Freelancing is hard enough as it is, especially when you are starting out. Communicating with clients, managing finances, and keeping on top of emails, sometimes can cause a lot of stress. We have gathered a list of a few productivity apps to help with freelancing.
The Best Freelance Apps for Better Productivity
Here's our list of the best apps for freelancers to boost productivity and reduce stress:
- Bonsai - Great for managing everything including clients and schedules.
- Todoist - A simple to-do list management tool for tasks and reminders.
- Paymo - Perfect for client-based invoices and project management.
- Balance - To create a better work-life balance and a calmer experience.
- Endel - A focus application for getting on with deeper work.
- Missive - For handling all emails, and expanding into a larger team.
- 1Password - To manage all your passwords in a secure environment.
Let's unlock better productivity as a freelancer and manage those schedules better.
1. Bonsai: Best Specialist Base for Freelancers
Best For
Business Management
Availability
Pricing
Type of Tool
What is Bonsai?
Bonsai is an all-in-one application for managing all things freelance. It combines invoicing, accounting, CRM and banking making it easier to manage your whole business in one place. With Bonsai you can create custom documents for invoices, reports and more, allowing you to make a bespoke design following your brand's look and feel, this also helps with the client experience.
Overall, Bonsai is a project management application with built-in abilities for freelancers to manage payments, clients, schedules and taxes. Perfect if you dont want to download more than one application to help save time, and reduce stress.
How Does Bonsai Support Freelancers?
So what features does Bonsai have that support freelancers with clients and work?
- Manage all client contracts in one place so you can keep track of work and payments.
- Schedule calls and consultations in one place by sharing availability with clients.
- Create custom forms for invoices, reports and documents.
- Get help with taxes, payments, banking reports and more.
Bonsai is great for anyone who has lots of clients on the go and needs extra help with managing finances, just to take away any of the stress and to reduce wasting time.
2. Todoist: Best To Do List App
Best For
Simple task management
Availability
Pricing
What is Todoist?
Todoist is a to-do list application with a little more structure than a piece of paper. With Todoist you can add in tasks and then set due dates, you can also see which tasks you need to get done for the day and organise lists and todos using tags and colours.
You can also collaborate inside Todoist by tagging others into tasks to manage projects you are working on together. When using Todoist for freelancing you can create different project boards to separate all client work, inside workspaces you can have lists, boards and other views to overview projects.
Finally, Todoist is great for keeping you on track with upcoming tasks and to-do's. It's just a very simple place for managing daily tasks and projects.
How Can Todoist Help With Freelancing?
Todoist is great for freelancers, here are a few ways you can use Todoist to help.
- Create a list to save gigs and set reminders to reach out to them.
- Add tasks for reminders to keep your portfolio up to date and learn new skills.
- Create a freelancer pipeline to record each stage of the project process.
- Have different spaces for each client to manage work and steps separately.
3. Paymo: Project & Client Invoice Management
Best For
Client Billing & Invoices
Availability
Pricing
What is Paymo?
Paymo is another all-in-one project management app perfect for working with teams and clients. It's kind of like Bonsai but with a few more project management abilities. With Paymo you can manage projects, time, work, invoices, profitability and clients all in one space.
You can also use built-in collaboration features to assign tasks, chat and comment on work. There's also a file-proofing feature and budget tools for teams. You can easily turn timesheets into invoices to send to clients, or to pay your team.
Paymo also offers a range of different views to see a dashboard of your tasks, clients and upcoming tasks. With Paymo you can also create project templates to save time, use integrations and make online payments.
How Does Paymo Boost Freelance Productivity?
Paymo is very much like Bonsai but with more, here's how it can help extend freelance productivity.
- Tons of finance tracking abilities including client profitability records.
- Create project templates to save time starting again with the same thing.
- Turn timesheets into invoices to send off to clients.
- Integrate with other tools you already use for productivity and client management.
Paymo is just another great all-in-one for managing clients, tasks and projects.
4. Balance: Work/Life Balance Timer
What is Balance?
Balance is a really simple application for clocking in and out of work, managing breaks, and using timers for work. This helps create a healthy work-life balance for those who work at home, especially freelancers. Having a healthy work-life balance is important especially when you work for yourself. It's easy to keep working into the night, or not working enough. With a time tracker like Balance, you can stay on top of your working hours and breaks and give yourself some life.
Balance allows you to simply click a button when you start work, track your break times to make sure you are having enough of a break, or not too long, and clock out of work to begin your after-work routine.
How Does Balance Improve Work-Life?
So, how can the Balance app improve work-life balance and help freelancers?
- Check-in and out of work like you would do in an office job for example.
- Use the focus Pomodoro timer to help with deeper focus and getting work done.
- Break reminders to make sure you're eating lunch, and to avoid burnout.
- With Pro, you can create workspaces and projects.
Overall, Balance is a good idea to have in your freelance app productivity system just for clocking in and out and time tracking your working hours.
