The Solopreneur Stack: Quick Overview of 15 Free Apps to Use When Starting Out

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A stack is a term used by programmers and developers to list the applications they use to create apps. When I started as a small business owner, my stack was made of applications that were completely free and open source. Now that was many years ago and many of the apps I used are no longer free, with some having disappeared completely.

It should also be mentioned that free tools are typically limited. The underlying goal is usually to get people to upgrade to higher levels, much like Shareware back in the day. These limitations can lead to difficult migrations, so it’s important to consider what comes next after the free tool has been outgrown.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t many great free options. Many of today’s free apps are often more capable than those that came before. This is why I decided to revisit this topic and provide a list of the apps that I would use today if I was again starting out. Several of these apps I’ve actually set up for clients and some I have used for specific projects, so I am familiar with them.

The Apps

I selected these apps for their ease of use and upgradability. The list includes links and some thoughts. If you need to know more about these apps, I have a more complete PDF that includes my reviews, more info on upgrading, and useful links. Just click here: The Full Solopreneur Stack to request it. And yes, it’s completely free.

1.      Office Suite: LibreOffice

Most startups use Google Apps, but it’s a bit limited, and at the mercy of Google – is that really where you want to storing your critical business docs? What you need is Microsoft Office, but that’s not free either. Fortunately, there’s LibreOffice, possibly the best option for keeping business documents on personal computers for free. It’s simple, extremely capable, and yes, completely free forever.

2.      Business Accounting: Wave

Using an accounting application can provide peace of mind, especially during tax time. Wave offers a full set of features, heck it even allows setting up multiple accounts under one login, perfect for multiple income streams. Yes, QuickBooks, Freshbooks, Xero and others may be better but none of them are free.

3.      A Basic Web Presence: BioSites (formerly Unfold)

Solopreneurs who don't have a website are being lazy. This forces customers to take extra steps to find them, communicate and purchase. This is an impediment to sales, and no business wants that. Creating a simple one-page bio site is one of the best ways to get a Website. BioSites is a great tool to create a quick one-page site perfect for startups. It offers a central place to link to your store, your contact info, and your social media, and it’s completely free.

4.      Customer Relationship Management (CRM): HubSpot

A Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) is important for clients and sales because it tracks all your emails and other outreach to customers. HubSpot was a game-changer for me, letting me know who, when, and where I send emails to. Following up was much simpler knowing this and made in-person meetings and phone discussions much more productive. CRMs are usually expensive, but HubSpot is an industry standard and the basic version is completely free.

5.      Expense tracking: Expensify

Expensify is a free expense-tracking app that allows you to scan receipts right from your phone and it will automatically read the relevant data and categorize it for you. This makes a detailed list of your business expenses each month. While the free version is limited to just 25 scans, it was enough for me when I was starting out. If I exceeded 25 receipts in a month, I could always enter the data manually. It’s a simple but very useful tool and it’s completely free.

6.      Mileage tracking: Everlance

Like tracking expenses, tracking vehicle miles accurately is important, especially when it comes to tax-time. What you want is an app that does this automatically based on your cellphone’s GPS. There are other popular options, but Everlance is the clear winner in terms of features, ease of use, company reputation, and support. While the free version only GPS-tracks 25 trips per month, I rarely exceeded that, and if I did, I could enter the rest manually.

7.      Social Media Management: Social Champ

Hootsuite used to be the king of free apps, but it was canceled last year, so I recommend Social Champ instead. If you need to schedule posts and track the click rates, then the free version of Social Champ allows you to track up to 15 posts per month. It supports all the major social media platforms, except Twitter/X and Pinterest. For a free app it is quite capable and comparable to what the free Hootsuite used to be.

8.      Notes and Time Management: Amplenote

I used Evernote for note-taking for years to make to-do lists and save just about everything that I needed to jot down. Unfortunately, the app disappeared. I then tried other apps, including ToDoist, TikTik, and Notion, but ultimately I settled on Amplenote. Note-taking and time management can be very personal so YMMV. If you are going to try some of these, then put Amplenote on your shortlist. It was the perfect upgrade to Evernote and has made me much more productive in the process.

9.      Email service: Microsoft Outlook / Hotmail

Email service refers to the service you use to send email, not the app your use to compose emails. That said, the Outlook email composing app not too shabby either, and certainly better than Gmail, IMO.

As for using the Outlook.com service to send your emails, the nice things is that you’ll have an @outlook.com email instead of an @gmail.com address. This will give your customers more confidence in you and your business because it’s a well respected corporate name. The service also has excellent uptime, reliability, security, and tech support. If it’s good enough for entire government agencies, then it’s probably good enough for your small business too. Oh, and it’s completely free.

10.  Email campaigns/newsletters: MailChimp

Mailchimp's free version used to offer more perks, but the new owner, Intuit has decided to offer less. That said, it still allows you to send 500 emails per month for free. It's a good option for email campaigns with less than 500 subscribers, but if you have more, you can simply set up a second account.

Unlike your email service, Mailchimp sends emails to many recipients in batches so that they don't look like spam. It also has an easy-to-use interface and does a great job of guiding you through complex tasks like resending to people who didn’t read the first email. Mailchimp still offers more functionality for free than its competitors.

11.  File Backup/Synchronizing: FreeFileSync

First off, I really think everyone should use a complete and well-supported backup software app. But if you can’t pay for this, then FreeFileSync is a great tool for backing up and synchronizing important business files to other, secure locations. The app will do this automatically and at pre-scheduled times. Unlike other backup apps, it allows files to be backed up and synchronized without any change to the files. This makes the process simple so that you are more likely to actually do it, something many new business owners neglect to do.

12.  Time Tracking: Toggl Track

Toggl is a free app that helps track time spent on projects. This is great for keeping track of time for yourself and for any employees you have, making accurate billing for time much easier. Now you can keep track of time spent talking with clients, sending emails, helping people online, and working on social media. It also has great reporting features for documenting the work for your contracts, invoicing, and taxes.

13.  Transcription App: OTranscribe

As my business grew, I started recording my meetings with clients. That is when I stumbled upon OTranscribe, a free and pretty accurate transcription app that can be used on any device. I used to use my phone, but now I use a dedicated voice recorder whenever I have long meetings. BTW, OTranscribe can also be used to extract text from YouTube videos. The interface is simple and easy to use, and it is completely free to use.

14.  Error Correction: Grammarly

Grammarly is simply better than the spelling and grammar checker in your word processor. It also works everywhere else, like on web pages and even on your phone. For me, it dramatically improved my writing and while the paid version can do even more, the free version works pretty darn good. Small business owners don't want to spend all their time writing or editing their emails and letters, and Grammarly makes their writing error-free.

15.  Wealth Checkup: Empower

Monitoring wealth growth is not necessary for business, but I’m including it here because tracking one’s wealth helps keep things in perspective. It provides motivation, especially when sales are slow. Empower is a great app that tracks investments and gives a long-term view of where things are headed. Best of all, it is completely free.

Conclusion

This is not a comprehensive list of free apps for solopreneurs. However, it is a list of apps that I have used and recommended to clients. These apps are free and in most cases offer a simple upgrade path to whatever your business may need in the future.

As mentioned above, this is only a quick overview. For a more detailed list with useful links, you can request the The Full Solopreneur Stack.