What are the best tools for doing freelance creative work?

Question

Up to this point I've only ever done full-time work as a designer, but am now dipping my toes into freelance work on the side. What are the best tools for getting started, i.e. tax tools, invoices, time tracking, etc. Is there a one-stop solution for all of this?

Accepted Answer

Awesome Designs Tools is the most comprehensive collection of design tools: more than 500 tools in 35 different sections. 
Hope you'll find here great tools for doing freelance creative work, as well :)

Eva Reder · Answer

And Co does more than a lot of other software and ever since they got acquired by Fiverr it's totally free. I used to pay 9.99 USD a month for a similar product with less functionality. Love their contracts & proposals feature!

Ayush Mittal · Answer

I used Upwork earlier and Fiverr for my freelance work. Apart from its database of 1.5 million clients, Upwork is excellent. It lets you set up different client accounts within your freelancer account along with powerful reporting tools for every project. It accommodates both short- and long-term projects, hourly or per-project work and expert-level and entry-level engagements. What is more - timesheets, time analyzer, earnings by a client, lifetime earnings, logs, history, etc.

Kesava Mandiga · Answer

Hello Bonsai has an entire suite of tools for freelancers. Contracts, time tracking, design, project management, invoicing and so on. 🙌

Armand · Answer

Super simple interface that does everything you need like contracts, time tracking, and invoicing!

Ann · Answer

Zenkit is very flexible to fullfill various needs of freelancer. For instance, use Zenkit as tasks/to-do planner, project management, CRM for invoices, file archive, and many more. You can switch views from Kanban, Table, To-do lists, calendar, mind map, and upcoming Gantt chart! Zenkit also integrates with different time trackers for your needs!

Eugen Tișcovschi · Answer

The Creator helps you create and design better and faster, branded graphic design for your business, your startup or for your clients. Unleash your creativity! You are The Creator! 
Full & Free Things Included. :)

Daniel Alm · Answer

When you are a freelancer, you want to focus on doing your best work rather than tracking your time.
That's why my app Timing 2 completely automates your time tracking. It observes how you use your Mac, then gives you an overview of that time.

Some nice extras:
- Timing automatically suggest blocks of time that belong together. That way, you can assign a whole day in just seconds.
- Timing can even automatically ask you what you did, as soon as you return to your Mac.

Of course all the basics (projects, start/stop timers, reports, exporting, etc.) are handled as well :-)

Celine Carpet · Answer

PDFelement for Mac/windows is a speedy, lightweight, yet surprisingly powerful PDF editing application. Product page: https://pdf.wondershare.com/?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=producthunt-peytl&utm_campaign=wspe 
And PDFelement also releases a basic version for those people who require to edit pdf in a simple and fast method with an affordable price. PDFelement Pro for Mac-it helps to read, edit, or annotate PDFs, convert PDFs with ease. Convert PDFs to words/text/PPT/EXCEL. It also support OCR(convert image to words)
Product page: https://pdf.wondershare.com/pdf-editor-mac/?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=producthunt-peytl&utm_campaign=wspe

Tatev Hackobian · Answer

Krisp offers a free deep learning tool to completely mute any background noise from the person you are speaking with but also if you are in a noisy area.

Especially useful if you have to attend a video conference in an open office space, home with children on the background or any other place with noise you want to eliminate for the other party.

The good news, it's compatible with any conferencing app - Zoom, Skype, Slack andd 500 more! One more reason to work from your browser!

Hanna Kline · Answer

This tool lets you create beautiful templates to be sold. You can discuss details with your client there. The coolest thing is that you can create beautiful designs w/o HTML skills

Evan Kimbrell · Answer

We use Taskade, it's like a unified hub or workspace for getting sh*t done.

John Pooley · Answer

Milanote is a great fit for freelancers in both the marketing and design spaces. Created to replicate the feeling of working on a wall in a creative studio - visual, tactile and sometimes a bit messy. Milanote has heaps of built-in templates to help you get started with a variety of different projects, from creating a moodboard to set out the visual direction for a project, to writing that perfect creative brief. Its sharing features make it a great option for those who regularly provide work to clients for feedback.

Marina Timchenko · Answer

This app has everything you mentioned above + time off tracking

Anton Sten · Answer

Full disclosure: I'm the author. That said, readers so far have been really satisfied with it and told me it's given them tons of value. For a list of the tools I use, check: https://antonsten.com/tools

Malin Sundberg · Answer

If you’re using macOS, I released a time tracking and invoicing app for the Mac yesterday! It’s called Orbit.

I might be biased, but I love using it every day! 😉

At the moment, we have a special Founders plan and offer a free trial.

Jacob Trazire · Answer

Might be what you're looking for. A bit odder as a solution but if you already have a system for finding clients, this is perfect.

Kesava Mandiga · Answer

Harvest makes time tracking easy. Simple and easy to use, it can help keep track of pretty much everything you work on.

Kesava Mandiga · Answer

I haven't used this one, so it is based on feedback from other freelancers. One stop accounting solution that does pro invoices and more.

Ivan Mir · Answer

Qbserve (our app) tracks project time automatically and generates invoices from collected data. It also gives real-time feedback on your productivity – a very important feature for a person new to freelancing and working from home.

Sneha Mittal Sachdeva · Answer

Great pick! Schedule your meetings and appointments with your leads and send them to your website after the booking. Automatically share relevant links of your work with an follow up message from the system. Connect it to Hubspot CRM (both free tools) to have an organized lead management system in place for yourself.

Levente Szabo · Answer

Create your invoice, quote or project plan or any other documentation in PDF from Jira issues with one click.

Answer

Easy to sell one's work - through files and appointment scheduling.

Jessica Bianchi · Answer

It can be tough to brainstorm alone as a freelancer. Innovator is a platform that uses lateral thinking to help you push beyond your own perspective. Really helpful when you're stuck!

Ivan Burban · Answer

Builder for dynamic AMP email