SaaS Software Checklist

Now that we’ve been through most of the different systems you’ll need or be interested in, here is a checklist of all the major software systems for supporting SaaS systems at the time of writing.

Conversion Rate Optimization

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
LuckyOrange http://www.luckyorange.com	The system allows you to see your users’ mouse movements in real time, record movements, setup funnels, and run tons of reports.	$20/mo	5 / 5
HotJar https://www.hotjar.com	Very similar to LuckyOrange. Better looking and easier to use, also has a few features that LuckyOrange doesn’t. But can get substantially more expensive if you have a lot of traffic.	$29/mo	5 / 5
Google Optimize https://optimize.google.com	Great system for running experiments on your messaging and text. Best of all, it’s free!	$0	5 / 5
Unless https://unless.com/	Unless allows you to run experiments, but also allows you to just change the content on your site based on the different user types that may be coming to the site. This helps increase the conversion rate across the board because you can say the right things to the right people.	$49/mo	Have not actually used this system, but I hear it is great.

Landing Pages & Lead Funnels

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
Unbounce https://unbounce.com	This is a landing page, popup, and sticky bar builder. It allows you to design and implement these systems without needing a designer then allows you to test the value of each system.	$79/mo	I haven’t actually used this system, but I have heard great things.
Leadpages https://www.leadpages.net	This is a landing page & popup builder. It allows you to design and implement these systems without needing a designer then allows you to test the value of each system.	$25/mo but they change pricing all the time.	4 / 5 I thought it was overpriced at the time for what I got. That was a long time ago now though and the overall quality was good.
Kyvio	This is a landing page & popup builder that also does a lot with lead funnels. It allows you to design and implement these systems without needing a designer then allows you to test the value of each system.	$29/mo	I also haven’t used this system, but it is owned by a buddy of mine who is a very, very smart guy and was in one of my stories in this book.
Sumo sumo.com	This is a popup and sticky bar builder. It allows you to design and implement these systems without needing a designer then allows you to test the value of each system.	$29/mo	4 / 5 I have used this system for a long time now and I feel like it is starting to lag behind the competition. That said, the customer service is excellent.

CRM

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
Pipedrive https://www.pipedrive.com/	We use Pipedrive to track our sales and have for a long time now. Great system and great value for the price.	$12/user/mo	5 / 5
ZohoCRM https://www.zoho.com/crm/	Great system as well. I have been very happy with Zoho systems over the years and they keep getting better.	$12/user/mo	5 / 5
Hubspot CRM	The CRM system with Hubspot is free, which is how they hook you for the rest of their features. I have looked at this system a number of times, but never jumped into it.	Free	3 / 5 I felt like the free system was missing some key features that you really need.
SugarCRM	We used this system years and years ago. It is an open source system, so you can run the community edition at no cost. Overall a good system, but not as smooth as some of the paid systems, at least not all those years ago. Things are almost certainly different now.	Free	4 / 5
SalesForce https://www.salesforce.com	Salesforce is a great system for an enterprise. But if you are just getting started, I would NOT recommend it. It is too expensive, takes too long to set up, and is not a good fit for small businesses like this.	$25/user/mo	2 / 5 Not a good fit for a startup SaaS in my opinion.

SEO & Content Marketing

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
Ahrefs Ahrefs.com	Great system for SEO. Delivers a huge variety of information for SEOs and while it is an expensive system, it is well worth it if you are doing SEO.	$99/mo	5 / 5
SEMRush semrush.com	This system and ahrefs share the market in the top line SEO tools area. While ahrefs has some better metrics, I really like the SEMRush report building tool.	$99/mo	5 / 5
Moz moz.com	Moz was the original SEO tool. It still has some of the best metrics for certain areas, and a variety of tools in areas that neither SEMrush or ahrefs has, but it is more focused on agencies these days in my opinion.	$99/mo	5 / 5
NinjaOutreach https://ninjaoutreach.com	Ninja Outreach is another staple of SEO. It really got started as a link building system and has grow to do substantially more. Now it does a lot more in outreach management, automation, promotion, and more.	$99/mo	I have actually never used the system, but it has been recommended to me multiple times.
AnswerThePublic https://answerthepublic.com/	This is a great free tool that allows you to see related search phrases. This tool can help you understand keywords and phrases you should be ranking for.	Free	5 / 5
Buzzstream https://idb.buzzstream.com/	Want to know who is talking about what? Here’s your tool. Enter your topic and see who wrote what article. This is a critical tool influencer marketing.	Free	5 / 5

