135 Places to Get Business Freebies for Your Startup
If you’ve launched a startup business or are ramping up to start your own, then you’re well aware of the expenses involved. From securing funding to hiring the right talent, the initial costs are numerous and expensive. That’s why entrepreneurs love finding products and tools they can utilize for free.
Fortunately, there are tons of free tools and resources online that cater to innovative startup companies and founders like you. Website builders, site analytics tools, branding generators and design software are just a few of the resources at your disposal.
To learn more about the different ways you can save on startup costs, check out the specific types of tools and software we’ve included in our guide, or jump to our infographic below.
Table of Contents:
- Freebies to Help You Start Your Business
- Freebies to Help You Launch Your Business
- Freebies to Help You Run Your Business
Freebies to Help You Start Your Business
Free Business and Project Name Generators
It can be a challenge to find the perfect business name, but once you do find the right one, you also need to make sure it’s available as a domain. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools that can help you do both.
- Bust a Name: Check Bust a Name’s combinations with its character counter, keyword, TLD extension and other filters to find the perfect website name.
- Domainr: Search for domains to see what’s available, taken and what’s for sale.
- Hipster Business Name: Click the brand name or logo to swap them for inspiring name ideas and combinations.
- Lean Domain Search: Type in a keyword and generate available .com domain names for your brand.
- The Name App: Run your business name through their filter to see if it’s available on social media channels and as a domain.
- Name Boy: Get expert advice on naming your website and find available keyword-based domains.
- Naminum: Type in a word to generate hundreds of related and available business names.
- Name Mesh: Check domain availability and create unique domains by combining “.com,” “.io” and other TLD variations, like del.icio.us.
- Name Stall: Search by industry category, parts of speech, popular keywords and other parameters to find a smart name for your site.
- Short Domain Search: View single-word domain names and pair them with multiple TLDs to see if they’re available.
Free Branding, Logo and Design Tools
There are tons of free design tools and assets floating around on the web. Take a look at the sites below to find free templates, icons, mockups and even code snippets.
- Canva: Design posts, banners, prints and more with this free design tool.
- DBFreebies: DBFreebies offers a curated selection of the best Behance and Dribbble freebies.
- Freebbble: Find over 1,000 different design freebies from Dribbble users.
- Free Logo Design: Choose from different logo templates curated by designers around the globe.
- GraphicBurger: Find free templates, icons, mockups and more.
- GraphicSprings: This simple interface uses a click-and-drag function that makes designing your logo fast and simple.
- Hipster Logo Generator: Use this simple generator to get ideas for hip logos.
- InVision: InVision creates free UI kits, icon packs and mockups.
- Logaster: Looking for a more professional, clean look? Logaster’s got your back.
- LogoMakr: Create and download your logo in seconds or spend a few extra minutes to customize to your liking.
- Marvel App: Everyone can be a designer using Marvel’s free design toolbar.
- Online Logo Maker: Pick from a large database of templates that you can customize, save and edit later if you need to.
- PixelBuddha: Find free UI kits, patterns, icon sets and more at PixelBuddha.
- PremiumPixels: Snag free PSD files for a variety of devices and formats.
- Signature Maker: Design a signature that suits you for free.
- Spark Adobe: Spark Adobe specializes in providing unique imagery, typography and themes for entrepreneurs.
- Squarespace Logo Maker: Make your own logo and see how it looks on t-shirts, business cards and your homepage with quick mockups.
- Tailor Brands: Tailor Brands offers free logo design; resizing options for social media channels; font, color, and text customization and more.
- UI Space: Choose from a variety of free fonts, scripts, sketches, icons and more.
- W3C: Access free HTML and CSS snippets, graphics, icons and a lot more.
Free Coding Resources and Website Builders
Code is the core building block for your website. These free coding resources can teach you what you need to know to get started, or just help you launch your site.
- Bitbucket: Bitbucket provides free Git code management.
- Codecademy: Learn the basics to HTML for free through Codecademy.
