As a WordPress business owner, I have tried and tested numerous tools and resources over the years to streamline my workflow and improve my productivity. In this post, I will be sharing my top recommendations for WordPress plugins and services that have helped me manage my ecommerce businesses more stably and efficiently. So, let’s dive in and discover the must-have tools for running a successful WordPress business.
Tools I need for my WordPress ecommerce businesses
💬 Slack - For Team Communication & Notifications
Slack is where all the communication in my business happens. I use it to chat with my team members and coordinate with freelancers. It’s simple, quick, and direct.
But more than just messaging, Slack is also where I get important real-time updates. I’ve connected it to several tools so I’m instantly notified when:
- 🛒 A new sale comes in
- 🧲 A new lead is captured
- ✅ A task is added in our project management tool
- ⚙️ Something happens on the server or a deployment goes live
I’ve set up channels for different parts of the business, like support, development, and marketing. That way, conversations stay organized and easy to follow.
Having Slack as a central place for updates and communication really helps me stay on top of things without constantly switching tools or checking email. It keeps the whole team aligned and saves a lot of time.
✅ FluentBoards – For Project Management
FluentBoards is what we use to keep track of tasks and projects across the business. It’s a WordPress plugin, so it runs directly inside our site, which gives us more control over data, privacy, and long-term costs.
We’ve set up different boards for each project we’re working on, plus dedicated boards for areas like 📣 marketing, 🤝 partnerships, ✍️ content, and more. This helps everyone know exactly where to look for what they’re working on.
The fact that it’s self-hosted means we’re not relying on another third-party service for such a core part of how we run things. Everything stays in-house, which is something I really value.
📥 Missive – For Emails and Inbox Collaboration
Missive is the tool I use to manage email across all of our projects, except for customer support, which we handle through a different system. Each project has its own dedicated email address, and Missive keeps everything tidy and in one place.
If I need to, I can share an inbox or particular email with a teammate; I can simply share it and we can work on replies together 🤝. For example, when we’re coordinating with a partner or reviewing something that needs feedback. Besides that, I use inboxes just for myself, especially when the messages are more private or specific to my role.
The interface and handling feel more like the traditional email clients on my Mac. As a bonus, I can create automations that run over incoming or outgoing emails and save me a lot of time daily.
💸 Freemius – For Checkout, Licensing & Compliance
Freemius is what we use to sell our WordPress plugins and themes. After switching from Easy Digital Downloads at the beginning of 2024, it honestly felt like a no-brainer. The setup is smoother, and we don’t have to worry about so many of the little things anymore.
We’ve embedded Freemius’ on-site checkout 🛍️ directly into our websites, so the entire buying process feels native and seamless for customers.
What I appreciate most is that Freemius handles all the stuff I don’t want to deal with:
- 🛒 Checkout optimization
- 🌍 Tax calculations and compliance
- 🧾 Invoice creation for customers
That means fewer liabilities on our side and less time spent maintaining custom logic or third-party tools. Everything just works, and we can focus on building and improving the actual products instead of caring about the sales infrastructure.
📧 FluentCRM – For Email Marketing
FluentCRM is our favorite tool for doing email marketing across all our websites and projects. It runs directly inside WordPress, which I really like, mainly because everything stays in our own hands.
We use it to build and manage email lists, whether it’s for existing customers or new leads we collect on the site. From there, we send out all sorts of emails:
- 📢 Product updates and new release announcements
- 💸 Sales and promo campaigns
- 📚 Educational content
FluentCRM makes it easy to segment audiences and automate some basic flows without things getting overly complicated.
For the actual email delivery, we pair it with Postmark, which handles sending reliably and at a much lower cost than services like Mailchimp or ConvertKit. It’s a simple setup, and it gives us way more control without breaking the bank.
🐋 ClickWhale – For Link Management & Affiliate Marketing
ClickWhale is our own WordPress plugin, and we use it to manage all our affiliate links 🔗 and external recommendations across projects. Whether it’s a hosting partner, a tool we genuinely recommend, or any kind of third-party link, this makes keeping everything organized super easy.
Instead of digging through old posts or spreadsheets, we just manage all our outbound links right inside the WordPress dashboard. If something needs to be updated, we do it once and it’s reflected everywhere.
We also use ClickWhale to create self-hosted bio link pages for our social media profiles 📲. This way, when someone clicks the link in our Instagram or Twitter bio, they land on a clean, branded page we control, not some third-party service.
Having this setup keeps things simple, flexible, and completely under our own roof — just how we like it.
🛟 HelpScout – For Customer Support
HelpScout is the one tool we rely on exclusively for managing customer support. It’s where all incoming support emails and tickets are handled most efficiently.
We’ve been using HelpScout for a long time now. Over the years, I’ve tested just about every other alternative out there, but we always ended up coming back. Nothing else really matches the simplicity and user experience it offers — both for us and for the customer 👥.
Even though it’s on the pricier side, it’s worth it. The interface is intuitive, it keeps conversations organized, and it makes it easy for our support team to collaborate behind the scenes: Internal notes, tagging, saved replies — it all just works 💬.
For us, having a reliable and stress-free support system in place is a must, and HelpScout has proven itself again and again.
🤖 OttoKit – For Automation
OttoKit is the automation tool we use across all our projects. We previously used Zapier, but after discovering OttoKit (formerly known as SureTriggers), we made the switch — and honestly, it was a great decision.
It’s built specifically with WordPress in mind, which fits perfectly into our stack. The interface is clean, easy to work with, and it integrates deeply with the plugins and tools we already rely on.
We’ve set up several automations that save us time and reduce manual work, such as:
🔔 Sending real-time Slack notifications for new leads and sales
💰 Collecting data from our affiliates to prepare their payouts
🔄 Syncing data between FluentCRM and Freemius
What’s also worth mentioning: the team behind OttoKit is super responsive. They’re constantly adding new triggers and actions based on user feedback (such as the new ClickWhale triggers and actions), and it really feels like the product is growing with us.
💡ChatGPT – For Everyday Tasks and Creative Shortcuts
Let’s be honest: Who isn’t using ChatGPT in their business these days? 🫣
I use it regularly across projects, whether it’s for brainstorming ideas, writing first drafts of copywriting, doing research 🔍, or just speeding up small everyday tasks that would otherwise eat up our time.
It’s like having a reliable assistant that’s always available, whether I’m stuck on a headline, need some quick examples, or just want a second opinion before publishing something.
Sure, it’s not perfect, and I always tweak the results. But as a creative tool and productivity booster, it’s been incredibly useful and a time-saver.
