Recommended systems for small business and nonprofits

Pro Tips:

• Try not to “bundle” these things together.

  • Don’t host your website or buy your email service at GoDaddy

  • Don’t transfer your domain from GoDaddy to your web hosting provider

  • Exceptions to this rule - Google Workspace and Office 365 can serve a lot of functions (email, file storage, IM, etc.) … but still keep your domain with a separate registrar.

Recommendations:

Domain Registrar

• ✅ GoDaddy (#1 pick for small businesses and non-profits)

• ✅ Cloudflare - (no phone support unless you are on a paid subscription)

• ✅ Porkbun - Weird name, but very popular and they have phone support

• Amazon Domains (no phone support)

• NameCheap (no phone support)

• Google Domains (no phone support and poor customer service)

DNS Hosting

• ✅ Cloudflare (#1 pick) - includes free benfits such as SSL, CDN, and DDoS security

• ✅ DNSMadeEasy

• ✅ GoDaddy (if GoDaddy is your Domain Registrar, using them for DNS is a no-brainer if you don’t need advanced features)

Website Hosting

• ✅ Squarespace - Not nearly as flexible as Wordpress, but you don’t need to worry about servers, security, backups, or almost anything.

• For Wordpress sites:

  • ✅ WPEngine - #1 pick

  • ✅ Flywheel - recently acquired by WPEngine

  • Wordpress.com - for a safest and easiest experience, but no bells or whistles

• ❌ Wix - Similar to Squarespace (but not nearly as good)

• ❌ Weebly - Similar to Wix (but not nearly as good)

• ❌ Google Sites - if you’re feeling adventurous or poor. Be aware, however, that Google sites is the absolute worst player in this category.

Email Hosting and Document Collaboration

• ✅ Google Workspace (formerly GSuite or Google Apps)

  • Free for nonprofits - through TechSoup

  • Great for small organizations

  • Limited usefulness regarding Shared Mailboxes (compared to Microsoft 365)

• ✅ Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365)

  • Free for nonprofits - through TechSoup

  • Does not include desktop versions of MSOffice applications

• ✅ Zoho Mail - Not a bad service, but doesn’t really make sense to pay for this when Google and Microsoft have free options for nonprofits

• ❌ Yahoo Small Business - This business was sold off to Turbify.com along with Verizon’s small business stuff

Email Marketing (i.e., newsletters)

• ✅ Mailchimp

• ✅ Constant Contact

• ❌ Weebly (only if you’re using their web hosting… and hopefully you aren’t)

Instant Messaging

• ✅ Slack - free for most nonprofits

• ✅ Teams - Microsoft’s Slack clone is a part of Office 365 - free for nonprofits

• ✅ Google Chat / Spaces - free for nonprofits

Video Conferencing / Meetings

• ✅ Google Meet - free for nonprofits

• ✅ Microsoft Teams - free for nonprofits

• ✅ Zoom - Great nonprofit discount at TechSoup

Cloud file storage

• ✅ Google Drive as part of Google Workspace - free for nonprofits

• ✅ OneDrive / Sharepoint as part of Office 365 - free for nonprofits

• ✅ Box.com - offers nonprofit discount options

• ✅ Dropbox.com -

Project Management

• ✅ Trello - free up to 10 project boards

• ✅ Smartsheet - if you need something closer to MS Project and ability to geek out on a project

• ✅ JIRA - free up to 10 users, but probably the most complicated option (also most powerful)

• ✅ Asana - not free, but 50% off for nonprofits

Password Management

• ✅ 1Password -

• ❌ LastPass is no longer recommended by SmallTechStack.com due to historical security issues

• See our Password Manager article here..

Knowledge management - Wiki

• ✅ Confluence - free for up to 10 users

• ✅ Notion - nonprofit pricing available

• ✅ Google Docs can be a KM solution in a pinch (hint - turn on “Pageless” feature to approximate look of Confluence/Wiki)

Automation and Middle-ware

• ✅ Zapier - #1 pick for building no-code integration solutions