- Elastic: Elastic is a free open source Application Performance Monitoring tool.
- GitHub: GitHub is a great free resource and tool for developers of all skill levels.
- IM XPRS: With IM XPRS’s free plan, you get an ad-free site and a wide selection of impressive templates to choose from.
- JIMDO: Launch a free online store with great aesthetics with JIMDO. Pay a small free to upgrade and remove adverts.
- Mozello: Use Mozello to create multilingual sites for free with built-in ecommerce functions.
- Site123: Site123 is completely free and even offers features like design assistance along with great customer service.
- Strikingly: User friendly, quick and simple, Strikingly is great for building one-page microwebsites.
- TinyCert: TinyCert offers free SSL certification for your startup site.
- Ucraft: Ucraft offers unlimited pages and a custom domain name with their free website plan.
- Webs: Webs is touted as one of the better free website builders for entrepreneurs and small business owners.
- Weebly: Enjoy a free custom domain for one year through Weebly.
- Wix: Wix offers a very limited free hosting plan, but is regarded as one of the best website builders.
- Wordpress.org: Wordpress.org offers a great free website builder with ads included.
Freebies to Help You Launch Your Business
Free Writing and Editing Tools
Unless you have an experienced copy editor or journalist on board, you’ll need someone to write and edit all your copy. For small businesses with limited resources, taking care of PR and marketing in-house can get extremely pricey.
To save on costs, these writing and editing tools do a fine job of keeping your text clean and error-free.
- A5.gg: A5 functions like a virtual whiteboard: Write whatever you want, exit the tab, and it will still be there when you come back.
- Answer the Public: Simply enter a keyword and the generator will produce hundreds of questions, prepositions and more based on the topic.
- BlankPage.io: BlankPage helps you set realistic writing goals so you can finish up that eBook you’ve been working on.
- Blog Title Idea Generator: This simple generator gives you fill-in-the-blank headlines for your blog ideas.
- Cliche Finder: Sniff out cliches in your prose with this free editing tool.
- CoSchedule: CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer scores your headlines based on factors like emotional appeal, power and use of common and uncommon words.
- Free Summarizer: This free tool summarizes entire articles in a few short paragraphs. It also comes with a free text editor that rates your copy for SEO and readability.
- Grammarly: Add this free AI-powered writing assistant to your Chrome toolbar to write clean, well-written prose — and snag these Grammarly coupon deals while you’re at it.
- Hemingway Editor: Edit your prose to keep it short and to the point with this free tool.
- LetterCount: Count the characters in your text and compare to it character limits for platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.
- Linkbait Title Generator: Generate eye-catching clickbait headlines for your posts.
- Medium: Medium will host your blog for free, and is one of the most straightforward and user-friendly CMS’ for uploading content.
- Readability Test Tool: WebFX’s readability tool tests all or part of a web page and scores it based on established readability formulas and criteria.
- SEO Writing Assistant: SEMrush’s writing assistant tool shows what to trim in your copy so that it’s SEO optimized.
- TextExpander: Boost your team’s productivity by eliminating repetitive typing with this free Chrome extension.
Free SEO and Site Analysis Tools
Updating your site so that it’s healthy and optimized for SEO is a full-time job. Use these SEO and analytics tools to monitor your site for free.
- Alexa: Amazon’s digital marketing stack comes with a 14-day free trial that you can cancel at any time.
- Browseo: This site shows you webpages as search bots see them and provides page insights you can use to optimize your site, such as number of internal links, word count and more.
- Copyscape: Search for copies of your content online to ensure your website isn’t being penalized for duplicate copy.
- Facebook Audience Insights: Facebook’s Insights tool gives you valuable information about your audience, such as demographic data and purchase behavior.
- Google Search Console: Google’s free tool gives you reports on traffic and site performance.
- Hotjar: Track how users interact with your web pages using Hotjar’s free BASIC plan.
- Keyword Tool: This alternative to Google’s Keyword Planner gives you 750+ long-tail keyword suggestions.
