We’ve listed 13 helpful apps to help you run and grow your agency. Whether it’s design, digital marketing or project management, these apps will save you a bunch of time, such as: Canva, Hassl, Todoist, Zoom, Hootsuite, Mention, Grammarly, Notion, Google Drive, Google analytics, Wave accounting, LastPass, and Envato Elements.
Canva
Best cloud based design tool
Launched in 2013, Canva is an online design and publishing tool with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere. Canva is the ultimate adobe suite alternative. A platform that allows you to create brochures, brands, social media posts, posters and presentations!
This is a great app for anyone who needs to design literally anything, whether that be brands guidelines or social media posts. This is a great design tool for designers and agencies.
There are a few alternatives such as: Adobe photoshop, adobe indesign, Visme, Adobe Spark, Design Wizard, Easil, Snappa, Crello, Stencil and PicMonkey. Here is a blog post comparing all of the design tools.
Free/ $17.99/month for Canva Pro
Hassl
Best project management tool for agencies
Hassl is an all-in-one project management tool which is easy for everyone to use. It allows you to prioritize tasks and projects in one place as well as collaborate with your team members and guests to achieve project goals on time.
You can also upload, store and share files quickly with them. If you are tired of unnecessary calls or long email threads, the instant chat function in Hassl is really helpful to get you all stay updated.
There are some project management alternatives to Hassl such as Kissflow Project, Trello, Asana, Zoho Projects, Wrike, Monday.com, Proofhub, Clarizen, Airtable, and Kanban Tool. Here is a blog post comparing some of them with features.
Cost: $6/month
Todoist
Best to do list app
Todoist is an online tool that helps organise, plan and collaborate on projects. It allows users to remember deadlines with reminders, prioritise tasks with priority levels, track progress with personalised productivity trends as well as integrate tools like Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack and more.
It is a great tool for agencies who need to get the work and life organised. With the cloud-based service, all the tasks and notes sync automatically to any device.
There are a few alternatives including: nTask, Tick Tick, Redbooth, Teamwork Projects, Zoho Projects, Trello, Asana, OmniFocus. Here is the blog post comparing The 11 Best Todoist Alternatives to Try
Cost: Free, $4/month for Pro, $7/month for Business.
Zoom
Best virtual meeting app
Zoom is a high-quality video conferencing app for businesses with various plans based on business size and needs. It has lots of benefits, including quick access from your laptop, desktop, or mobile phone; features like file sharing, whiteboarding, screen sharing, and call recording are easy to use.
There are some Zoom alternatives for small business, such as Glip by RingCentral, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting, Google Meet, BlueJeans, Jitsi Meet, Meet Now. Here is a blog post comparing all of these alternatives
In terms of plans, you can host free video calls with up to 100 people as long as you don’t talk for more than 40 minutes, while paid plans let you chat with up to 1,000 people at once, plenty for almost every situation.
Hootsuite
One of the Best digital marketing management tools
Hootsuite is a social media management platform, created in 2008. It allows you to monitor different social media profiles, as well as track hashtags and review analytics. Also, you can use it to schedule posts in advance.
This is a great tool mainly for social media managers and agencies, which can improve social marketing, sales and services to next levels.
Here are the best alternatives to Hootsuite: SocialPilot; Buffer; eClincher; CoSchedule; Socialbakers; Agorapulse; Sendible; Zoho Social. The blog post is here to compare these social media management tools
Cost: $69/month for Professional, $169/month for Team, $785/month for Business.
Mention
One of the Best digital marketing management tool
Mention is one of the top digital marketing apps for monitoring brand mentions on social media. It is designed to help people keep track of brand mentions across multiple platforms. Additionally, it enables people to keep tabs on every conversation about the brand.
This is a great tool for marketing agencies who need to monitor the web, listen to their audience and manage social media.
