If a business wants to maintain or improve its reach, grow its client base, and excel in multiple channels, it will need a small army of marketing experts to handle key marketing activities. Fortunately, there are plenty of digital marketing tools out there that, on the one hand, reduce workloads and, on the other hand, speed up strenuous marketing processes. Generally, companies today can only survive if they are equipped with complex toolkits to help them with email marketing, content creation, graphic design, video editing, and analytics. At first glance, it may seem that all these apps cost a fortune. The good news is, that there are free alternatives to almost every marketing tool, so micro businesses or companies trying to cut down their expenses won't become bankrupt if they want to increase productivity and effectiveness.
In this piece, we’ll list the best free marketing tools available for email marketing, writing content, social media scheduling, analytics, managing customer relationships, and SEO. Are you ready to expand your toolkit? Then, here we go!
Online Free Tools for Email Marketing
Email marketing is still a crucial part of many brands' marketing strategies due to its high conversion rate, wide reach, and personalization. It is one of the best methods to build relationships with customers, nurture leads, and thus drive engagement or sales. Email marketing tools allow business owners to compile, send, analyze, and optimize their e-mail campaigns. In addition, many platforms offer free plans with several useful features that can satisfy the needs of a small business or those who are just starting to use email marketing.
Sender
Sender is one of the most popular free tools available for creating, sending, analyzing, and automating emails. The Free Forever plan allows brands to send up to 15,000 emails/month and it includes 2,500 subscribers. Known for its intuitive, uncluttered user interface, it is a smart choice for SMBs and newcomers.
Key features
Automation and pre-built workflows,
Email templates,
HTML, plain text, and drag & drop editor,
Popups and sign-up forms.
Strengths
Unlimited segmentation,
Campaign reports and audience growth analysis,
Google Analytics tracking,
Integrations with WooCommerce, Shopify, PrestaShop, and Zapier.
Brevo
Brevo’s platform provides solutions for generating and nurturing leads, tracking and growing purchases, and maintaining brand reputation and customer care with its comprehensive platform. Its free email marketing plan enables companies to send 300 emails/day and have unlimited subscribers.
Key features
Email templates,
Drag & drop editor,
Advanced segmentation,
Automation and workflow editor.
Strengths
SMS & WhatsApp campaigns,
Free phone number and call statistics,
Email and SMS personalization,
In-browser video calling.
MailerLite
MailerLite offers not only one of the most affordable plans on the market but also a free one with unique features that are rarely found in other email platforms. To begin with, its landing pages and website builder functionalities allow companies to grow their audiences and facilitate lead generation.
Key features
Various content optimization features, including surveys and quizzes,
Newsletter editor,
Image library,
Sign-up and pop-up forms,
Automation builder.
Strengths
The Free plan includes the creation of 10 landing pages and 1 website,
E-commerce integration,
A/B split testing for emails.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is one of the most popular and widely known email marketing and automation services. With its all-in-one capabilities, it provides email creation, automation, lead generation, and communication with clients, making it a preferred choice for companies of all sizes. Its free plan may be a good starting point for those new to email marketing or for micro businesses with a small client base. The free plan includes 500 subscribers and 1,000 email sends per month.
Key features
Customizable landing pages and forms,
Content studio and creative assistant features,
Pre-built templates.
Strengths
More than 300 integrations like Shopify, Canva, and WordPress.
Free Tools for Writing and Editing Content
Content is king. This phrase has been thrown around a lot with the emergence of content marketing in recent years. Although Bill Gates coined the term in 1996, it is still relevant today. A content's purpose can be educational, entertaining, or motivating. Providing quality content helps your brand gain authority and awareness and attract more customers. A good piece of content must also be well-phrased, easy to understand, and error-free. Here are some of the top tools to help you with that.
Grammarly
Grammarly is an online editing and proofreading tool. You don’t have to be a professional writer to know about this service. Although it offers paid plans, the free version of Grammarly checks texts for spelling and grammar, and can function as a thesaurus helping writers create versatile and stylish content.
