The Software Selection Report 2026: What 7,296 Professionals Want From Business Software

• AI ranked last of four goals. 38.7% selected leveraging AI, behind boosting productivity at 65.0%, maximizing efficiency at 59.2% and automating work at 44.1%. Respondents could select more than one.
• Almost nobody wants AI on its own. Just 5.0%, or 364 respondents, chose AI without also selecting another goal. Of the 2,823 who wanted AI, 62% also wanted productivity.
• Every other goal shifts with team size. AI doesn't. Wanting to boost productivity falls from 68.8% among people working alone to 57.9% among those with teams. Automating work rises from 40.5% to 51.1%. Leveraging AI sits at 38.7% in both groups.
• Industry barely moves it either. Agencies and tech startups were most interested in AI, at 43.4% and 43.2%. Service businesses were least interested at 35.5%. That's a spread of under eight points.

What is most important for their business right now? Efficient App asked all 7,296 respondents. Multiple answers were allowed, so shares do not total 100%. Respondents chose 2.07 goals on average.

Working alone changes every goal except AI

Solo operators want to get more done. Teams want to streamline and automate, which makes sense when work has to move between people. AI is the exception, and it is a strange one: identical to the first decimal place across two groups that differ on everything else.

AI is not what these buyers are shopping for. It is not that they reject it, since 38.7% is a substantial minority and only 5% wanted it in isolation. It is that AI is a means rather than an end. What people are actually trying to buy is output, and AI is one possible route to it, ranked below three more direct ones.

80% of project management software buyers prioritize simplicity over customization or PMO-level features.

• Four in five want the simple version. In Efficient App's survey of 1,630 people shopping for project management software, 80.2% said their top priority was a tool they could set up quickly and could not easily misuse.
• Almost nobody wants the advanced features. Just 3.1%, or 50 of those 1,630 respondents, chose the option built around PMO-level capabilities such as risk registers, RACI charts and advanced dashboards. A further 16.7% wanted extensive customisation for complex processes.
• Even experts want simple. Among the 208 respondents who described themselves as expert users, the group least likely to choose the simplest option, 57.7% still prioritised ease of setup. Among the 531 who had never used project management software, it was 88.9%.
• Experience predicts this; company size and industry barely do. Efficient App tested all three. Experience produced a 31-point swing. Industry moved the result by 11 points, and company size showed no significant effect once experience was accounted for.

What is most important to you in a project management tool? Efficient App asked 1,630 people shopping for project management software.

How much experience do you have with project management tools? Efficient App asked 1,628 people shopping for project management software.

Combining the data: Among the 1,595 people who answered both questions, the majority of professionals want the simplest project management tool, despite their level of expertise with the tool. Even experts desire the most simple tool.

Industry made less difference: Efficient App asked 1,186 respondents what type of business they run. The simple solution was overwhelmingly desired across all industries, although 20% of Tech and e-commerce startups skewed towards wanting something a bit more customizable.

• Two thirds don't have a planner yet. In Efficient App's survey of 2,102 people shopping for a daily planner, 64% said they use no planning tool at all.
• Almost nobody enjoys planning. Just 10.3% said they enjoy planning their day. 58.6% want a planner to help them focus and get more work done (n = 2,087).
• Most still want a hand in planning. Asked how the planning should happen, 44.7% want software to plan their day automatically while 39.6% would rather spend 10 to 15 minutes doing it manually. Of those manual planners, only 16.6% are people who actually enjoy planning (n = 2,084).
• Team size changes what people want; industry doesn't. As teams grow, the reason for wanting a planner shifts from focus to consolidating tasks from multiple tools. Industry showed no meaningful relationship with any answer.

Efficient App asked 2,102 people shopping for a daily planner whether they currently use one. 2,102 answered.

Why do you want a daily planner? 2,087 answered.

How much of the planning do you want to do yourself? 2,084 answered.

Working alone changes what people want from a planner

Efficient App split respondents by team size. All three questions showed significant differences at p < 0.0001.

The job of a daily planner changes as soon as someone works with other people. Alone, it's about directing your attention. With colleagues, it's about gathering up work that's scattered across more tools than one person can track.

That's also why the appetite for planning your own day drops by roughly a quarter once there's a team involved. The near-even split between manual and automatic planning is mostly a solo phenomenon. Among people with colleagues, 47.6% want software to plan for them against 30.6% who want to do it themselves.

CRM buyers are the most committed group in the study, but a third have never used one.

• Nearly three quarters are buying for the long term. In Efficient App's survey of 683 people shopping for a CRM, 72.9% said they wanted to make the right choice long-term rather than test whether a CRM suited them short-term.
• Most want it for relationships, not process. Among 686 respondents, 57.0% wanted a CRM to manage contacts and relationships, 25.5% to manage business processes across their team, and 17.5% for integrations with other software.
• A third are complete beginners. Of 694 respondents, 31.7% had never used a CRM and only 14.4% considered themselves experts.
• This is a Google Workspace market. 60.9% of 680 respondents run their business on Google Workspace, against 18.7% on Microsoft 365.

