The 16 best freelance apps in 2025

When it comes to managing a business, consultants, coaches, freelancers, and solopreneurs everywhere face the common challenge of navigating their own path. That, and taxes—but we're not here to discuss my inability to keep track of receipts.

Without a blueprint, a map, or even a compass for that matter, freelancing can feel at times like you're hacking your way through an overgrown jungle with a butter knife. Worse, the challenges of solopreneurship (marketing, meetings, invoicing, accounting—the list goes on) can keep you from your primary focus: working on what you do best and what got you into business in the first place.

You're not alone, though. Based on my experience (read: struggles) and the experiences of the Zapier team, I've rounded up the 16 best apps for freelancers to help you manage the day-to-day burdens of being your own boss.

The best freelancer apps

• Google Sites for building websites

• Calendly for scheduling meetings

• Trello for task management 

• Toggl Track for time tracking

• Wave for invoicing

• Docusign for electronic signatures 

• FreshBooks for accounting

• Zapier for automation

• Buffer for social media management

• Moz Keyword Explorer for SEO keyword research

• Clay for a personal CRM

• Hunter for cold emailing and prospecting

• Canva for graphic design

• Google Drive for cloud storage

• 1Password for password management

• ChatGPT for leveraging AI

What makes the best freelancer app?

"Freelancing" is an incredibly broad term that encompasses everything from freelance content creators to virtual assistants, IT consultants, and tutors. A freelancer lives in the intersection between independent contractor, gig worker, and small business owner—and the apps you'll want in your toolbox depend on where you fall along that spectrum.

That said, though, there are a few categories of apps that most solopreneurs will find useful. You probably need to build a website, find clients, organize client projects, and manage your own finances and legal documents, for example. So for this article, I tried to cover a range of app categories that anyone starting out on the freelancing journey may want in their arsenal. 

To be considered as a contender for the best freelancing app in its category, a tool should have a low up-front cost (ideally, free) while still being feature-rich and easy to use. It should also be easy to integrate with other tools so you can build your own streamlined freelancing setup. Finally, the tool should be flexible enough to use in a variety of freelance situations—though I also encourage you to look for apps specific to your niche.

The best freelancing apps at a glance 

The best freelancing app for website building

Google Sites

Google Sites pros:

• Easy to use (like Google Docs)

• Great for collaboration

Google Sites cons:

• No SEO tools

The first thing you'll need when striking out on your own is a digital HQ: your website. Sure, you can spend an unlimited amount of money paying someone to build that for you. Or you can spend an unlimited amount of time learning all the ins and outs of cascading style sheets. But if you live in the real world with actual constraints, a website builder is going to be your best bet for creating a functional, attractive space that supports your business.

Going with a website builder takes one important decision off your plate, but choosing the right platform adds a whole lot more for you to consider. For a straightforward, effective tool that's friendly to beginners, try Google Sites. Choose from a dozen templates and six themes, or build your site from scratch. Like any Google file, it's saved right in your Google Drive. You won't get access to any SEO tools, though, so keep that in mind if search ranking is something you want to manage yourself.

One thing to keep in mind: even though the website builders are free, you'll want to pay for a custom domain (same thing goes for your email address).

Google Sites pricing: Free to build, host, and maintain with a Google or Gmail account.

The best freelancing app for meeting and appointment scheduling

Calendly

Calendly pros:

• It's a trusted name—that can matter when trying to get people to book with you

• Connects to a lot of calendars

Calendly cons:

• Free plan supports only one meeting type

Once your website and social channels are up and running, you've got good news and bad news to deal with. The good news? Vendors, clients, partners, and stakeholders are going to come rushing to your door. The bad news? You'll need some way to schedule all those meetings and appointments.

Rather than scribbling illegible notes all over your favorite wall calendar (mine features shiba inus in adorkable doggie costumes), harness the right software tool to handle this tedious but important work for you. 

There are a number of meeting schedulers to keep you on top of your daily commitments, but Calendly is the leader in the category. It connects to your calendar and provides you with a booking page that allows clients and partners to see your availability and book a meeting with you directly. Paid tiers allow you to generate workflows, send out feedback surveys, and relay SMS messages. 

