I don’t know about you, but I see a lot of people struggling with getting everything done that they need to do with their business. And one thing that they often don’t have enough of is tools. I know it can be hard to justify buying tools if you’re just starting out, so here is a list of free tools for small businesses.
Free tools for small businesses is a collection of business-related programs that you can get for free. In these pages, you’ll find a large collection of tools that you can download free of charge from the Internet and use on your computer.
Website Builder from Wix
If your small business needs a website (and the answer to that for most businesses is a resounding “yes, it does”) and your website building needs are basic, then try using a free website builder such as Wix, which offers a free account. Wix can help you create a full-featured, mobile-friendly website that won’t break your budget. After using the free plan for a while, if you realize that your business would really benefit from all the features a web hosting provider can provide you, then you can opt for a paid web hosting service such as HostGator Web Hosting.
Endpoint Protection from Avast
What’s the point of growing a business if it can be shut down by viruses or hackers? Avast’s endpoint protection comes in a free and a premium ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) version, both of which protect your network well.
If you opt for the free version, keep in mind that you won’t have access to proactive controls, a firewall, or data shredding. However, you’ll still get access to solid malware blocking, security scanning, and rescue disk functionality—all of which will come in handy at some point.
Video Conferencing from join.me
If you’re looking to connect with clients, prospects, and remote workers, you’ll need a reliable video conferencing solution to help you get the job done. Join.me ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) offers a free plan that lets you invite up to 10 video participants, share screens, and supports up to five video feeds.
Join.me isn’t the most robust offering on the market, but it’s definitely a strong competitor among the free solutions. If you don’t have money to spend, and you need the cream of the free crop, try join.me.
Human Resources Management from Deputy
Once you’ve found the right candidate, you’ll need to track his or her progress via a human resources (HR) management tool. Deputy ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) offers a starter plan that costs just $1 per employee per month. Yes, I know, this isn’t free. But at only $1 per month, it’s an incredibly solid investment.
Deputy will allow you to schedule employee shifts, make company announcements, and manage tasks, all within one easy-to-use tool. Unfortunately, at this price tier, you won’t be able to add timesheets or payroll integration. For that, you’ll have to spend an extra $2 per employee per month.
Business Planning from EquityNet
If your company is still looking to lure investors, EquityNet ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) offers a free crowdfunding platform that will help you plan, analyze, and share your business plan with investors. You’ll create your plan using EquityNet’s plan and analysis software, and you’ll publish it onto the website and share it with anyone who is willing to read your pitch.
Although this is more of a funding tool than a planning tool, the software is good enough to get you through the initial ideation stages (and, who knows, you might even get lucky and find a deep-pocketed investor).
Google Analytics
Actionable analytics are the core of traffic-driven businesses such as information portals and blogs etc. Google Analytics is one of the best small business tools that offer you intense and qualified data. Reports, trends (daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, etc.), performance stats, and live stats – you can tap into the most crucial business analytics with a free account.
Perfect for:
Small, medium, and enterprise setups with scalable needs; bloggers, analysts, and data experts.
Unique Features:
- It lets you track your goals, visualize the flow of your visitors, and generate audience reports.
- It helps in campaign measurement and creating custom reports.
Canva
Canva is an excellent source of professional-grade graphics and comes with hoards of pre-formatted templates to create flyers, social media or promotional banners, blog graphics, and practically anything to everything.
It effectively compensates for the lack of professional designers and expertise in creating eye-catching visuals for all your needs.
Perfect for:
Businesses of all kinds and all scales that require graphics.
Unique Features:
- Hoards of stock images, illustrations, font libraries, and custom templates
- Drag & drop editor, photo editor, and branded templates
- Customizable branding and design resizing
JungleScout
JungleScout is an all-in-one online platform for learning about selling on Amazon. Offering an expert step-by-step and intensive guide for beginners, experts, and seasoned online sellers, JungleScout can help you multiply your earnings and increase your audience on Amazon.
It can also help brands and agencies to transform their online selling experience via various products such as databases, product trackers, launchers, and analytics.
Perfect for:
New Amazon sellers, existing Amazon sellers, and brands & agencies selling on Amazon.
Unique Features:
- It offers loads of quality educational material such as ebooks, guides, webinars, case studies, and success stories.
- It also offers estimator tools and affiliate marketing.
Mailerlite – Best Free Software For Email Marketing
MailerLite is an email marketing directed towards small businesses, giving them a robust and powerful platform that is easy to use and easily complements existing content marketing platforms and strategies. This simple and straightforward application comes with all features professional email marketers look for in an email marketing software.
Some of Mailerlite’s key features include:
- Drag-and-drop Editor
- Custom HTML Editor
- Rich Text Editor
- Free Newsletter Design Templates
- Built-in Photo Editing Feature
- File Manager
- Subscriber Management
- Popups
- Landing Pages
Google Docs – Best Free Office Suite
Google Docs is an online word processing program by Google.
Google Docs brings your documents to life with smart editing and styling tools to help you easily format text and paragraphs. You can choose from hundreds of fonts, add links, images, and drawings.
Google Docs also enables collaboration between colleagues. As the document is saved in the cloud, the creator can share the link to the file for editing to other people.
With Google Docs, users also do not have to worry about hitting the save button every time they make changes. The application automatically saves the document at regular intervals so even when the internet connection is lost, users can still find their additions and modifications.
Some key features of Google Docs:
- Editing
- Comments
- Styling
- Fonts
- Linking
- Images
- Drawings
- Templates
- Built-In Google Search
- Add-Ons
Buffer – Top Free Social Media Manager
Buffer is an internet-based app intended for managing social media content. Its primary function is for sharing content across today’s well-known social media sites. It offers the ability to spread content via a simple approach. The app has the ability to connect to all social media accounts while making it easier to create and schedule posts.
Instead of traditionally logging in on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and other social media sites, Buffer will do it all at once. It also makes it convenient for users to create posts and have them uploaded with a single click. The app contains a browser extension for seamless integration with WordPress, Chrome, RSS readers, and other important tools for sniffing out content.
Some key features of Buffer:
- Multiple posts and tweets
- Social profile sharing
- Profile management
- Multi-media format sharing
- Agency/business planning
- Analytics and insights
- Stats comparison
- iOS and Android support
- Team collaboration (via administrator rights)
- 2-step account login
- Customized scheduling
- Standard buffering
Hubspot – Best Free CRM Software
HubSpot CRM is built to be a platform that allows sales teams to get started quickly without making much of a change in their existing workflow. It is a solution ideal for companies that are still starting to recognize the value of CRM and want to try it out or for enterprises that are not using their existing CRM systems to their fullest potential.
HubSpot CRM is a smart and easy option that carries all the necessary basic features but without the often confusing complexity, many other CRM platforms have.
HubSpot will help you easily create beautiful contact and company profiles, as it can neatly organize every single detail from your customers’ communication with you. It effectively assigns and tracks your deals, controls the performance of your agents, and offers a single, detailed dashboard where all team members can keep track of the company’s activities.
Some of the key features of Hubspot CRM:
- Customize views
- Deal and Task Board
- Drag and Drop Communicator
- Email Integration
- Phone Integration
- Website Integration
- Enrichment
- Social Media
- Company Database
- Website Visitors
- Email Connections
Conclusion
Small businesses and startups can never have enough tools and resources. These days, it is so difficult to stay ahead of the game because there are so many types of expenses to account for. Without taking advantage of all the free tools available, it can be easy for a small business to lose ground. And let’s face it, once you start growing your company into a well-oiled machine, tracking business data and projections is essential to maintaining momentum.