Can you believe there are over 56.7 million freelancers in America alone? Building and developing apps for freelancers was an ongoing demand due to the increased numbers!
Depending on the type of freelancing you do, you’ll choose the best apps for you. However, there’re universal apps needed by all freelancers to boost creativity and productivity.
Now, that we’re consistently using our smartphones, it’s smart to download apps to help us be more successful. Some apps are to balance their work and life, improve productivity, and help with ensuring timely payments.
Best Apps For Freelancers
No matter what type of freelancing you do, you should have apps to ensure your ultimate success.
1. TeuxDeux
You can enjoy a browser version for when working at home or on iPhone when you’re not near your PC. Sometimes, you need some help organizing what we need to do. Other times you need to write down what you need to do and hope you won’t forget doing it.
TuexDeux app helps you get tasks done for freelancers as you can:
- Schedule your day easily
- Add tasks
- Check jobs as done as you complete them
- Transfer all the unfinished work today automatically to tomorrow
- Set recurring to-dos, and drag & drop them across the weeks.
- Make a bucket list of tasks you want to tackle sometime in the future.
2. Gmail & Google Apps
A quick response to your clients can tell a lot to your clients. Installing the Gmail app will help you stay updated and allow a quick response to your clients when you’re not on your PC.
Gmail has many great features making it one of the essential apps for freelancers. You can check, sort, label, and create to-do lists. It can help you enhance your freelancing work.
You can download Google Drive, Google Spreadsheets, Google Docs, & Google Slides to assist you. These apps store the documents and files on mobile using Google apps.
So, you can access your files anytime with an internet connection. Plus, you can share them with clients or team members any time, anywhere.
For communication, you can use Google Hangouts for chatting, voice calls, and video calls to streamline your projects and meetings.
3. Clockify
Freelancers need to track their time with a timesheet app. Clockify is one of the best apps for freelancers to track their productivity and manage their billable time.
It provides you with all the assets to streamline your professional documentation and time-use:
- Tracks time spent on tasks and activities.
- It provides four types of hourly rates.
- Enters time manually.
- Adds time in a timesheet.
- Saves project reports and send them to clients.
- Defines whether your time is billable or not.
- Creates visual and weekly reports to track your time spent on a task, project, or client.
- Calculates the amount you’re due to put on your client invoice, depending on an hourly rate and billable time tracked.
Also, you’ll get a productivity dashboard to compare how much work is done in a given time.
4. Cushion
Some freelancers have issues maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Frequently, freelancers work long hours daily and take little, if any, breaks or day-offs or vacations.
So, a group of freelancers designed the Cushion app who found themselves doing nothing but work. So, this app helps you manage when you should work throughout the year and plan your vacation.
It offers different unique views to manage your schedule better. For example, you can view a broad view of your work schedule for the whole year when zooming out.
Plus, you can commit certain hours for each client you have with color codes, which allows a better organization. Moreover, the app tracks payment and turnaround delays.
5. Wunderlist
Another to-do list app to help you get things done. Not only can you organize what you need to do, but also balance between your work and personal life.
Simply, you enter your to-dos, then share them with your family, colleagues, and friends.
You can set reminders, define your deadlines, and assign specific to-dos to team members. Also, you can clarify a task more by adding comments or notes to lists, and grouping to-dos in folders.
The best thing about Wunderlist is that it allows you to create list templates for recurring to-dos. For instance, if you frequently go to the gym, define a particular time for it, and add the list to the template folder.
6. Focus Booster
Social media tends to distract us as we work and make it harder for freelancers to manage their time. Distractions can ruin your weekly schedule and accumulate tasks you have for clients and team members.
To be a successful freelancer, you need to master time management and organization skills. You have limited numbers of hours during the day, so an hour passed is an hour never coming back, and you have to make up for it.
The Pomodoro Technique has been effective in maintaining focus and boost productivity. For example, you set a timer for 25 minutes of non-stop work without distractions on a task. Then, you can take a 5-minute break. Afterward, you can continue the pattern for however long you need to work.
You can take an extended break of 30 to 60 minutes after doing 4 Pomodoros before repeating the pattern.
Plus, Focus Booster always records and tracks your sessions to understand better how you spend your time.
7. Brand24
Now, you can track your brand across the internet. It’s time to know what people and clients are thinking about your work and respond to them in real-time
Whenever someone mentions your brand positively or negatively, you’ll be notified right away. It’s essential, especially when you receive a negative comment, you can discuss it right away and take matters into your hands.
Brand24 helps you analyze and track the number of likes, mentions, comments, and shares your brand is getting on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
Also, you can monitor your Social media reach across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms.
Finally, you can create reports based on these results, then, export data, and design infographics.
Amazingly, Brand24 highlights the most popular mentions and authors and informs you about their online reach and influencer status.
8. Dropbox
For freelancers, it’s important to organize, save, store, and share files and documents online. Dropbox is one of the best apps to help you with file storage, sharing, and organization.
If you have multiple devices, you can sync them all together by using drag-n-drop features. So, you can access the needed documents while on the go.
You can download Dropbox for your laptop, smartphone, or tablet to access your documents and files and share them with clients or team members.
If you don’t like Google apps, then Dropbox is an excellent alternative. It offers free cloud space, but if you use too much, then you will eventually have to upgrade.
9. Mint
Freelancers often need to track and plan their budgets to manage their finances better. With Mint, you can easily track and maintain your financial goals, receive business advice, and manage your budget.
It’s a free app that allows you to sync your PayPal account, bank accounts, and credit cards. Whenever you’re going over budget, it’ll notify you. Also, it’s a straightforward system to track money transactions and receive weekly reports of your financial status.
Your confidential financial data will not be compromised if your phone gets lost or stolen because you can easily disconnect your Mint account from any browser at any time.
10. Invoicely
It’s a great app that you can download to send and receive e-invoices and e-bills with your clients as needed. Invoicely is downloadable on your PC and smartphone to have with you at all times.
Over 100k small businesses are using Invoicely for its powerful features. It allows you to create customized business summaries and reports to understand your business’s current financial situation thoroughly.
Also, it helps you track your time, expenses, and mileage. Invoicely is a platform to accept online payments via payment gateways or credit cards.
So, if you want to create professional-looking bills and invoices, then Invoicely is the app you need.
11. Postbox
Emailing will always be one of the professional ways businesses and freelancers can handle things with clients. The Postbox app helps you organize, store, and group all your email accounts together.
It has an excellent search engine to find any email quickly you’re looking for across different accounts. Also, it has a “focus pane” to highlight only important emails.
You can easily navigate through your correspondences using its numerous shortcuts.
12. Indy
Indy is a user-friendly platform for managing your freelance projects. Bring all your workflows into one place with Indy’s tools. Create proposals, contracts, and invoices in minutes with automatic tools.
Indy makes managing projects easier because you can use the Forms tool to automate client info requests, the Time Tracking tool to manage hourly billing and the Tasks tool to connect tasks to Projects and get work done.
Cost: Pro Bundle is $9 per month, and with the Free plan, you’ll always have access to all the basic tools.
Finally, you can use its free 70 response templates to quickly respond to various types of emails, like introductory greetings, job applications, and outreach emails.