Calendly also integrates with Zapier, so you can do things like create new Zoom meetings whenever a new meeting is scheduled or add new meeting attendees to your email marketing list. Learn more about how to automate Calendly and all your scheduling workflows, or get started with one of these premade templates.

Calendly pricing: Free with limited features; Standard plan starts at $10/user/month (billed annually) includes unlimited event types, multiple calendars, and meeting reminders. 

The best freelancing app for task management

Trello

Trello pros:

• Super customizable boards with unlimited Power-Ups

• Tons of templates to get you started

Trello cons:

• Free users are limited to Kanban board views

Project management platforms can help keep you on track when there's nobody else looking over your shoulder. That kind of freedom is why you decided to strike out on your own, but losing sight of project goals or encountering unanticipated obstacles can ruin your efficiency. That's where a task management tool comes in handy. 

Trello is perfect for freelancers. By visually breaking up your project elements into Kanban boards, Trello allows you to quickly identify backlogged, in-progress, and completed items. Create checklists, assign due dates, affix labels, attach files, and add comments. Trello's intuitive interface and template library allow you to get up to speed quickly, while providing you with a bird's-eye view of your project via the activity menu.

For even more flexibility, use Trello's Zapier integration to connect Trello with your favorite apps, like Gmail and Slack. Learn more about how to automate Trello—and all of your project management workflows—or get started with one of these premade workflows. 

Trello pricing: Free plan includes unlimited cards, 10 boards and members per workspace, unlimited Power-Ups, and 250 automated commands each month; Standard plan for $5/user/month (billed annually) includes unlimited boards and file storage, custom fields, advanced checklists, and up to 1,000 automated commands per month.

The best freelancing app for time tracking

Toggl Track

Toggl Track pros:

• Integrates with almost everything

• Pomodoro timer doesn't feel like an afterthought despite not being a major feature 

Toggl Track cons:

• Task management and planning features are only available on the paid plan 

Project management tools can definitely help you plan out and direct your workflows, but they won't always tell you how efficiently you're getting that work done. Love working weekends and sacrificing sleep to meet project deadlines? Neither do I. Time tracking apps give you added insight into how much time you're spending on a task so that you can budget your efforts appropriately. 

Toggl Track lets you track your time via a mobile app or a browser extension that follows you across your web apps to record your productivity—start or stop time simply by closing a window. Toggl Track also provides you with idle detection to stop tracking when you stop working, as well as reports of your tracked entries in a grid or calendar format. Whether you're collecting billable hours for a client or just making sure to keep yourself on track, time tracking is a game-changer.

Like any app, Toggl Track works best if it connects with the rest of your tech stack. Here's how you can automate Toggl Track to sync with databases, calendars, and even accounting software so you can finally measure the unmeasurable. Learn how to automate your time tracking, or get started with one of these templates.

Toggl Track pricing: Free for up to 5 users, unlimited clients and tags; Starter plan starts at $9/user/month (billed annually) and includes time rounding, billable rates, and custom reports.

The best freelancing app for invoicing

Wave

Wave pros:

• Super user-friendly, even on mobile

• Built-in native payment processor

Wave cons:

• Invoices aren't as customizable as some other options

Invoicing is more than just firing off a Google Docs template with a dollar amount scrawled at the top. Once your solo enterprise takes off, you'll need to handle things like recurring payments, expense reports, and even—I hate to break it to you—taxes.

Invoicing software can help you get a handle on all of the dry, time-consuming, and yet terribly important financial aspects of your business. 

If free sounds best to you, consider Wave. It connects directly with your bank account for seamless tracking of expenses. It also gives you the ability to generate invoices and expense reports from predesigned templates. You can even reconcile your accounts and then use the optional features to handle payroll and file taxes. Once the money starts flowing, a tool like Wave is a great way to stay on top of your finances without having to schlep receipts in shoeboxes to your local accountant. 

