15 of the Best Freelance Resources for Beginners
To ensure success as a freelancer, you need access to the best freelance resources to boost your career. Freelancing can be challenging, especially when you are just getting started. From setting your own hours to navigating taxes and health insurance, finding freelance work is sometimes the last thing on your mind.
That’s where this list of resources comes in handy. These resources were specifically chosen as essential needs in support of most freelancers.
Here are 15 robust applications, many with free options, to allow you to focus on being productive on the reg in all things freelancing. There’s no career advice here, but we’ve got you covered.
Let’s get started.
Infinity
Infinity is a powerful work management tool with a one-of-a-kind structure.
You can organize work by projects or clients and manage deliverables using workspaces, boards, folders, subfolders, tabs, and other items.
With Infinity, you can view your tasks in six different ways (or views, depending on your preference), including a calendar, list, table, Gantt chart, and more.
In this manner, you can organize your work, move it through various stages of completion, meet deadlines, and impress your clients so they keep hiring you. With the help of attributes like text, date, label, rating, progress, and many more, you can better define your tasks and manage and track their completion using Infinity.
Additionally, you can automate a few of your manual tasks, make IFTTT rules, set reminders, and ensure that everything is accurate.
Infinity has both basic and professional plans. Pro plans begin at $6 per user per month, while basic plans are available for as little as $3.75 per user per month with a three-user minimum.
Although there is no free version of Infinity, a 14-day money-back guarantee is a trial period.
Fiverr Workspace
Fiverr Workspace (formerly AND.co) is a cloud-based contract management suite designed to assist small businesses in creating contracts and proposals, processing online payments, and tracking business expenses.
The application collaborates with the Freelancers Union to enable stakeholders to create standard service agreements in accordance with the Freelance Isn’t Free Act regulations. Freelancers can quickly share service contracts with clients on a centralized dashboard and capture electronic signatures.
It enables administrators to change content by adding or removing clauses based on business needs and attaching additional client notes. Additionally, Fiverr Workspace enables employees to automatically generate invoices based on contract terms and send them to supervisors for approval.
Fiverr Workspace supports integration with various third-party platforms, including Slack, Shopify, Visor, Google Calendar, Stripe, WePay, and others.
Users can access the platform for free or through monthly or annual subscriptions. The unlimited monthly plan on the platform is $24/ month and $216 annually (billed $18/month).
WordPress (.com)
WordPress is a must-have tool for freelancers looking to stand out in a crowded market. This website builder requires no coding and has no restrictions, allowing you to showcase your work and gain more clients easily.
With WordPress, you can choose from dozens of themes to quickly create a mobile-friendly website, portfolio, shop, or blog. Using the drag-and-drop feature, you can easily upload or embed audio, images, or video to present yourself in the best light.
As one of the best freelancer tools, WordPress enables you to market your services, find fans, and grow your freelance career. To help you get noticed, it integrates with Google Analytics, Mailchimp, and several SEO tools.
You can accept payments (global, one-time, and recurring), set up subscriptions, collect leads, and do other things if you sell something. WordPress has many simple-to-install plugins that can help your freelance business soar.
WordPress offers a free version with limited functionality, a premium plan ($8/month) designed for freelancers, and two additional plans ($25 and $45/month) for small businesses and online stores.
Buffer
Buffer is a freelance tool that can assist you in being where your potential clients are.
Create a brand with Buffer, and clients will come to you. Buffer assists you in planning and creating content for each social network on which you are active, as well as measuring how each post performs in a few clicks.
You can not only measure social media performance to see what works and what doesn’t, but you can also create reports and get recommendations on how to broaden your reach and increase engagement, which could put you in front of the right people.
Finally, Buffer ensures that you stay on top of all important interactions by displaying and emphasizing essential and unanswered comments and allowing you to prioritize important conversations with potential clients in your inbox.
This is an excellent tool for freelancers and anyone looking to build an engaged social media following.
Buffer is free or with a paid subscription ($6/month/social channel).
Grammarly
Grammarly is a grammar-checking tool that can be used in your browser, as a desktop app, or on mobile apps and Gmail. The premium version of Grammarly offers advanced writing tools and plagiarism scanning.
Grammarly’s free version gives you access to its most basic services, which include spelling, sentence structure, and grammatical checks. It can also be used on the web or in other writing programs such as Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer (but not Microsoft Word). Grammarly Premium costs $29 per month (or $59 for two months), though it’s currently discounted to $19/per month when you sign up for an annual plan ($49 for two years).
Wave
Wave is the best bookkeeping and accounting software for small businesses and freelancers. Why are we so confident in saying this? We use it, and it’s free. We’ve used Quickbooks and Freshbooks, which are decent options, but not FREE.
With Wave, you can invoice, get paid, track your expenses, connect your banks, and much more without paying a dime. That’s powerful when you are a freelancer and want to pocket s much profit as possible.
The other nice thing about Wave is that if you need bookkeeping help or want to work with an accountant, you can sign up through the platform, and help is on the way. You do have to pay for the additional services, but it is likely worth your time if you don’t want to do it yourself.
TimeCamp
TimeCamp is a must-have app for any freelancer’s toolkit. This time-tracking software with light project management features is designed to help restore clarity, track where most of your time goes, manage all of your work in one place and increase productivity.
The automatic time-tracking feature of this tool is a lifesaver. Scan the domain names of all the websites and applications you employ, organize them into categories, and activate them with a single click. When you leave your computer, the time tracker will automatically turn off.
If you frequently work in multiple tabs, adding and summarizing entries is straightforward and can help you determine how long a task or project will take.
