Software & Apps

Tools and platforms billed monthly, yearly or once. Written by Arb Digital, a US digital marketing agency — from tools we run on client work, not from a spec sheet.

Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we list or what we say about it. Read the full disclosure.

Software is easy to start paying for and hard to stop. What matters is whether it is still worth it in month twelve.

No picks published in this category yet

We have not finished testing enough of these to publish a shortlist we would stand behind, so for now this page is the buyer's guide on its own. The checklist below is the one we use ourselves, and it holds up whichever product you end up choosing.

Free tools, no signup Other categories

What to check before you pay for anything

The things that decide whether you are still happy with this purchase in twelve months. Work through them with any product, including ones we do not list.

Export your dataBefore you put anything in, find out how you get it out. Some make leaving deliberately hard.
Seat and usage capsThe plan you compare is rarely the plan you end up needing. Read the next tier up too.
Annual lock-inThe yearly discount is real, and so is being stuck with a tool that stopped fitting.

General guidance, not procurement advice for your specific situation. Always verify current pricing and plan limits on the vendor's own site — they change often.

Want a second opinion on your stack?

If you are weighing up two products and cannot separate them, the deciding factor is usually something about your team rather than something about the software. We do this assessment for clients as part of our digital marketing services — or just send us the shortlist and tell us what you want it to do.