Plus, you can connect Wave to Zapier, so you can automate even more of your invoicing workflows. Learn more about how to automate your invoicing, or look at these ideas to get you started.

Wave pricing: Free plan includes all invoicing, accounting, and banking features, with the ability to accept online card payments at 2.9% + $0.60 per transaction for card payments. The Pro plan is $16/month (billed annually) for a discounted online payment rate, auto-importing bank transactions, and automated late payment

The best freelancing app for electronic signatures

Docusign

Docusign pros:

• Ability to create contract templates 

• Nice and easy to use

Docusign cons:

• Cheapest plan limits you to five signatures per month

With contracts flying back and forth through your inbox, an electronic signature app can provide you with an at-a-glance overview of where each document went—and where it stands.

Docusign is a popular choice, providing you with updates on a variety of different documents at several possible stages of the signing process. Use the central dashboard to track your documents' statuses, whether they've been sent, received, or simply drafted. For recurring documents, Docusign also provides you with template creation tools, as well as reporting features to help keep things in focus. 

If you really want to streamline things, Docusign also integrates with Zapier, so you can do things like automatically upload Docusign envelopes to the cloud or let your team know when one has been signed. Check out some ideas for automating Docusign with Zapier and all of your digital signature workflows, or try one of these premade workflows.

Docusign pricing: Personal eSignature plan for $10/month (billed annually) includes 5 agreements sent per month and reusable templates; Standard plan for $25/month includes collaborative commenting and customized branding.

The best freelancing app for accounting

FreshBooks

FreshBooks pros:

• Very easy to use

• Extracts data from receipts with OCR

FreshBooks cons:

• A bit expensive considering the features offered

You wear enough hats as a freelancer. Adding a green accountant's visor to that list is probably the last thing you want to do.

And while tallying figures in endless spreadsheet columns can be a tedious chore, it's also important work with serious consequences if not done properly. Your options then are to hire a professional and eat into your precious profit margins; try to figure it out yourself and eat into your limited time, energy, and expertise; or take advantage of self-employed accounting software and eat…out for lunch for a change, to treat yourself for making such a good decision.

FreshBooks is a big name here. While it doesn't offer a free tier, it's still worth a subscription for its intuitive interface with built-in tips and additional user support via chat or ticket. You can track time, create invoices and expenses, manage projects, and handle their accounting, all while consulting a calendar view to assess the big picture. You can also upload receipts just by snapping a pic and offer your clients a handy online payment portal. It's practically as useful as having a full-time accountant on staff, only it takes up much less office space. 

If you love how easy FreshBooks is, you'll love how even easier it is when you connect it to Zapier. You'll be able to do things like automatically subscribe new FreshBooks clients to your email list and receive notifications when new invoices are created. Learn more about how to automate your accounting, or get started with one of these premade workflows.

Freshbooks pricing: Lite plan is $7.60/month for unlimited invoices and up to 5 clients, online payments, and unlimited expense tracking. The Plus plan starts at $13.20/month for 50 clients, recurring invoices, and automatic receipt data capturing.

The best freelancing app for automation

Zapier

Zapier pros:

• No-code automation makes it easy to connect all your tools

• Includes a free landing page builder, chatbot builder, and database

Zapier cons:

• Free plan is limited to two-step automations

How original—the Zapier writer is recommending Zapier. Ok, but what if I told you I was a Zapier power user even back when I was a freelancer? I had such an impressively automated system for new project intake that my closest friends and family worried for my sanity. And I'm here to tell you, Zapier is honestly a must-have if you're a team of one. 

Zapier lets you build and customize automated systems across thousands of apps with no coding required—which means your clients will think you have a whole team behind you, even if you're working alone. Build automations with Copilot, the AI-powered assistant, by just describing what you want to do (like "send an invoice in Wave when I mark a project completed in Asana"). From there, Copilot will suggest a workflow outline, connect your accounts, and even help you test each step.

But Zapier goes beyond simple automated workflows—you can use the platform of interconnected tools to build a fully automated system. For example, AI by Zapier lets you pull the power of GPT-4o mini into your Zaps, Zapier Interfaces lets you create everything from landing pages to request forms to project management trackers to a mini-CRM, and you can use Zapier Tables to store and act on important information (including with Zaps). 

