Published February 25, 2026 · 22 min read
I talk to a lot of people who want to start an online business but think they need thousands of dollars in software, tools, and services before they can launch. Ten years ago, that might have been true. In 2026, it is absolutely not.
You can build a professional website, design a logo, accept payments, send emails to customers, track analytics, manage social media, and run your entire business using nothing but free tools. Not crappy free tools with watermarks everywhere. Actually good, professional-grade tools that scale with you.
I have organized this guide by category so you can find exactly what you need. Every tool listed here has a genuinely useful free tier. No trials. No hidden fees. Real free tools that real businesses use.
spunk.codes has built 136+ premium tools for entrepreneurs, developers, and creators. Every tool is free. No signup. No credit card.
Launch Checklist Idea ValidatorEvery business needs an online presence. Here are the best free ways to get one in 2026.
What: Free static website hosting directly from a GitHub repository. Custom domain support. HTTPS included. Unlimited bandwidth.
Best for: Developers, portfolios, blogs, documentation sites. If you can write HTML or use a static site generator, this is the best free hosting available. No limits, no ads, no branding.
Limitations: Static sites only (no server-side code). But with modern JavaScript, you can build surprisingly dynamic experiences on static hosting.
Read our full guide: How to Build a Free Website with GitHub Pages
What: Simple, responsive one-page websites. Free tier includes 3 sites with a carrd.co subdomain.
Best for: Landing pages, coming soon pages, personal portfolios, link-in-bio pages. The drag-and-drop builder makes it possible to create a professional-looking page in 30 minutes.
Limitations: Free tier limited to 3 sites and basic features. Pro is $19/year (worth it if you like the platform).
What: The world's most popular website platform. Free tier includes hosting, a wordpress.com subdomain, and basic templates.
Best for: Blogs, content-heavy sites, and anyone who wants maximum flexibility with themes and plugins.
Limitations: Free tier has WordPress ads, limited storage, and no custom domain. But it is a great starting point.
What: Notion pages can be made public and used as simple websites. Combine with Super.so or Potion.so for better design.
Best for: Knowledge bases, documentation, simple business sites. If you already use Notion, turning a page into a website takes 10 seconds.
What: Drag-and-drop website builder integrated with Google Workspace. Completely free. Custom domain support.
Best for: Simple business sites, internal wikis, project pages. Not flashy but functional and free.
What: Free hosting for modern web applications. Automatic deployments from GitHub. Free SSL. Global CDN.
Best for: Developers building with React, Next.js, Vue, or any modern framework. Both have generous free tiers (100 GB bandwidth/month on Netlify, unlimited on Vercel for personal projects).
Use our Landing Page Pro to design your website layout before building it, and our Landing Page Grader to optimize it for conversions once it is live.
You do not need to hire a designer to look professional. These tools make it possible for anyone to create polished visuals.
What: The Swiss Army knife of design. Create social media graphics, presentations, logos, flyers, business cards, videos, and basically anything visual.
Best for: Everything visual. Canva's free tier is unbelievably generous. Thousands of templates, millions of stock photos, and an intuitive drag-and-drop editor.
Limitations: Some premium templates, photos, and features are Pro-only ($13/month). But 90% of what you need is free.
What: Professional design tool used by actual product designers at Google, Microsoft, and every major tech company. Free tier includes 3 projects.
Best for: Website mockups, app designs, UI/UX design. If you want to design a website before building it, Figma is the industry standard.
What: A free, browser-based alternative to Photoshop. Opens PSD, Sketch, and XD files. Same interface as Photoshop.
Best for: Photo editing, graphic creation, and anyone who needs Photoshop-level capabilities without the $21/month subscription.
What: Color palette generator. Press spacebar to generate beautiful color schemes instantly.
Best for: Choosing your brand colors. Combine with our Color Contrast Checker and Color System Builder for a complete color system.
What: Over 1,500 free, open-source fonts. Free to use commercially.
Best for: Typography for your website and brand materials.
What: Millions of high-quality stock photos. Completely free for commercial use. No attribution required.
Best for: Website images, social media posts, blog headers. Never pay for stock photos again.
What: Free animations and motion graphics for websites and apps. Lightweight, scalable, and easy to implement.
Best for: Adding professional animations to your website without creating them from scratch.
Use our Brand Strategy Pro to develop your complete brand identity and our CSS Animation Studio to create custom web animations.
Email is still the highest-ROI marketing channel. $36 returned for every $1 spent, on average. These tools let you get started for free.
What: The most popular email marketing platform. Free tier: up to 500 contacts, 1,000 emails/month, basic automation.
Best for: Getting started with email marketing. The templates, automation, and analytics are solid even on the free tier.
What: Email marketing with a generous free tier: 300 emails/day (9,000/month) with unlimited contacts.
Best for: Businesses with larger email lists that want to avoid Mailchimp's contact-based pricing.
What: Email marketing with a clean interface. Free tier: 1,000 subscribers, 12,000 emails/month, landing pages, and basic automation.
