Best Apps for Freelancers — Complete Guide

With the global freelancing market worth around $3.39 billion in 2020 and projected to reach $9.19 billion by 2027, it’s clear that this is the business model of the future. Popular niches like web design, marketing, writing, and graphic design are oversaturated, so you need to find a way to stand out from the competition.

Besides improving your business, using different apps is vital for rising to the top. To help you with that, we’ve decided to make a list of the best apps for freelancers. You can read about all of our picks in the guide, but for now, here’s the list of our favorites:

• Upwork
• Grammarly
• Todoist

Why Should You Use the Best Apps for Freelancing?

Freelancing apps can be valuable tools for your business in many ways, depending on their purpose. 

For example, freelancing apps for students help you find easy and quick work projects that won’t impede your studies. Conversely, the best apps for freelance writers help improve their work by correcting grammar and typos or offering style tips and suggestions. 

As there are numerous freelancing apps, they can help you in more ways than we can count. They predominantly assist you in finding clients and work opportunities, provide better communication, let you create a website, and deliver business-specific benefits. 

Most importantly, various paid and free apps for freelancers are ideal tools to save time and improve productivity. These factors make them indispensable to every serious freelancing professional. 

How to Start Using the Best App for Freelancers?

Getting started with freelancer tools depends entirely on the app itself. The good news is that the leading ones are typically easy to get the hang of or have a manageable learning curve.

In most cases, you’ll need to register an account and submit payment if it’s a paid service. Naturally, this portion is easy, but the hard part comes later. 

The process is simplified with freelance job apps, as the most challenging part is account registration. After that, you’ll quickly learn how to find the projects best suited to your skills, how to use filters and keywords in job searches, and more. 

With other, more business-specific apps, like apps for freelance photographers or programmers, you might need some time to master the basics. However, this shouldn’t be much of a problem since these tools cater to people of your profession, so you’ll find most of them highly intuitive. 

Best Apps for Freelancers in 2023

We’ve scoured the web and tested a bunch of tools before choosing the top ones. Let’s look at our choices for the best apps for freelancers and what makes them so useful.

Upwork

‍

Upwork is the biggest job platform for freelancers and clients alike, a place where more than 3 million jobs and projects get posted every year. Over 145,000 active clients spend $5,000+ annually. It’s clear that there are more than enough projects for remote workers, making it the best app for freelancers looking for new jobs.

The assignments cover almost every niche available, including verticals like project management, graphic design, accounting, customer service, SEO copywriting, virtual assistance, video and animation, and so much more. 

Upwork handles contracts and payments and effectively connects freelancers with clients. It offers escrow services for fixed-price contracts and a proprietary time tracker for hourly jobs. It's constantly adding new features or improving existing ones.

Upwork for freelancers has only one significant downside — the steep 20% fee on all new contracts. However, it goes down to 10% once you’ve earned more than $500 with the client and 5% when you go over $10,000.

‍

Pros:

• Perfect for beginners
• Free connects for job applications
• Biggest job platform in the world
• Payment protection for both sides
• Industry-specific coverage
• Built-in systems for fixed-price and hourly jobs

Cons:

• 20% fee on new jobs
• Favors experienced freelancers
• Limited number of connects for job applications

Grammarly

Grammarly is a writing assistant tool that helps you create grammatically correct texts. It’s thus one of the top content marketing solutions and best suited for content writers, copywriters, and creative writers. Even so, it’s still one of the best freelancing apps in general because we all need to write cover letters, send messages to clients, and more. Grammarly will make all those documents look professional, which will come in handy if you’re not a native speaker.

You can use the freelance writing app for free or pay the annual subscription for more detailed analysis and grammar or style suggestions and improvements.

It works as an extension in your browser, but it’s integrated into writing tools like Google Docs, so it runs in the background while you’re writing. Once you’re done, you can turn it on to see its suggestions and the types of grammar mistakes detected. 