Key features
This tool functions both as an online grammar checker and has an extension as well,
The free version has some rephrasing capabilities,
Grammar, spelling, and punctuation check.
Strengths
AI Assistant with 100 prompts/month,
Tone detection.
ProWritingAid
ProWritingAid's free tool can be invaluable for writers. While it does all the usual tasks of an online editor and proofreader, what makes ProWritingAid special is its extensive reporting on style optimization from overused words to readability scores. A must-have free tool for those who like to analyze their text and produce impeccable content.
Key features
Grammar check,
Thesaurus,
Style improvement recommendations.
Strengths
Readability score,
Sentence structure check.
Free Content Idea Generators
When inspiration doesn't strike, these digital marketing tools can help any writer. Of course, you should still research the Internet if you want to write about a topic or study your competitors' content. However, these new tools are an effective way to break writer's block, whether creating blog articles, social media posts, or emails.
StoryLab.ai
StoryLab.ai is an AI-powered service offering a free plan for writers who need a little stimulus for their next assignment. As well as providing prompts for multiple formats, including blogs, e-books, and video scripts, it also lets you customize the tone of the text. This app lets you shorten or expand texts, or even reword them.
Key features
Content evaluator for email subject lines and Google and Facebook Ads,
Content editor features,
Tone changer for previously written copies.
Strengths
AI content generator for articles, video scripts, email, social media captions, and ads.
Copy.ai
Copy.ai’s extensive sales and marketing suite allows brands to create seamless marketing campaigns and boost leads and conversions. The AI assistant in the free marketing plan helps writers generate ideas for short and long-form content, including studies, white papers, and social media captions.
Key features
Chat with AI for gathering ideas,
Rich pre-built workflow library,
Built-in text editor.
Strengths
Numerous prompts related to creating email, sales-related copy, recruiting, social media, and long content,
You can add your brand’s voice to create more relevant content.
Free Design and Video Editing Tools
Creating visual content requires graphic design applications and online image and video editors. Nowadays, high-quality, eye-catching visual content is the only way to reach users on social networks. Images and videos are more memorable and engage viewers more than any other type of content. There are countless free tools available to users, both well-known and lesser-known. Here are just a few of them.
Visme
Visme provides more than enough features for solopreneurs and small teams who seek a free solution for graphic design. The free forever plan includes 100MB storage, a file manager, and a template library with animated imagery only available on Visme’s platform.
Key features
More than 2 million images,
Unlimited number of projects,
Video and audio library.
Strengths
Animated icons and illustrations,
Limited collaboration functions, like sharing and commenting on projects.
Design Wizard
Design Wizard is another free tool for businesses with image editing and graphic design capabilities to tailor imagery to their target audience’s tastes. Its free plan includes free templates, 15MB of storage space, and custom color palettes.
Key features
Free video and image templates,
Resize image designs.
Strengths
Lifetime license.
DaVinci Resolve
DaVinci Resolve is the downloadable video editing and post-production software of Blackmagic Design. It offers a broad range of solutions from editing, visual effects, and color correction, to audio production. The paid version is called DaVinci Resolve Studio offering premium features often used by Hollywood filmmakers.
Key features
Available on Mac, Windows, and Linux,
Editing, motion graphics, VFX, and audio production,
Works with all 8-bit video formats.
Strengths
Capable of handling high-quality videos up to Ultra HD resolution (3840x2160 pixels).
Free Keyword Research Tools
In terms of keyword research, Google offers so many options for optimizing your content for targeted keywords and uncovering popular key phrases that we won't list them all. Just a reminder, the Keyword Planner is available if you have a Google Ads account. As a faster alternative, you may use Google Trends or Google Autocomplete. However, there are multiple free online tools or extensions available for keyword research.
Keyword Tool
Keyword Tool is an online free tool for gathering keywords for popular search engines, e-commerce stores, and social media platforms. It can provide over 750 long-tail keywords for every search and features information related to changes in the search volume limited to a few keywords.