Best for: Bloggers, content creators, and small businesses who want simplicity and good automation.
What: Minimalist newsletter tool. Free tier: up to 100 subscribers. Markdown support. No templates, no clutter.
Best for: Writers and developers who want a clean, no-nonsense newsletter tool.
What: Newsletter platform with optional paid subscriptions. Free to use. Substack takes 10% only if you charge subscribers.
Best for: Writers, journalists, and anyone who wants to build a paid newsletter business. Free newsletters are 100% free to run.
Plan your email sequences with our Email Sequence Builder, warm up your domain with the Email Warmup Planner, and build automated flows with the Email Automation Builder.
Plan your welcome sequence, nurture flows, and promotional campaigns with our free email tools.
Email Sequence Builder Automation BuilderYou need to get paid. These tools make it free to start accepting money.
What: The best payment processor for online businesses. No monthly fee. Pay only per transaction (2.9% + $0.30 per charge).
Best for: Any online business. Stripe handles credit cards, bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more. Their Checkout product lets you create a payment page in minutes.
What: Accept payments from anyone with a PayPal account or credit card. No monthly fee. 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
Best for: Freelancers, small businesses, and international payments. PayPal is trusted by buyers worldwide.
What: Accept payments online and in person. Free online store. Free invoicing. 2.6% + $0.10 per in-person transaction, 2.9% + $0.30 online.
Best for: Businesses that sell both online and in person. The free online store is surprisingly capable.
What: Free accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning. Genuinely free, not a trial. Revenue comes from their payroll and payment processing services.
Best for: Small businesses and freelancers who need professional invoicing and basic accounting without paying for QuickBooks.
What: Sell digital products, memberships, and subscriptions. No monthly fee. 10% fee per transaction on the free plan.
Best for: Selling digital products (ebooks, courses, templates, software). Set up a product page and start selling in minutes. See our guide: How to Make Money Selling Digital Products
Create professional invoices with our Invoice Calculator, track payments with Invoice Hawk, and optimize your pricing with the Pricing Strategy Lab.
If you are not measuring, you are guessing. These free tools tell you what is working and what is not.
What: The industry standard for website analytics. Track visitors, page views, conversions, user behavior, traffic sources, and more. Completely free.
Best for: Every website. There is no reason not to have GA4 installed. It is free and gives you data that is essential for growing your business.
What: See how Google views your website. Track search rankings, impressions, click-through rates, indexing status, and technical SEO issues. Free.
Best for: SEO. If you want organic traffic from Google (you do), Search Console is essential. It tells you exactly what people search to find your site.
What: Free heatmaps and session recordings. See exactly where users click, scroll, and get stuck on your website.
Best for: Understanding user behavior. Watching real session recordings is eye-opening. You will immediately see where people get confused or drop off.
What: SEO tool for keyword research, site audits, and competitor analysis. Free tier: 3 searches/day.
Best for: Keyword research when starting a blog or content strategy. Find what people are searching for and how hard it is to rank.
What: Free limited version of Ahrefs for verified site owners. See your backlinks, organic keywords, and technical SEO issues.
Best for: Understanding your site's SEO health and finding technical issues to fix.
What: Google's free tool to test your website speed and performance. Gives specific recommendations for improvement.
Best for: Making sure your site loads fast. Slow sites lose visitors and rank lower in Google.
Level up your SEO with our exclusive tools: SEO Audit Tool, SEO Keyword Cluster, SEO Audit Pro, and the Landing Page Grader. Track your competitors with Competitor Spy and Rival Radar.
You need to be where your customers are. These tools make social media manageable without spending money.
What: Schedule and publish social media posts to multiple platforms. Free tier: 3 social channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel.
Best for: Scheduling posts so you are not glued to your phone. Plan your week's content in one sitting.
What: Visual social media scheduler. Free tier: 1 social profile per platform, 5 posts per profile per month.
Best for: Instagram-heavy businesses. The visual calendar and link-in-bio features are great.
What: Social media management dashboard. Free tier: 2 social accounts, 5 scheduled posts.
Best for: Managing multiple social accounts from one dashboard.
What: Multi-column Twitter/X dashboard. Monitor mentions, hashtags, lists, and schedule posts.
Best for: X/Twitter power users. See multiple feeds simultaneously.
What: Hashtag research tool. Find popular and related hashtags for your posts.
Best for: Finding the right hashtags to increase your content's reach.
Supercharge your social media with our exclusive tools: Social Media Scheduler, Viral Tweet Generator, Viral Content Planner, Content Repurposer, Ghost Follower Detector, and the Hashtag Generator.
What: All-in-one workspace for notes, wikis, project management, and databases. Free for personal use.
Best for: Organizing everything about your business in one place. SOPs, content calendars, CRM, product roadmap, meeting notes. Notion does it all.
What: Visual project management with kanban boards. Free tier: unlimited boards, unlimited cards, up to 10 collaborators.
Best for: Task management and project tracking. Simple, visual, and effective.
What: Team communication. Free tier: 90 days of message history, 1:1 video calls.