You can even build AI agents for your website with Zapier Agents and create shareable chatbots based on your own knowledge sources and web scraping with Zapier Chatbots.  

Zapier pricing: Free for unlimited Zaps, AI power-ups, 5 tables, 2 interfaces, and 2 chatbots. Paid plans start at $19.99/month (billed annually) for advanced features like multi-step Zaps, white-label Interfaces branding, and access to advanced AI models within Chatbots.

The best freelancing app for social media management

Buffer

Buffer pros:

• Dead simple scheduling for all your social media accounts 

• Decent free tier and per-channel pricing keeps costs low for small businesses 

Buffer cons:

• Buffer has a history of changing up its pricing and features quite drastically

Social media is one of the most powerful tools available to your business. You can use it to find new clients, drive traffic to your site, and keep in touch with existing customers so that they stay engaged with your business.

Buffer is a great place to start for social media management. It supports all the platforms you could possibly want to be on: Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok, Threads, Mastodon, Pinterest, and Google Business Profile. If you use social media to promote your eCommerce store, Buffer also integrates with Shopify, so you can see how your posts affect your store. 

Like many other social media apps, Buffer has added an AI Assistant. It can generate posts, rephrase your drafts, and otherwise do all the other AI content generating you'd expect.

With Zapier, it's easy to link any other service you use to Buffer. For example, you can automatically add new blog posts to your schedule, either directly from WordPress or through an RSS feed, or add new Instagram photos to Buffer. Learn how to automate Buffer and all your social media workflows, or get started with one of these premade templates.

Buffer pricing: Free plan allows you to connect to 3 channels, schedule 10 posts per channel, and use the AI Assistant; Essentials plan for $5/month per channel (billed annually) includes 2,000 queued posts per profile, and reporting tools.

The best freelancing app for keyword research 

Moz Keyword Explorer

Moz pros:

• "Priority" score makes it easy to find the keywords worth chasing

• Broad set of tools available for free

Moz cons:

• Free plan includes only 10 queries per tool per month

When done right, the best keyword research tools make it easy to find the right keywords to target so you can drive traffic to your website. Moz's SEO platform offers several different tools designed for keyword research—and it doesn't require you to empty out your bank account in order to access that data. 

With the Keyword Explorer tool, you can search any keyword you choose and see its monthly volume, difficulty, and organic clickthrough rate (CTR). You'll get an analysis of current results ranking for that keyword and suggestions for similar keywords. Moz also includes a "Priority" score that simplifies keyword research by giving you the bottom line on whether a keyword is worth chasing for you. 

Moz pricing: Keyword research features are available for free for up to 10 queries per tool per month with up to 1,000 keyword suggestions and 10 SERP analyses per query; Moz Pro plans start at $39/month (billed annually) for 50 keyword queries per month

The best freelancing app for a personal CRM 

Clay  

Clay pros:

• Regular prompts to update relationship details

• AI-powered contact search engine

Clay cons:

• Missing core CRM features like a sales pipeline

Finding clients is the freelancer's eternal struggle. If you don't have enough work, you're stressing about finding someone to hire you—and if you're fully booked, you're stressed about what happens if all your clients suddenly ghost you at the same time. (And in my experience, client ghosting happens appallingly often.) Keeping a customer relationship management (CRM) tool is a great way to build some consistency into your business. 

A CRM lets you collect and organize leads, keep track of your outreach activities, and store important information about current clients, like their invoicing preferences and points of contact. While you can definitely build your own CRM inside of whatever tool you already use (I prefer Notion, but Trello is also popular), there are a lot of great CRM tools out there to choose from. 

Clay takes more of a personal approach to relationship management, letting you track everything from your professional network to your loved ones' birthdays and life events. While not suited for the traditional sales process, Clay can be a great choice for solopreneurs who want to build a highly personalized outreach process. 