As a freelancer, you’re probably juggling multiple clients, and tracking time spent on each can be difficult. With the help of this freelancer software, you can make a list of keywords, tag each client or project, quickly navigate to them when necessary, and monitor productivity for each.
TimeCamp offers free and three paid plans (suitable for freelancers).
FollowUp
This freelancer tool keeps your conversations going and allows you to set reminders in case one of your clients goes missing for any reason. Choose the best time for the reminder to go off and focus on other tasks.
You can also schedule follow-ups that will be automatically canceled if your client responds before the time you specified. To send follow-up emails at the appropriate time, FollowUp notifies you when your emails are opened.
Finally, this freelancer tool allows you to set reminders for social media profiles, online conversations, and websites, so you don’t have to remember everything.
FollowUp offers three paid plans starting at $18 per month.
Streak
Streak is one of the best freelancer tools because it integrates an entire CRM system into your Gmail account. With Streak, it is simple to keep track of customer interactions and save time that would have otherwise been spent on client interactions rather than working.
This tool is as easy to use as a spreadsheet and highly customizable, allowing you to track tasks, contacts, and pipelines directly from your inbox. In a nutshell, it automates your pipeline.
You can quickly collect data from emails and contacts and be notified of any recent changes. Streak displays contact information (name, company, employee count, any previously created notes about the contact, and more) alongside each email, so you always know with whom you are communicating.
Streak makes searching, filtering, and sorting data simple and allows you to create custom views based on the results. Streak keeps track of who has opened your emails, allows you to create personalized mass emails, schedule them, and create a library of frequently sent emails, among other features. Finally, this software for freelancers displays your upcoming tasks (follow-ups, phone calls, etc.) so you always know what to do next.
The Streak has four plans, one free and three paid. Their free and solo ($15/month) plans are ideal for freelancers.
Wetransfer
Wetransfer is a cloud-based file transfer service that lets you send files of up to 10 GB for free.
You can send files via email, drag and drop them into your browser window, or upload them from your computer. Once you’ve uploaded the file, you’ll get an email with a link where the recipient can download it.
It’s helpful if you want to share large files with someone who doesn’t have an FTP client installed on their computer (such as Dropbox).
WeTransfer offers a free and a pro version for $12/month or $120/year per user.
HolaBrief
HolaBrief is a freelancer tool that will assist you in gaining clarity, setting expectations, minimizing feedback loops, and establishing a solid foundation for long-term client relationships.
It includes over ten interactive exercises to assist you and your clients in understanding the problem, getting on the same page, and finding a solution much faster. Instead of writing briefs from scratch, you can use pre-made briefing templates and customize all of the elements to your specifications (or what your clients need).
This tool for freelance creatives will undoubtedly help you collaborate with clients efficiently from the start and meet, if not exceed their expectations.
HolaBrief is free, or you can upgrade to a paid version ($18/month).
Surfshark
If you’re a freelance writer, you know how important it is to protect your privacy. Surfshark is a VPN service that allows you to mask your IP address and browse anonymously so that no one can track where you live or work.
As a freelancer, you also need to be able to do research. When this research means navigating international websites to get pricing, discounts, screenshots, etc., in the native language you are writing for, you might need a VPN to change your location so you are not geo-fenced.
This all-in-one solution also makes it easy to set up multiple connections across multiple devices. It has an intuitive user interface with an easy setup process that will have you online in minutes without needing technical knowledge!
And if that weren’t enough, there’s even a 7-day free trial, so new users can try it out without committing immediately. Surfshark’s pricing begins at $2.49 per month with a 24-month commitment.
Skype
Skype is one of the best tools for freelancers to connect with clients, and it’s free! You can use Skype on your computer, tablet, or phone. It’s even possible to make video calls through Skype.
The best part about Skype is that it has been around for a long time and millions of people use it daily for business purposes, making it easy to find clients who also use it.
The only thing that you need to have a successful freelancing career is an internet connection and a good attitude toward life – everything else will follow once you start working hard.
Hunter
You can view emails from people who work for the same company using Hunter. Its database contains over 100 million addresses, allowing you to search and filter contacts behind any website in seconds.
You can find people based on their role in the company using Hunter’s domain search. For each contact, the tool will display confidence scores and detailed resources.
Hunter can also contact bloggers, journalists, and other online authors. You must copy an article URL and paste it into Hunter; the tool will show you the author and additional contact information.
This freelancer tool allows you to validate your professional email address, making it easier for clients to find you and demonstrating that you take your work seriously.
Hunter offers a free plan and four paid plans starting at $49/month.
Picktime
Picktime is one of those freelancer tools that you’ll look forward to using. It has a very engaging, user-friendly interface and a slew of features besides scheduling.
Picktime is available for bookings 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Once you’ve created your booking page and rules, all you have to do is send it to a client and let them choose the most convenient time. Picktime will alert you and your client of upcoming reservations to ensure no one misses them.
This tool integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and several other platforms, allowing you to connect with (potential) clients worldwide. You can also sync it with Google, iCloud, or Office365 Calendars to avoid scheduling conflicts.
Picktime is completely free to use. You can also add features with a paid plan starting at $9.99/month. Simply sign up with your email, Facebook, or Google account.
Final Thoughts on Freelance Resources
There really is nothing like getting something for free. If you are part of the freelancing community, we hope you take advantage of some of these to help you build your freelance career.
Whether you are looking to find prospective clients or need better tools for keeping track of finances, the tools mentioned in this post should help make your life easier and, hopefully, more profitable.