Tools
Tools for a studio of one
A tool earns a place here by charging fairly for a single seat, never forcing a team plan, and every group has a free or cheap pick.
Prices as of .
Proposals, contracts and invoicing
One app for proposals, contracts and invoices saves copying details between them; if you send a few invoices a month, your accounting app may be enough.
Moxie
Our pickProposals, quotes, contracts, invoices, time tracking and meeting scheduling in one app, all of them included from the cheapest plan.
Starter $10/month, billed yearly
Visit MoxieHoneyBook
Proposals, contracts, invoices and payments with a client portal, for unlimited clients and projects. Every plan starts with a free trial.
Starter $29/month, billed yearly
Visit HoneyBookDubsado
Contracts with e-signatures, questionnaires, invoices and payment plans, with workflows on Premier that send them in order. 21-day trial, no card.
Starter $335/year
Visit DubsadoBonsai
Proposals, contracts, invoices and expense tracking from the Essentials plan up; Basic covers time and tasks only. Priced per user.
Essentials $19/month, billed yearly
Visit BonsaiInvoice Ninja
Invoices, deposits, recurring billing and a client portal, free for up to five clients. Or run it free on your own server; the source code is public.
Free; Pro $140/year
Visit Invoice Ninja
Accounting and banking
Open a separate business account first; paid bookkeeping can wait until your accountant needs more than clean records.
Wave
Best freeUnlimited invoices, estimates and bookkeeping records for free. Pro imports bank transactions for you; card payments cost 2.9% plus 60¢ each.
Free; Pro $19/month
Visit WaveFreshBooks
Invoices, estimates, expenses and time tracking in one app. Lite bills up to five clients; Plus adds proposals, retainers and accounting reports.
Lite $23/month
Visit FreshBooksQuickBooks Solopreneur
Built for one-person businesses: keeps business and personal spending apart for Schedule C. Free sends two invoices a month; Lite lifts the caps.
Free; Lite $20/month
Visit QuickBooks SolopreneurFound
Free business banking for sole proprietors and LLCs, with tax estimates and a Taxes Pocket that sets money aside. Banking by Lead Bank, Member FDIC.
Free; Plus $35/month
Visit FoundRelay
Free business checking with up to 20 accounts, so tax, profit and overheads each get their own. Banking by Thread Bank, Member FDIC.
Free; Grow $30/month
Visit Relay
Design and creative software
Buy for the files your clients send: if they work in Figma or Adobe you need that seat, and if not, the free and one-off apps may be all you need.
Affinity
Best freeVector, photo editing and page layout in one app, free for individuals. Canva’s AI tools inside it need a paid Canva plan; the iPad app is coming.
Figma
Interface and web design in the browser or the desktop app, and the tool many clients already share files in. The Starter plan is free.
Adobe Creative Cloud
Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and the rest of the set agencies and printers expect. A single-app plan costs far less than all the apps.
Mac, Windows
Visit Adobe Creative CloudProcreate
Drawing and painting on iPad for a single payment, with no subscription. Procreate has publicly rejected generative AI.
Krita
Free, open-source digital painting with brushes, layers, drawing assistants and animation, developed by artists for artists.
DaVinci Resolve
Editing, color, motion graphics and audio in one app. The free version handles Ultra HD at up to 60fps; Studio adds higher resolutions and AI tools.
Fonts, stock and mockups
Read the license before a font or photo goes into client work; a subscription only pays off if you download something most weeks.
Google Fonts
Best freeFree type families, most under the SIL Open Font License, which allows commercial use. Download the files to self-host or install them.
Unsplash
Free photos for commercial work, with no credit required, though you cannot sell them unaltered. Unsplash+ adds model-released images.
Free; Unsplash+ $48/year
Visit UnsplashEnvato
One subscription for fonts, mockups, templates, stock photos and video. Each download is licensed for one project, client work included.