Pros:

• Great for finding grammar errors and typos 
• Compatible with Chrome, iOS, and Android
• Offers audience-specific suggestions
• Built-in plagiarism checker
• Indispensable tool for writers
• Free version suitable for non-writers

Cons:

• Occasional incorrect or odd suggestions
• $12 a month for Premium

Todoist

Todoist is one of the best productivity apps for freelancers that goes beyond mere to-do lists. It’s primarily a task management app, but with many unique features and an incredible level of intuitiveness. In fact, it has the potential to become a complete freelance planner and an indispensable tool in every freelancer’s toolbox. 

You can create tasks with notes, comments, and even images. They instantly sync to all devices, as Todoist is cloud-based. You can group tasks into projects and apply additional filters like labels and priority levels. Every assignment can have a due date, and you can easily group or display the most important ones. 

Todoist is one of the best apps for freelancers because it’s almost entirely free to use in the sense that all the important features are available in the free version. However, the pro option is affordable, only $4 per month. It allows you to create a lot more projects, shows unlimited activity history, offers bigger file uploads, and adds additional functions like reminders.

Pros:

• Highly intuitive behind-the-scenes algorithms
• Effective project, label, and priority features
• Instant syncing across devices
• Project collaborations
• Perfect for freelancers who like to stay organized
• Easy to upload files, make comments, and add descriptions to any task
• Time- and location-based reminders
• Numerous integrations

Cons:

• Has occasional lags or syncing issues
• Lacks a calendar view
• Could use a communication feature for collaborators

Additional Top Apps for Specific Uses

Selecting the best freelance apps wasn’t easy, especially due to the huge number of great apps on the market. You can find platforms for students, photographers, productivity apps, accounting apps, and so much more. 

That’s why we have to mention a few more we think you need to consider:

• Clockify — Time tracking and billable hour calculating tool
• Fiverr — Online marketplace for freelance services
• Freelancer — Freelance marketplace
• ZohoBooks — Accounting app for freelancers
• Trello — Project management software
• Webflow — Site designing tool
• Dropbox — Cloud storage platform
• Slack — Communication app
• PayPal — Invoicing and payment platform
• Ahrefs — SEO tool
• Loomly — Social media management platform
• Bidsketch — Proposal App
• Hemingway Editor — Style checker
• 99designs — App for freelance graphic designers 

Bottom Line

We’ve looked through a number of freelance platforms and apps on the web, and even though there are others that are pretty useful, we still believe these are the best apps for freelancers at the moment. 

You should also look at the additional mentions, as freelancing apps are a diverse category. Depending on your industry, there might be a handy tool you won't necessarily need, but others might. 

Check as many of these apps as you see fit because you’re likely to find one that will prove highly effective in saving you time, finding additional work, and improving your business as a whole. 

FAQ

What apps do freelancers use?

Freelancers primarily use platforms like Upwork and Fiverr to find jobs. However, they also employ various business-specific apps, time management tools, accounting platforms, communication services, and more. 

Which freelancing app is best for beginners?

If your business is still in its infancy, you need to look for the best freelance apps for beginners to help you find jobs. The best choices are platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, Toptal, People per Hour, 99designs, Guru, and ServiceScape.

Is Upwork or Fiverr better for freelancers?

Upwork is the largest platform for finding freelance work. Its gross services volume in 2021 was $3.35 billion, while Fiverr’s was around $1 billion. Moreover, Upwork covers more business verticals and gives you control over your rates, as you can choose hourly and flat-price billing, while on Fiverr, you’re limited to the latter. 

Is Fiverr or Freelancer better?

It’s hard to say, as the two are pretty different. Fiverr is more suited for one-time gigs and lets you post job offers, while Freelancer is a better choice for long-term projects where you can post job offers and specific projects. However, both are easy to set up, as there is no complex process for Fiverr or Freelancer app download and installation, with both being online sites.