In 2023 and beyond, online tools are what make your life easier and can help you succeed creatively and professionally.
In an effort to give back, I’ve decided to put together a convenient list of online tools. Most of these tools are either completely free or free with premium plans!
Whether you’re a content creator, business owner, student, or even a casual internet user, you will find tremendous value in this post.
At a glance, here are the categories of online tools this post currently covers:
- Business (especially small business, online business, entrepreneurs)
- Digital Marketing
- Graphic Design (for beginners, advanced users, and aesthetic edits)
- Writing (authors, freelancers, AI writing tools, and more)
- Worldbuilding & Storybuilding
- Social Media
- Teaching
- Making money
To jump straight to one of these categories, scroll down to the table of contents and tap your selection.
Lots of research plus my own trial-and-error went into selecting the best online tools for this list.
Be sure to bookmark or pin this post to Pinterest for later as this post will be receiving regular updates with even more useful tools and resources.
Alright, so onto the tools!
Some links in this post are affiliate links that help keep this information free for you. Please read the terms of use for more info.
Best online tools for business
Best online tools for small business
Google Forms
What is it? Google Forms is an online tool that easily lets you create forms and surveys.
Best for: Online business owners, freelancers, teachers, and more who need an effective way to engage with clients, students or customers.
Key features (free): Create online forms and surveys without technical knowledge, view real-time analytics on your responses, and the option to follow up with those who have replied to your form or survey.
Click here to try Google Forms
Payhip
What is it? Payhip is an e-commerce platform that lets you easily sell your digital downloads and courses.
Best for: Creatives of all experience levels who are looking for a completely free and easy way to sell digital products.
Key features (free): Create a free online store to sell your digital products and get access to landing pages, checkout and cart system, affiliate system, coupon codes, communicate with customers, and more.
Zoom
What is it? Zoom is a videotelephony platform that allows teams, businesses, and individuals to host meetings, webinars, video calls, online events, and more.
Best for: Individuals and small businesses who need an easy way to communicate virtually.
Key features (free): Host private and group virtual chats, up to 100 participants, and one-on-one virtual meetings.
Key features (Paid): There are three paid plans on Zoom, Pro, Business, and Enterprise. These plans let you host up to 1000 participants, have group meetings up to 30 hours, social media streaming, and the ability to record transcripts.
Slack
What is it? Slack is an online communication tool that allows businesses to communicate with their team and workforce.
Best for: Businesses of all sizes who need an effective way to communicate with members of their workforce.
Key features (free): Make 1-on-1 video calls with members of your workforce, integrations with other business tools and apps like Microsoft Office, and view an archive of up to 10,000 recent messages.
Key features (Paid): There are three paid plans on Slack, Pro, Business+ and Enterprise Grid. You will get access to all of the features of free + advanced management functions, priority support, group calls with up to 15 teammates, the ability to grant group access to members outside your team, and much more.
Best digital marketing tools
Mailerlite
What is it? Mailerlite is a simplified e-mail marketing platform, toolset, and website builder.
Best for: Creating simple e-mail newsletters, automations, pop-ups, and landing pages. Perfect for those that are new to e-mail marketing or have some experience.
Key features (free): With the free plan, you can send up to 12,000 e-mails per month, create sign-up forms, pop-ups, and up to ten landing pages.
Key features (Paid): There are three paid plans, Growing Business, Advanced, and Enterprise. Each gives you everything in the free plan plus unlimited e-mails per month, the option to sell digital downloads, unlimited templates, 24/7 priority e-mail support, and more.
Click here to start using Mailerlite
Best social media tools
Buffer
What is it? Buffer is a social media toolkit and software that helps you organically grow your social media audience.
Best for: Small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to expand their social media audience and more easily connect with them.
Key features (free): Get a landing page builder and basic tools to grow your social media audience such as: post scheduling, link shortening, hashtag suggestions for Twitter, create tailored posts for each social media channel, and more.