How committed are you to adopting a CRM? Efficient App asked 683 people shopping for a CRM.

What do you primarily want a CRM for? Efficient App asked 686 people shopping for a CRM.

What does your business run on? Efficient App asked 680 people shopping for a CRM.

How much experience do you have with CRMs? Efficient App asked 694 people shopping for a CRM.

Difference significant at p < 0.0001.

Wanting a CRM to run business processes is nearly three times more common among people with colleagues, jumping from 12.6% to 33.5%. Solo respondents want an address book that connects to things. Teams want a system of record.

Worth noting that CRM is the one category where solo operators are a minority. They make up 65% of the study overall but only 38% of CRM shoppers.

Difference significant at p < 0.0001.

People who have used a CRM before arrive ready to commit. Beginners are far more likely to be testing the idea, with almost four in ten saying they were just trying it out.

Industry made no difference

Efficient App tested whether industry predicted either what people wanted a CRM for or how committed they were. Neither showed a meaningful relationship (p = 0.69 and p = 0.09).

Two different things shape this market, and neither is industry. Team size determines what the CRM is for, shifting from managing relationships to running processes. Experience determines how seriously someone arrives, with beginners far more likely to be experimenting than committing.

What do you want a new email tool to do? Efficient App asked 432 people shopping for an email tool.

What makes up the biggest share of your inbox? Efficient App asked 410 people shopping for an email tool.

What matters most in an email tool? Efficient App asked 429 people shopping for an email tool.

Which email provider do you use? Efficient App asked 406 people shopping for an email tool. 343 chose between the two options offered; 63 wrote in another provider, most commonly Apple Mail, Spark and Zoho.

Working alone changes email more than any other category

All three questions differ significantly at p < 0.0001.

At 90.5%, "make email better for me" is the most lopsided answer anywhere in this study. Among solo respondents, wanting email to work better for a team drew 2.7%, which is seven people.

The inbox composition finding is interesting. Solo respondents said junk was the single biggest category in their inbox four times more often than people with colleagues, 31.0% against 7.7%. That is probably less about receiving more junk and more about receiving less of everything else. When there is no internal team email and fewer customer threads, what remains is noise.

Industry showed no reliable pattern. What people prioritised in a tool had no meaningful relationship with industry at all (p = 0.45), and the other two questions produced marginal results driven by groups as small as 13 people.

Email is bought by individuals for themselves. Team collaboration features, which most business email products lead with, were the lowest priority overall and were chosen by 3.0% of people working alone. Meanwhile the most popular answer of all was "just tell me what to use," which suggests this is a category where buyers are tired rather than demanding.

The productivity industry sells meeting relief. Three quarters of these buyers have fewer than five meetings a week.

• Nobody is drowning in meetings. In Efficient App's survey of 1,126 people shopping for time management software, 75.9% reported fewer than five meetings per week. Only 6.0% had eleven or more.
• What they want is clarity, not scheduling. Among 1,134 respondents, 86.2% said they wanted to always know the most important task to work on next. Just 3.8% wanted an assistant to schedule team meetings.
• Even protecting focus time is a minority concern. 10.0% said colleagues were constantly booking their calendar and they wanted it blocked automatically.
• Google owns the calendar. 55.3% of 1,128 respondents use Google Calendar, against 19.7% on Outlook and 15.1% on Apple.

What do you want most from a time management tool? Efficient App asked 1,134 people shopping for time management software.

How many meetings do you have per week? Efficient App asked 1,126 people shopping for time management software.

Which calendar do you use? Efficient App asked 1,128 people shopping for time management software.

Meeting load rises with team size, but what people want doesn't

Meeting load differs significantly at p < 0.0001. What people want does not (p = 0.13).

This is the interesting part. People with colleagues genuinely do have more meetings, but it doesn't change what they want from software. Even among people with teams, 82.8% want help knowing what to work on, and only 5.6% want help scheduling.

Industry followed the same pattern. Meeting load varied, with tech startups and manufacturing reporting the heaviest calendars, but what people wanted from a tool showed no meaningful relationship with industry at all (p = 0.59).

More meetings do not create demand for meeting software. The number of meetings someone has changes with their team size and their industry. What they want software to do stays fixed at roughly six in seven wanting help with focus. These buyers are not overwhelmed by their calendars. They are unsure what to work on.

44% of small businesses shopping for help desk software handle support primarily through social DMs or messaging apps, not email.

