It has been 6 years since Google Apps Marketplace became a commercial Google entity, helping people and organizations to discover and deploy quality enterprise apps.

The best part is that most of them are free apps or come at highly affordable packages, not to mention the quick set up and seamless integration with Google applications like contacts, Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, Drive, etc.

In wake of so many benefits it is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of apps and features available in the marketplace.

To enhance your Google for Work experience without much of hassle, here are the Top Google Apps for Business 2017 to watch out for when you next download from the marketplace app store.

Top Google Apps for Business in 2017

“Best Google Apps in HR”

Google Apps offer solutions for most critical people processes like recruiting; leave management, payroll, interviews and assessment. Here are the top 3 Google apps in HR that deserve a quick download.

JobScore

The app serves the purpose of applicant tracking system with candidate pipeline that makes hiring easier and faster. JobScore has features that let you publish and market jobs using mediums that match your company strategy, track resume status and generate source reports. You can also post jobs on multiple job boards, drive employee referrals, enable careers page on your website and get insightful recruiting analytics.

There is 30-day free trial for any plan that you choose. The Post and Lite versions offer basic features and are priced at $49/month (3 active jobs) and $99/month (5 active jobs) respectively. Professional plan loaded with all features is most popular with 10 active jobs at $249/month.

CakeHR

The app takes care of your leave and time-off requests like no other, removing the hassles of spreadsheets and paperwork. CakeHR supports calendar integration with iCal and Outlook, with flexible employee self-service feature. It lets you view organization chart and split employees into teams with complete personal profiles. It can be a great support tool during employee onboarding and truly manages HR on the go, thanks to seamless integration with other apps.

There is 30-day free trial to explore the features and functionality. Post this trial period; the app can be yours at $4 per employee, per month.

Weekdone

Easily one of the fastest and simplest reporting tools for teams; Weekdone follows PPP (Plans, Progress and Problems) to share weekly status reports, goals and achievements, thereby fuelling productivity and employee engagement. There are automatic weekly reminders and email reports for your team. The app enables you to measure weekly happiness quotient for team/company, give feedback, communicate and track overdue plans.

There is 15-day free trial available with the free version called “Startup” for up to 3 users. Basis number of users, there are variants of bronze, silver, gold, and platinum with monthly and yearly payment options.

“Best Google Apps in Marketing and Analytics”

Create surveys, run marketing campaigns or analyze business critical data – There is something for every marketing move you decide to implement. Read through our list of best Google apps for marketing and analytics to give your business the powerful edge over competition.

Slemma

Reduce the drudgery of report generation through this highly useful app that creates automatic and refreshable charts from data stored in Google sheets, analytics and databases. This data visualization tool allows you to create and share real time data dashboards with your team over email or embed charts on your website. Slemma supports 15 fully customizable charts and also permit certain calculations making it must have for marketing and analytics folks.

The user-friendly app comes with a 14-day free trial, post that you can choose from plans like Starter and Small Business pitched at $29 and $99 per month.

Business Hangouts

The app brings webinars, virtual classrooms, town halls and trainings all at one place from 10 to 10,000 simultaneous attendees. Now conducting your next marketing seminar or conference achieves new heights with the HD quality video, YouTube recording and live streaming using Hangouts On Air. So whether it is direct sales or event marketing, this app provides a quick gateway to collaborate and share with simple and fast set-up.

The app comes in different variants like Lite ($19/month), Pro ($49/month), Business ($79/month) and Webcast ($490/month) depending upon the total number of attendees and other customizations.

SurveyLegend

Categorized as next gen of online surveys, this first of its kind cross platform survey solution, SurveyLegend has been quite popular due to its ability to generate surveys on mobile/tablet/computer. All you need is a browser. The survey results are analyzed and presented as beautiful looking graphs that help in critical decision-making.

The starter version that lets you generate up to 3 surveys is totally free. The Pro, Business and Legendary versions are priced at $15, $25, and $65 per month respectively.

“Best Google Apps in Project Management”

Managing workflows and assigning tasks now comes with click of a button that gives todays’ teams much-needed cohesion and real time updates. Never slip on the project path with these best Google apps in Project Management.