Marketing Automation & Email Marketing

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
ConvertKit convertkit.com	ConvertKit does email marketing and some marketing automation. It is primarily an email marketing tool though. A buddy of mine owns this company and he too was in one of the stories in this book. Had to start off with his system.	$29	5 / 5
Drip Drip.com	We’ve used drip for years now and they have been a solid system.	$49/mo	5 / 5
ActiveCampaign https://www.activecampaign.com/	Activecampaign is a powerful system, but the documentation, at least last time I tried to use it, was not well done. I always felt like if they worked just a bit more on system use guides they would be a much more powerful system.	$17/mo	4 / 5
Marketo marketo.com	Their book on marketing automation was referenced as part of this book, and they are a staple in the marketing automation arena.	?? Since I referenced them in the book I added them here, but no idea on price.	I have never actually used the system, so no remarks here.
Infusionsoft infusionsoft.com	I am not a fan. They are overpriced and nowadays there are other systems that do the same things that they do at a fraction of the cost.	$299 setup + $99/mo	NOT RECOMMENDED.

Social Media Management

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
Buffer Buffer.com	This system allows you to schedule your posts across most or all of your social media channels. This way you can do everything at one time instead of across the week. It is a huge time saving tool. We use this tool almost every week.	FREE	5 / 5
Hootsuite hootsuite.com	Basically the same as Buffer. It is a great tool as well and the way the system shows data is more interactive than Buffer. If you are interacting minute by minute with all social channels, this is your tool.	$19/mo	5 / 5
Crowdfire crowdfireapp.com	We used this tool initially for a follow campaign. I like this tool because it makes social posting easy. It automatically creates a list of posts which you can either schedule with Buffer or schedule through Crowdfire.	FREE	4 / 5 I was a little frustrated when I had to cancel an account recently and I had to email them like 5 times to make it happen.

Analytics & Metrics

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
Google Analytics analytics.google.com	Of course, this has to be first. It is by far the best free analytics system out there and I don’t know any serious web-based entrepreneur who doesn’t use Google Analytics.	FREE	5 / 5
Baremetrics baremetrics.com	Baremetrics helps you understand how you’re doing from a SaaS perspective. It gives you SaaS specific metrics and tracks your KPIs. If you’re going to grow a serious SaaS, you’re probably going to end up here.	$50/mo	5 / 5
Profitwell http://profitwell.com	This is definitely my FAVORITE SaaS tracking system. It has great metrics and is TOTALLY FREE. I also referenced these guys heavily in the pricing section of this book, and they really know their stuff.	FREE	5 / 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Time Tracking

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
Harvest getharvest.com	This is a great time tracking tool. We used this for years when the company first started and for some reason went on to other tools. Over the last couple years we’ve been coming back to this tool more and more. The reporting is great, it’s easy to use, and overall does a great job.	$12/user/mo	5 / 5
Toggl Toggl.com	Also a great time tracking tool. We are currently using this system, although we may have to go back to Harvest for a better JIRA integration soon. Also a great tool for time tracking, easy to use, and very effective.	$10/user/mo	5 / 5

Communications

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
Gsuite / Gmail gmail.com	Of course. Gmail has to be in here along with the rest of the GSuite tools. I use Gmail all day every day, Google Calendar all day every day, Google Drive all day every day, and am even using it to write this book! By far and away, the GSuite tools are the best value for the money on the web, period.	$5/user/mo	5 / 5
Slack slack.com	The thing that makes Slack so powerful is its ability to integrate into so many tools. Almost every tool in this list integrates in one way or another into Slack. This gives you a centralized place where you can feel the pulse of your business minute by minute.	FREE	5 / 5
Zoom Zoom.us	Zoom has taken over as our video conferencing tool of choice. While it’s not free like Skype, it is well worth the money if you are on calls all day. I probably use Zoom 5 times a day minimum, and would have a hard time living without it.	$15/user/mo	5 / 5
Skype	We used Skype for a long time. But these days it just isn’t as reliable. Or perhaps its reliability hasn’t improved and everything else has.	FREE	3 / 5