- Open Link Profiler: Get a free backlink analysis of any site you input.
- Open Site Explorer: Moz’s link explorer tool gives you a comprehensive analysis for the entered URL.
- PageSpeed Insights: This free Google tool will show you page load times and how you can improve them.
- Pingdom: Pingdom’s free tool will locate bottlenecks on a given URL and will grade your site based on criteria like page size, load time and requests.
- SERProbot: This free tool allows you to input keywords and track rankings for multiple sites.
- SERPsim: SERPsim gives you an accurate idea of how your web pages and meta data will look on Google.
- SimilarWeb: Get a comprehensive analysis of any site with this free comparison tool.
- Website Grader: Hubspot’s free tool assesses your site on factors like page load speed, mobile optimization, SEO, security and more.
- Yoast SEO Plugin: Yoast’s Wordpress SEO plugin scores your text for readability and on-page SEO.
Free Community and Social Media Management Tools
Social media management is expensive, especially if you’re posting on multiple channels throughout the day. Utilize these community management tools to keep track of your users and posts without spending a penny.
- Bitly: Shorten your links and track their performance.
- Buffer: Buffer has all of Hootsuite’s features, but it also monitors your users and suggests prime posting times.
- Crowdfire: Schedule posts and get hashtag recommendations with Crowdfire’s free plan.
- Disqus: Disqus’s comments plugin is a great way to moderate your comments in real time.
- Followerwonk: Analyze your followers to see when they are active and how you can better interact with them. Free with Twitter.
- Hootsuite: Hootsuite’s limited free plan allows one user, up to three social profiles and 30 scheduled messages.
- Latergram: Schedule Instagram posts for free.
- Pinterest “Pin It” Plugin: This free plugin adds the “Pin It” button to images posted on your Wordpress site.
- SharedCount: Insert a URL to see how many Facebook and Pinterest shares it has.
- WriteRack: Get your tweetstorm on with WriteRack’s tool that converts lengthy posts into bite-sized tweets.
Freebies to Help You Run Your Business
Free Invoice Generators
Invoices can be a pain to format, track and record (especially if you’re billing a lot of clients). Take advantage of these free invoice generators and tools to find a sleek template that suits your brand’s image and makes upkeep simple.
- FreshBooks: New to invoicing? FreshBook’s free “wizard” tool walks you through the process step by step.
- Invoice at Once: Easily add your company logo to invoices before emailing or downloading them.
- Invoice Generator: Create a quick, clean invoice in seconds.
- InvoiceNinja: InvoiceNinja offers a number of features, among them a real-time PDF preview so you can see your work as you go.
- PayPal: If you use PayPal as a primary payment method, you can write up and send an invoice in seconds for free.
- Quick Invoices: Choose from over 10 templates and further customize your invoice with their taxes, currency and discounts options.
- Shopify: Fill in the required information and your invoice is ready to go!
- Slimvoice: This all-in-one app streamlines the process of creating invoices so it’s as painless as possible.
- Wave: Wave’s invoicing tool is free and automatically syncs payments and billing info to their free accounting software. Say goodbye to bookkeeping!
- Zoho: Fill out a no-fuss invoice template that you can print, email or download as a PDF.
Free Legal Docs
Structuring legally binding policies for your website often requires the help of a lawyer, which can be expensive. These free legal doc resources are designed to help mobile developers, startup owners and entrepreneurs who need sound policies quick to get their next venture off the ground.
- Docracy: Choose from a host of legal documents ranging from sample contracts to small business forms.
- GetTerms: GetTerms offers policies for ecommerce sites, bloggers, web app developers and even news publications.
- Iubenda: Iubenda provides policies in multiple languages for mobile app developers.
- KISS: These hassle-free “keep it simple security” legal forms are designed to uncomplicate legal docs for startups and founders.
- LegalTemplates: Customize and sign free legal documents with LegalTemplates.
- PrivacyPolicies.com: Generate free privacy policies for your business.
- Termly: Termly offers GDPR-compliant policy generators and banners for startups.