Smartsheet

For those who cannot think beyond the familiar spreadsheet format, Smartsheet is the ideal choice to manage projects and processes. The app has a huge user base vouching about its usefulness thanks to the nimble and easy to learn way in organizing, tracking and collaborating tasks/projects. The work can be viewed as Calendar and Gantt chart with attachments and dependencies. Supports automatic reminders and alerts.

There is a 30-day free trial available for Smartsheet, after which there are individual basic plan ($10 per month), team plan ($15 per month) and enterprise plan to choose from based on the number of users and plan features.

Kerika

This app works for two sets of people. One who work as a part of distributed or highly lean/agile teams and second who prefer boards/cards to manage work. The app supports presentation of work as Kanban, Scrum or Whiteboard projects that can be shared with multiple geo-location users in their respective time zones.  It has integrated chat features that can be pushed ahead as email with smart real-time alerts for each board.

There is a 30-day free trial for Kerika to be tried with your whole team. There is a no-nonsense all-you-can-eat pricing of $7 per user per month for all types of organizations and teams. This pricing comes with host of benefits.

Avaza

– This app is a lifesaver for small businesses and freelancers as it supports Time Tracking, Expense Management and Invoicing over and above project management and collaboration. Each of the available modules can be used independently or together to suit your needs. Avaza supports PayPal and Stripe for online payments and receipts – a true billing functionality integration with projects.

The free account enables the app users to include up to 10 customers, 5 active projects and invoices per month. The paid versions are Startup ($9.95 per month), Basic ($19.95 per month), Business ($39.95 per month) are available with different configurations in terms of storage space, projects and invoices that can be handled.

“Best Google Apps in Communication”

Whether it is mail, meetings, mobile, or social space, the following assortment of best Google apps in communication will ensure you are always ahead of the curve with superlative connectivity.

Zoho Connect

If your organization needs its own private social network, then Zoho Connect does an efficient job of collaborating teams. Like any popular social network, it allows to post/ like/share updates, comments, blog and even polls. The app goes a step further in achieving the perfect inter-office communication with features such as company wide forums, document sharing, voice/video calling, chat rooms and integration with other Google apps.

The Google apps free version of Zoho Connect allows for unlimited users and groups with 5GB storage and 1 active chat room. There is also an enterprise plan at $43.5/network/month with unlimited customizations and other benefits.

Dialpad

– One of the coolest business phone system for Google apps users, Dialpad allows to carry your business number on your personal phone anytime, anywhere. It offers multi device support with seamless switching from one device to other. The app syncs with other Google apps like Calendar, Contacts and Gmail helping the user to be always ready with vital info. A must for the mobile workforce, the app also supports call recordings, setting up company toll-free number and unlimited texts/domestic calls.

The app comes with 14-day free trial with free company number and unlimited domestic calls/texts. The app boasts of low international rates and costs $15/person/month after the expiry of trial period.

Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM)

– Get set to send personalized mass emails right from your Gmail account with a single click. YAMM replaces the markers <<>> in your mail template with data from spreadsheet, retaining the customization/images/attachments of your Gmail draft. The real beauty of the app lies in its real-time tracking abilities and dashboard generation. The app works well with pre-designed templates and scheduled campaigns. It supports over 20 languages and is great with auto-send emails and spam check.

YAMM is free to email up to 50 recipients every day. There are referral program and premium plans to increase this recipient quota.

“Best Google Apps in Productivity”

Free up your personal and professional arena by removing the time-eaters through automation and focused work. Trust these best Google apps in Productivity that let you do what you love without getting lost in trivial tasks.

Lucidchart

Now working with teams and clients becomes more interactive and real time with this diagramming and visualization app. It lets you draw and share mockups, flowcharts, UML, mind maps and more. It is a sleek replacement for Visio with import/export features, group chats and comments.

There are basic and pro packs for single users that come at $4.95/month and $8.95/month. Their most popular offering “Team” pack comes at $20/month for up to 3 users.

Ultradox

– If you deal with documents like forms, newsletters, mails, contracts, invoices, etc. then Ultradox is the go-to app to automate and streamline your business. With tons of templates to choose from and excellent customer support to shorten the learning curve, the app presents endless opportunities from generating professional looking brochures to time saving mail merges. It’s like using Google Drive to its maximum potential.

Equipped to handle traffic of any size, the cool app comes in different versions. There is free version with cap on total documents that can be generated. Single users can choose from monthly plans ranging from $5 to $119 per month depending upon volume of document generation. There are SMB and enterprise level plans too.

