Most founders buy company tools in a hurry. A website one week. A CRM the next. A lead database because a competitor uses one. Two years later, the stack has grown and the data has scattered.
This guide takes the opposite approach. It lists the company tools a young company needs, and nothing beyond them. There are five. For each one, you'll see what it does, when you need it, and what a fragmented stack really costs. Use it to set up operations from scratch, or to audit a stack you assembled in a rush.
The five company tools that matter
Every startup needs the same five functions. The tools can vary. The functions rarely do.
1. A web presence
Your site, your landing pages, and the forms that capture leads. You need this immediately because every other channel points here. Ads, cold email, and social profiles all route to a page you control.
One caution: you may already own this. HubSpot's free CRM, for example, includes a landing page builder and a form builder at no cost (HubSpot). Check what you already pay for before buying another builder.
2. A CRM
A CRM keeps contacts, deals, activity history, and pipeline in one shared record. You need it the day you have more prospects than you can remember. Zendesk puts it plainly: a startup doesn't need a CRM to survive, but it's hard to grow without one (Zendesk).
Free tiers lower the entry cost. HubSpot's free CRM has no expiration date, though it caps at two users and 1,000 contacts (HubSpot). That cap matters. A growing team outgrows free tiers fast.
Also check startup discounts. HubSpot offers qualifying startups up to 90% off the first year, per Zendesk's startup CRM guide (Zendesk).
3. Lead data and outreach
Two pieces here: a B2B contact database plus a sequencer that sends and tracks outreach. Add it when outbound becomes a real channel, not an experiment. Usually that's after you have a message that converts.
Watch deliverability here. Look for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC support, plus bounce and complaint monitoring. Email platforms that skip these put your sender reputation at risk (Mailtrap). A blocked domain costs more than any subscription.
4. Content publishing
This function covers your blog or CMS, your email newsletter, and distribution. Hold off until you know what you want to say. Publishing before you have a message wastes the channel.
Free tiers are generous here. MailerLite's free plan covers 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month; paid plans start at $10 per month. Mailchimp's free plan allows 1,000 sends per month to 500 contacts, with paid plans from around $15. Brevo takes a different angle: 300 emails per day on its free plan (Salesforce). These are starting prices at the time of writing, so verify current pricing before you commit.
5. A support desk
A shared inbox, ticketing, and a record of every customer issue. You need it when the same customer question arrives twice. Or when support requests start interrupting builds.
Zendesk makes the retention case well: growth is more than sales, and keeping customers happy keeps them advocating for you (Zendesk).
Check for overlap before you buy, though. Some CRMs include ticketing. HubSpot's free tier logs customer issues as tickets in a shared inbox (HubSpot), so you might not need a separate desk on day one.
What a fragmented stack really costs
Two costs hide inside a stack of five company tools: subscriptions and admin.
Subscription creep
Use published prices as a rough baseline. Then do the math for your team.
- CRM: HubSpot's Starter tier starts at $15 per seat per month (HubSpot). Three seats cost $45 per month. Five seats cost $75.
- Email: a paid MailerLite plan starts around $10 per month (Salesforce).
- The rest: lead databases, sequencers, website builders, and support desks each add a line. Their pricing varies widely by vendor and volume, so check each plan directly.
That's illustrative, not a quote. But the pattern is real. Per-seat pricing multiplies with headcount, and five company tools rarely stay five.
Administrative overhead
Each tool adds logins, billing, and setup. Each integration adds a sync to maintain. The failure mode is quiet. Records drift apart. Context disappears between systems.
HubSpot describes the problem in one line: "Scattered tools lead to scattered insights" (HubSpot). The company built two-way data sync for dozens of apps because siloed data is the default outcome, not the exception.
Where scattered data bites you
Fragmentation shows up in small, expensive moments:
- Duplicate records. The same contact lives in the CRM and the outreach tool, with different notes in each.
- Invisible support context. A rep pitches an upgrade to a customer with two open tickets. Nobody checked, because the rep can't see the desk.
- Content without context. The newsletter ignores what sales hears on calls, because the writer can't see the pipeline.
- AI that can't help. An assistant with partial context produces generic output. The value of AI depends on the data it can reach.
None of these appear on an invoice. All of them appear in lost deals and wasted hours.
Two paths: many company tools or one workspace
Neither path is universally right. Small teams with simple needs can start on Path A with free tiers. Teams that feel the sync tax usually drift toward Path B.
Path A: a specialist for each job
You get deep features per function and can swap any piece. You also multiply bills, logins, and sync work. Data fragments by default.
Path B: one connected workspace
One bill, one data model, and context that flows between sales, marketing, and support. You trade some per-function depth for coherence.
One example of Path B: Zrevick consolidates website launches, CRM, lead data, outreach, content publishing, and support into a single AI-native workspace. A shared memory, which Zrevick calls the Company Brain, pulls in email, LinkedIn, meetings, and documents. Everything lands in one profile per person. The platform also exposes MCP and REST APIs, so coding agents like Claude Code or Codex can run go-to-market workflows directly.
Pricing starts at $34 per month billed annually on the Starter plan, with Growth at $99 and Scale at $299. Every tier includes unlimited workspaces, seats, and AI agents (Zrevick pricing). Treat that as one option to test against the criteria below, not a default answer.
How to judge company tools before you buy
Score candidates on four lenses. One rule first: hard blockers override everything. A tool that fails a blocker is out, no matter how strong its other scores are. And missing information is not evidence of poor fit. Ask the vendor; don't assume.
1. Integration depth
- Blocker: no way to export your data, by CSV or API.
- Test: can a record created in outreach reach the CRM without manual copy-paste? Does support context reach sales?
2. Agent access
- Blocker for AI-native teams: no API or MCP surface. A UI-only tool can still be fine if you don't plan to automate.
- Test: can a script create a contact, publish a page, or pull pipeline data?
3. Pricing model
- Blocker: contract terms you can't exit, or overage charges you can't forecast.
- Test: model your cost at two people, then at ten. Per-seat pricing at $15 per seat is $30 today and $150 at ten seats.
4. Data ownership
- Blocker: your data doesn't leave with you.
- Test: run a full export before you commit, not after.
A 30-minute stack audit
- List the company tools you pay for, with each one's monthly cost and owner.
- Mark overlaps. Two tools doing one job is a consolidation candidate.
- Trace one record end to end. Follow a lead from first touch to support ticket. Count the manual re-entries.
- Check the exits. Confirm you can export from each tool.
- Change one thing at a time. Replace or consolidate a single tool, then measure for a month.
If a step surfaces missing information, ask the vendor. Silence from a vendor is data. Absence from a review site is not.
FAQ
How many company tools does a startup need? Five functions: web presence, CRM, lead data and outreach, content publishing, and support. That may mean five subscriptions, or one workspace that covers all five.
Can we run on free tiers? Yes, at small scale. Know the caps. HubSpot's free CRM, for instance, stops at two users and 1,000 contacts (HubSpot).
When should we consolidate? Watch for three signals: duplicate records, bills that grow faster than headcount, and manual syncing between tools. Any two justify an audit.
What should we buy first? A CRM, or a workspace that includes one. Everything else builds on the customer record.
The short version
Founders who buy company tools in a hurry end up paying twice: once in subscriptions, once in cleanup. Start with five functions, not five vendors. Check free tiers and their caps. Do the per-seat math before you sign. Block on data export. Then decide whether many company tools or one connected workspace fits how you work.
If you want to explore the consolidated path, Zrevick's platform page is a fair starting point. Test it against your own criteria, the same way you'd test anything else.