• Email is still the default, but only just. In Efficient App's survey of 70 businesses shopping for help desk software, 55.7% said email was their primary support channel. 25.7% said social media DMs and 18.6% said text messages or WhatsApp.
• Most are handling modest volume. 77.8% of 72 respondents handle fewer than 5,000 support tickets a month.
• Quality and stability matter about equally. Asked what mattered most, 40.8% of 71 respondents chose giving customers the best possible service and 38.0% chose a tool stable enough to handle high ticket volume.
• This is the least solo category in the study. Only 27.2% of help desk respondents worked alone, against 65.5% across the full survey.

What is your primary support channel? Efficient App asked 70 businesses shopping for help desk software.

How many support tickets do you handle per month? Efficient App asked 72 businesses shopping for help desk software.

What matters most in a help desk tool? Efficient App asked 71 businesses shopping for help desk software.

Help desk stood apart from every other category in the study on team size. Just 27.2% of respondents worked alone, compared with 65.5% of the full survey. Teams of 2 to 5 were the largest group at 38.3%, and 11.1% came from companies of 200 people or more, roughly ten times that group's share of the overall study.

Ticket volume was unusually split. Most respondents sit well under 5,000 a month, but a distinct minority of 12.5% handle more than 21,000, with almost nobody in between. Small operations and genuinely high-volume ones appear to be shopping for the same tools.

Efficient App did not break these results down by team size or industry. With 70 to 72 respondents per question, those cuts would produce groups of two to sixteen people, which is too small to report responsibly.

Support has already moved off email for a substantial minority of small businesses. Combined, social DMs and messaging apps are the primary support channel for 44.3% of respondents, close to email's 55.7%. Yet only 21.1% said their priority was a single tool that unifies those channels, which suggests the shift in where customers are talking has run ahead of the tooling businesses think they need.

Small businesses choosing expense software care about accounting integrations more than twice as much as cash back.

• Integration beats rewards. In Efficient App's survey of 66 businesses shopping for expense management software, 65.2% said integrations with accounting software mattered most, against 30.3% who chose the best cash back rate. Respondents could select as many options as applied, so this was not a forced trade-off.
• Visibility matters more than cards. 51.5% wanted a good interface for comparing what they spend, ahead of 33.3% who wanted easy virtual and employee cards.
• These are lean operations. 72.7% of respondents hold between $1,000 and $65,000 in their business bank account.
• A small high-balance minority exists. 15.2%, or 10 respondents, hold at least $1 million.

What matters most in an expense management tool? Efficient App asked 66 businesses shopping for expense management software. Respondents could select as many options as applied, so shares do not total 100%. They chose 1.8 options each on average.

How much do you usually hold in your business bank account? Efficient App asked 66 businesses shopping for expense management software.

Expense management drew a mix. 37.5% of the 72 respondents worked alone, below the 65.5% solo rate across the full study, and 30.6% came from teams of 2 to 5. Service businesses and agencies made up the largest industry groups.

Efficient App did not break these results down by team size or industry. With 66 respondents, those cuts would produce groups of two to eighteen people, which is too small to report responsibly.

The relationship between balance and priorities is worth noting but not leaning on. Integration preference was highest among businesses holding $75,000 or less and lowest among the $1 million group, but that group is 10 people, so the difference is not reliable.

Takeaway: expense management products tend to lead their marketing with rewards, and this is not what small operators say they are shopping for. On a question where they could have picked everything, cash back finished last of four options. What they wanted was for the tool to slot into the accounting system they already run and to show them where the money is going. For a business holding under $65,000, a few points of cash back is worth less than not having to reconcile receipts by hand.

This is the most solo-dominated category in the study, and nobody wanted a more powerful calendar. They wanted a nicer one.

• Three quarters work alone. 75.5% of calendar shoppers were solo operators, against 65.5% across the full study.
• The category splits almost evenly, and team size explains the whole split. 53.7% of 482 respondents wanted a basic calendar with better design, while 46.3% wanted a basic calendar plus a built-in meeting scheduler.
• Solo and team respondents want opposite things. Among people working alone, 59.1% wanted better design. Among those with colleagues, 62.7% wanted the scheduler.
• Google dominates. 58.1% already use Google Calendar. iPhone users made up 59.5% of the category.

What do you want from a calendar tool? Efficient App asked 482 people shopping for a calendar or scheduling tool.

Which calendar do you use today? Efficient App asked 482 people shopping for a calendar or scheduling tool.

Which device do you use? Efficient App asked 482 people shopping for a calendar or scheduling tool.

Working alone changes what a calendar is for:

Difference significant at p = 0.0001.

The even split at the category level is an artefact of averaging two groups that want different things. Someone working alone mostly wants their calendar to be pleasant to look at. Someone with colleagues wants to stop the back-and-forth of finding a time. Industry showed no meaningful relationship (p = 0.12).

Neither group wanted more calendar. Both answer options describe a "basic calendar," and nobody in this category was shopping for a system that would take over their planning. Both groups already have a calendar that works, 58.1% of them Google's, and what they want is a nicer surface on top of it or one specific job done better.