’t pay for a CRM, project board, or team chat tool before you’ve outgrown the free tier — HubSpot, Trello, and Slack’s free plans cover a solo operator or small team longer than most people expect.
Watch transaction-fee tools like Square: they look free on paper, but fees add up fast at higher sales volume, so re-check whether a paid plan with lower per-transaction rates would save money once you’re processing consistently.
Cancel the tools you demoed and forgot about. The fastest way to blow past $100/month isn’t any single subscription — it’s three unused trials that quietly converted to paid plans.
Explore more: more small business guides.
Small business tech stack FAQs
Do I really need to pay for a CRM as a small business?
No. HubSpot’s free CRM plan supports up to two users with contact and deal tracking at no cost — it’s enough for most businesses until you need more seats or want to remove HubSpot branding.
Is Wave accounting software actually free?
Yes — the Starter plan is free for unlimited invoicing, expense tracking, and bookkeeping. It also supports bank reconciliation on the free tier: you import bank and credit card statements manually via CSV and match transactions yourself. That capability isn’t gated behind the paid tier — Wave Pro (around $19/month) instead adds a live, automatic bank feed via Plaid, support for multiple users, and lower payment-processing rates.
What’s the cheapest way to accept card payments?
Square’s free plan has no monthly fee — you only pay a per-transaction processing rate (check Square’s current published rates, since card-processing fees change over time).
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Images: Squarespace.
