• Written by: Conor Walsh

• Last updated: 8th November 2023

Finding the right software can make or break a business. 

But with so many millions of tools, how do you find the right ones for your business? 

Also, how do you know if they work in Africa? 

Below are the best online tools for African businesses and entrepreneurs. We use them every day to run our agency and websites. So, our recommendations are based on actual usage, not the commissions we receive for recommending them.

The list is new, and we’re adding to it every day. So, bookmark this page and return whenever you need a new tool!

(Coming soon: AI, email marketing, hiring, e-commerce, and automation)

Operations

As a WFH veteran (doing this since 2018!), I’ve learned a few things about managing teams remotely. In 2021, I managed a 15-person team working on 8 websites for a company acquired for $149m.

I’m not humble bragging. I did not get a cut of the $149m.

But maybe I’ve convinced you I’m an expert on this stuff, and now you’ll take my advice. ;)

So, here we go: the best tools for day-to-day operations at a fully remote African business – or any business.

1. Google Workspace

Google Workspace is your online business hub, home to all your essential tools: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Meet, etc. 

It allows seamless collaboration and communication with your internal teams, clients, contractors, freelancers, friends, family – everyone!

I assume everyone reading has already used some aspect of Google Workspace, even if it's just Gmail, so I won’t belabor the point. 

Google Workspace is the #1 most important tool for running any business in 2023. 

Note to aspiring freelancers and remote workers: If you think including proficiency in Microsoft Office on your CV will help you get a job or client – you’re mistaken. 

It makes you look out of touch with modern remote working tools. So, stop using Microsoft Office right now. Instead, most Google Workspace tools are available on a free personal Google account. Learn how they work, then add them to your CV. 

2. Asana

There are approximately a bajillion project management tools out there, and they all promise the same: 

To streamline and automate every single process in your business. 

Spoiler: no tool can do that. 

The key is finding the right project management tool for your business and customizing it to your needs. 

So, why Asana? And not Monday, Clickup, Notion, Trello, or any other competitor? 

I like Asana because it's easy to use, has the best balance between simplicity and functionality, and doesn’t overwhelm you with features on your first day. 

Also, the business that was sold for $149m used Asana. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for you. 

3. Calendly

Calendly saves you time by creating simple booking links connected to your professional and personal calendars. 

Anyone can pick a day and time to meet you, and it will automatically sync with other appointments, so you’re never double-booked. Many other features help you manage your time, communicate more efficiently, close more sales calls, make more money.

Without Calendly: Organizing a meeting requires at least two people sending emails and texts back and forth for days, canceling last-minute because someone is double-booked, and wasting so much time.

With Calendly: Booking a meeting with someone takes two minutes. Everyone’s happy. 

4. Calendar Checker Plus

Calendar Checker Plus is a little-known Google Chrome extension that gives you access to all your Google Calendars from your desktop browser.

Instead of navigating to Google Calendar to check your schedule and availability or to create an appointment, you can open it up on any page and see your entire month instantly. You can add appointments or meetings to your calendar from the extension or navigate to Google Calendar for anything requiring more details.

It’s a simple time-saver I use daily to ensure I don’t miss any meetings and social plans, or double-book myself.

If you pay the one-time upgrade fee, you can sync multiple calendars into the extension.

5. Toggl

Toggl is a time-tracking tool focused on helping remote businesses monitor their employees’ and contractors’ hours.

Mercy, my VA, uses Toggl to track her hours and attaches a weekly report to every invoice. By doing so, she also helps me understand what areas of our business I spend most (based on how she spends her time).

However, you can also use Toggl to track your hours. This is important for consultants and freelancers who charge per hour. But any business owner can benefit from getting an honest overview of how you’re spending your time.

Think you’re working 40+ hours a week? You’re probably not.

Don’t believe me? Turn on Toggl and find out.

6. ChatGPT Plus

Now that most of the hype and hysteria has died down, let’s talk about the practical uses of ChatGPT for your business.

