30 Best Apps for Freelancers Chosen By Remote Work Experts

What does it take to be a successful freelancer? Is it knowledge and experience, people skills, consistency and hard effort, serendipity, or a random streak of luck?

It’s all of that, plus a bit of helpful technology. 

Using the right apps can put technology to work for you in your freelance career. We’ve chosen 30 of the best apps for freelancers to help you handle communication, manage your time, place irresistible bids, and more.

With the help of these apps, you can save precious hours in your schedule and optimize your workflow to get more done in less time. (Which means more time for leisure and travel!)

Jump to a section:

• Communication apps
• Organization apps
• Time management apps
• Bidding help apps
• Invoicing + accounting apps
• Time-saving apps

Communication apps for freelancers

One of the overwhelming aspects of freelancing is that you must handle so many facets of work independently. Communication is essential to getting enough gigs as an independent professional — and completing them successfully. These paid and free apps can help.

One of the overwhelming aspects of freelancing is that you must handle so many facets of work independently. Communication is essential to getting enough gigs as an independent professional — and completing them successfully. These paid and free apps can help.

1. Slack

As a freelancer, integrating Slack into your workflow can be a game-changer for seamless communication and collaboration. Slack is a centralized hub where you can create channels for different projects send voice messages, and share files. Its real-time messaging features enhance quick decision-making and provide a virtual workspace for instant feedback.

With integrations for various apps and tools, Slack streamlines your freelance tasks, from project management to staying updated on client feedback. The platform’s flexibility and user-friendly interface make it a valuable tool for freelancers seeking efficient communication and project coordination. Plus, they have an excellent app for Android and iPhone so you can communicate with clients from your mobile device. 

2. Postbox

Postbox is another excellent choice for handling a ton of email. This powerful email management tool can help you bring order to the chaos of your inbox. Choosing the right email app as a freelancer is crucial, and you can’t go wrong with this one.

It gives you valuable features like a focus pane with the most important emails, favorite contacts, automatic email tagging, and the ability to send prewritten answers. You also get a domain fencer as well as a full HTML editor. Postbox is integrated with many other tools, so working across apps is a breeze.

3. Hunter.io

The Hunter app is for when you need to find a specific email address. Whether you want to pitch your services to a prospect or you’ve lost the email of an important contact, Hunter is priceless. It allows you to conduct a domain search and see the publicly available emails within a company.

You can also verify email addresses to ensure your message gets to the right person. Hunter has a Chrome extension, too, so you can easily find addresses from any website or LinkedIn profile.

4. Rapportive

The Rapportive plugin for Gmail is a great tool that shows you professional information from LinkedIn within your inbox. You instantly know about the person on the other end of the line.

You can also see your shared contacts on LinkedIn. This data lets you connect better with your email contacts and use every opportunity to grow your network. (Want more professional networking tips?

5. Zoom

Zoom has become an indispensable freelancer tool, offering a robust, seamless communication and collaboration platform. As a freelancer, Zoom provides a versatile solution for client meetings, project discussions, and virtual consultations. 

Its user-friendly interface, features like high-quality video and audio, screen sharing, and chat functionality make it easy to engage with clients and team members from anywhere in the world. Zoom’s breakout rooms help divide larger meetings into smaller groups, fostering more focused discussions. 

Additionally, the ability to record meetings ensures that freelancers can revisit important details or share discussions with clients who couldn’t attend in real time. 

Organization apps for freelancers

Being your own boss means you need to be strict with yourself from time to time. And by “from time to time,” I mean “often.” Keeping tabs on your schedule is essential in keeping your freelancing experience from becoming chaotic.

6. Hubstaff

Hubstaff is an all-in-one workforce management tool that can boost your productivity. With our Tasks add-on, you can access an Agile project management tool designed to organize your work in a visual board.

This app makes it easy to manage your work, outline projects with checklists, add due dates, loop in clients or other freelancers you work with, and ensure everything is done on time.

Agile teams love the ability to organize work into Epics, see tasks in your current Sprint, and automate Stand-ups.

There are endless possibilities with Hubstaff and its Kanban board. It’s easy to set up and free for freelancers.

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7. Evernote

Evernote is a multipurpose task management and note-taking tool that can boost your productivity. It allows you to jot down notes, brainstorm ideas, add photos and visuals, share documents with clients and colleagues, set reminders, and check on tasks. It can quickly turn into the central hub of your entire workflow.

Many people find Evernote especially useful for the Getting Things Done productivity system. But because it’s so flexible, you can use it however you want.

8. Remember the Milk

Reminders can get annoying, but Remember the Milk app does it right. This to-do app helps you free up space in your mind for vital tasks. You can create subtasks, set recurring tasks, and define filters for different types of items.

You can put tasks in different lists, specify due dates, and set importance levels right from your keyboard, making this a fast and efficient way to manage your freelance tasks. It’s available for most significant platforms to get reminders on any device.

