Software for running the business

Projects, time, numbers and company setup. 6 tools compared: monday.com, Hubstaff, Databox, Streak, doola, Bright Data.

Updated October 2026 · How we pick

Behind every online business sits the unglamorous work: projects and tasks, time and payroll, numbers, customer follow-ups and company paperwork. Getting these into the right tools frees hours every week.

The tools below each cover one of those jobs. Pick the ones that match the bottleneck you have today rather than adding everything at once.

At a glance

monday.com

Work management: projects, tasks and team workflows on visual boards.

Visit monday.com

Hubstaff

Time tracking, timesheets and payroll for remote teams.

Visit Hubstaff

Databox

Business dashboards that pull your numbers from many tools into one place.

Visit Databox

Streak

CRM that lives inside Gmail: track deals and contacts from your inbox.

Visit Streak

doola

Start a US company (LLC) from anywhere, with bookkeeping and taxes.

Visit doola

Bright Data

Proxies and web data collection at scale.

Visit Bright Data

What to look for

The tools in detail

Best for: Teams that want projects, tasks and workflows on visual boards.

monday.com organises work on boards with timelines, Kanban and dashboards, plus automations that move tasks and notify people. It adapts to marketing, sales, operations and more.

Best for: Remote and field teams that track time and pay by the hour.

Hubstaff tracks time on desktop and mobile, builds timesheets, and can pay team members from the tracked hours. Optional activity tracking and GPS suit agencies and field teams.

Best for: Owners and marketers who want all key numbers on one dashboard.

Databox pulls data from analytics, ads, CRM and finance tools into dashboards and scheduled reports, with goals and alerts, so you stop opening ten tools to see how the business is doing.

Best for: Small teams that manage sales and deals from Gmail.

Streak is a CRM inside Gmail: pipelines, contacts and email tracking appear next to your inbox, so deals are tracked without switching apps.

Best for: Founders outside the US who want to form a US company.

doola helps you form a US LLC from anywhere, get an EIN (tax ID), and handle registered agent, bookkeeping and tax filings, so you can open US banking and payment accounts.

Best for: Developers and data teams collecting public web data at scale.

Bright Data provides proxy networks, scraping tools and ready-made datasets for collecting public web data, with compliance controls for business use.

Frequently asked questions

What software does a small online business need first?

Usually a place for tasks and projects, a way to see your key numbers, and a CRM once you have repeat customers or deals. Add specialist tools as real bottlenecks appear.

Can a non-US founder open a US company?

Yes. Services like doola handle the formation, the EIN and ongoing compliance remotely.

Is a CRM inside Gmail enough?

For small teams that live in email, a Gmail CRM like Streak often is. Larger sales teams may need a standalone CRM later.

More categories

Some links on this site are affiliate links: if you sign up through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we list or what we say about a tool.