The web is such a big and wonderful place, packed with tools and resources which you all too often don’t know about. So to help all you freelancers out there we have compiled a gigantic list of resources, categorized up for your benefit. If you know a resource that we’ve missed, let us know as we’re always looking to grow this list!
Timing: these are tools to help you time and track your work. Some of them plug into invoicing programs and some even come with them built in:
SlimTimer – A Start/Stop little timer that tracks jobs on a main web interface
Tick – Time tracking application focused on keeping track of your budgets
Time Assistant – Professional time sheet software
Harvest – Simple and efficient time tracking
FourteenDayz – Online time tracking for teams
PunchyTime – A simple time tracking tool for creatives
TimePost – Timer that plugs into Harvest, Base camp and Tick
FunctionFox – Timing for creatives (subscription pricing)
Invoicing: When you don’t invoice, you don’t get paid, so it literally pays to stay on top of your billing. Here are some tools to help:
Billing Orchard – Electronic billing and invoicing software, starting at $14.95 per month
Billable – Service and invoice tracking
SimplyBill – Easy to use invoicing software
Blinksale – More easy to use invoicing software
Quickbooks – Small business financial software
Side Job Track – Free web-based job tracking, invoicing, reporting and project management for the part-time independent contractor
Freshbooks – Tracks time, sends invoices by email or U.S. mail, and generally makes invoicing easier
InvoicePlace – Easy Invoicing and Quotes From Anywhere
LessAccounting – Is your job title Accounting? Probably not. Do less accounting!
MS Office Accounting Express (Free) – Free Microsoft Accounting
Project Management and Organization: These resources will help you stay organized and manage those projects and clients
Proposal Kit – Proposal and contract management tools
Ta-Da Lists – a simple (free!) to-do list application that can be shared with the world
Backpack – Service that integrates to-do lists, notes, files, images, and a calendar with reminders that can be sent to your email or cell
Writeboard – Sharable, web-based text documents that save edits, so you can collaborate, roll back and compare
ConceptShare - Share designs and get feedback with visual annotation tools
Wridea – Free tool for writers focusing on idea generation
GoPlan – Note-taking, calendaring, task management, issue tracking, file management and online real-time chat
Toodledo – Another web based to-do list
ActiveCollab – Open source collaboration and project management tool
MonkeyOn – Your to-do list for things that you want other people to do
Remember The Milk – Another To-Do List manager
Stock Libraries: Templates, Photos, Flash files all to help make you look good
FlashDen – A resource selling stock Flash, audio, video and fonts for as little as 50 cents
Dreamstime – Royalty free stock photography for $1 – $2
Getty Images – When price is no object and quality is essential
Istockphoto – Royalty free stock photography, videos, and illustrations for $1 – $50
Veer – Rights managed and royalty free photography, illustration, type, and motion
Stock.xchng – Completely Free stock photography
Ice Templates – Website templates in Flash and HTML
Template Monster – The biggest website template company on the web!
MyFonts – All the fonts you could ever want and a very handy font identification tool as well.
IconBuffet – Icons, more icons and even more icons
VectorVault – Vector illustration sets
Business Tool: Resources to help with the business of freelancing…
HighRise – Track communication and conversations with leads, employees, clients, colleagues, vendors
Campfire – Real-time group chat and file sharing
Central Desktop – Shared workspace and web conferencing
Relenta – Manage your email, contacts, documents and activities
Google Apps – Communication and collaboration tools from Google
Zoho – Free office tools
Campaign Monitor – Email newsletter software
MailBuild – More newsletter software
Breeze – Email campaign and newsletter software
Business-Paper – Easy business cards
GoToMeeting – Easy online meetings
Wufoo – Make forms to survey your clients
AIGA Spec Letter – Sample letter to communicate with clients who want spec work or free pitching
CPA Directory – Find an accountant (in the US)
SBA – Small Business Administration, help and advice
Paypal – Online payment system
Moneybookers – Online payment system
Escrow – Online payment system that protects the buyer and seller, useful for those bigger jobs with anonymous clients.