The tool works like a cross between a social media feed and a CRM. New contacts are automatically enriched with their social media channels and work information—pulled from your calendar, iMessage, and email contacts. It then populates a feed for your contacts' career changes and other life moments. That way, you can reach out to your network organically every time something major happens in their lives. As you reconnect with your contacts, you can add notes and details to their page. 

Then, Clay's Nexus AI feature lets you search your contacts using natural language prompts. If you're looking for a collaborator or someone who's a good match for a product or service, you can ask the AI tool to comb through your contacts for things like locations or spoken languages.

To make your CRM even more human-focused, you can leave all the rote work to computers. Connect Clay to Zapier to automate all your relationship management workflows, like automatically adding new email or video call contacts to your CRM. Here are some examples to get you started.

Clay price: Free plan available for up to 1,000 contacts; paid plans start at $20/user/month.

The best freelancing app for cold emailing and prospecting 

Hunter

Hunter pros:

• Extensive free plan

• User-friendly interface

• Domain search feature

Hunter cons:

• Paid plans aren't as worthwhile

When you're looking for freelance clients, you probably don't need an in-depth prospecting tool. That's why Hunter is a great option—it's a reliable, user-friendly way to track down email addresses for prospects without breaking the bank. 

In fact, Zapier testers agree Hunter's paid plans aren't worth the cost. But the free plan is plenty good enough for occasional email prospecting. Just input the website URL of a client you'd like to work with, and then Hunter provides a list of verified email addresses with that domain. 

From there, you can add those contacts to your cold outreach workflow. And integrating Hunter with Zapier lets you automate that workflow for even more efficient prospecting. Do things like batch-adding new leads to a spreadsheet or CRM, sending prospecting emails automatically, and instantly verifying email addresses to keep your email list clean.  

Hunter pricing: Free for 25 found emails and 50 email verifications per month; starting at $34/month for thousands of searches and verifications per month

The best freelancing app for graphic design

Canva

Canva pros:

• Mix of design tools and easy-to-use AI features for all types of content creation

• Template library for social media posts, slide decks, stock photos, and more

• Great free plan

Canva cons:

• Experienced graphic designers may find it lacking

Even if you're not in the freelance design game, odds are good that you'll need to do some graphic design for your freelance business. Designing a logo for your website, banner images for LinkedIn, and social media graphics to promote your services are all made easier with graphic design software. 

Canva is a user-friendly, template-based design app that gives away plenty of features for free. It offers over a million graphics, templates, and stock photos (and if you upgrade to a Canva Pro subscription, that number goes into multiple millions—along with advanced tools like background removal and resizing).

Use one of Canva's thousands of templates to create everything from Instagram Posts to posters, with an intuitive search function that lets you filter by free options. The drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to incorporate text, files, and built-in elements into a customized design. You can also use the AI-powered features to create images and graphics from a prompt, erase unwanted objects, and generate text. And with the Pro plan, you can upload a "brand kit" to make it even easier to keep your logo, brand colors, and fonts consistent across all your designs.

Zapier's Canva integration even lets you automate your design workflows. Do things like uploading assets from form submissions and automatically creating designs from spreadsheet entries. Learn more about automating Canva, or get started with one of these popular workflows.

Canva pricing: Free for over 1,000 design types, 3 million stock photos and graphics, limited AI-generated writing and designs, and design printing and delivery; the Premium plan is $120/year for individuals or $100/year per user for teams (minimum 3 users). Discounts are available for non-profits and K-12 educators. 

The best freelancing app for cloud storage

Google Drive

Google Drive pros:

• Advanced search functionality makes it easy to retrieve files 

• Powers storage of Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and other Google Workspace files

Google Drive cons:

• Not the most cost-efficient option on the market 

If you're adopting all of these recommendations so far, your hard drive is probably screaming out for relief by now. A cloud storage app will provide you with seamless backup and added security to keep your important files both up-to-date and safe. 

Google Drive is a common option for cloud storage, popular in part because it's built to house files from the Workspace apps you work with, like Google Docs and Google Sheets. It's available for desktop and mobile, on both iOS and Android. Google Drive allows you to work on files even when you're offline—syncing them to the cloud the moment you jump back online.

