Top 10 Must-Have Free Mobile Apps for Small Business Owners

Evernote’s cloud-based, searchable collaboration tool lets you share lists, photos, sketches and more across all devices. You get 60 MB per month on 2 devices free or one GB on unlimited devices for under $3 a month.

Trello’s boards, lists, cards, comments, attachments and power-up apps maintain team engagement wherever they are. The free plan includes unlimited boards, members and 10 MB attachments.

Organize and push 7,500 messages each month to any smartphone from a single virtual location. Unlimited notifications to any Android or iOS device are free for seven days after which you pay a one-time fee of $4.95.

Successful time management requires knowing where time is spent. Rescue Time details your activity on apps and websites on Mac, PC, Linux or Android devices. The first four months are free after which it costs $6 per month.

Make your own reservations and Tripit Free builds a master itinerary simply by forwarding your flight, car or hotel confirmations to a single email address. Your itinerary is then accessible from any Web-connected device.

Square enables even one-person businesses to accept cards for payment using any Android or iOS device. It includes receipt storage, sales and inventory reports plus analytics.

Robin is a free Google Play app that provides hands-free messaging plus traffic updates, parking help and customizable radio. It is ideal for small business owners who spend a lot of time in the car.

Organize and track your shipments from boxes to full containers with Boxmeup. It prints QR labels used to access manifests from your Android phone or other device via their mobile website.

Polaris Office creates cloud-based access to all Microsoft Office files across multiple storage clouds such as Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. Share your documents anytime and access them from anywhere.

HipChat is an easy-to-learn, less expensive team-chat alternative to Slack that provides group chat, private chat, video chat and screen sharing. It installs on any device and a Web-based app is also available.

As these mobile business apps demonstrate, there is plenty of free and inexpensive software out there to improve productivity and reduce mental clutter for small business owners.