Tools we use
The stack behind every site we build.
No secret weapons and nothing you cannot buy yourself. This is the actual set of tools we use on client work, why each one earns its place, and where we have an affiliate arrangement.
Affiliate disclosureSome links on this page are affiliate links, marked as such. If you buy through one, we may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change what we recommend: every tool listed here is one we pay for and use on client work, and the ones we have no affiliate arrangement with are listed exactly the same way.
The full stack
Hostinger
Web hosting that is fast enough and priced for this market.
It is where most of our client sites live. The performance is well beyond what the price suggests, the control panel is one a client can actually use without us, and it does not fall over when a site has a busy week.
- Genuinely fast on the plans small businesses can afford
- Free SSL and a free domain on annual plans
- A control panel clients can find their way around on their own
- Support that answers in reasonable time
WordPress
The content management system behind most of the sites we build.
We build on WordPress because it is the only platform where a client genuinely owns everything and can take it elsewhere. It is free, it is open source, and it will still exist in ten years.
- Free and open source, with no licence to lose
- You own the site and can host it anywhere
- A plugin or add-on for almost anything you need later
- Editable by a non-technical team after training
Elementor Pro
The page builder we design and build in.
Elementor is how we get custom design into WordPress without a developer being needed for every future change. We build with flex containers rather than the older layout tools, which keeps the output light and the site easy to edit.
- Real visual editing, so clients can make changes safely
- Flex containers produce clean, responsive layouts
- Theme builder for consistent headers, footers and templates
- The Pro form widget handles our client forms
Astra
A lean WordPress theme that does not fight the page builder.
Most WordPress themes ship with features you will never use, all of which still load on every page. Astra is deliberately small, which is why our builds start fast before we have optimised anything.
- Very small base weight, so pages load quickly
- Built to work with Elementor rather than against it
- Sensible defaults for typography and spacing
- Free version is genuinely usable
Claude
The AI assistant we use for research, drafting and analysis.
Claude does the heavy reading. Competitor analysis, structuring content, working through technical problems, and drafting that a human then edits. It does not write our client pages unsupervised and it should not write yours either.
- Strong at long documents and technical reasoning
- Useful for structuring content before writing it
- Good judgement on nuance, which matters in client copy
- Still needs a human editor, every time
ChatGPT
The other assistant we keep open, and one you should be testing against.
We use it for ideation and quick drafting, but the more important reason it is on this list is that it is where a growing number of your customers now ask for recommendations. Knowing what it says about your business is part of the job.
- Fast for ideation and first drafts
- Where many customers now start their research
- Worth testing what it says about your own business
- Part of every AI visibility audit we run
Hermes
An AI agent with a memory, that keeps working while nobody is watching it.
Most AI tools forget you the moment the tab closes, so every session starts from nothing and somebody has to sit there feeding it context. Hermes holds on to what it has been told and carries on with a job unattended, which makes it worth handing the work that is too small to put a person on and too repetitive to keep doing by hand. It pairs with n8n: the workflow moves the data, the agent handles the steps that need a decision rather than a rule.
- Remembers context between sessions instead of starting cold every time
- Runs unattended, so a long job does not need somebody watching it
- Takes on the judgement steps a fixed automation cannot cover
- Unattended is not unchecked: anything a customer will see gets read first
Higgsfield AI
AI video generation with real camera control.
Short-form video travels further than anything else on social, and shooting it properly costs more than most small businesses can justify. Higgsfield AI generates video with deliberate camera movement rather than the slow drift that makes most AI video look cheap, and it will start from a photograph you already have.
- Cinematic camera moves, not a static drifting shot
- Image to video, so a product photo becomes a clip
- Short-form content without a crew or a shoot day
- Still needs a human eye: AI video fails in obvious ways
n8n
The automation tool the client workflows actually run in.
This is where the instant replies, the follow-up sequences, the lead routing and the weekly reports live. We favour it over the closed alternatives because it can be self-hosted, which means a client’s workflows and the data passing through them sit on infrastructure they own rather than inside somebody else’s subscription.
- Self-hostable, so the workflows and the data stay yours
- Connects WhatsApp, forms, email, spreadsheets and a CRM without code
- Cheaper than per-task pricing once the volume grows
- Needs someone technical for the first build, then it runs on its own
OpenArt AI
AI image generation for concepts, mockups and site imagery.
For businesses without a photography budget, generated imagery is the difference between a site that looks considered and a site full of the same stock photos everyone else uses. We use it for concepts, backgrounds and illustration.
