The tools I use to run a web design and marketing business

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you sign up through one of them I may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I have paid for and used in my own business.

Every few months someone asks what I actually run Powder Mill Press on. It is a fair question, because most tool round ups are written by people who have never paid for half of what they recommend.

So here is the real list. Not the aspirational one.

The platform everything sits on

Systeme.io

Pages, funnels, checkout, email, automations and this blog. One platform doing the work that four used to do. I moved everything onto it and the thing I notice most is not the saving, it is that there is only one place to look when something needs checking.

If you run a service business with a straightforward path from visitor to enquiry to booking, this is the one I would start with. The free plan is genuinely usable, which is rare.

For websites that need to look bespoke

Showit

Drag anything anywhere, with completely separate desktop and mobile layouts. That last part matters more than people expect, because it means your phone version is designed rather than squashed.

I build client websites on Showit when the brand needs to look like nobody else. For a simple service site, an all-in-one page builder will do the job for less.

The specialists

Flodesk

The best-looking emails of anything I have used. If your brand lives on how things look and email is your main channel, it earns its place.

ThriveCart

A serious checkout with proper bump and upsell logic. Worth it if you sell digital products at volume. Overkill if you sell your time.

The unglamorous ones

Google Workspace

A business email address on your own domain, and the shared drive everything lives in. The cheapest credibility you will ever buy. A client can tell the difference between a domain address and a free webmail one, even if they never say so.

PolicyBee

Professional indemnity and public liability insurance. Not exciting, but if you build websites or handle client data you want it in place before you need it, not after. UK based and straightforward to set up.

DM Daddy

Turns Instagram comments into DMs automatically, so a post that says "comment GUIDE" actually delivers the guide instead of you doing it by hand at eleven at night.

If I had to cut back to three

Systeme.io, Google Workspace and the insurance. Everything else is a preference. Those three are the business running at all.

Not sure which of these you actually need?

Book a free discovery call and we can work out what your business genuinely needs versus what it is currently paying for.

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If you would rather start on your own, my free website audit guide walks you through the checks that turn traffic into enquiries, with two bonus resources on email marketing and Meta ads.