The Best Free Tools for Your Small Business

TrustScore4.7 | 16,300 reviews

Overall Rating4.8 | 78,487 reviews

Join 1,000,000+ Entrepreneurs like you

Entrepreneurship is booming – and we're happy to be one of America's fastest growing companies.

A gardener holding a basket with vegetables

In fact, according to a U.S. Bank study, nearly 82 percent of companies fail because of cash flow problems. Whether you’re bootstrapping or just being careful with your budget, you want to keep costs down. At the same time, you need the right technology and tools to create and manage your new venture.

Fortunately, you can combine the two

Here’s our guide to the best free business tools and resources to get your small business up and running, keep everything going to plan and grow successfully. All of the software and apps we list below have a “free” version with limited features. You can typically update to paid and premium versions that remove limitations and increase functionality.

the small business areas

that we cover include

Customer and market research

Business naming and searching

Business startup guides

Business formation

Accounting and tax services

SEO and marketing software

HR and recruitment software

Communications and advice

Project and productivity software

Customer management and service software

Free Customer and Market Research Tools

Use small business market research tools to:

Explore and validate your business ideas.
Understand possible demand for products and services.
Get insight into your customers and what they need.
Expand into new marketplaces.

The best free market research tools include:

Google Trends to identify what people are searching for and understand what matters to them.
Answer the Public to see what questions people are asking about specific keywords.
Quora to see how questions are being asked and answered.
Facebook Audience Insights to understand the demographics and interests of Facebook users.
Statista to get statistical information and data points across a wide variety of sources.
SurveyMonkey to create surveys and questionnaires to get insights from potential customers.
Free Patents Online to understand what inventions have previously been registered.
Pew Research Center for deep insights and research into demographics, perspectives and dozens of other areas.

Use business naming and searching tools to:

Create unique and interesting names for your new business.
Check that your business name isn’t already in use.

The best free business naming and searching tools include:

Incfile’s Business Name Search so you can find out if your proposed business name is available.
Incfile’s Business Name Generator to create lists of business names that reflect your ideas and brand.
NameMesh to create business names that also work as web domains.

Use business startup guides to:

Understand what you need to do to start a new business.
Get insight into businesses in specific states and industries.
Stay compliant with any ongoing filing requirements.
Work out the best legal structure for your business.

The best free startup business guides and resources include:

Business startup guides to make it easy to understand various business types and industries.
State-by-state guides that tell you everything you need to know about starting an LLC or corporation in your state.
Start your business checklist so you can track exactly what you need to do.
Compliance research tool so you know your filing deadlines and submit your business report on time.
Complete guide to starting a business to walk you through each step of the process, from the legalities to funding and marketing.
Downloadable business resources for every aspect of creating and managing your business.

Use business formation services to:

Legally create your LLC or corporation.
Get a formal Registered Agent in place.

The best free formation services and assistance include:

Business Entity Quiz to understand the best legal framework for your business.
Bizee’s free LLC formation to create your limited liability company and file everything with the right agencies.
Bizee’s free corporation formation to create your S Corporation or C Corporation and understand filing and administrative requirements.
Free Registered Agent service so that you’re always able to receive official requests and documents.

Use accounting and tax tools to:

Track and manage money in your business.
Send out invoices and receive payments.
Understand your revenue, expenses and profits.
File and pay the correct amount of tax to federal and state governments.

The best free accounting and tax services include:

Wave accounting software to manage all the financial aspects of your business.
ZipBooks accounting software for minimal business and accounting requirements.
Akaunting accounting software for invoicing, expense tracking and bookkeeping.
Incfile’s free tax consultation to understand how an accountant can help you and your business with your taxes.
An S Corporation tax calculator to see how much money you could save by being treated as an S Corp for tax purposes.

Use small business marketing software to:

Communicate with customers on social media and other platforms.
Create promotions for products and services.
Plan out your marketing strategy.
Track how your marketing is performing.
Enhance your website and search engine optimization.

The best free marketing software (non-SEO) includes:

FindThatLead to discover and manage leads for your marketing campaigns.
Buffer to schedule posts to social media platforms and track responses and engagement.
Hootsuite to promote, analyze, manage and measure content on social media platforms.
Canva to create beautiful visual designs for your promotions, advertising and other content.
Grammarly to ensure your advertising, marketing and other text is free from errors.
Mailchimp for creating, distributing and tracking email promotions and newsletters.

The best free SEO marketing software includes:

Google Ads keyword planner tool to see the keywords that potential customers are searching for.
Keyword Explorer and Link Explorer to develop keywords and understand your SEO.
Ubersuggest to understand your website domain, keywords and SEO.
WordPress to build a website that’s customizable in thousands of different ways.
Yoast SEO for optimizing your WordPress website content to appear higher in search results.
Google Analytics to track how people are finding and using your business website.
Google Search Console to understand how your business keywords are appearing in Google search results.

Use project and productivity software to:

Plan out major projects to enhance business operations, develop products and services and more.
Capture important notes, ideas and information that you can refer to and act on.
Manage an ever-expanding to-do list, so you always know what’s next.
Create and share documents, spreadsheets, slides and other important assets.

The best free small business productivity software includes:

Asana or ClickUp to create, manage and track projects, including collaboration with other team members.
Evernote or Google Keep to capture and track important ideas and notes.
Trello, Todoist or TickTick to capture, prioritize and manage all your small business tasks.
Google Drive (storage), Google Docs (documents), Google Sheets (spreadsheets) and Google Slides (presentations) to create, manage, store and share information.
Google Calendar for arranging and tracking meetings.
Secured Signing for document signatures.
Toggl for tracking where you’re spending your time and billing to clients.

Use customer management software to:

Capture details about customers and their needs.
Build relationships and trust with users of your products and services.
Manage potential leads and turn them into paying consumers.
Solve problems and meet customer service needs.

The best free customer management software includes:

HubSpot CRM to track and manage customer relationships and integrate with paid HubSpot marketing tools, if needed.
Capsule CRM to nurture customer relationships and win more sales.
Really Simple Systems CRM to track and manage leads and customers.
Freshdesk to communicate, manage and resolve service issues with customers.

Use HR software to:

Post and track job positions.
Source and communicate with candidates.
Manage applicant responses and arrange interviews.
Onboard new employees and get them up and running.

The best free HR software includes:

Freshteam to manage hiring, onboarding, time-off, employee data and HR workflows.
Zoho Recruit to provide diverse end-to-end hiring solutions for small businesses.
Breezy for complete recruiting software that helps you attract and hire great employees with less effort.

Use communications and advice tools to:

Stay in touch with colleagues, even across multiple time zones.
Interact with others over video or audio.
Ask questions and get advice from peers and experts.
Collaborate on joint initiatives.

The best free communications and advice tools include:

Slack for communicating with your colleagues and others.
Zoom for free video conferencing.
Skype for free audio and video calls.
Reddit for asking for advice in relevant forums.
LinkedIn for connecting with other professionals.

We hope you’ve found this list of free business tools useful and that it gives you a great foundation for bringing your next idea to life. Now, go do!