Best Software and Tools for Freelancers 2020

From project management software, to plagiarism checkers and time tracking systems, we've selected the most useful tools for freelancers to use in 2020.

Trello

Trello is a popular project management tool that enables teams to organize projects, break them down into manageable tasks, assign deadlines, and track the progress of tasks in a visually appealing, easy-to-use drag-and-drop user interface. Agile businesses will find Trello useful for organizing their work processes and collaborating across teams in a more efficient manner. Since Trello connects to other apps in your workflow, such as Slack, Google Drive, and Jira, you can effectively communicate and collaborate throughout every stage of your projects, from start to finish.

Highlights

  • Create unlimited number of boards to track individual and organization/team-wide projects
  • Attach files to cards to track progress of projects
  • Easy drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy to update the status of projects in real time
  • Boards are accessible anywhere you have an Internet connection

Price

  • Ranges from $5/user - $20.83/user per month
  • Free tier also available
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Kanban-style project management software designed to help teams collaborate on ideas, set deadlines and deliver.

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QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online is a basic web-based accounting system that has the ability to handle more complex tasks, such as payroll and job costing, for an additional charge. The primary advantage of QuickBooks Online is that it's 100% web-based, which enables customers to access the software through any device with an Internet connection, including smartphones and tablets. The web-based system also makes it easy for users to collaborate, since multiple users can log on simultaneously. In contrast, the desktop version only lets one person modify data at one time. Read our in-depth QuickBooks Online review

Highlights

  • Web-based, so it can be accessed on the go from any device with an Internet connection
  • Imports bank transactions directly from your account, which reduces the need for manual data entry
  • Can take pictures of receipts with your smartphone and upload them directly

Price

  • $5/month for freelancers
  • Advanced features (such as payroll) come with an additional charge
  • Free 30-day trial
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Widely recognized as the best accounting software for small businesses, but is also popular among freelancers.

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Time Doctor

Time Doctor is a popular time management and employee monitoring tool that helps individuals and businesses improve their productivity, and understand how employees are spending their time. According to Time Doctor, users report a 22% increase in productivity as a result of using the software.

With desktop, web, and mobile components, Time Doctor helps freelancers, small businesses, and large corporations analyze individual or employee working habits to determine where time is being spent. Administrators can allocate tasks and projects through the web-based dashboard, which includes features such as time tracking, screenshot monitoring, and website/application usage. Read our in-depth Time Doctor review

Highlights

  • Makes tracking time and monitoring employee productivity easy
  • Comprehensive tracking capabilities allow you to quickly identify areas of improvement for productivity
  • Accurate reporting down to the minute, which automatically generates reminders to stop / start tracking time
  • Client portal makes it easy to share a time breakdown of projects with clients

Price

  • Free Plan: includes task and time tracking on the desktop client.
  • Solo Plan: $5/month for individual users (freelancers, consultants, and entrepreneurs).
  • 14 day free trial.
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Time Doctor is a multi-functional time-tracking and employee monitoring tool that helps companies and individuals maximize their productivity, and ensure that projects stay on track.

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Asana

Asana is a cloud-based project management software system that helps companies assign, prioritize, and manage tasks across teams. Used by organizations like Pinterest, NASA, Spotify, and Airbnb, Asana offers a wide range of customizable options and features—more functionality than most teams will need—but enables users to pick and choose which features they prefer to utilize in order to increase productivity and create the most effective workflow for their needs.

Highlights

  • Excels at breaking down complex projects into actionable tasks and subtasks
  • Dashboards help users visualize progress and prioritize tasks that matter most
  • Organizes projects into Kanban-style boards or linear lists
  • Provides quick-start templates as well as the option to create your own templates

Price

  • Starts at $9.99/user/month (billed annually) or $11.99/user/month (billed monthly) for Premium
  • Free tier available
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Ideal for businesses that need an efficient way to track cross-team collaboration on projects and tasks.

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Toggl

Toggl is a popular time tracking tool that helps individuals and businesses understand how they're spending their time on various tasks on projects. Launched in 2006, the software includes a web-based timer and a desktop/mobile app that integrates seamlessly with other popular third-party applications such as Google Drive, WordPress, and Trello.

Highlights

  • Excellent time tracking capabilities, with a modern user interface
  • Exceptional free plan
  • Customizable tags allow you to organize projects and tasks

Price

  • Paid version starts at $9/user per month
  • Free plan for up to 5 users
  • Free 30 day trial for paid versions
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Exceptional choice for Freelancers looking to track time for their projects.

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TimeCamp

TimeCamp is a robust web-based time tracking system that helps businesses forecast project budgets more accurately, and helps individuals understand how much time they spend on various tasks. By enabling employees and project managers to gain a better understanding of where time is being spent, TimeCamp helps improve overall productivity, and ensures that resources are being allocated to the right projects. Read our in-depth TimeCamp Review

Highlights

  • Time-tracking capabilities are intuitive and easy to learn
  • Helps businesses accurately estimate costs of projects
  • Integrates with popular products that you may already use in your business, including Trello, Slack, and Asana

Price

  • Free tier includes core time-tracking capabilities for one user only
  • Paid versions cost $5.25-7.25/month per user (billed annually) or $7-$10/month per user (billed monthly), depending on the features you need
  • Free trial
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Excellent option for individuals and small and medium-sized businesses looking for a simple time tracking system.

