Section
Small business tools
Selling, planning and getting found on a small budget.
6 guides, 2019–2026
This section is for people who run a business with a handful of staff, or none, and no IT department. Two long comparisons deal with getting online: website builders for a brochure site or a portfolio, and ecommerce platforms for selling products directly. For planning work, one guide looks at alternatives to Microsoft Project for teams that find it too heavy or too expensive. A shorter how-to shows ways of creating a PDF from Word and the other Office programs, and a marketing piece for boat rental businesses covers winning customers and bringing them back.
Added in 2026, a guide on paying for business tools is written for sole traders. It separates one-off purchases, such as a replacement laptop or a site build, from subscriptions that renew every month, and explains why the two need to be funded in different ways.
2026 1 guide
| Published | Guide |
|---|---|
| Paying for your tools: one-off costs versus subscriptionsA one-person firm's tool bill mixes purchases that end with charges that never do. Sorting them apart shows what to cut, and what can safely be paid for before the money is in. |
2022 3 guides
| Published | Guide |
|---|---|
| Choosing an ecommerce platformThe right store platform depends on how many products you sell, who will maintain the site and how you want to take payment. Fifteen options, sorted by what each one does well. | |
| Five marketing tips for boat rental businessesRenting a boat is a local purchase that most people make a few times a year at most. The marketing that works follows from that. | |
| Choosing a website builderA website builder bundles hosting, design templates and an editor into one subscription. The right one depends less on feature lists than on what kind of site you need and how much control you want later. |
2020 1 guide
| Published | Guide |
|---|---|
| How to create a PDF from Microsoft OfficeEvery version of Office since 2007 can save a PDF without extra software. The menu path depends on the version, and the options dialog is worth a look. |
2019 1 guide
| Published | Guide |
|---|---|
| Alternatives to Microsoft ProjectMicrosoft Project is powerful, Windows-only on the desktop and priced per user. The right replacement depends on whether you need Gantt scheduling or just a shared task list. |