9. Trello

Trello is an invaluable freelancer organizational tool that streamlines project management and enhances productivity. This initiative app lets freelancers create customized workflows, from ideation to project completion. 

Trello enables freelancers to break down tasks, manage projects, set deadlines, and collaborate seamlessly with clients and team members. Trello works great for social media management, project planning, client communication, and more. The visual nature of Trello boards provides a quick overview of project status and priorities, helping freelancers stay organized and focused. 

With features like file attachments, checklists, and due dates, Trello is a centralized hub for freelancers to efficiently manage their work, fostering collaboration and ensuring projects are delivered on time.

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10. Todoist

Todoist is another excellent option for staying on top of your tasks. Its clean and simple design helps you focus on the tasks you need to get done instead of overwhelming you with buttons and options. You can create projects with tasks and subtasks, set recurring deadlines, get notifications and reminders, and organize everything with labels and filters.

You can easily hop from one device to another, and all your lists will sync.

11. TeuxDeux

The name of this app may seem a bit tricky (clue: it’s not French), but it’s one of the simplest to-do apps on the market. TeuxDeux promises to be as easy as jotting down tasks on paper.

You can input tasks with deadlines and recurring dates, create custom lists, and get reminders for important events. It’s available as a browser-based tool and on your iPhone.

Time management apps for freelancers

As a freelancer, you may need a Nobel laureate’s brain and a high-altitude mountaineer’s nerves to succeed. What you need, though, are some time management skills. And with these time tracking apps, you can get them.

12. Focus Booster

Focus Booster is a simple time tracking app for using the Pomodoro technique. It’s all about working in robust, focused intervals. Pomodoro helps overcome distractions by timing your work cycle. By getting used to working in intervals, you can also better enjoy breaks. Focus Booster comes with built-in time tracking, so you can also easily log hours.

13. Marinara Timer

The Marinara Timer is a customizable Pomodoro technique tool. It offers three main options: a traditional Pomodoro timer with 25-minute work sessions and 5-minute breaks, a customer timer, or the “kitchen timer,” which counts your time. Experiment with the different methods to see which works best for you.

14. RescueTime

RescueTime is here to help you save yourself from the monsters of distractions and overworking. It monitors the apps you’re using and which websites you’re spending your time on. Then, you get detailed reports so you can analyze your activity. That’s how you can catch patterns in your computer usage and minimize the damage.

15. Hubstaff

Hubstaff Time is an excellent choice for keeping track of freelance work hours and analyzing your daily activities to improve your productivity. You can run the time tracker in the background to check on yourself to ensure you’re not wasting your time on distractions.

You can issue invoices and make payments straight from the app, saving you time spent on administrative tasks. Hubstaff integrates with most major work tools, so it’ll work seamlessly with your existing workflow.

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16. Freedom

Freedom is the app for you if you’re serious about removing distractions and improving your productivity. It blocks websites and apps that remove your focus from what’s important. You can create your schedule and select the enemies of your optimal performance. And it works on all your devices to ensure you don’t get sneaky.

Bidding apps for freelancers

Before you get on to work with great clients on exciting projects, you need to win gigs. Several apps can help you prepare professional pitches to nail your bids.

17. Bidsketch

If you need help preparing your client proposals, try Bidsketch. It has several professional templates you can build on, and it helps you not miss any crucial details that belong in a business offer. Clients can seal the deal instantly with an electronic signature.

18. Proposify

Proposify is another valuable tool for crafting client proposals. Instead of using complex design apps, you can simply input the relevant information. Ready-made and custom templates help you stand out from the crowd. With Proposify, clients can also sign the offer straight from the proposal.

19. Qwilr

With Qwilr, you don’t simply send a PDF proposal to a prospect. You can craft a beautiful, interactive experience that displays your proposal as a website. Elegant, eye-catching templates help you stand out from the dozens of traditional proposals your potential clients will surely receive. And standing out is the first step in landing that job.

Qwilr integrates with several CRM and accounting apps to automate your sales process to perfection.

Invoicing + accounting apps for freelancers

As there is no accounting department in your living room, you must issue invoices and take care of accounting independently. Challenging? Maybe. Nightmarish? Not with these apps.

20. Invoicely

Invoicely is a feature-rich invoice platform. You can track time, business expenses, and vehicle mileage from the same app. After issuing invoices, you can accept payments within the tool. You can take care of discounts, taxes, and even shipping. With Invoicely, you can control all your finances in one dashboard.

21. Wave

Wave is a beautifully designed accounting app you can easily fall in love with (yes, I put love and accounting in the same sentence). The platform allows you to send invoices, receipts, and estimates. You can also accept credit card payments. Wave provides a dashboard for managing your freelance finances in a single place—and that’s a big time-saver.