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Backlog

Backlog is an all-in-one project and code management tool. It combines the organizational benefits of task management with the power of buck tracking and version control. With features like Wikis, file sharing, Gantt charts, burndown charts, and custom statuses, freelancers can visually manage their entire project from beginning to end.

Highlights

  • Kanban-style boards for each project make it easy to view every task as they move through your workflow
  • Gantt and burndown charts give everyone a high-level view of projects at a glance
  • Git and Subversion repositories integrate code collaboration and bug tracking right alongside regular project work

Price

  • Free plan: 1 user and 1 project
  • Starter plan: $35 per month
  • Standard plan: $100 per month
  • Premium plan: $175 per month
Backlog logo

All-in-one project and code management tool.

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Copyscape

Copyscape exists to help freelancers, content managers and companies verify that their content is completely original. Copyscape is a form of artificial intelligence that scans the internet to identify how much of a particular portion of text matches something else on the internet. For example, if a website contains the phrase 'bicycle brain injury lawyer in New York', any other website that has the same word or phrase listed numerous times might show up as a partial match in Copyscape. Then, by looking at the rest of the potential duplicate website, you can try to gauge how much of the content is actually copied.

Highlights

  • Powerful tool that searches the web for duplicate content
  • Useful for detecting plagiarism
  • Many clients will expect that freelancers run their work through Copyscape

Price

  • $.03 per search, for up to 200 words, and $.01c for each additional 100 words.
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Must have for freelancers who want to ensure that their content is original.

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Novus Scan

As a freelance writer and content creator, you might be asked to regularly create large volumes of copy about similar or nearly identical subjects. Whenever you're writing several pieces of content about similar topics, it can be easy to have several similarities between different articles. Novus Scan is designed to specifically help make sure that all of your content is original from each other, and helps to identify overlapping phrases and sentences.

Highlights

  • Helps detect duplicate content from your own library of articles, without needing to publish them online
  • Affordable one-time fee

Price

  • 15.99 (one-time fee)
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Useful if you're writing several pieces of content about the same topic.

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FreshBooks

FreshBooks is a cloud-based invoicing and accounting software for small business owners. It allows you to quickly create and send professional looking invoices, track expenses, and generate financial reports. The software enables you to generate branded invoices and send them directly to clients through the platform. You can bill clients on a recurring basis, send overdue invoice reminders, and accept payments online using your preferred method (PayPal, Credit Card, etc). Instead of alternating between multiple programs, FreshBooks allows you to streamline the entire process from adding a client to setting up your project. Read our in-depth FreshBooks review

Highlights

  • Streamlines accounting processes
  • Professional custom invoices
  • Easy expense tracking

Price

  • Plans start at $15/month (Lite) for up to 5 clients, with the most popular plan (Plus) $25/month for up to 50 clients
  • Additional users are charged at $10/month
  • Free 30-day trial
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Excellent accounting software for freelancers and small businesses.

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UberConference

Highlights

  • Free and easy-to-use conference call system
  • Flexibility to join conferences using phone, mobile apps, or web browser
  • Strong collaboration tools including screen sharing, built-in chat and file sharing

Price

  • Free plan for up to 10 participants and unlimited conferences.
  • Business plan starts at $15/month per user for up to 100 participants and dial-in number (local and international). Discount available for yearly billing.
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Exceptional free web conference call software, ideal for Freelancers.

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Evernote

Evernote is a powerful cloud-based note-taking tool designed for organizing information. The software allows you to create notes with different formats (text, images, web pages, audio, etc.), organize this information using notebooks or tags, and easily find any piece of content again through the search field. Evernote can be used to manage aspects of your personal and professional life. For example, you can add meeting agendas, set reminders, and collaborate with team members or simply store your daily shopping lists and recipes. All information is stored in the cloud, so you can utilize a range of native apps (desktop, iOS, Android) to upload and access notes from any location. Read our in-depth Evernote review.

Highlights

  • Provides flexibility to create notes with different formats (text, images, PDFs, audio)
  • Excellent web clipping tool
  • Robust search functionality enables you to find text within images
  • Syncs across multiple devices (desktop, mobile, tablet)

Price

  • Free plan for basic note-taking
  • Premium plan costs $7.99/month
  • Free trial
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Powerful note taking tool to help organize your work, but is only worthwhile for Premium users.

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Fiverr Workspace

Originally known as AND CO, Fiverr Workspace is an all-in-one solution for freelancers. It started in 2015 as a paid subscription service, but transitioned to a free service when Fiverr, a well-known freelance platform, acquired the app in early 2018. Beginning in early 2019, Fiverr Workspace again started to charge freelancers for its service with monthly or annual plans. You can, however, still use it for free to manage one client and have access to basic contracts and proposals.

Freelancers of all types can use Fiverr Workspace because it's not specific to any industry. You can tailor the proposals, contracts, invoices, and project management tasks to the needs of your clients and projects.

Highlights

  • Handles project management, invoicing, time tracking, expenses, and proposals all in one central platform
  • Capable of billing for recurring projects
  • Customizable invoices

Price

  • $18/mo when paid annually
  • Free for 1 active client
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All-in-one business management solution for freelancers.

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