Best for: Team communication if you have co-founders, contractors, or employees.
What: Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive (15 GB), Calendar, Meet. All free with a Google account.
Best for: Everything. Google's free tools replace Microsoft Office, file storage, email, video conferencing, and calendar apps. The collaboration features are best in class.
What: Scheduling tool. Clients book time on your calendar without the back-and-forth emails. Free tier: 1 event type.
Best for: Freelancers, consultants, and anyone who takes meetings or calls.
What: Record your screen and face to create quick videos. Free tier: 25 videos up to 5 minutes each.
Best for: Client communication, product demos, tutorials, and async team updates.
Already mentioned in payments but worth repeating: Wave gives you free professional accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning. This replaces QuickBooks ($25-80/month) for most small businesses.
What: Electronic signatures. Free tier: 3 signature requests per month.
Best for: Contracts, NDAs, and any document that needs a signature. Legally binding.
What: Free federal tax filing for individuals earning under $84,000/year. Partners with TurboTax, H&R Block, and others.
Best for: Filing your taxes without paying for tax software.
What: Free business plan templates, legal guides, funding resources, and mentorship from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Best for: Understanding the legal and financial basics of starting a business.
Create contracts with our Contract Craft tool, plan your finances with the Burn Rate Analyzer and Runway Map, and validate your idea with Validate First.
In addition to all the third-party tools above, spunk.codes has built 136+ premium tools specifically for entrepreneurs, developers, and creators. Every single one is free. No signup. No credit card. No limits.
Here is a sample of what is available, organized by what you need:
Test your business idea against 20+ validation criteria before investing time and money.
Step-by-step checklist for launching your online business. Nothing gets missed.
Map out your path to $1M in revenue with milestone tracking and strategy planning.
Estimate your total addressable market (TAM), serviceable addressable market (SAM), and serviceable obtainable market (SOM).
Set revenue goals and break them down into daily, weekly, and monthly targets.
Test different pricing models and see how they affect revenue, margins, and growth.
Calculate exactly when your business becomes profitable.
Find opportunities to improve your margins across products and services.
Calculate customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), and LTV:CAC ratio.
Complete SEO audit of your website with actionable recommendations.
Plan content with virality frameworks built in. Emotional triggers, shareability scores, and distribution strategies.
Design and optimize your marketing funnel from awareness to purchase.
Optimize your advertising budget across channels for maximum ROI.
Plan a complete content strategy across blog, social, email, and video.
Create detailed customer personas to guide your marketing and product decisions.
Analyze customer feedback and reviews to find patterns and opportunities.
Score and prioritize leads based on behavior, demographics, and engagement.
Map out and automate your business processes. Find bottlenecks and eliminate them.
Set and track Objectives and Key Results for your business.
Track your most important business metrics in one view.
Browse all 136+ tools here. Use code SPUNK for the full premium experience.
136+ free tools. Zero signup. No credit card. Start building your business right now.
Launch Checklist Validate Your IdeaYes. Every tool in this guide has a genuinely useful free tier. You can build a website, create a brand, accept payments, send emails, and manage your business without spending a dollar on software. The only costs are your time, your domain name ($10-15/year), and payment processing fees (2.9% per transaction).
A website (GitHub Pages or Carrd, free), a way to accept payments (Stripe or PayPal, free to set up), and a way to communicate with customers (email or social media, free). That is it. You can add more tools as you grow.
Start free. Always. Use free tools until they genuinely limit your growth. Most businesses can operate on free tiers well past their first $10,000 in revenue. When a free tool's limitations actually cost you money (lost sales, wasted time), then upgrade to paid.
If you can code: GitHub Pages + Netlify/Vercel. If you want simplicity: Carrd for a one-pager, WordPress for a blog. If you want an online store: Square Online or Shopify's free trial. Use our Landing Page Pro to plan your site first.
Yes. Start collecting emails immediately even if you do not know what to send yet. Your email list is the only audience you truly own. Social media algorithms can change overnight, but your email list is yours forever. Mailchimp's free tier is perfect for getting started.
Start with the essentials (website, payments, email) and add tools as specific needs arise. Do not sign up for 20 tools on day one. You will waste time learning platforms you do not need yet. Use our Launch Checklist Pro for a step-by-step guide.
Wave for full accounting and invoicing. Square for invoicing with built-in payment processing. Our Invoice Calculator for quick invoice creation without signing up for anything.
Wave for professional accounting. Google Sheets for simple tracking. Our Burn Rate Analyzer, Revenue Goal Planner, and Breakeven Blueprint for financial planning.
Most free tiers support businesses up to $5,000-10,000/month in revenue. Beyond that, upgrading to paid plans is usually justified by the revenue they help generate. The upgrade path is smooth for every tool listed here.
Our 136+ tools are purpose-built for entrepreneurs and creators. No signup. No email required. No usage limits. No free trial that expires. Genuinely free forever. And they cover gaps that mainstream tools miss, like idea validation, viral content planning, and negotiation scripts.
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