Key features
Get keyword ideas for major social media network sites, like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok,
Can be used without creating an account.
Strengths
Users can uncover hashtags and people with their search keywords.
WordStream
WordStream’s free keyword tool actually shows quite a lot of data. It does the job of any other keyword planner by listing relevant keyword variations of your search term and volume but it also shows the level of competition and CPC data.
Key features
You can optimize your keyword search by setting the industry.
Search the top keywords of a webpage.
Strengths
Displays the lowest and highest bids spent on a keyword.
Keyword Surfer
The Keyword Surfer is one of the new tools created by the Polish company Surfer. The company has paid plans that include keyword research, an AI-driven tool for composing articles, and a text editor. They also offer a free tool for generating an article outline and researching keywords. The latter one is Keyword Surfer.
Key features
Easily accessible keyword ideas whenever you surf on Chrome,
70 search countries,
Downloadable keyword lists to CSV files.
Their keyword list displays search volume and overlaps with the keyword you searched.
Strengths
Additional info such as estimated monthly traffic, and number of words under each URL.
Free Customer Relationship Management Tools
Understanding your customers’ behaviors and needs will give your business a huge edge. CRMs come in handy if you want to increase your conversions and enhance customer service and retention by allowing brands to map out customer lifecycle. Although free CRM tools haven’t got the full-fledged features of a paid tool they can still help you organize your contacts and build relationships with prospects.
EngageBay
EngageBay offers a lot more than just a free CRM tool. Its free plan contains several marketing functionalities along with CRM and sales features. It can be a suitable kick-off for new businesses building their client base or local and niche companies with fewer customers.
Key features
A holistic view of customer activity,
Contact management and segmentation,
Sales reporting,
Pipeline tracking.
Strengths
Landing page builder and one landing page,
Email template builder and email sequences.
Bitrix24
Brands that choose Bitrix24 will get a taste of numerous features. It is a multi-functional platform helping businesses in project management, HR, relationship management, and customer service.
Key features
Unlimited contacts and deals,
Contact widget for live chat and call-back forms,
Customer journey tracking.
Strengths
Connects with Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram accounts; brands can manage their social media messaging through Bitrix24’s platform,
5GB website storage and website templates.
Freshsales
Freshsales is the sales and CRM suite created by Freshworks. The company offers an end-to-end workspace with marketing, customer service, chat, IT service management, and CRM solutions for businesses of all sizes. Listed below you’ll find the core functionalities and assets of the free CRM plan.
Key features
Built-in email, chat, and phone,
Sales reports,
Prospect lifecycle stages,
Contact and deal organization in a Kanban-style view.
Strengths
Platform accessible through mobile,
24x5 email, chat, and phone support.
Free Tools for Social Media Management
Businesses can’t ignore the marketing potential of social platforms, not to mention their broad user base. Posting regularly on one social media site improves reach and brand awareness. These days, companies utilize their social media presence to the fullest extent and are active on four to five channels. Thus, social media marketing grew into a separate subfield within digital marketing requiring constant publishing of informative or inspiring content on channels. In response, social media management tools were developed, enabling brands to automate specific tasks and create workflows that saved time and energy. For those just getting their feet wet with social media marketing, here are three free options.
Buffer
Buffer is a well-known digital marketing tool among professionals. Its free plan allows a user to connect with three social media channels. It integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Shopify, Mastodon, YouTube, and Google Business Profile and allows ten scheduled posts per channel each month; so all together 30 posts per month.
Key features
AI Assistant for content creation,
Image editor,
Reminders and direct scheduling for Instagram,
Instagram Stories scheduling.
Strengths
Access up to 20+ app integrations, including Canva, Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive.
CoSchedule
CoSchedule’s user-friendly and visual tool assists a solopreneur in their marketing and task management activities. CoSchedule’s free plan enables 1 user, 15 scheduled social media posts per month, and two social profiles. It integrates with Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, Google Business Profile and Mastodon.
Key features
AI-prompt templates,
AI Assistant for idea generation,
Reusable templates,
Integrations with major cloud services.
