The picks at a glance
Systeme.io
Best for running the site, the list and the course from one login
Funnels, email, a website, courses and booking in one account, with no per-seat charge and no cut taken from a sale.
businesscards.io
Best when the card has to keep working after you hand it over
A profile at a fixed address, shared by QR code, link or wallet pass, and editable long after the card has been given out.
YourBusinessNumber
Best for a work number on the phone already in your pocket
A UK number rented by the month, running WhatsApp Business beside the personal account on one handset.
Movement
Best for a few hundred members who come back weekly
A branded app built without code, holding the content, the community and the selling in one place for a small group.
How we picked
Launching a small business online is less a single purchase than four: somewhere to put the site and sell from, a way to hand over contact details, a number of your own for messages, and a place to keep the people who come back. What follows splits those four jobs apart, and every tool named here is reviewed in full elsewhere on the site.
Each was read against the same three questions: what the entry plan actually allows, what the bill does when the business grows past it, and how hard it is to walk away. A tool that could only be judged by its marketing page did not earn a place.
What a reader can check here is the paperwork: what each plan allows, what it costs, and what the terms say when the subscription ends. That is what the four companies’ pricing and legal pages were read for, and the check date is recorded with them at the end. None of the four was bought for this page, so no line reports how any of them behaves once it is installed.
The picks, in detail
Systeme.io
(Best for running the site, the list and the course from one login)
Systeme.io is the pick when the alternative is four subscriptions that each do one thing. Funnels, email marketing, a website and blog, online courses, a booking calendar, CRM pipelines and affiliate management all live in the same account, and the pieces are designed to hand work to each other rather than to be stitched together. Nothing takes a cut of a sale on any plan.
The limits are where the plan ladder shows. Contacts are the number that moves, but so are the funnels, the courses and the custom domains, and each of them steps rather than grows smoothly, so a business that outgrows one ceiling may find it is outgrowing several at once. The entry plan is free without a card, which makes the shape of those limits something a buyer can see before paying.
Skip it if one of the four jobs needs the best tool in its category. An email suite or a course platform bought on its own will beat this on depth, and a business whose whole product is that one thing is better served by the specialist.
Read the review
businesscards.io
(Best when the card has to keep working after you hand it over)
businesscards.io is the pick when contact details change, or when the person taking them should not have to type anything. The card is a profile at a fixed address, shared by a QR code, a plain link, an Apple or Google Wallet pass, an embed on a site, or a tag written from the phone, and what it points at can be edited afterwards without reprinting a thing.
Two things are worth knowing before the cheapest tier is chosen. There is no permanent free plan, and every tier opens with a seven-day trial, so the card is a subscription from the first week rather than something to set up and leave. Visit and click analytics and contact collection are on every tier, including the lowest, so the reading of who opened the card does not sit behind a bigger plan.
Skip it if the card is a formality. A business that hands over details a handful of times a year is paying monthly for an object a printed card covers for nothing.
Read the review
YourBusinessNumber
(Best for a work number on the phone already in your pocket)
YourBusinessNumber is the pick when the personal number has started being handed out to customers. It rents a UK mobile number by the month, delivered by text, and WhatsApp Business runs on it alongside the personal account on the same handset, so no second phone is bought and no message threads get mixed together. Calls to the business number are forwarded to the phone the account was opened with, at no extra charge.
The commitment is where the terms differ from most software here: there is no free plan and no trial, because the number and the subscription begin at the same moment, and there is no minimum term either. A UK buyer pays the monthly rate plus VAT, which is the figure to look at rather than the headline, and the number itself is portable to a team dashboard if more are needed later.
Skip it if the business is not in the UK, or if a second handset is already in the plan. This is a workaround for carrying one phone, and it stops being the right answer the moment carrying two is acceptable.
Read the review
Movement
(Best for a few hundred members who come back weekly)
Movement is the pick when the audience is a group rather than a list. It builds a branded app, served from a link with nothing to download, and holds the content, the community and the selling in one place, which is what makes it a different purchase from a newsletter tool. The app is assembled without code, so the shape of it is a decision the owner keeps making rather than a build that gets handed over.
The ceilings are the part to price carefully. Every paid plan stops at the same 1,000 active members, counted as anyone who opened the app in the last thirty days, so there is no larger tier to move up to when a community outgrows it. The share taken from sales falls sharply between the free plan and the first paid one, and that difference alone is usually what decides the tier.
Skip it if the audience wants email. A community that reads a weekly message and nothing else is cheaper to serve from a mailing list, and an app with a handful of visitors a month is an expense without a job.
