The Best Free Tools to Start and Grow a Small Business

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.
• Incfile’s free LLC formation to create your limited liability company and file everything with the right agencies.
• Incfile’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.