15 top tools to help you grow as a creative freelancer in 2021
Here’s a tough truth about freelancing: no one tells you how much of your time you’ll be spending on actually running your business. Lucky for you, there’s no shortage of tools for freelancers to help you be more successful.
The list of best tools for freelancers
We’ve broken down the list of top tools by categories that might impact you as a freelancer. We only included the only best options for a creative freelancer, so you don’t have to spend time looking through all of the choices.
BEST PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR FREELANCERS
What every freelancer quickly learns is just how taxing and time-consuming it can be to manage so many projects at once.
NOTION (Free Personal Plan!)
Perfect for collaboration, team management, and task management. Notion is the absolute favourite and used by many creators, including the entire Wishu team. It’s very easy to use and beautifully designed.
ASANA (Basic Plan is free!)
A web and mobile application designed to help teams organize, track, and manage their work.
BEST SALES, OUTREACH, AND BUSINESS DEV TOLLS
These are tools for freelancers who are ready to scale their outreach and finally kill the feast/famine cycle.
RELY (Free for email search + Free 14 days trial)
Reply is one of the most amazing tools freelancers can use to scale their outreach via email.
PIPEDRIVE (Free trial)
Another tool we use to manage sales here at Wishu is Pipedrive. Pipedrive uses a simple “board” style setup to help you manage your client conversion flow.
HUNTER.IO (Free)
Helps you find specific email addresses when you want to pitch a prospect and would prefer to go straight to the decision-maker.
BEST WAYS TO LEARN NEW SKILLS & IMPROVE AS A FREELANCER
UDEMY
Udemy provides an extensive library of over 65,000 classes to choose from and grow your knowledge. From design and business, to health and lifestyle, there’s something for everyone.
SKILLSHARE
Skillshare has become a well-known leader in online education. Just like Udemy, Skillshare also offers a number of free courses, although their pricing is structured on a monthly.
CREATIVELIVE
CreativeLive is the go-to site for premium online courses. Heavily catered around photography and design.
BEST MARKETING & PROMOTION TOOLS FOR FREELANCERS
CONVERTKIT (Free version)
Convertkit is an email marketing company the prides itself on caring for its people. Built for creators by creators.
BUFFER (Free)
Social media scheduling. Buffer helps with scheduling individual posts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, and Google Plus.
PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS FOR FREELANCERS
It’s one thing to run your freelance business. It’s a whole different issue to run your freelance business well.
MURAL (Free trial)
Mural is a visual collaboration tool designed specifically for creative freelancers.
FOCUSBOOSTER (Free option)
FocusBooster helps freelancers do things in a timely manner. Using the popular Pomodoro technique, the app will ensure you maintain focus and manage your distractions so you can get more done.
FEEDLY (Free trial)
Feedly let’s you keep all your online finds in one place. If you ever see something online and wonder if you should take the time to read it now or bookmark it for later, then Feedly is the perfect app for that.
RIGHT INBOX (Chrome Plugin) – (Free option)
Right Inbox saves you time on repetitive tasks and helps you to send better emails.
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Wishu Media
- Publishing