From $16.50/month
Visit EnvatoCreative Market
Fonts, mockups, brushes and templates sold one item at a time by independent shops. The license you pick sets how many products it can appear in.
Priced per item
Visit Creative MarketMockup World
Free PSD mockups for devices, print, packaging and apparel, with new ones every week. Licenses vary, so check each one before client work.
Portfolio sites and domains
Register your domain apart from your site builder so you can move later, and start with one page until you have case studies to fill more.
Cargo
Our pickA site builder made for designers and artists, at one flat price with no tiers. One custom domain is included; a shop is an add-on.
$14/month, billed yearly
Visit CargoSquarespace
Templates, hosting and a store in one bill, with a free domain for the first year on annual plans. The 14-day trial needs no card.
Framer
A visual site builder with a built-in CMS for case studies. The free plan publishes on a Framer address; Basic adds your own domain.
Free; Basic $10/month
Visit FramerCarrd
One-page sites for a landing page, a link in bio or a short portfolio. Free for three sites; Pro Standard adds your own domain.
Free; Pro Standard $19/year
Visit CarrdPorkbun
A domain registrar that renews a .com at the price you paid to register it, with WHOIS privacy, SSL and email forwarding included free.
$11.08/year for a .com
Visit Porkbun
Email and marketing
A newsletter can stay on a free plan for its first few hundred readers; a scheduler pays off only if you post to several channels every week.
Kit
Best freeEmail for creators, free up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited sends, forms and landing pages, and one automation. Creator adds unlimited automations.
Free; Creator from $39/month
Visit KitButtondown
An independent newsletter tool with a Markdown editor and sending from your own domain. Free to 100 subscribers, then $9 a month to 1,000.
Free; Basic $9/month
Visit ButtondownMailerLite
Newsletters, signup forms, landing pages and a simple website. Free covers 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month.
Free; Comfort from $12/month
Visit MailerLiteBuffer
Schedules posts to your social channels from one queue. Free covers three channels with up to ten posts waiting on each.
Free; $5/month per channel
Visit Buffer
Projects and time tracking
Track time even on fixed-fee projects, because it shows your real day rate; skip a project app if a list and a calendar already keep you on schedule.
Notion
Notes, client wikis and project boards in one workspace. A one-person free workspace has no limit on pages.
Free; Plus $10/month, billed yearly
Visit NotionTrello
Boards of cards for moving each project from brief to final files. Free for up to ten boards and ten collaborators per workspace.
Free; Standard $5/month, billed yearly
Visit TrelloToggl Track
Live and manual timers that connect to Google and Outlook calendars. The free plan covers up to three users but leaves out billable rates.
Free; Starter $9/month, billed yearly
Visit Toggl TrackHarvest
Tracks time and expenses and turns them into invoices. Free covers one seat and two projects; Teams is priced per seat.
Free; Teams $11/seat/month
Visit HarvestClockify
Best freeFree time tracking with unlimited projects, timesheets, a Pomodoro timer and idle detection, on desktop and phone.
Free; Basic $3.99/month, billed yearly
Visit Clockify
Hardware and studio
Set up backups before you buy anything else; a calibrator matters once you deliver print or color-critical work.
Backblaze Personal Backup
Our pickBacks up a computer and its attached drives to the cloud, with no data limit, for one yearly price. Keeping old versions forever costs extra.
Calibrite Display 123
Measures your screen and builds a color profile so colors display more accurately. Calibrates up to two monitors per workstation.
XPPen Deco 01 V3
A 10 by 6.25 inch pen tablet with a battery-free stylus that reads tilt. USB only, with an 18-month warranty from XPPen’s own store.
Wacom Intuos
A screenless pen tablet in small or medium with a battery-free pen; the WL models add Bluetooth. Comes with free creative software on registration.
Mac, Windows, ChromeOS, Android
Visit Wacom IntuosiPad Air
With Procreate, an iPad Air makes a drawing studio you can carry. It works with Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil (USB-C), sold separately.
From $749
Visit iPad Air