Apps and online tools for work and home: what they cost, what they do and which to pick.
Klaviyo now charges for every profile it can email, so a Shopify shop's bill grows with its checkout customers as well as its subscribers. Shopify Messaging covers the basics for little, Omnisend is the closest cheaper rival, and Privy suits shops whose first job is growing the list. Klaviyo is $100 a month at 5,000 profiles.
A CRM keeps every customer, email and deal where the whole team can see them. Pipedrive suits small sales teams, Zoho CRM gives the most for the least, Copper suits Gmail businesses and Capsule is the simple British option. HubSpot's free plan is fine for two, then the price climbs.
Substack is free until readers pay, then keeps 10%; beehiiv, Kit, Ghost and the rest charge a flat fee instead. I work out which costs less at 1,000 and 10,000 subscribers, who brings you readers, who lets you leave with them, and what UK writers need to know about VAT and consent.
A form builder turns your questions into a page people fill in. Tally is the best free Typeform alternative for most people, Fillout suits forms that take payments, book calls or collect signatures, and SmartSurvey keeps survey answers in the UK. Typeform starts at £252 a year plus VAT.
A web scraping API fetches pages and hands back clean data. For feeding an AI app, Firecrawl is the fullest toolkit and Context.dev costs less per page; for protected shops, ScrapingBee, Zyte and Bright Data do better. What 10,000 pages cost on each, and what UK law says.
AI SEO means two things: AI doing your SEO work, and getting your business named in ChatGPT and Google's AI answers. Search Console is free and now reports AI Overviews. Ranked AI does it for you from $99 a month per site, Semrush or Ahrefs suit doing it yourself, and Peec AI tracks AI answers from €70 a month billed yearly. Whatever writes the pages, Google expects a person to check them.
A personal CRM is an address book that reminds you to keep in touch and remembers what people told you. Dex is the most complete paid app, Mesh (formerly Clay) has the best free plan, Monica suits anyone who wants to host their own, and your phone's contacts and reminders cover the basics for nothing.
An AI note taker transcribes your meetings and writes the summary and action items for you. If you meet on Teams, Zoom or Meet, the built-in notes may be enough; Fathom is the best free app, Granola the pick for no bot and Circleback for notes sent straight to your other tools.
Dictation software types what you say into any app. Most people should start with the free dictation in Mac, iPhone and Windows 11; Wispr Flow gives the most polished British text everywhere, Superwhisper keeps it offline, and Dragon still suits Windows users who want to pay once.
A social media scheduler publishes your posts from one calendar. For Facebook and Instagram only, Meta Business Suite lists no price; Buffer's free plan covers three accounts, Publer is cheapest with approvals and Postiz suits teams who want unlimited teammates.
Framer and Webflow are no-code website builders that also host your site. Framer is quicker and cheaper for portfolios and small blogs (from $120 a year); Webflow suits shops, big CMS sites and code export (CMS plans from $300). Neither makes leaving easy.
A to-do list app keeps your tasks in one place, synced to every device. Free Apple Reminders or Microsoft To Do is enough for many people; Todoist (£59.99 a year) is the best paid all-rounder, TickTick the cheaper pick and Superlist the one for notes and tasks together.
