Starting a business can break the bank, especially if you’re bootstrapping the costs yourself.
You may have to dig into your savings account or unroll that wad of emergency cash you have stored underneath your bed to help pay for start-up costs. Whether you’re spending massive amounts to hire a lawyer, on marketing costs, or on the production of a product you want to sell, finding free tools along the way will make you feel like you hit the jackpot…
Check out these 15 free business tools that you can start using immediately, with no strings attached.
1. Google Analytics
If you’re looking for a tool that will help you track the demographics and behavior of those visiting your website, Google Analytics is a user-friendly and free tool that will do the job. You can set it up in under 30 seconds and spend as much time as your desire learning about your website’s visitors, what they are clicking on, and even what the last thing they viewed was before they decided to leave.
2. Yoast SEO
SEO can seem complicated to understand and set up. Usually, SEO experts will charge you a pretty penny to help you out. But if you’re looking to up your SEO game quickly and without spending any money, YOAST SEO is the plug-in for you. It’s compatible with WordPress and will help you increase your search engine traffic.
3. Invoice Generator
When it comes to collecting payments and sending bills, you can invest in a website, or you can use the free tool Invoice Generator. It sets up a template even saves your past invoices so you can reuse them month after month.
4. Infographic Maker
When information seems complicated to understand or you want to break down a key finding or study to make it digestible for your site viewers, you may want to employ an infographic. While a designer may charge you a fee to create this, Infographic Maker allows you do it free of charge.
When you need to share files or documents that are too large to attach or too hasslesome to send in one email, Dropbox will come to your rescue; it is a service that lets you upload and share files with others for free.
6. Tiny Letter
Any marketing expert will tell you that sending out communication to customers or people interested in your business is a good idea. If you need a free service to help you do this, try Tiny Letter, where you can find easy-to-use email templates.
7. Boomerang for Gmail
Writing and sending emails at 3 am may not be the professional business look you’re going for. But if you have the urge to get work done while everyone else is asleep, try Boomerang, a plugin for Gmail that lets you write and schedule your emails.
8. Rapportive
If you want to network from your couch, Rapportive is a great tool that connects with your email to help you see the details of your contacts inside your inbox. You can find out what they’ve been up to recently and more details on them that may help with targeting an email to them.
9. Enloop for business plans
Looking to put together a business plan? Enloop is a business-plan-writing app that helps you get that done step-by-step, all without charge.
10. Angel List
If you’re looking to hire employees and don’t want to pay a recruiter to help or pay to post the job on LinkedIn, you can head over to AngelList to post a job and find potential employees.
11. Canva
For those of you who don’t have access to Photoshop or have Photoshop but no clue how to use it, try Canva, a free photo correction and editing tool. It allows you to size photos or marketing collateral to use it on Facebook, Instagram, and other key platforms. They also have an extensive collection of professional-quality invoice templates.
12. Slack
If you’re having problems finding a convenient and easy way to communicate with your employees, Slackis a great internal communication tool that makes it easy to chat, no matter where you are or what device you are using.
13. Docracy
If you are looking for contract examples, a place to share a contract, negotiate and have the other party sign online, Docracy is the tool that allows you to accomplish all of the above.
14. Google Drive
If you are working with other employers or customers and want to share documents with them, the easiest way would be via Google Drive. You can use free applications that are compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
15. YouCanBook.Me
Setting up appointments or coffee chats for networking can seem like a headache. But paying an assistant or even virtual assistant to help you out can be too expensive. YouCanBook.Me is a free online tool that links with your calendar and makes scheduling appointments a breeze.