CoContacts

– Syncing contacts can be a pain and more so if they are spread over different users or devices. Put an end to these collaborative worries by trusting CoContacts. The wonder app syncs the contacts available on Gmail, Google, iOS, Android, Outlook, Blackberry devices along with secured and continuous backups. You can set multiple languages and even control the viewing and editing of contacts among the group members.

The app offers free download for basic plan that covers 3 users and 3 groups for up to 100 shared contracts. If you want faster syncs, greater no. Of users and shared contacts there are Pro plans available from as low as $4.99 to unlimited version at $99.99 per month.

“Best Google Apps in Sales and CRM”

Never lose out on prospects and extend impeccable customer support with these nifty and intuitively best Google apps in Sales and CRM. Boosting your sales is now just a matter of downloading a dependable app.

Calendly

– A meeting scheduling app that combines best of simplicity and functionality, Calendly is perfect app to manage appointments, interviews, calls, demo and more. It puts sales and service into top gear by eliminating the need for phone or email tag. It allows connecting with customers instantly without the need for registration/set up by your invitees.

The free basic version of the app is available for download in the marketplace. However, if you like fully loaded features like customized reminders, email notifications, group events, metrics and reporting, the premium plan is up for grabs at $8/month/user.

Insightly CRM

– Manage your business like never before with this top rated CRM solution for Google Apps. It allows you to track leads, proposals, opportunities and projects by providing full history of customer interaction. The app is quite nifty with sleek features like drag and drop file sharing, centrally shared contact list, tagging, task allotment and two-way contact sync with Google. It includes SSL security essential for business and makes a perfect choice for SMEs, as it is very easy and intuitive to learn without any need of extensive training.

While the free plan is ok for up to 2 users, for bigger teams and enterprise level operations, Insightly offers Basic, Plus, Professional and Enterprise Plans at $12, $29, $49 and $99 respectively per user per month.

Evercontact

– Don’t lose potential contacts to email archives. Evercontact updates your and the team’s address book – past, present and future, by scanning and extracting contact info in signatures of incoming mails. This app rules out the worries of losing contacts when you change your personal contact details or when your employees leave the organization. The centralized contact book syncs with your existing CRM.

For individual users, the free plan works well with analysis of up to 50 emails per day. However, businesses can benefit from advanced plans (Starting as less as $5/month/user) with unlimited email analysis, updates, Salesforce integration, Vcard export and dashboards.

“Best Google Apps in Utilities”

Things that are menial have the potential to blow out of proportion and turn into big problems. Whether it is data security, integrations, email or notification management, a tour through these best Google apps in Utilities will save you lot of hard work.

Form Publisher

– It is a very useful add-on where the data collected in forms can be presented in a customized document that is professional looking with great user experience. This makes analysis, presentation and sharing of form information effective and surprisingly easy thanks to various templates supported by this app. To notch up the productivity, there are email reminders to notify about file creation/form submission.

The app lets you generate 100 files a month as a part of the free plan, while the paid plan for individuals comes at $24 per year with unlimited file generation and the business pack at $200 per year for unlimited users and files.

Forigotron

Haven’t we all faced instances where we immediately regretted a wrongly sent email due to oversight or in a hurry. Forigotron, a damage control app is just perfect to fix these mishaps as it lets you track, recall and delete mails within a domain. It is great support tool during compliance drives and prevent phishing attack as it also allows for contact audit and clean up.

The free version allows for contact audit and email tracking. The enterprise version with advanced features of recall by end user and contact cleanup comes at $8 per user per year.

Remove Blank Rows

As the name suggests the app finds nagging blank rows and columns in sheets and deletes/hides them through a click of the button. And yes, without the risk of accidentally deleting valuable information. The latest version also lets the user crop/unhide tools, with new premium features being added regularly.

The basic plan is free since 2 years now, with recent changes wherein a user needs to gift $10 through PayPal donate button for using premium features (after a free trial of course).

The Google apps marketplace is getting exciting every day with new free apps that make your life simpler and smarter. We are sure our list of Top Google Apps for Business 2017 will help you take things on the next level like a pro.

Mitalee.

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A small and apparently an unusual step can lift you to big heights. Check out CakeHR software to know how a small effort of ours is enabling big changes at work.