Resources for the Design Entrepeneur – Free sample forms and agreements
Work – How-to guides to running a small business
XE – Quick and easy currency converter for all your international transactions…
Trendwatching – Consumer trends and insights resource
FaxZero – US & Canada – Send Faxes for Free
Legal: because you have to protect yourself and your work…
My New Company – Legal and general start-up information
Designers Toolbox – Free legal forms for graphic designers
Copyright – Everything you need to know about US copyright
AIGA Form of Agreement – Standard form of agreement for design services template
HelpMeWork – US – Services to help you focus on what you know best
CreativeCommons – For licensing…just about anything
Job Boards: A whole bunch of places to find jobs, and don’t forget Freelance Switch will be adding its very own job board real soon!
37signals Job Board – Mostly full-time design and programming jobs
Authentic Jobs – Full time and freelance job board for standards aware designers and developers
Coroflot Job Board – Designer job board
WebProJobs – Freelance and full-time jobs for designers, developers, copywriters and marketers
Jobpile – Aggregates the best job boards on the web
Krop – Creative and tech jobs
FWjobs – Web jobs board
SlashDot - Jobs for IT professionals
CSS Beauty Job Board – Job board for web designers
MinistryCamp Job Board – Job board for Christian designers and programmers
Guru – Freelancer listing service with job board
Elance – List yourself for freelance jobs
Web Tools: Tools to get your Web Presence Up and running…
Squarespace – Very nice publishing system for websites and blogs
Rackspace – dedicated hosting and customer service that is second to none
Mosso – Advanced hosting at a reasonable price
MyDomain – Domains for $8.50 per year
Media Temple – Easy to set up and use hosting
Light – Content management for designers and ad agencies
SiteKreator – Instant websites – just add your content
StrongSpace – Back-up and store important files
psd2html – Builds websites in html from Photoshop files
xhtml iT – Website builds from design in 24 hours
ExpressionEngine – A neat little CMS app
Inblogit – A great free blogging tool for web designers
PublicSquare – Easy Web Publishing
WordPress – The best damn blogging tool around
AgencyFusion – Outsourcable programmers
XHTMLized – The original – you supply the design and they do the XHTML/CSS
Advertising and Marketing: A few ways to market and advertise yourself online…
Text Link Ads – Text ads to sell your wares and improve your traffic ranking
Review Me – Get your service or Web site reviewed by bloggers
Adbrite – Text and banner ads on over 20,000 sites
AdEngage – Text and Photext ads (image and text ad combined)
Adwords – Text ads on Google searches
Professional On The Web – Get yourself Listed
Miscellaneous: All the many things we couldn’t fit anywhere else!
Creative Public - Useful site for anyone starting a freelance graphic or web design career. A $49.95 fee buys unlimited access to forms, manuals, pricing guides, contracts etc
You Send It – Send files up to 2GB online
Jewelboxing – superior packaging for short run CDs and DVDs
eFax – Send and receive faxes by email
PowerXChange – Extensions for a variety of creative software, including Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Dreamweaver
Coroflot – A great resources for designers to showcase their portfolios, share work and network
Cloudmark – Block spam on your PC
SpamSieve – Block spam on your Mac
Dropsend – Email up to 1GB of files
Media Fire – Send 100MB files online
Box – Store, share and access files online
Icebrrg – Simple web forms
Formsite – Web forms and surveys in minutes
Lorem Ipsum – Lorem Ipsum generator for dummy copy
Textmate – The essential programmers text editor for Macs
ETextEditor – Like Textmate but for Windows
Kuler – Colour scheme picker
Pixie – A useful little colour picker
ColourSchemer – A bunch of colour tools
Jungle Disk – Online storage for 15 cents a gigabyte
AskCharity – free online contacts for journalists
TechInline – Remote Desktop Software
Protolize – Web Resource Directory