Title

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
Asana asana.com	Asana is a great tool for client and team communications as well as project management. We have used this tool now for about a year and a half, and it has delivered time and time again. In addition to that, the Asana team keeps adding great new tools to the system. The only thing to point out about this tool is that it is NOT development project management tool. If you are managing developers, make sure to use something more thorough like JIRA.	$9.99/user/mo	5 / 5
JIRA https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira	Ok, so I feel like the videos we did on JIRA from my agency that talked about how to use the system and why we love it so much probably gave away my feelings on this. But I’ll go ahead and say it here as well. We LOVE JIRA. It is the best tool out there for dev project management in my opinion. There is a learning curve, but the more powerful a system is, the steeper the learning curve.	$10//mo for first 10 users	5 / 5
Teamwork https://www.teamwork.com	Can’t leave out systems like Teamwork! I have used this only on the surface level during a collaboration with another team and it was a great tool.	FREE	5 / 5
Trello trello.com	So many times over the years we’ve fallen back on the handy Trello. It’s like a soft cushion to land on when all other systems fail, or cost money, or whatever. It’s a great tool to get started in planning systems and manage workflows. Not as powerful as the paid tools, but a great one to fall back on.	FREE	5 / 5

Project Planning & Documentation

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
Confluence https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence	Documentation is severely underrated. Confluence makes documenting everything from SOPs to decision logs fast, easy, and searchable in ways never before possible. If you’re running a SaaS, or almost any business for that matter, you should be documenting a ton of stuff, and this is the tool to do the job.	$10/mo for the first 10 users.	5 / 5
BrainLeaf brainleaf.com	When you’re getting ready to embark on that big new project, you need to know what you’re getting yourself into. There is no better tool for planning out hours on a project, before tasks are planned in JIRA, than using BrainLeaf. We use this tool to plan out pretty much every single new project we do and use the tool to get approval from our clients.	$34.95/mo for unlimited users	5 / 5

Code Repository

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
BitBucket bitbucket.org	You may have noticed the running theme of endorsing all the Atlassian products by now. It’s not that we get paid for it, because we don’t. Their products fit together seamlessly and make our lives easier, and this is no exception.	FREE for up to 5 users	5 / 5
GitHub	Github is a critical piece of the internet. It’s where most of us started with our first repos and where a vast number of repositories reside. This is a great tool for storing and managing your code.	FREE	5 / 5

ChatBots

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
Intercom intercom.com	Intercom, as far as I know, is the market leader right now. They’re also pricey. But I guess that what it takes to be the best? The system is intuitive, fast, and well done.	$136/mo	5 / 5
Chatbot Chatbot.com	As I was doing my research on this area, I ran across chatbot.com, and I really like this one. I haven’t used it, but I am considering giving it a little test run. I also really liked their pricing of $50/mo and $.01 per conversation after the first 1k conversations.	$50/mo for the first 1k conversations and $.01 for every additional conversation	Haven’t tried it yet, but it looks promising.
Verloop verloop.io	This is kind of a no-name chatbot, but I bought it on a LTD and have used it ongoing at a few different companies. So far, it’s working great, and they verloop team keeps adding more and more. Given that I just paid an up front fee for this one, it’s been a great value!	FREE	5 / 5

Email Support

System Title & Link	Notes	Starting Cost	Rating / Review
ZenDesk zendesk.com	ZenDesk is definitely the market leader here. I feel like it’s been around forever. Given that its a support tool, it’s no wonder their support is so good.	$89/mo for their entire suite of tools	5 / 5
HelpScout helpscout.com	We use Helpscout at BrainLeaf, and used to use it for JH Media Group. It is a solid system that does just one thing, email support. Great system and not expensive for what it does.	$20/mo for the first 2 users	5 / 5

Final note on SaaS systems for SaaS systems

There are a million systems out there that do pretty much anything you can think of. The list I gave you here are the ones that I’ve used or had some interaction with. If you’ve got great new ones, let me know and I can add it to the list. But only send over time-tested systems, this is a personally curated list and I don’t want it to turn into producthunt.com.