First, stop thinking of it as “intelligence” – ChatGPT is not intelligent. It uses predictive models to come up with answers to questions you ask. For now, it can’t create or invent something new.

Instead, think of it as a productivity and research tool. Using ChatGPT correctly, you can quickly speed up almost any business process. I use it in marketing, hiring, research, writing, web development, SEO, social media, etc.

Whenever I need to learn something new or speed up a repetitive task, I turn to ChatGPT Plus.

For example, the day I wrote this, I asked ChatGPT to create a Google Sheets formula that will drastically speed up a process that currently takes 20 hours a month. I gave it some vague instructions about my desired outcome, and it provided a perfect formula.

Communication

I work remotely from 3-4 countries a year in Africa and Europe. My VA is based in Nigeria. Our clients are located all over the world – including the West Coast of the USA (that’s a 10-hour time difference).

I don’t have a single work app on my phone.

So, efficient, asynchronous communication is crucial to our operations.

The tools below allow me to communicate with team members, contractors, clients, colleagues, randos, and business leads across the globe while reducing emails to almost zero.

7. Loom

Ask anyone who’s worked with me for more than five minutes, “What does Conor love most in this world?” and they’ll probably reply:

Loom videos and GIFs.

Also, I’m excellent at both, btw.

Anyway… Loom is a browser extension that allows you to make video and voice recordings of your computer or phone – screencasts, if you’re unfamiliar with the software.

You can record yourself as you browse the internet, giving demonstrations, explaining concepts, providing feedback – whatever your business, team, or clients need. Videos can last one minute or more than 30. (Actually, on the paid plan, there’s no limit!)

I use Loom numerous times a day. Honestly, it might be the biggest time-saver on this list. It cuts down on emails, meetings, long text chains, written instructions, and (most importantly) miscommunications.

In a world of a-synchronous communication across multiple time zones, Loom is your secret weapon.

8. Slack

You know Slack.

It’s the team communication tool we all love to hate. But hey, until someone invents something better, it's the best we’ve got.

If you’re not using Slack to manage communication within your business – I hope that’s because Google Chat and Spaces are sufficient.

Please God, tell me you're not using email?!?

If you don’t currently have a chat-based system for internal communication at your business, Slack is the best option to save you time, reduce meetings, and get emails to almost zero.

Social Media Management

I don’t use social media, in my business or personal life.* So I’m leaving this section blank for now. If you’re an expert in social media marketing in Africa and have some tools you recommend, please feel free to reach out, and we’ll give you a slot for a guest post.

(*Okay, after six years, I recently rejoined Instagram. My account is private, and I have ~80 followers. I don’t think that counts.)

Graphic Design

We only use one graphic design tool, because it has everything we need.

And that tool is…

9. Canva

Canva is the graphic design tool every small (and large) business owner loves. 

It makes creating beautiful, eye-catching designs easy, from social media posts and blog infographics to CVs and pitch decks. 

Canva is invaluable for small teams. You can quickly set up a brand dashboard for your business, add team members, and start designing. If you’re a solo business owner with zero experience in design, Canva is the only graphics tool you need. 

Canva is constantly innovating and adding new (easy-to-use) features. It also has 75 million stock images and photos for your designs or blog posts. 

Cybersecurity

Working as a “ghostwriter for ethical hackers” for 3 years, I helped expose data leaks affecting roughly 120 million people. Most of this while living in various African countries.

So, yes. I know a few things about cybersecurity and data privacy (see above, no social media).

With that in mind, here are my honest recommendations for cybersecurity tools in Africa based on my experience using them rather than how much they pay us to recommend them.

10. ExpressVPN

I’ll spare you the blah blah blah about military-grade encryption, IPv6 leak protections, kill switches, and all the other cybersecurity jargon VPNs use to impress and confuse you. 

We all know why you want to use a VPN in Africa: to access US Netflix, bypass censorship and geo-restrictions, and constantly stop your internet provider from throttling your connection.*

I’ve spent countless hours testing and writing about VPNs while working in Africa, from Rwanda to South Africa, Sudan to Zambia. 