Free Project Management Software
It can be a challenge to stay ahead of deadlines, projects, meetings and everything in between. Take advantage of these free project management tools so you and your team are always on the same page.
- Any.do: Organize your personal and work life with this all-encompassing time management tool.
- Asana: Track tasks and projects and keep up with deadlines using Asana’s user-friendly calendar, board and list views. Free for small teams.
- Bitrix24: Although not exclusively idea management software, Bitrix has the feature built in to its free plan for up to 12 members.
- Dropbox: Get a personal 2GB plan for free, or test out one of their business plans with a free 30-day trial.
- FeedbackRoad: Crowdsource ideas from customer feedback using this free innovative tool.
- Flowdock: Flowdock is a collaboration tool for teams across time zones with a free 30-day trial.
- FreeBusy: Sync your calendars and availability to easily schedule meetings with people outside your company.
- Germ.io: Turn brainstorms and innovative ideas into team projects with this free tool.
- Google Hangouts: Chat, video call and collaborate with team members for free.
- GoToMeeting: Collaborate with up to three clients or colleagues using this free Chrome browser tool.
- HypeGo!: Create idea campaigns with team members with HypeGo’s 4-week free trial.
- Innovation Cloud: Submit ideas, collaborate and approve them with up to 15 members for free.
- Notion: Collaborate with an unlimited number of members and share to-do items and other tasks for free.
- Pocket: Available as a toolbar extension and app, Pocket allows you to pull and save interesting content so you can read it later.
- Skitch: Evernote’s Skitch tool allows you to add annotations, shapes and sketches to notes to bring your ideas to life.
- Skype: Skype’s free plan allows members to chat, video call and transfer files.
- Slack: Create your own Slack workspace — it’s ideal for small teams and free for an unlimited period of time.
- Trello: Organize and share tasks with your team via Trello’s unlimited personal boards, cards and lists for free.
- Viima: Collect, develop, prioritize and analyze ideas with up to 50 members for free.
- Webex: Get a 30-day free trial for this video conferencing and collaboration tool. Check for Webex coupons as well to get the most bang for your buck.
- WeTransfer: Simple with no registration required, you can transfer up to 2GB at a time to anyone you like as often as you need.
- Yanado: Unlimited tasks, unlimited to-do lists and access to certain team management features — all within your Gmail account.
- Zoom: Host up to 100 participants and enjoy unlimited one-on-one meetings with Zoom’s free Basic plan. Be sure to check out these Zoom coupons, too.
Free Email Management Tools
Does Inbox Zero seem like a pipe dream? Organize your inbox and keep track of open rates and other metrics for your subscribers with these free email management tools.
- Bee Free: BeeFree allows you to create aesthetically pleasing email templates.
- Canned Emails: Find pre-written, brief emails for every type of message.
- ContextSmith: For Gmail only, ContextSmith’s free plan and Chrome extension give you the open times, location, device type and other pertinent details of your contact.
- Docsify: Docsify comes with unlimited tracking, a send later feature, text shortcuts and more under the free plan.
- MailChimp: Send 12,000 emails per month to up to 2,000 subscribers with MailChimp’s free plan.
- Mailtrack: Mailtrack allows you to track when and how often your emails are opened.
- Mixmax: Mixmax offers email tracking, a calendar for scheduling meetings, automated templates and CRM integrations for free users.
- SendGrid: API features and marketing campaign features are just a few of the perks that come with SendGrid’s free plan.
- Sumo: Sumo’s free tool allows you to create in-email popups for your subscribers.
- Unroll.me: Unroll.me helps you declutter your inbox by displaying all your subscribed emails so you unsubscribe from what you don’t want.
Fortunately, many web tools and software come with free trials or freemium pricing. There are even free coupons from Yahoo and other established companies that aim to help small businesses get off the ground. That means you can use these products and upgrade to a paid plan as your business grows.
By taking advantage of all the free services available, you can spend your startup’s budget on what matters most — running your business. Check out the infographic below to see all the ways your startup can save.