Key features (Paid): Everything in the free plan + analytics tools, publishing and scheduling tools, engagement tools, and collaboration tools for your team or clients.
Google Trends
What is it? Google Trends is an online tool and website by Google that analyzes and compares search queries made overtime on the Google search engine.
Best for: Conducting research projects, and finding emerging industries, topics, services, and products.
Key features (free): Compare keywords by search interest and search volume.
Click here to use Google Trends
ShortPixel
What is it? ShortPixel is an online tool that quickly compresses and optimizes images on your phone or website.
Best for: Creating faster website load times and clearing up space on your phone if you have a lot of images.
Key features (free): Compress and optimize up to 50 files at a time and 100 images a month for your website.
Key features (Paid): Various plans are available that can be split into two categories. Monthly plans for optimizing a certain number of images per month and one-time image credits that can be used at any time.
Click here to try ShortPixel
Best online tools for graphic design
Best graphic design tools & software for beginners
Canva
What is it? Canva is a user-friendly graphic design platform that lets you construct anything from templates, social media posts, edits, logos, and much more.
Best for: Beginners and those with little to no graphic design experience or technical experience. It is also great for anyone who wants to design, edit, or share digital media quickly.
Key features (Free): Canva Free Forever gives you access to 100,000+ free photos, basic video editing, 250,000+ templates with 100+ design types, easily share your work with friends, family, or team members on Canva, and the ability to convert files into different formats.
Key features (Paid): Everything in free + Canva Pro gives you access to 100,000,000+ photos, background removal option for your edits, quickly resize photos, 610,000+ templates, create brand kits and more. 30-day free trial available for Canva Pro.
Best graphic design tools for aesthetic edits
Adobe Lightroom
What is it? Adobe Lightroom is an online tool and software used to manage, organize and edit your images.
Best for: Creatives of all skill levels who need to edit photos in vivid and modern aesthetic ways.
Key features (Free): You can use Adobe Lightroom Classic for free only on mobile. Features include: cropping, presets, gradients, spot removal, white balance, sharpening, adjustments, photo importing, exporting, and organizing, tonal curves, vibrance, profile correction, and much more.
Key features (Paid): 7-day Free trial available for Adobe Lightroom Pro. You get the same features as you would have on Adobe Lightroom Classic, plus premium features such as healing brush, masking, 150+ presets, perspective adjustment, and more.
Click here to try Adobe Lightroom
Picsart
What is it? Picsart is an online platform that is full of photo editing, video editing, and graphic design tools.
Best for: A platform to create popular aesthetic edits you see on social media or if you’re looking for a one-stop editing and graphic design platform that is user-friendly.
Key features (free): Access to a plethora of powerful tools for editing and graphic design, thousands of free images and templates.
Key features (Paid): Picsart Gold gives you access to everything in the free plan, 20 million high-quality stock images, more tools, effects, stickers, etc, the ability to change backgrounds fast, and everything you need to make aesthetic edits and more. You can also try Picsart Gold free for 7 days!
Best online tools for writing
Best online tools for note-taking
Microsoft OneNote
What is it? Microsoft OneNote is an all-in-one platform for organizing, managing, storing, and taking notes.
Best for: Students and professionals who need an efficient way to take digital notes.
Key features (free): OneNote gives you access to all kinds of note-taking features for free including: note-organizing tools, sharing options, tagging, drawing and annotation tools, and the ability to add other forms of media to your notes like video and audio.
Click here to try Microsoft OneNote
Best online tools for freelance writing
Writers Work
What is it? Writers Work is an online platform for freelance writers that curates the best writing gigs from online jobs boards, and offers career training and writing tools.
Best for: Freelance writers of any experience level that need simplified organization and paid writing opportunities.
Key features (free): You can try Writer’s Work free for 30 days by getting a full refund if necessary.
Key features (Paid): Writer’s Work gives you access to curated jobs listings for freelance writers, useful writing tools, career training, word processing, and a “submission” section to get paid for your written articles.
