10 to 50 people is the range where most companies get stuck: the system that got them here doesn't hold up anymore, but they don't yet need the enterprise stack. This is the kit that actually matters, tool by tool.
Workspace + docs: Notion
Still the most reasonable choice in this range. Business plan for 10-50 people runs around €250/month. What matters: invest one real week designing the workspace before person 15 joins. If you don't, in six months you'll have the typical chaos of "everyone creates pages wherever."
CRM: HubSpot Starter or Pipedrive
HubSpot if your engine is inbound marketing. Pipedrive if your engine is outbound and SDRs. Do NOT start with Salesforce, you only need it from 80-100 employees, and you migrate when the time comes.
Comms: Slack
No reasonable alternative. What IS important at this range: document channel and thread rules from day one. Without rules, in six months the #general channels are unreadable.
What you DON'T need yet
- Your own data warehouse. Stick with each tool's native reporting until you hit 60.
- Centralized SSO + IAM. 1Password Business is enough up to 40-50.
- Process / BPM software. 95% of what looks like BPM is done in Notion + Slack workflows.
