Unicellular microalgae are a varied group of organisms with excellent potential in applied and exploratory synthetic biology. With their photosynthetic and mixotrophic abilities, these organisms have the promise of becoming platforms for carbon-neutral production of both high-value and inexpensive metabolites. Starting with the goal of making microalgae an easier to engineer chassis, we set out to create a specialized toolkit of standardized biological parts. We strove to characterize a complete range of microalgal parts, including promoters, terminators, fluorescent proteins, localization tags, antibiotic markers, and CRISPR/Cas. The diverse group of species we used included four distinct Chlorella spp. and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. These species display a broad range of growth conditions and metabolic profiles. With the creation of standardized tools for the stable engineering of microalgae, the community will be able to continue asking deeper questions about basic biology and, drastically increase the promise of microalgae as industrial hosts.