One place or a few good tools: the question before the choice
The appeal of an all-in-one suite is the idea that in the end only one window stays open. The catch is on no product page: the benefit sits in the transitions, in a contact, their appointment and their document hanging together. It grows with the number of areas that genuinely run there. If there are too few, the suite is not a filing system, it is one more of them.
A constructed example, deliberately not a lived case: you put tasks and notes into a suite, but keep the calendar in your mail program, the invoices in your accounting software and the contracts in a folder. Now the business has four places instead of three, and every question about a document has two plausible answers. The suite has consolidated nothing, it has added itself.
From that follows my rule of thumb, not a law: before you buy, count how many of the six areas you will actually move, and look at how tightly they hang together. At four or more, going through one system usually pays off; three tightly linked areas, say contacts, appointments and documents, can carry it too. If two loose areas are left, it is more honest to name one leading tool per area and declare the others transit stops. Both of those are a system, only the mixture of the two is not.
Four tools by task coverage
All prices net, as of September 2026, from the vendors' pricing pages.
"Not listed" means the vendor does not present this area as a feature of its own. You can often build something for it, you just have no commitment from the vendor and you maintain what you built yourself.
Bitrix24 is the only tool in this round that carries all six areas on its own site: CRM, tasks and projects, chat and online meetings, shared calendars and file storage, plus websites, HR and automation; invoices and payments sit in the CRM area. If you want a real suite, this is where you land, and this is where the rule above bites hardest: used by halves it is the worst of the four, because the most is left standing empty. Invoices in the CRM means invoice creation, not bookkeeping. Whether that meets the German requirements for e-invoicing, retention and handover to a tax advisor is not something the tool overview says.
Nextcloud is the other pole. The self-hosted edition is open source and free, and the groupware brings mail, calendar, contacts and, with Deck, a Kanban board. The price is not in a subscription, it is in the running: server, updates, backups. That is work, but not work you have to do alone. Anyone setting up their first server can bring the question into the community, where people have already walked the same path.
Data storage, permissions and exit
With office and customer data it also matters where the data lives, who is allowed to see it and how you get it back out. What the vendors themselves say about it:
Whether a tool is suitable for your case under data protection law is decided by the data processing agreement and the plan, not on a product page; this is not legal advice. If you want a reliable answer to the first column for your own business, bring the question into the community, where people have already done this check for the same tools.
What the price tags actually mean
The figures in the table are not comparable with each other, and that only shows up on the invoice.
Notion and Google Workspace charge per user per month. Google spells it out on its pricing page: "the price is per user, per month, and excludes taxes". Google bills monthly, quotes 16 percent savings for a one-year commitment, and the smaller amounts shown next to the plan prices are introductory rates for the first few months. Notion lists 9.50 euros for Plus and 19.50 euros for Business on monthly billing and advertises "up to 20 %" savings on annual billing.
Bitrix24, by contrast, charges per account with a user cap: 69 euros a month for up to 5 users and 24 GB of storage, 144 euros for up to 50 users and 100 GB. For one person alone that is expensive; for a team of five it is suddenly cheap. Read the price column without its reference unit and you are comparing apples to crates.
The free entry points each have an edge, too. Notion's free plan caps images, videos and attachments at 5 MB per file. With Nextcloud the software is free, but the support subscriptions only start at 100 users (Standard 71.29 euros per user per year); below that the vendor points to its hosted service, Nextcloud One.
How you get back out
You ask this question before you sign up, because afterwards it is no longer yours to change.
Notion exports to PDF, HTML, Markdown and CSV, with databases coming out as CSV and ordinary pages as Markdown. There is a full workspace export in the settings; the vendor says it can take up to 30 hours. According to the help page, the option to include subpages is tied to the Business or Enterprise plan.
Google Workspace offers a complete organization export, but with conditions: only a super administrator can start it, the account has to be at least 30 days old and two-step verification has to be on. The data arrives as ZIP files sorted by service, no earlier than 48 hours after the start, typically around 72 hours according to Google and up to 14 days for large volumes, and Google deletes the export again after 60 days. Not an afternoon project.
Nextcloud answers the question differently: the data sits on your own server to begin with. The vendor states full read-write support for external CalDAV and CardDAV, and Nextcloud Mail works as an IMAP client. Appointments and contacts therefore hang on open standards rather than on an account.
The rule holds regardless of the tool: check the exit before you use the entrance. Three questions are enough. Do I get everything out, or only what can be represented as a table. How long does it take. And is the export tied to a plan I do not currently have.