Strengths
Drag & drop calendar and customizable color coding,
1TB file storage,
Task organization and project management.
Socialoomph
Socialoomph’s plans are straightforward, and the free plan is perfect for one-person brands that want to maximize one social media site to the fullest. The package includes one social profile with unlimited scheduled posts per month.
Key features
To-the-point user interface,
Free support.
Strengths
Allows three publications per hour, which is by far the most number of scheduled posts in any free plan.
Free Analytics Tools
Only by measuring the performance of your website and online campaigns can you improve your audience targeting and engagement, and grow your ROI. Analytics tools collect and analyze a wealth of data which helps you understand who your visitors are and what they are looking for. This makes it easier to optimize your webpage to cater to their needs.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics doesn't need to be introduced to any online business. Known as a leading and well-established online analytics tool, it expands its feature list every year.
Key features
Tracks numerous data including traffic source, conversions, and user behavior,
Audience insights and detailed segmentation,
Real-time analytics.
Strengths
In-depth reporting thanks to the extensive data it collects.
Open Web Analytics
Open Web Analytics is a web analytics service with many similar features to Google Analytics. However, OWA is open-source and self-hosted, making it more easily customizable.
Key features
Visitor statistics,
Real-time measuring,
Campaign and conversion tracking.
Strengths
Includes site usage heatmaps,
Can be hosted on users’ own servers.
Users own all the data.
Free Influencer Marketing Tools
Numerous businesses have made influencer marketing an essential part of their marketing strategy. Unlike traditional brand ads, influencer promotions are seen as more authentic and relatable, enabling businesses to appear trustworthy and likable. In recent years, influencers have attracted fans who are interested in their content and trust that their endorsements are reliable and relevant. Influencer marketing is gaining popularity, and brands can utilize a number of tools, free and paid, to vet influencers or analyze their competitors' social media channels. In the next section, we’ll introduce three free marketing tools by HypeAuditor that can be a valuable help for both businesses and influencers.
Instagram Account Audit
HypeAuditor’s Instagram Audit and Fake Follower Checker is a free tool for checking Instagram users’ social media profiles; more precisely, their audience quality and engagement. Audience Quality Score (AQS) is our proprietary metric for estimating the quality of Instagram accounts. Users are scored between 1 and 100 depending on several metrics such as quality audience, engagement rate, followers and following growth, and engagement authenticity. Using the Instagram Fake Follower Checker is one way to find influencers with authentic followers.
Benefits
The Instagram Audit tool enables brands to check influencers before reaching out to them.
Businesses can determine the quality of their competitors' audiences and benchmark their results against theirs.
In the case of a low score, influencers can take measures to improve their followers' quality.
Free Tool for Calculating YouTube Earnings
The YouTube Money Calculator by HypeAuditor helps influencers estimate their YouTube incomes based on their number of subscribers, average video views, and engagement rate. It was designed primarily for influencers to calculate their income when brands approach them for collaboration. However, businesses can also use it if they are looking to collaborate with YouTubers. By using the calculator, marketers can determine the worth of YouTube creators and use it as a reference during negotiations.
Benefits
The tool helps businesses plan their campaigns' budgets, among other things by defining expected costs and possible returns.
Instagram Engagement Rate Calculator
The Instagram Engagement Calculator is one of the digital marketing tools designed by HypeAuditor. It measures the engagement level of social media content in relation to followers. A high ER indicates that the content is relevant and resonates well with the audience.
Benefits
ER serves as one of the most important action metrics when analyzing influencers. The higher the value, the more engaged the audience and the more likely they are to convert. In this way, it is a powerful tool for detecting fake influencers with high follower counts but low engagement rates.
Understandably, this list is far from complete. Please check out our full list of free tools on our website.
Conclusion
While free marketing tools do have some limitations, they can be an excellent asset and a cost-efficient solution for small businesses and solopreneurs if carefully selected and combined. With the best tools, small businesses and teams are able to multitask without the stress and errors that come with a multi-channel marketing strategy.
