There are hundred-tool lists everywhere. This one is shorter and more honest: these are the ones I open every week, on the free plan, and why. If you can drop one, even better: the best tool is the one you don't have to maintain.
1. WordPress — the website
Still the default for a business website: free, with a huge community, and a shop when you need one (WooCommerce). Its strength and its trap are the same thing: plugins. The fewer you have, the fewer things break.
2. Search Console — what Google sees
Free, from Google, and the only source that tells you what it indexes, what it drops and which queries bring you visits. If you only connect one tool to your site, make it this one.
3. Google Analytics — what people do
For behaviour: which pages get read, where people come from, what they do before writing to you. Bear in mind it always sees less than what happens, because of blockers and cookie consent.
4. PageSpeed Insights — why it's slow
It gives you real user data, not just lab numbers. It's the first place I look when someone tells me their site "feels weird".
5. Canva — design when you're not designing
For what doesn't justify opening a proper design tool: a social image, a deck, a poster. The free plan is plenty once your colours and typeface are settled.
6. Mailchimp or Brevo — the mailing list
Both have free plans that are enough to start. Brevo works out cheaper as the list grows. What matters isn't which you pick, but configuring domain authentication properly so you don't land in spam.
7. Notion — where everything else lives
Notes, processes, quotes, client tracking. It does almost everything, which is why it needs limits: if it becomes an archive nobody opens, it isn't helping.
8. A password manager
Bitwarden has a free plan and it's enough. Not glamorous, but it's the tool that prevents the big disaster. If you share access with collaborators, it's non-negotiable.
9. Git — the history of what you do
Not just for coding. Anything made of text files (a website, some scripts, documentation) gets far better when you can see what changed, when, and roll it back. Free and local is the best part.
10. Automatic backups
The most boring tool and the only indispensable one. It doesn't matter which you use: what matters is that they're automatic, stored somewhere else, and that you've restored one at least once. A backup nobody has tested isn't a backup.
What's not on the list
Everything paid for just in case: subscriptions nobody uses, duplicate tools, platforms doing what the last one already did. Review once a year what you pay for and what you use. There are usually surprises.
Want to set up your digital base without hoarding tools?
Write to [email protected] and I'll tell you what you actually need.