The other route: few tools, one leading each
If the count above says only two or three areas are moving, that is not a retreat, it is the fitting design: exactly one leading system per area, everything else is transit.
For time tracking a small standalone tool is often enough. Toggl Track has a free plan for up to 3 users, Starter costs 9 US dollars per user per month on annual billing, Premium 16. For invoices the pointer above applies: that is accounting software, not a side subject of an office suite.
The cost: several logins, several invoices, no single search. The gain: each tool is good in its area, and you replace any one of them without moving half your office.
Architects, engineering firms and ERP: the other price class
Under these search terms you regularly find programs that are something other than the four above. The difference is the domain logic.
untermStrich ONE is aimed at architecture and engineering practices. The Starter plan costs 19 euros per user per month plus a 60 euro base fee and includes projects, time logging, addresses, team and a DATEV connection. Invoicing under the German HOAI fee scale, fees, tasks, appointments and resource planning only arrive in the Plus plan at 29 euros per user plus a 120 euro base fee; Premium costs 39 euros plus 160 euros.
microtech büro+, often searched for as "büro plus next", is an ERP-style merchandise management system. The Basic edition costs 199 euros a month including 2 users, 39 euros for each additional one, and covers merchandise management, CRM, purchasing and payments. Core is 299 euros, Enterprise 399 euros; add-on modules such as e-commerce from 149 euros come on top.
Two things about that matter for the choice. The pricing structure is a different one, base fee plus per-user price or package price plus modules, and these are not 15-euro decisions. And what carries the cost is not tasks and appointments but the domain logic behind them: HOAI fees, stock levels, article masters. If that is not your actual work, you are paying for an engine you never start.
Where the software stops and the role begins
Software is the place, the role is the work. A suite will show you that 40 emails are sitting in your inbox and sort them by date. What it does not do: decide which of them needs an answer today, which can wait and which never needed one. That decision is the office work, and it stays undone no matter how good the tool looks.
In my business that part is handled by Frieda. She sorts the inbox into four piles plus a fifth for anything that needs my judgment, and leaves replies as drafts. Nothing gets sent until I have read it. She does not touch personal, job applications or health, and the mailbox is connected through the official connectors for Gmail or Microsoft 365, not through plaintext passwords. That covers the inbox and appointment part, not the whole office and no industry software.
The procedure behind it is the actual point, and it depends on no tool. Which piles the sorting runs on is in Sorting Your Inbox: The Pile System. When a feature in your mail program is enough and when it takes a role of its own is settled in AI Email Triage: Agent or Tool?, the rules and filters in Outlook and Gmail are in Sorting Email Automatically, and the appointment part in Scheduling Meetings With AI. What else can be handed over is in Bringing AI to a Small Business.
Common questions
Which office management software is best for a one-person business?
Only after the count: how many of the six areas are really moving, and how tightly they hang together. At four or more a suite like Bitrix24 usually makes sense, because all six are carried there. With two loose areas, one dedicated tool per area is the more honest choice. A program used by halves makes your filing worse instead of ordering it.
Is there free office management software?
Yes, in three forms. Nextcloud in its self-hosted edition is open source and free; you pay by running the server. Bitrix24 has a permanently free plan with 5 GB of storage, basic CRM, tasks, calendars and chat. Notion is free for individuals but caps files at 5 MB. All three figures come from the vendors' pages, as of September 2026.
Which software fits architects and engineering firms?
Domain software takes over there, because HOAI fee calculation and project controlling sit in no general office suite. untermStrich ONE starts at 19 euros per user per month plus a 60 euro base fee, but only carries HOAI invoicing from the Plus plan at 29 euros plus 120 euros. Check beforehand which plan actually contains your core process.
Is microtech büro+ right for my office?
Only if merchandise management is your actual work. microtech büro+ starts at 199 euros a month for 2 users, Basic covers merchandise management, CRM, purchasing and payments, and modules such as e-commerce from 149 euros come on top. For a service business with no warehouse, that is a price class without matching value.
How to carry on
Take the six areas from the first table and write two lines for each: where it sits today, where it should sit in future. Only then do you open a pricing page. That sheet of paper decides more reliably than any feature comparison, because it produces the number that counts: how many areas are really moving.
And if you want to see what the inbox and appointment part looks like when you are not the one doing it, but a role with written-down rules: Frieda exists with exactly this setup as a ready-made package in my community Claude Practitioners, with the course that goes with her and people who have already made the same choice.