22. Shoeboxed

If handling receipts is your worst nightmare, Shoeboxed is for you. With this tool, you can scan and organize your receipts quickly. Generating expense reports just got easier! You can even get receipts from Gmail and track mileage expenses, so you never miss an expense. Shoeboxed can also help you with your tax preparation. Who couldn’t use help on their taxes?

23. FreshBooks

FreshBooks is a cloud accounting tool that will make you forget your accounting worries. It’s easy to use and contains many powerful features, like time tracking, invoicing, expenses, reporting, project-based tracking, and credit card payments. It’s available on all platforms so you can take care of business even on the go. With cloud storage, your information will be safe and easy to access. 

You can also integrate Hubstaff with Freshbooks to make it even more powerful!

24. Mint

Managing your finances as a freelancer can be a huge pain. Mint helps by putting all your financial accounts in a single dashboard, tracking your bills, monitoring fees, and helping you analyze your financial situation over time. It also packs in easy budgeting and investment tracking.

Mint can help you set and meet your financial goals, which is crucial when working independently. And because it’s free, you don’t have to break your budget just to monitor it.

25. QuickBooks

QuickBooks stands out as an excellent choice for freelancers seeking robust invoicing solutions. With its user-friendly interface and comprehensive features, QuickBooks simplifies the invoicing process, allowing freelancers to create professional and customizable invoices quickly. 

Freelancers can easily track billable hours, manage expenses, and generate detailed financial reports for a clear overview of their business finances. QuickBooks’ automation capabilities streamline repetitive tasks, such as sending recurring invoices and payment reminders, saving freelancers valuable time. 

Time-saving apps for freelancers

Who wouldn’t like to save a few minutes daily on tedious tasks like inputting passwords or writing emails? These clever tools can help keep a few minutes here and there—but that adds up to massive efficiency boosts in the long run.

26. ChatGPT

ChatGPT is the perfect app to enhance efficiency and save valuable time as a freelancer or independent contractor. Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, ChatGPT can assist freelancers in time-consuming tasks, such as drafting emails, generating creative content, or even brainstorming ideas. 

Its natural language processing capabilities allow freelancers to quickly generate high-quality text, reducing the time spent on manual content creation like creating a blog post. By automating specific content creation and communication aspects, freelancers can allocate more time to focus on core tasks, boosting overall productivity and allowing for a smoother and more streamlined freelance experience.

Alongside SEO tools and some minor web development skills, ChatCPT can help you build a website that gets you freelance jobs easily. 

27. LastPass

LastPass is a password manager that saves you time and endless brain power by remembering your passwords. Your master password unlocks your vault, and the browser extension automatically fills in usernames and passwords online. This is especially useful if you access several client accounts regularly.

The service is secure, and by protecting it with a strong master password, you can be confident that your information is safe.

(Editor’s note: if I had to keep just a single app on my computer, it might be LastPass. It’s saved me hours of strife.)

28. Grammarly

Grammarly is a powerful writing assistant that saves freelancers time by automatically checking grammar, spelling, and style errors. Whether drafting emails, creating content, or refining project documents, Grammarly ensures polished and professional communication with minimal effort.

Their desktop app gives you detailed feedback on your writing that can help you improve emails, marketing campaigns, and more. Grammarly easily integrates with Google Docs for writing, Canva for graphic design, and other platforms to make correcting grammar seamless. 

29. MindMeister

If brainstorming is an essential part of your freelancing work, try MindMeister. It’s a beautifully designed mind-mapping tool to help unleash your creativity. Remember how sketching ideas on paper feels? It’s pretty similar but in an easy-to-use, digital form. You can share your mind maps with clients or colleagues, create presentations, and manage tasks.

30. Calendly

Calendly takes the hassle out of scheduling meetings by allowing freelancers to share their availability and letting clients or collaborators book appointments at convenient times. This eliminates the back-and-forth of scheduling emails, saving time and ensuring efficient coordination.

Why freelancers love Hubstaff

Hubstaff is the ultimate tool for any freelancer. It offers many benefits, from making your work more efficient to building more trust with your clients. When you start working on a client’s project, select the exact task you are working on and start tracking time. When it’s time to send the invoice, you can do so with a few clicks. The system will automatically calculate the hours worked and generate an invoice so you can send it to your client.

You can show the exact time spent on each task so your client knows what they’re paying for.

Plus, you can use Hubstaff time tracking with Hubstaff Tasks project management. Using the two together can integrate time and project tracking so you know where every project is and what’s on your plate. Use the Sprints feature to set your focus for the week and ensure no deadlines are missed.

Your favorite freelancing apps

Freelancing is exciting because of the level of control and flexibility that you have over your work. But it can also be overwhelming and exhausting.

These 30 freelancer apps won’t do all the work for you, but they can save you from a long list of tedious tasks and can free up time in your busy schedule.

What are your favorite freelance apps that make your life as a freelancer better? Don’t be shy—share your thoughts in the comments!