Click here to try Writers Work
Best AI writing tools
Grammarly
What is it? Grammarly is a free online tool that uses artificial intelligence to check writing for spelling & grammar errors and correct them.
Best for: Editing and proofreading long-form documents, e-mails, school essays, and social media posts.
Key Features (Free): Concise suggestions to improve your writing and check for tone, automatically checks and offers corrections for grammar and spelling mistakes on an unlimited amount of words.
Key Features (Paid): Grammarly premium gives you everything in the free version + Advanced corrections and suggestions such as total sentence re-writes.
Bottom Line:
Grammarly is simply the best overall online proofreading tool there is.
I’ve been using it for years with great success. It catches errors better than any other grammar checker I’ve used. I’ve lost track of the amount of time and money it’s saved me on editing.
And best of all, it’s free to download for your phone, desktop, or word processor.
Download Grammarly for free here.
Pictory
What is it? Pictory is an AI writing online tool that automatically pairs your written content with the perfect stock footage to create beautiful professional-grade, captioned videos for social media and elsewhere.
Best for: Automatically creating professional-grade YouTube videos from your blog posts, stories, podcast transcripts, essays, scripts, etc., in minutes without any technical knowledge or experience.
Key features (free): 30-day free trial (no credit card required) for all Pictory features.
Key features (Paid): There are three paid plans. You will have access to 3 million high-quality royalty-free videos, 15,000 music tracks, 42 realistic text-to-speech voices, auto-captions, branded intro and outros, and more!
Click here to try Pictory for free
Jasper
What is it? Jasper is an online AI writing tool that automatically helps you write original content for your blog, scripts, copy, essays, and more.
Best for: Content writing such as blog posts and articles.
Key features (free): No free plan, but there is a 5-day money-back guarantee to try Jasper.
Key features (Paid): There are two paid plans: Starter and Boss Mode. Both give you access to unlimited writing projects and unlimited logins. With Starter, Jasper will write up to 20,000 words per month, 50,000 words per month for Boss Mode.
Best online tools for teaching
Teachable
What is it? Teachable is an online platform and toolset that lets you create and sell online courses and coaching services.
Best for: Teachers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and beginners who want to make beautiful online courses without needing technical experience.
Key features (free): The Free plan gives you access to unlimited course creation, unlimited students, unlimited coaching services, instant payouts, tools for creating courses and coaching services, product support, and templates.
Key features (Paid): Teachable has three paid plans: Basic, Pro, and Business. Each plan gives you everything from the Free plan, and includes premium features such as: course creation training, members-only community, less or no transaction fees on course sales, the ability to offer coupon codes, and more.
Best worldbuilding tools
World Anvil (Our #1 overall choice)
What is it? World Anvil is an online platform with worldbuilding tools that helps you create, organize, maintain, and share your world and manage RPG campaigns.
Best for: Creatives, writers, roleplayers, and gamers looking for a user-friendly, one-stop-shop to bring your story world to life.
Key features (free): Create articles, maps, and times, access to countless generators for names, locations and more, world data exporting, and worldbuilding prompts
Key features (Paid): There are three premium plans available, Master, Grandmaster, and Sage. You will get everything in the free plan plus boosted features such as access to the creative community, more storage space, custom themes, advanced map elements, removal of ads, and much more.
Vulgar Lang
What is it? Vulgar Lang is an online worldbuilding tool that automatically creates unique languages for fictional races of people or characters in your story.
Best for: Fantasy writers and creators of fiction who need an effective way to make unique fictional languages that mimic real languages.
Key features (free): Get up to 200 words, complete with unique verbs, nouns, and a name for your language.
Key features (Paid): Produces up to 4000 words, customize the sounds of your language, save your language, ability to add new words, and more.
Donjon Generators
What is it? Donjon is a set of free online generators for fantasy names, characters, items, shops, dungeons, and more.
