Best Business Management Software of 2025

ClickUp is the clear winner for small businesses in terms of getting the most features for your dollar with zero enterprise complexity. Their free plan offers unlimited users, unlimited tasks, and a full suite of features with 100 GB of storage, which takes the financial risk out of adopting new business management software for small teams. They offer powerful project management functionality with Gantt charts, timeline view, whiteboards, docs, and more, all from the get-go on the free plan.

Teams love the flexibility ClickUp gives them to map out exactly how they want to work, rather than having to adapt to pre-built structures, and also love that ClickUp is rapidly innovating so you’re always getting new capabilities as you grow. For a small business focused on getting the best mix of power and pricing with minimal overhead, ClickUp is hard to beat. 24/7 customer support is available on every plan and while new users are often overwhelmed by how much is available right out of the box, once you tailor it to your process, ClickUp can supercharge your team’s productivity and make life a lot easier.

Trello demonstrates that effective project management doesn’t have to break the bank, which is why it is the obvious choice for budget-conscious teams and startups. The platform’s all-inclusive free plan offers unlimited cards and collaborators, allowing teams to work together for free—you only pay when you want to unlock additional functionality like timeline views or automation power.

With Trello’s easy-to-use Kanban board system, there is zero learning curve, and users can be productive within minutes of signing up instead of days or weeks. I find it great for everyday task management and communication with co-workers and team members. I’d also say small teams really love the visual simplicity that makes project status crystal clear at a glance, and the browser-based interface works seamlessly across devices with no downloads or installation. Even if you do decide to upgrade to paid plans, Trello remains one of the most affordable options in the market, with Standard plans starting at only $5 per user per month.

Monday.com is best for new teams or businesses that need to formalize and systematize their work. Users love the beautifully designed color-coded interface. The interface seems to work to transform the traditional view of what it means to “track work”. Instead of being just another system to manage your business or projects, the design of Monday.com’s interface is fun and user-friendly, which in turns makes collaboration more natural, intuitive, and at times enjoyable. Users appreciate the plug-and-play nature of Monday.com and the fact that it comes with over 200 pre-built templates for common business and marketing workflows, like marketing plans, product launches, sales pipelines, content calendars, etc., which means teams can hit the ground running and start being productive instead of spending time and resources to create a new platform and customize it to your needs.

As needs increase and grow more complex, automation and workflows on Monday.com are extensive enough to easily grow with your business without having to switch to another platform or significantly rebuild your setup. Some users find the platform has a slight learning curve with teams without an in-house project manager, and setting up notifications and alerts can be tedious or overwhelming if you aren’t careful. But good customer support and helpful documentation help to ease new users onboarding to the system. If your business is growing and in search of a modern, scalable solution that has an engaging interface and is relatively easy to onboard your team onto, Monday.com is a great option for businesses from startups all the way to enterprise levels.

Asana balances structure and flexibility beautifully, which makes it an attractive choice for users and teams looking for guidance on process improvement and strategic alignment. It’s the sweet spot between overly simplistic, basic tools, and not knowing where to start optimizing your workflow. The timeline and Gantt chart views are unmatched for clarity in large, complex projects with many steps and dependencies, while the portfolio view and goal-tracking features are critical to help executive teams track progress towards strategic goals across the organization, not just siloed projects. Asana’s interface is easy to use, even for teams with many features, and you can integrate Asana with your existing CRM, accounting software, and collaboration tools.

Asana’s resource management and workload visualization tools help teams visualize capacity and pinpoint where and when bottlenecks are slowing them down, enabling team leaders to make smarter decisions and optimize resource allocation. Team performance and project delivery times improve as a result. Asana’s support only covers up to 8am to 5pm on business days, unless you are on an Enterprise plan, and users who don’t have a dedicated project manager, noted configuration being more difficult. Despite these, Asana is a dependable platform used by over 100,000 organizations, and for businesses that are growing but still looking for a tool that will scale with their operations without needing to be swapped out down the line, Asana is one of the best out there in terms of flexibility and reliability.

Zoho One provides very good value, especially for users who want to use a large number of apps. It offers a single-subscription, tightly integrated bundle of 45+ business apps, which can help to reduce vendor management overhead, contract complexity, and data silos. The apps in this bundle cover most business needs, including CRM (Zoho CRM), Accounting and Invoicing (Zoho Books), Project Management (Zoho Projects), HR and Employee Management (Zoho People), Customer Support (Zoho Desk), Marketing Automation (Zoho Campaigns), etc. These apps are available under a single Zoho One subscription at a price much lower than purchasing them separately.

The apps in the bundle are tightly integrated with one another, which makes data management seamless and doesn’t require setting up of APIs or manual data syncing. This, along with the shared UI/UX across apps, also helps users and teams to get acquainted with them faster. Some users have noted that there can be a bit of a context switch when moving between different apps and their UIs and that support can be inconsistent at times. However, the overall pricing and value proposition of Zoho One remains very strong. For many users, especially those using a large number of apps and looking for an all-in-one solution, Zoho One provides excellent value for the money.

NetSuite is at the high end of the spectrum for businesses that need a more sophisticated ERP system for their larger, more complex organization. As a cloud-native ERP system, NetSuite offers unlimited customization, scalability, and global support. It integrates financial accounting, CRM, inventory management, eCommerce, and supply chain management in a single cloud platform. It is designed for large, often multi-entity, global organizations with complex, multi-currency operations. Larger businesses need and use NetSuite’s more complex workflows that can accommodate detailed approval processes, role-based access controls, and audit logging to ensure compliance with more complex regulations.

Real-time reporting and dashboards can be leveraged by executives for instant insight into company performance. Advanced customization capabilities make NetSuite adaptable to specific business processes and requirements. Implementation often involves dedicated NetSuite consultants and can take several months with a potentially significant cost in professional services. Despite the challenges and costs, customers report significant value creation through the consolidation of operations and a reduction in legacy system dependencies. Some customers report that its complexity often requires dedicated IT resources to maintain and optimize, making it most suitable for large organizations with complex business needs and larger budgets. NetSuite is often the ERP of choice for enterprises valuing comprehensive capabilities and operational consolidation over cost or simplicity.