Based on my experience, ExpressVPN delivers the best combination of speed, security, usability, and access to content. It’s got … servers in 90 countries, including …. in Africa. 

However, ExpressVPN is expensive – the first-year subscription costs X, jumping up to Y in year 2. 

If this is too much for you, here are my other top VPNs for remote working in Africa:

• Sufshark – Unlimited devices on a single plan, lots of servers in Africa and elsewhere, super cheap, and lots of built-in privacy tools (ad blocker, anti-tracking, malware detection, and more).

• CyberGhost – A nice all-round option with a massive global server network. Beginner-friendly, too. However, it lacks some important advanced features like a stealth mode.  

• NordVPN – The most well-known VPN in the world, and one of the best. But it has almost no servers in Africa, making it incredibly slow on the continent.

• Atlas VPN – If you have to use a free VPN (please don’t!), this is the only one I recommend. You’ll be incredibly limited, but at least you can try the tech out cost-free, and then move to a premium VPN.  

11. Dashlane Password Manager

Dashlane is my favorite password manager for many reasons: 

1. It securely stores 200+ passwords for my work and personal accounts

2. Generating and saving new passwords is easy

3. The mobile app and desktop browser extension sync perfectly

4. It also has a built-in authenticator app for secure 2FA (so I depend less on SMS verification)

5. The free version is excellent, and the paid plan is great value

I’ve tested and reviewed all the top password managers, and Dashlane consistently wins for its combination of user-friendliness, airtight security, and value. 

Also, if you’re using LastPass – stop right now. 

It was successfully hacked in 2023 and did its best to cover up the severity of the stolen data. A password manager getting hacked is bad enough. Trying to cover it up and deceive your customers is unacceptable. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the most overlooked marketing channel in Africa. 

Why? 

Because SEO is complicated and takes long-term investments to deliver ROI. You might not get results for six months, and apparently, that’s too long these days.

So, startups and established companies would rather waste money on quick fixes – like ads, influencer marketing, and (dear god) billboards. 

Also, SEO tools appear expensive. Sign up for a few, and you’re quickly spending $100s a month. 

But SEO tools don’t have to be expensive. Especially when none of your competition in Africa even knows what SEO is. You can do a lot with free and cheap software. 

So, I’ll stop my rant here and introduce the free and cheap SEO tools we use every day to get clients ranking on Google, boost their inbound traffic, and convert that traffic into $$$. 

12. Google Search Console and Analytics 4

You can’t do SEO if you don’t have Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) set up for your website, e-commerce store, business profile, or app.

Combined, they give you the best 1st party data for how your online properties appear on search engines; where your traffic is coming from; how people behave once they’re on your property, and much more.

To go a little deeper:

• GSC - Provides detailed information about how Google indexes, crawls, and presents your website or online property to people using its search engine. Identifies technical issues in your website that will cause “down-ranking,” provides instructions for fixing them, shows what terms you’re ranking for, and much more.

• GA4 - Shows where the traffic on your website is coming from (organic search, paid search, email, etc.) and where it's landing, how people from those traffic sources behave once on your property, and how well you’re converting that traffic into paying customers or users.

If you don’t have these set up, you can’t realistically run any successful digital marketing campaign (including social media and email). Also, every other SEO tool relies on data from GSC and GA4 to provide you with accurate reports and instructions. 

So, stop what you’re doing and get them configured now. 

If you need help, book a call with us, and we’ll guide you through the process. 

13. ahrefs Webmaster

Ahrefs’ paid plan is probably the best all-in-one SEO tool in the world – but it's also expensive. A basic subscription starts at $100 per month. 

However… ahrefs has a little-known free plan – ahrefs Webmaster – that provides excellent tools for auditing your website, identifying technical issues, and monitoring your search performance. I use it every day. Because I love it. 

I also share it with all my clients – breaking the #1 rule of an SEO agency (hiding your client’s data behind expensive monthly reports). And they love it, too. 

If you’re a complete beginner to SEO and can’t tell a meta description from an alt tag*, ahrefs Webmaster doubles as an educational tool. It explains every technical term in its reports and provides tips on improving your results.

14. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is an SEO keyword research tool with the best data in Africa. 

You can enter a search term like “dentists in Nairobi” and see how many monthly searches it gets, how competitive it is, and who’s ranking at the top of Google for that term, and anything similar (“dentists Nairobi,” “Nairobi best dentists,” etc.). 

This helps you determine what search terms to target and what kind of content to publish so your business reaches the top of organic search results. 

Alternatively, you can input competitor websites and see how they’re ranking, so you can steal their content take inspiration, and identify gaps in their content marketing where you can slip in. 

Ubersuggest has plenty more SEO tools: website audits, keyword tracking, deeper content analysis tools, and much more. It's less comprehensive than ahrefs or SEMRush (the two biggest players in this space), but it's ~90% cheaper. 

A basic plan on Ubersuggest starts from $12 per month, with a $ 120 lifetime deal available. In comparison, ahrefs and SEMRush start at $83 and $108 monthly, respectively. 

Considering the value Ubersuggest provides, $12 per month is a bargain. 

15. GTMetrix and PageSpeed Insights

The speed of your website is one of the most overlooked aspects of web development and design in Africa.

Websites on the continent are sloooooooooooow.

This doesn’t just impact user experience and conversions. Search engines use website speed as a major ranking factor. If your website is slow, search engines deem it low-quality, and down-rank you accordingly.

So, if you’re spending $1,000s every month on ads and content, but your website takes 10 minutes to load – you might as well throw that money into the street and light it on fire.

To find out how slow (or fast) your website is, use these two tools:

• Google PageSpeed Insights: Google’s in-house speed testing platform. You get 1st party data on how it’s judging your website’s speed and the fixes needed. However, PageSpeed Insights is super technical, so you’ll need someone experienced to interpret the data. 

• GTMetrix: Much more beginner-friendly than PageSpeed Insights, GTMetrix is an independent speed-testing tool that gives you a performance grade, from A+ to F. It also provides easier-to-understand advice on improving your website’s speed. 

Both tools are free, so you have no excuse for not using them.

Money and Finances

Managing cash flow and expenses is the most important task in any business.

But if, like me, you have no experience in accounting and business management, it's also the most difficult. Especially when you’re a solo operator or running a small team.

So, here are the money management tools I’ve found most helpful in my journey from freelancer to small business owner based in Africa.

16. Zoho Books

Zoho Books is the best accounting software for small businesses in Africa.

It's affordable (the free plan is good, too), easy to use, and has great automations without overwhelming accounting newbs. While it's missing some integrations and other fancy add-ons you’ll find on Quickbooks, it's much better value and way easier to use.

When I started out as a freelancer and built my first website business, I made the mistake of sending PDF invoices and not monitoring or managing cash flow. Not only did I look completely unprofessional to clients, I had no idea how much I was spending – until it was too late.

Don’t make the same mistake. Start using Zoho Books from day one of your business. Even if you’re just doing a bit of work for family friends. You won’t regret it.

17. Wise Business

It's fitting that we end with Wise, because I couldn’t live without it.

Wise is an international money transfer and foreign exchange platform. However, depending on which country you’re resident in, you can also use it as a bank and debit card provider.

It's cheap, easy to use, constantly innovating, excellent for international travel, offers transparent fees, and beats any legacy bank.

Also, international transfers on Wise are 5x cheaper than PayPal, and the exchange rates are incredible!

In my personal life, I use Wise every day to pay for goods, withdraw cash, and manage my expenses as I travel.

We also use Wise Business for the same purposes: paying contractors and business subscriptions, accepting client payments, and much more.

Admittedly, Wise Business is most useful for foreign residents working in Africa. It's not very active on the continent (yet).

But it's free to join, and even if you can’t access the best features, you can start accepting payments from overseas for much less than your bank charges. If you’re in Kenya, you (or your clients) can transfer money from Wise directly into an MPesa account.

What’s your favorite software for African Businesses?

Send us an email with a mini review and we’ll add it to the list.