Perhaps most importantly for your needs as a freelancer, Google Drive plays well with others. That means you can integrate Drive with a host of third-party apps to customize your workflows and keep your work backed up without endlessly having to jump back and forth between platforms. 

For more flexibility, use Zapier to connect Google Drive to thousands of different apps. Learn more about how to automate Google Drive, or get started with one of these workflows. 

Google Drive pricing: Get 15 GB of Drive storage alone for free: starts at $1.99/month for 100 GB; Google Workspace users: starts at $6/month for 30 GB. 

The best freelancing app for password management

1Password

1Password pros:

• Easy to use across any device

• Very transparent about its security

1Password cons:

• No free option

Still adding apps to streamline your solopreneur journey? Your workflows will thank you, but the part of your brain in charge of passwords is probably at a breaking point by now. Which ones required the special characters again? The answer to that question is: you need a password manager. 

Password managers are worth having for the same reason that map and calendar apps are. You no longer need to remember directions to the nearest FedEx facility or keep track of Grandma Tillie's birthday. These tools do that for you, freeing up valuable gray matter for you to devote to growing your business. In addition, the best ones can boost your online security by providing you with strengthened passwords and two-factor authentication.  

1Password is a great option. It provides you with vaults for both your personal and professional needs, allowing you to store not only passwords, but credit card information, addresses, notes, and more (up to 1 GB of storage). You can also upgrade to share your info with family or team members. In addition to two-factor authentication, 1Password provides you with ongoing updates about the security of your passwords, alerting you to duplicates, hacks, and other potential compromises.

1Password pricing: Individual account for $2.99/month (billed annually); Families for $60/year includes 5 accounts.

The best freelancing app for leveraging AI

ChatGPT

ChatGPT pros: 

• Free to use for most day-to-day tasks

• Easy and fun to use

ChatGPT cons: 

• More powerful features, like image generation, are limited on paid plans

Since you're unlikely to be reading this article under a rock, you've probably heard about artificial intelligence by now.

ChatGPT is a free AI chatbot, and it's a great way to dip your toes into the world of AI. You can use it to write marketing copy, summarize articles, do market research, write sales emails, and speed up loads of other tasks. If you upgrade to ChatGPT Plus, you can also access the AI image generator, DALL·E 3. You can use it to ideate new physical products, create brand logos, and generate blog images. 

When you connect ChatGPT to Zapier, you can access the power of the AI chatbot from within any of your favorite apps. Learn more about how to automate ChatGPT, or get started with one of these workflows. 

ChatGPT pricing: Free plan available; ChatGPT Plus for $20/month includes standard and advanced voice mode, limited access to o1 and o1-mini, and custom GPTs.

Other freelancer apps for personal productivity

Going out on your own is hard enough, which is why it's important to take advantage of tools that can make self-employment smoother and more successful. Here are a few more apps to boost your efficiency:

• To-do list apps not only keep you from being smothered in an avalanche of hand-written Post-its, but they can also help ensure that none of your important tasks slip through the cracks. 

• Free survey tools and form builders offer an easy way to gather client information. 

• You can capture questions, observations, and those valuable aha moments as soon as they arise with a note-taking app or workspace app. You can even use an AI notes app to turn ideas into reality even faster.

• The right email app helps you stay organized and responsive without letting your inbox spiral out of control. 

• Presentation software allows you to create professional-looking slideshows that will keep potential clients engaged while you're running through your pitch deck or product demo. 

• If you're in freelance content marketing, you might want dedicated content marketing software to help you do your job more efficiently.

• Creator platforms can help you build an audience for both yourself and your clients, if that's your bag.

Related reading:

• Unconventional tips for finding new clients

• How I scaled my freelance business to $10,000/month

• Tools you need in your security stack as a freelancer

• How to create your own self-employed benefits package

• How to retire when you're self-employed

This article was originally published in June 2023 by Toby Peterson and has also had contributions from Jessica Lau. The most recent update was in January 2025.