16 free services and applications for the beginner freelancer

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Denis Yanov, freelancer and traveler, talks about useful and free services that will help with paying for services and billing, organizing work, storing data, promoting business on social networks, and much more.

If you are just starting your small business as a freelancer, then the most important consideration for you will be the budget.

There are tons of free services and applications scattered across the Internet that will help you get your business off the ground and work smart.

A whole range of services is designed to simplify every aspect of your professional activity: from automating task management and monitoring finances to communicating with clients and promoting your services.

This article contains the most useful, important and free applications and services that a beginner (and not quite) freelancer will need.

Payment for services and billing

To receive payment for your services, you need to issue an invoice. To issue an invoice, you need to spend time and write down what hours were spent on what and how much money you need to pay for it. It is desirable that such accounts be as informative and transparent as possible. You don’t want the client to have questions or hair to stand on end when he sees what and how much he needs to pay.

To automate and simplify the billing process, many services have been invented, most of which make life much easier, but require financial investments. And since you are a beginner freelancer who needs to start somewhere with a minimal budget, we recommend two free services.

1. Waveapps

Convenient that helps you create and send professionally drawn invoices in a couple of clicks. Allows you to monitor the status of your accounts and incoming money, so you can know when the next payment will come. Tracks not only your profit, but also your expenses in the form of convenient graphical reports.

2. Zoho Invoice

Zoho has established itself as a major player in the productivity marketplace with a vast array of tools for CRM, project management, and collaboration. integrates easily with the rest of Zoho products, but also works great as a standalone product. Has a free plan for one user with a maximum of five customers. Ideal for a beginner freelancer who does not yet have a large client base.

Time, task and project management

If you have many clients, then the number of projects will increase. It will be difficult for you alone to handle them. There are tons of useful tools on the Internet that help you manage a huge number of projects and tasks. But you are still a beginner freelancer and cannot afford expensive solutions.

3. TMetric

A simple time attendance service with a friendly interface. is designed to make the management of your tasks and clients' projects convenient. Despite the fact that the service is quite simple, in it you can manage your tasks and projects, create clients and assign them to one or another project, set budgets for a project, receive detailed reports on the time spent, as well as on the money earned that was brought by one or another other projects. In addition, the service integrates with popular project management systems (RedMine, Jira, Asana, Trello).

4. Freedcamp

As you might have guessed, this service was created as an alternative and free version of the monstrous Basecamp. allows you to create an infinite number of projects, add deadlines and milestones when completing tasks, create project templates and invite clients. The task board allows you to get an overview of all projects or set up email notifications that will notify you when the next important task is due.

5. Asana

More advanced solution than Freedcamp. Moreover, it is completely free for teams of up to 15 people. For beginner freelancers, this one will be a godsend. The free version will provide you with all the functionality. Right after registration, you can manage all your projects and interact with clients using the friendly interface of the service.

Data storage

Freelancers are inherently mobile. They can work not only from their home PC or laptop. Therefore, it is important to know about services that allow you to store data in your cloud.

6. Dropbox

- the best service for storing and transferring documents. It allows you to store about two gigabytes of files in the cloud for free. But you can get another 16 gigabytes of free space if you invite your friends to register on the service. Dropbox keeps all your devices in sync, allowing you to access files from both your laptop and smartphone. You no longer have to send yourself emails with files.

7. Evernote

A flexible platform that allows you to make it as simple and functional as you like. is the most convenient service when it comes to remembering everything important that might be useful to you in the future. Leave notes on your desktop or in mobile applications, redirect your emails or use a special Web Clipper that will help you save web pages, screenshots and everything else that you think is important while surfing the Internet.

Editing documents and pictures

If you are an aspiring copywriter or web designer, then it is very important for you to have an accessible tool for editing text or images.

8. OpenOffice

The description of this can be contained in four words - a free analogue of Microsoft Office. And this is true, because the generous creators did not particularly bother with the uniqueness of the functionality and the distinctive features of their offspring. They took the core functionality of Microsoft Office and wrapped it in a free wrapper.

9. Google Docs

Google also has its own version of free office tools. In terms of functionality, you will not find any breakthroughs or innovations, because it differs from the same OpenOffice only in that the first is in the cloud. It is perfect for people who love the versatility and availability of cloud services. Google Docs will be very useful if you work in a small team that is separated by huge distances, because several people can edit the same documents at the same time, regardless of their location.

10. Photoshop Express

Most likely, not all freelancers have access to professional graphics processing tools, which have a lot of advantages, but there is also one disadvantage - the price. All serious graphics editors cost a lot of money. This fact becomes devastating for the aspiring web designer. But Adobe, which is famous for its reference graphics editors, decided to release a free and light version of Photoshop. has only basic functionality and is unlikely to allow you to create masterpieces, but for simple graphic projects this tool is a real find.

CRM

You found yourself a client, then another and another. So you have a decent customer base with whom you correspond at the same time. To always be aware of at what stage of communication you stopped and what promising points can be discussed with past clients, you need to have a special tool called CRM.

11. Insightly

Most CRMs are either cumbersome or too expensive for individual use. The service is devoid of these shortcomings. First, it is very flexible and integrates with other tools like Evernote and Google. Secondly, with the free version, you can have over 2,500 contacts. This will be enough for you for a long time.

12. CapsuleCRM

is a very pretty CRM that provides a complete overview of all your contacts. It also allows you to effectively build your customer communication process by creating tasks, notifications and reports. A fairly convenient system that allows you to adapt the work of any business. Provides a free plan for 250 contacts.

13. Streak

A very useful tool if you can't live without Gmail. integrates directly into your Gmail account, so you can keep track of your conversations with multiple clients without having to switch platforms. At the moment, the service is completely free for individual use.

Promotion of your business on social networks

Finding clients and working on your image is also quite expensive. Therefore, it is very important to use social networks not only for entertainment, but also to declare yourself as a professional, without which no project can do.

14. Hootsuite

is a huge board that collects activity data on all your social networks. Plan the placement of important posts, follow trends and hot topics in a user-friendly interface. Tag potential customers and start communicating with them. The free version will allow you to connect five social media accounts.

15. Buffer

This service can be called a light version of Hootsuite. In terms of functionality, it is slightly similar to the latter and also has an auto-posting scheduler. integrates into your browser and downloads messages along with popular content from many social networks. With the help of this service, you can select everything that is currently in trend, prepare your posts on popular topics and plan their placement. A free option allows you to connect one of your profiles for each social network.

16. Tweetdeck

It is a powerful tool that allows you to monitor your Twitter activity across multiple accounts. It also gives you the ability to view the tweets of all the people you follow in easy-to-read lists, filter posts, schedule posts, and track the popularity of all your profiles. Twitter recently bought out Tweetdeck, and now you can use it as a powerful analytics tool for free.