There are three top alternatives to Mention including Keyhole, Social Mention, and Tweetreach. Here is a blog post comparing all of these tools
Cost: Free, $25-$450+/month for advanced plan
Grammarly
Best tool to improving writing
Grammarly is one of the most widely used software tools for grammar checking, spell checking, as well as plagiarism detecting. With the use of Grammarly, small writing mistakes can be avoided and you can make use of concise words at the right time. It also includes features like multiple device document access, performance stats, and vocabulary enhancement suggestions.
There are a few similar tools for error free writing, such as ProWritingAid, Ginger, Sapling, WhiteSmoke, PaperRater, Reverso, SentenceCheckup, and Hemingway App. Here is a blog comparing all of these alternatives.
Cost: Free
Notion
Best tool for freelancers and solo-agency owners
Notion is a tool for personal or business use to write, plan and get organised. It is versatile and productive because it allows you to simplify the note-taking process and take good care of the database.
Notion is suitable for the use related to marketing, sales, design, HR and product. Overall, this is a simple and great tool for agencies.
There are a few alternatives to Notion to help take care of those notes and databases more effectively and easily, including nTask, Coda, Joplin, Tettra, Evernote, OneNote, Confluence and Quip. Here is a blog comparing those tools.
Costs: free for personal, $4 for Pro, $8 for team
Google Drive
Best tool of file management for agencies
Google drive is a file management system by google. It allows you to store all your documents and files inside Drive with one click by integrating Google Docs and Google sheets.
Although, if you are using Hassl you wouldn’t really need Google Drive because Hassl to mange and share all of your files for you!
It is simple and intuitive for average users, and also convenient for smartphone users that people can access files on the go. This a a grear file management tool for agencies.
Google drive is great but it can get annoying having files in different places. Whereas you can just use Hassl to store and share all of your files. Google Drive is great however for larger files and sharing with non-clients or non-team members.
There are a few alternatives to Google drive, such as Canto Dam, Dropbox, Sync, OneDrive, and pCloud. Here is a blog post comparing these cloud tools.
Cost: Free, $2-$12/month for more storage
Google analytics
Best web analytics tool for digital marketing
Google analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, target audiences and your digital marketing efforts. It allows you to measure your advertising ROI as well as track your Flash, video, and social networking sites and applications.
This is a great tool for online marketers who need to understand why visitors behave the way they do.
There are seven alternatives to Google Analytics to consider: SE Ranking, Matomo, Finteza, Woopra, Smartlook, Chartbeat and Mention. Here is a blog post comparing all of the web analytics tools.
Cost: Free
Wave accounting
Best financial software
Wave is an award-winning invoicing and accounting software with credit card processing & payroll services, making accounting as simple as possible.
This app is designed particularly for freelancers, small business owners and consultants. It helps them get paid quickly and easily, then manage their income and expenses easily.
There are a few alternatives to Wave, including QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Self-Employed and Invoice Ninja. Here is a blog post comparing these financial tools.
Cost: Free
LastPass
The best password manager
LastPass keeps all of your passwords secure and easy to access from every computer and mobile device. Its key features help simplify online shopping, generate strong passwords, store digital records and even share effortlessly.
This is a great password tool for agencies who have lots of social media and business accounts to manage. With Lastpass, you will have a peace of mind everywhere you go.
There are a few password alternatives to try, such as Apple iCloud Keychain, Google Chrome password storage, Bitwarden and NordPass. Here is a blog post comparing these tools.
Costs: Free, $4.5/month for Premium, $6/month for families.
Envato Elements
Best for templates, stock music, stock video and graphic assets
Envato Elements is a world-leading online community for creative assets, tools and talent. There are lots of graphic templates, stock photos, music, and sound effects to enjoy using.
This is a great tool mainly used for bloggers and website designers because of the great amount of creative assets.
There are a few alternatives to Envato Elements, such as Adobe Stock, Creative Market, Motion Elements, Template Monster, Story Blocks and Motion Array. Here is a blog post comparing these tools.
Cost: from $10.75/ month