5. Endel: Best Focus App For Freelancers
Best For
Focus and Sleep
Availability
Pricing
Type of Tool
What is Endel?
Ednel is a simple, clean and easy-to-use focus application that uses a range of soundscapes to help users enter a deeper focus when working on tasks and projects. The sounds used in this app are backed by science to help you focus, sleep and relax.
You dont always need to use soundscapes to enter deeper focus, freelancers may need soundscapes to help them relax after a busy day or to wind down before bed to have a better sleep.
Endel is overall a great well-being app to have for freelancers to be able to focus, relax properly after work and make sure they have a good night's rest before working for themselves again tomorrow.
How Can Endel Help Freelancers Focus?
Endel can help freelancers focus thanks to its soothing soundscapes, here's more.
- Sounds to help you boost productivity and focus to work for longer.
- Creates a calming environment to avoid burnout or stress when working.
- Proven to decrease stress with regular use, great for use within daily routines.
- Sounds adapt in real-time with movement, time of day and more.
Overall, it's a good idea to find a good focus soundscape app to add to your daily working routine to help boost productivity and reduce stress.
6. Missive: Best Email App For Freelancers
Best For
Team Email Collaboration
Availability
Pricing
What is Missive?
Missive is an email application that goes a little further. It's great for working with a team or just collaborating with others. You can use the team inboxes to separate conversations, use the built-in chat to have a quick back-and-forth messaging experience, and combine it with your calendar to work along your tasks.
Missive is great for freelancers because you can work alongside a team if you expand to have one. You can also create separate spaces for client projects and conversations. Add in your calendar too to stay on top of tasks and schedule meetings or calls through the app.
Missive just provides a better all-around emailing experience for having conversations and managing important messages, rather than them getting lost in a regular email client.
How Does Missive Help Freelance Communication?
Here's how Missive can help with freelance emails and chats.
- Chat is a quick and flexible messenger inside Missive, no need for emailing.
- Integrate with WhatsApp and social media to manage messages there.
- Create custom channels to keep clients separate and organised.
- Use different Rules to create automation inside Missive and save time.
Overall, Missive can assist with communication, messages and collaboration all in one space.
7. 1Password: Best Freelance App For Managing Passwords
Best For
Password Security
Availability
Pricing
Type of Tool
What is 1Password?
1Password is a password management application to store all passwords and logs in a secure place. This is really helpful if you often forget passwords, or need to log into different accounts each day. This also means you can set up harder, unbreakable passwords keep them stored and then automatically input them.
1Password is a great idea for freelancers to just add another level of security and management to their daily routine. You will probably be logging into multiple websites, accounts, and maybe even client accounts. So it's a good idea to keep all information secure and safe.
Overall, 1Password provides a simple solution to forgetting your passwords by storing them all in a secure place.
How Can 1Password Support Freelancers?
1Password is just another useful tool to support security and freelancers daily.
- Monitor the health of all your passwords to avoid accounts being breached.
- Use auto-login to quickly access websites and accounts for work.
- Share passkeys and authentication codes to teams and clients.
- Create policies in the app for team members and clients to use passwords.
1Password also has many other abilities for managing teams, reports sharing information and more.
So Which Freelance App Do I Need?
You dont need to download or have every app in this list. You also dont want to be wasting time playing around with tons of apps and not using any of them.
If you are looking for an all-in-one app to manage everything, try Bonsai or Paymo. This makes invoices, payments, and projects easier.
If you just want a list to track your daily tasks and todos, stick with a simple app like Todoist. You can always expand your apps or change when you feel the need to.
If you are fine with managing everything, maybe you already have a system or app you use but struggle with focusing and getting things done, try a focus app like Endel, and a work-life management app like Balance.
Maybe you are just struggling with emails, following up, keeping track of client messages and so on. If that's the case, give Missive a try and create a separate space for managing freelance work.
Finally, if you have lots of logins and lots of passwords, a password manager such as 1Password is always helpful.
Why Do You Need Productivity Apps For Freelancing?
You don't have to use applications for freelancing, however, you'll find your life a lot easier if you do. There are quite a few all-in-one freelancing apps available, or just applications to help with focus, emails, tasks and finances.
The two main reasons why you need a productivity app for freelancing, that is to focus and manage your time and effort.
Focus applications are simple and easy to use, you can have background music, track your time spent on tasks, and see reports over time of how productive you are.
Freelance management apps require a little bit of learning but help you run your business all in one place. Some apps will allow you to manage clients, invoices, tax payments and more.
- The Best Freelance Apps for Better Productivity
- 1. Bonsai: Best Specialist Base for Freelancers
- 2. Todoist: Best To Do List App
- 3. Paymo: Project & Client Invoice Management
- 4. Balance: Work/Life Balance Timer
- 5. Endel: Best Focus App For Freelancers
- 6. Missive: Best Email App For Freelancers
- 7. 1Password: Best Freelance App For Managing Passwords
- So Which Freelance App Do I Need?
- Why Do You Need Productivity Apps For Freelancing?
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