Best for: Fantasy or RPG games and roleplaying.
Key features (free): Easily generate names, quests, NPCs, campaigns, dungeons, items, calenders, and many more things.
Inkarnate
What is it? Inkarnate is an online platform where you can build, and manage, custom fantasy maps in great detail.
Best for: Experienced creatives who need to make highly customized fantasy maps.
Key features (free): Their free plan gives you access to 900+ map assets, up to 10 maps created, and the ability to export your maps in 2k quality.
Key features (Paid): Inkarnate Pro offers 18,200+ map assets, up to 1,000 maps created, commercial use, exporting in 8k, and the option to upload your own custom map assets.
Pantheon (Encyclopedia Mythica)
What is it? The Encyclopedia Mythica is a large online encyclopedia on folklore, legends, and myths.
Best for: Using the information on folklore, legends, and myths for inspiration in your worldbuilding and storybuilding.
Key features (free): A keyword-driven search bar to easily find articles compiled from a number of unique sources (books, journals and publications, oral traditions, etc.)
Click here to use Encyclopedia Mythica
Azgaar
What is it? Azgaar is a free online map generator tool for fantasy worlds.
Best for: Anyone who needs to design a fantasy map with a reasonable amount of detail.
Key features (free): A plethora of ways to edit your map including height, population, wafter flows, religions, styling, climate, names, and much more.
World Machine
What is it? World Machine is an online tool used to create realistic terrain and maps.
Best for: Advanced photorealistic terrain designs for game creators and independent artists.
Key features (free): Utilize all kinds of options when creating your terrains such as simulating nature effects, creating water flows, and access to a wide variety of terrains and textures. Note: World Machine only works with Windows.
Key features (Paid): Get everything in the free version with a better export resolution, sizing, and commercial use.
Click here to try World Machine
Orkn
What is it? Orkn is an online population generation tool for medieval fantasy worlds.
Best for: Generating detailed demographics for your medieval fantasy story or game.
Key features (free): Plug in the age, healthy, area, and the era of your fantasy population to generate population demographics.
Best online tools for money
GetUpside
What is it? GetUpside is a free app for iPhone or Android that gives you cash back for every gallon of gas you fuel up.
Key features (free): Get paid $15c per gallon of gas that you put in your tank (and more if you refer friends to the app). That’s all there is to it.
Download GetUpside for free to start getting paid to fill up your gas tank
Honey
What is it? Honey is a browser tool that automatically finds the best coupons and discount codes for your purchases online and applies them, saving you money without effort.
Key features (free): Applying coupons and discounts to purchases automatically, and the ability to earn “Honeygold” for each of your purchases which can be converted to gift cards.
Download Honey for free through this link
Best miscellaneous online tools
Tinywow
What is it? Tinywow is an all-in-one online platform full of online tools that help you manipulate your digital files.
Best for: Quickly manipulating a file (Example: converting PDF to JPG or E-Signing a document).
Key features (free): Edit, convert, merge, rotate, manipulate, resize, and more options when it comes to your digital files.
Lalal
What is it? Lalal is an online ai tool that automatically removes vocals and other effects of your choice from music without a loss in quality.
Best for: Removing vocals from music without doing any work or needing technical experience.
Key features (free): Upload files up to 50mb and remove vocals from music files up to 10 minutes.
Key features (Paid): Remove vocals from music files up to 300 minutes and 2GB in size and get fast processing time.
Screencast
What is it? Screencast-O-Matic is an online toolset that lets you record your screen and edit video.
Best for: Recording podcasts, presentations, webinars, lectures, and more.
Key features (free): Record your screen, save it to your computer or external drive, and edit it with simple video editing tools.
Key features (Paid): Screencast has three paid plans: Solo Deluxe, Solo Premier, and Business Team. Each gives you everything in the free plan plus secure back ups, access to a stock library full of music, images, video, and sound effects, and advanced editing effects.
