My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker
Hey IHers!
I posted a vlog yesterday about my favorite free tools that I use to run my operations as an Indie Hacker. I cover all types of free tools, from tools that I use to capture and organize new ideas, to tools I use to design my mockups, and tools I use to develop new products.
Check it out here: https://youtu.be/Fd5MKuia87k
What are your favorite free tools? 🤔
Are there any that I missed? 🧐
Inversely, what tools do you think are worth paying for? 🤑
Let me know in the comments below, cheers!
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Using ColdClicks everyday now for our cold email channel. Would highly recommend for anyone using email to scale!
May i ask where you get the cold email? I tried zoominfo, they are quite pricey.
Of course, happy to help. Often time Facebook groups like Cold Email Tools have people who sell lists for very cheap.
Users there will usually have grandfathered accounts from Apollo or ZoomInfo and can sell 10-20k leads for around 25-100 bucks depending on quality, etc. Fiver, Upworkk also have a lot of these sellers.
Would highly recommend that first! And then ColdClicks and Instantly are $19 and $37. So $56 per month and then a $50 10k list should last months of steady outreach if only using a few mailboxes.
@WilliamPaul did an awesome job with ColdClicks, he posts here all the time too
Very cool! Looks like they've got a generous 3-month free trial period.
Also, hey there in Lake Zurich! I'm up in MKE. 👋
AH love it. Will be there in a few weeks for some friends.
Hard to find locals (even semi-) that are into this world too. Let's connect!
Nice! hmu if you want to grab a 🍔 and shoot the shit about hacking [email protected]
Nice we've been using them too. I think our emails are delivering better since they're all worded differently now.
Was on Starter and they cut the price of all the plans in half so will be moving up to Biz next month for the same cost. Will take the W!
Thanks for sharing, it will be very useful!
You're welcome Victor!
Very cool!
Much appreciated!
super helpful for solo builder like me. Thanks for sharing!
Aww, I'm glad it was helpful! 🤎
Nice, thanks for sharing. Love free stuff :D
NP thanks for checking it out!
Thanks for sharing.
You're welcome!
Google Workspace: For email, document collaboration, and productivity tools.
Slack: Communication and collaboration with team members and communities.
Trello: Project management and task organization.
GitHub: Version control and collaboration for coding projects.
Figma: Design and prototyping tool for UI/UX.
Canva: Graphic design tool for social media posts, presentations, etc.
Buffer: Social media management and scheduling.
I've been thinking about trying out Buffer, but I haven't got around to it yet.
Slack is the best, but I don't have anyone to talk to 🥲
Thanks a lot for sharing!
Adding more to the discussion, aside from web hosting platforms with a free tier (Vercel, Netlify), I'm struggling to find a SaaS or provider with a reasonable cost to host my backend and database instance. Previously, I used Heroku, but it's no longer free.
Right now, I'm using the Azure Cloud Provide. Once the free tier expires, the total cost will be relatively high, considering my budget. I would love to hear if you happen to have any recommendations. Thanks, Scott!
Render.com is like heroku and it has free tiers for back-end and databases. The lower tiers are also inexpensive.
+1 for Render. fly.io is good too!
Will definitely check out Render and Flyio. Thanks guys!
Can you try supabse , the costing if it suits you .
You can turn towards aws always, it will be cheaper than any other
Cool! For supabase, the free tier option is already enough for my needs. Thanks man!
Thanks for sharing, I'm trying to discover what is useful and what I can integrate into my life.
You are welcome! The best way is to try something out for a couple of weeks and see if it improves your operations. If not, try something else!
I have been using Trello for almost everything now. From tasks to do, to articles to read, all the way down to groceries to buy.
omg, I was doing that too. I'm just down to two boards that I use now.
Can I make a self-recommendation?
ServBay, a fully integrated Web Development tool may help you a lot.
I love some shameless self-promotion!
Tinywow is my favorite free tool. BTW, every free tool is always my favorite. 😆
The simplicity of every tool on their site is a massive differentiator. Do one job, do it well.
Awesome video,
I hadn't considered using Pinterest much for web design. After seeing your use of it, it's clear I've neglected it. Thanks for the tip
Thanks Rico!
I find that Pinterest's algorithm and interface does a great job of showing me variations on a concept (color, theme, components, etc). IMO it does a better job of this than Dribbble, Mobbin, etc, even though a lot of the "pins" on Pinterest link back to those other sites. 😆
Here is my Web Design board if you want to check it out: https://pin.it/4Kl5BN8Y6
Thanks for sharing Scott. When I'm looking for some tools on my way, I usually visit my own directory at webcurate.co
Thanks for sharing. Your site is super clean, well done. It has a shadcn look about it, are you using a UI library?
Glad to hear that Scott! Thanks for it! Not really, I designed it myself.
Wow, it looks great!
Thanks for this vlog! Was pretty interesting
Thanks for watching!
i use Canva too but sometimes it is better to go pro :)
I've been tempted to pay for Canva Pro... being able to export higher quality designs would be great!
it is worth the money if u need pre-made beautiful template or design from cartoon to almost anything.
Github copilot is worth the money! I quickly discovered that I cant live without it.
Be sure to set up voice transcription so you can ask your code questions by saying "Hey code"
In conjunction with the smarter GPT4, you should be able to tackle anything.
I didn't know that it could do that! I'll have to look into it. Cheers Mike