Read the review
How they compare
Key differences between the four tools reviewed for launching a small business
| Tool |
Best for |
Starting price |
Free tier |
| Systeme.io |
The site, the list and the course in one account |
Free, then $17 a month |
Yes · 2,000 contacts, 3 funnels, 1 course |
| businesscards.io |
A card that stays current after it is handed over |
From $3 a month |
No · a seven-day trial on every tier |
| YourBusinessNumber |
A work number on the phone already in your pocket |
From £6.99 plus VAT a month |
No · the number and the subscription start together |
| Movement |
A branded app for a small paying community |
Free, then $49 a month |
Yes · 100 members, with 15% taken from sales |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
The four sets of figures above are off the companies’ own pricing pages, checked on 16 September 2026. The free column does not carry the same meaning from row to row: one entry is an open-ended plan with limits, another takes a share of sales instead, a third is a seven-day trial and a fourth does not exist at all, so it is worth reading beside the price rather than on its own.
What a launch actually needs, in order
The four buys arrive at different moments, and buying them in the wrong order is how a first month gets expensive.
Where does the site and the selling live?
This is the only one that has to exist before anything is sold, and it is the decision that constrains the rest. A tool that carries the list and the checkout in the same account means the other three do not have to know about each other, while a stack of separate tools means every new one has to be connected to the last. Choosing this first is what keeps the other three small.
How does someone reach you after the first conversation?
A card and a number answer different halves of the same moment. The card is what the customer keeps, and it is worth paying for when the details on it move, because a printed card stops being true the first time a phone number or a job title changes. The number is what the customer rings, and it is worth paying for when the alternative is handing a personal line to strangers. Neither is needed on day one, and both become obvious at the first meeting where details are exchanged.
What keeps the same people coming back?
The last purchase is the one that is usually made too early. A community app earns its monthly fee when a few hundred people already return on their own, because the fee is charged whether they do or not. Until that habit exists, the same audience is cheaper to hold in the list that came with the first tool, and the app can wait until the list has stopped being enough.
The order is the saving. One account that carries the site, the list and the selling costs less than the four separate subscriptions it replaces, and the three smaller tools are all answers to problems that show up after the first sale rather than before it.
Frequently asked questions
Do all four need to be in place on day one?+
No. The account the site and the selling live in is the only one that has to exist before anything is sold, and the other three are answers to problems that appear afterwards. A card is needed when details have to change without a reprint, a second number when the personal one is being given to customers, and a community app when the same few hundred people keep coming back.
Which of these could a bigger platform absorb later?+
The one-account tool is the likeliest to absorb the others, since funnels, email, courses and booking already share a login there. The card, the number and the community app are each a distinct job and are unlikely to be retired by a larger marketing suite; what usually replaces them is not paying for them any more, once the business stops needing that particular job.
Is a free plan enough to trade on?+
On Systeme.io, plausibly: it costs nothing without a card and carries 2,000 contacts, three funnels and one course, which is a working shop rather than a demonstration. The free plan on Movement is also open-ended, but it takes 15% of sales and stops at 100 active members, so it is priced for testing an idea rather than for running one. The other two have no free plan at all.
What to put in place first
Put the site and the selling on one account first, and leave the rest until a problem asks for it. Systeme.io is the cheapest way to have a working shop, since the free plan is open-ended, carries no card requirement and no cut of a sale, and it removes three of the four purchases from the first month.
The card and the number come next, and both are bought when the business starts meeting people rather than when it starts. Movement is the last of the four and the one most likely to be premature: an app is worth its monthly fee once a few hundred people already come back weekly, and until then the same audience sits comfortably in the list that arrived with the first tool.
Sources
Systeme.io (systeme.io), checked 16 September 2026: the pricing page for the four tiers and their contact and feature limits, what every plan carries, and the terms and conditions for the refund position, the over-limit upgrade rule and the operator's details.
businesscards.io (businesscards.io), checked 16 September 2026: the pricing page for the four tiers, their user and card limits and the seven-day trial, the feature pages for where a card can be shared, and the terms for the billing and cancellation clauses.
YourBusinessNumber (yourbusinessnumber.com), checked 16 September 2026: the homepage and the Teams page for the setup flow, the monthly rate, the number type and the call forwarding note, and the checkout total charged to a UK buyer.
Movement (movement.so), checked 16 September 2026: the pricing page for the four plan rates under both billing cycles, the member allowance and the transaction fee on each plan, and the platform terms for how the fee follows active users and what happens on cancellation.
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Last updated Sep 16, 2026 · Some links on this page may be affiliate links; see our Affiliate Disclosure.