- Custom imagery without a photoshoot budget
- Consistent visual style across a whole site
- Fast iteration on design concepts
- Still no substitute for real photos of your real team
WooCommerce
The store platform behind our eCommerce builds.
When a client needs to sell online and keep ownership of everything, WooCommerce is the answer. It handles local payment gateways, which is what actually matters here, and there is no monthly platform fee taking a cut of every sale.
- No monthly platform fee on your own sales
- Works with MTN MoMo and Orange Money gateways
- Full control over checkout and product pages
- Your customer data stays yours
Google Search Console
The only source of truth about how you appear in search.
It is free, it comes straight from Google, and it is the first thing we connect on any project. If your current supplier has not set this up for you, that tells you something.
- Shows the actual search terms bringing you traffic
- Reports indexing and mobile usability problems
- Free, and owned by you rather than by an agency
- The history is only collected from the day it is connected
Not a tool you buy, but the platform every other decision here answers to.
It is worth listing plainly, because everything else on this page is judged against it. Its ranking systems, its local map results and now its AI Overviews decide what a customer in Cameroon sees at the moment they go looking for what you sell.
- Where most buying research still starts
- The local map results drive a large share of phone calls
- AI Overviews now answer many questions before anybody clicks
- Free to appear in, which is the whole opportunity
Google Business Profile
The free listing that produces most local enquiries. Formerly Google My Business.
For any business with premises or a service area, completing this properly is the highest-return hour of work available. It feeds the map results, and the map results are where local enquiries now begin. Most competitors have claimed theirs and then abandoned it half filled in.
- Completely free, and registered in your own name
- Feeds the local map pack where most local calls originate
- Reviews, hours, photos and categories are all ranking signals
- Takes about an hour to do properly and pays back faster than anything else
Google Analytics
Where the traffic came from, and what it did after it arrived.
Search Console tells you how people found you. Analytics tells you what happened next. We connect it on every build, because without it any conversation about whether the marketing is working is guesswork with confidence.
- Free, and the property belongs to your account not ours
- Shows which channels actually produce enquiries
- Measures nothing useful until conversion events are configured
- The history starts the day it is connected, so connect it early
Google Ads
Paid search, bought at the moment somebody is ready to choose.
When a person types your service into Google they have already decided they want it and are picking a supplier. That is the most valuable moment in marketing, and this is how you buy a place in it. Competition on most terms here is still cheap by international standards.
- Reaches people at the moment of intent, not before it
- Click costs in Cameroon remain low compared with Europe
- Conversion tracking has to exist before the first ad runs
- Spends a small budget very fast without negative keywords
Meta
Facebook and Instagram, where demand is created rather than captured.
Meta is the right platform when nobody is searching for what you sell yet, or when the purchase is a visual one. Clicks are cheaper than Google search and convert less often, which means the creative has to do far more of the work.
- Cheaper per click than search, and you need more of them
- Best where the product is visual or the demand is new
- Click-to-WhatsApp campaigns suit how business is done here
- The ad account belongs in your own Business Manager, not ours
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How this list is decided
We only list what we actually pay for.
Affiliate pages are usually written by people who have never used half the products on them. This one is the opposite: it is our real stack, and if we stopped using something it would come off the page whether or not it paid.
Where we have an affiliate arrangement we say so on the card. Where we do not, we still recommend the tool, because the point of the page is to be useful.
Ask what we would use- We use it on paying client workNothing goes on this page because it has a generous affiliate programme. If it is not in our own stack, it is not here.
- Affiliation is disclosed on the cardEach tool is marked either as an affiliate link or as one we have no arrangement with, so you can weigh the recommendation yourself.
- The price has to make sense hereA tool that costs more per month than a small business spends on marketing is not a recommendation, however good it is.
- You have to be able to leaveWe favour tools that let you export your data and take it elsewhere. Anything that traps you is a liability, not an asset.
Questions
About this page.
No. These are our defaults because they work well together, but if you already have hosting you are happy with, or your business has standardised on something else, we will work with that.
No, and the page is structured so you can check. Several of the tools we recommend most strongly, including WordPress and Google Search Console, pay us nothing at all.
Yes. Every website project includes hosting, domain, theme and plugin setup as part of the build. You end up owning all of it in your own name.
We use plenty of others for analytics, keyword research and rank tracking. They are on this page only if we think a business owner would benefit from knowing about them, rather than every subscription we hold.
Yes, and it costs nothing. Message us with what you are trying to do and we will tell you what we would use, including when the answer is something free.
Rather not assemble it yourself
The tools are the easy part.
Anyone can buy the same stack. What takes time is knowing how to configure it, and what to do once it is running.
