101 Essential Freelancing Resources

Wow guys, you’ve outdone yourselves, that is a HUGE list, how long did it take to compile?

You should add Expression Engine (http://expressionengine.com/) to the web part, its pretty handy…

It took forever is how long No actually Cyan and I worked on it for about 3 hours last night and 3 hours today just sorting through everything. Worth it though, this is a page to keep in the bookmarks!

Hi Collis, under Invoicing I would like to suggest adding Invoiceplace – http://www.invoiceplace.com (which I have developed).

Under Project Management and Organization there are two reminder services I have found very useful: MemoToMe – http://www.memotome.com and Remember The Milk – http://www.rememberthemilk.com/

Lastly for Stock Libraries I would suggest adding IconBuffet – http://www.iconbuffet.com/

Thank you for the mention of DropSend – great list, lots of these apps and sites are life savers for us, as a small company.

What about http://www.LessAccounting.com?

Very handy list. Bookmarked in Delicious. Here’s hoping this list will be maintained and grow over time…

very usefull, tnx!!

i need now a little bit of time to read ”^-^

Hi Collis, I suggest this new web app, Professional on the Web, a directory where web agencies and freelancers can list their profiles and easily manage showcase of their projects. Users can search web professionals by tag and also rate projects instantly. No need to register or sign in. You can subscribe to the ever increasing list of designers and projects being added to Professional on the web via RSS.

It’s a way for freelancers to get new Jobs and for customers to find out new freelancers from the top rated list and looking their portfolios.

I must add your URL to http://katrineholmreview.blogspot.com

Really good list!! Great Resources! Tks!

Total Basecamp addict. This 37 signals app has totally saved my butt with the multi-tasking aspect of freelance life.

Simply PERFECT .. i wanna get teme for select each section of tools ideas and just explore this huge supply …

Hi, thanks for mentioning Work.com. We are always looking for more great how-to guides for freelancers, so you are welcome to write your own Work.com guide about any aspect of the freelance experience.

Ey Cyan,
you guys ‘nd girls over at flashDen and of course here are doin’ some very very good things for the community and its great to see people like you so passionat about what they do…thanX a lot

cheers

Thanks for all the new links and positive feedback! We will keep expending this list as we go, as there are lots of amazing tools/resources out there we haven’t heard about. The current list is basically what we’ve found useful or heard good things about – we waded through all our old bookmarks

Fantastic list. This has to be one of the most indispensable I have seen online in a long time..

Really nice. saved in delicious

Well, I’ve just added 7 new resources to the list, thanks for the suggestions people, keep ‘em coming!

Yeah thanks for that very useful list.

I actually use my myob program for my invoices but the examples you used are probably easier (and cheaper).

Think WordPress and other free templates, cms etc could be a handy addition to the list. Some times its easier to use an existing template to start a website.

Other than that, great work

Thanks, this list is fantastic.
There are some great tools in here that I hadn’t heard about before. For instance, I paid for ColorImpact, while the Adobe Kuler tool is WAY more advanced and even web-based.

Very useful list.
I am coming from a more marketing angle. Why not include ablewise.com to the list under marketing. It should help some up and coming free lancers advertise their services or business.

Nice list, on a quick scan I spotted enough sites that I know do the business to investigate the others. I’ve used MediaTemple for a couple of years now and apart from the odd glitch with the gridserver setup over the past couple of months you can’t touch ‘em.
Nice ordering too, start with the boring but essential stuff we all try to ignore.

You should add XHTMLized.com under tools. We’ve tried several different design companies to code companies but these guys were by far the best.

Thanks for sharing… This is usefull resources for Freelance like me (web designer)…

Cool…

This list is excellent, Thank You. I just signed up for Breeze…

These links are awesome!! Thanks for sharing!

Great! It is one of the best list i have ever seen.

pixie (color getter) http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.html

or

colorschemer’s colorpix: http://www.colorschemer.com/download.php

they both will let you grab the color values and screen coordinates at any pixel on your screen. use it daily. Both are free, too.

and http://www.protolize.org is a site that lists resources as well.

Three quick additions:

1. K7.net lets you setup a free phone number to receive voicemail and/or faxes. Any fax sent to the number is scanned and emailed to you as a TIF file.
2. FaxZERO is a service that lets you send faxes of up to 3 pages for free, although it includes an advertisement on the cover page. You can send longer faxes with no ad for $1.99 each, and there’s no monthly subscription fee.
3. Microsoft Accounting 2007 Express is a free download for bookkeeping and invoicing.

DivShare – File Sharing Unlimited for free. No registration required either. http://www.divshare.com/

thanks for the articles, its motivated me

Amazing list of resources.
Another great website vendor is Agencyfusion.com. They’ve been easy to work with and I can alway trust that they’ll get my sites done the way I design them. (I’ve been burned by other freelance guys before) And the sites they build from your design come with a CMS baked right in. Good if you don’t want to deal with the programming stuff yourself.

And thanks again for the resource list. I’ve already bookmarked several. As a freelancer, I love the insights into support areas.

Mike

Thanks a lot for the links

wow. nice stuff in the project management category. Even some things, I didn’t know about

Where did you find http://www.professionalsontheweb.com ? I like that site very much.

I’m an active freelancer and every tool I have used is included in the list :O

Nice work and nice blog! I just discovered it through innovationzen.com and I’m impressed. Kudos to you

Hi, I’ve been using http://www.openair.com for a number of years to handle invoicing and think it would hold up well against the ones included here. Nice list btw, and I’m enjoying this site.

One you missed. http://www.allfreelancework.com
I’ve always had good luck on the job board there.

This is great! Thank you so much for doing this. Bookmarked

What about portable-emploer-of-record services like http://helpmework.com/ and http://mybizoffice.com/ ?

Fellow freelancers, Please please please dont use rackspace (as suggested in the list). They have received tons of customer complaints, problems and issues. Just read any review sites on them and you’ll see. I’m not going to suggest who to use for hosting but please think twice before using rackspace.

Hi, nice list – thanks for putting it together.

One point, FYI – ‘Breeze’ is just a re-branded (and more expensive) version of MailBuild, brought to you by the good folks behind Campaign Monitor. Maybe you could list MailBuild instead?

http://www.mailbuild.com/

You missed htmlhelp.com, a reference which I find absolutely indespensible.

super article!
http://www.van20.com/story/192/

AWSOME LIST. PERIOD. I do have a few you should add though.

Job Boards:
Communication Arts Job Board, http://www.creativehotlist.com

Time Management:
Function Fox, http://www.functionfox.com

Hosting:
Host Gator, http://www.hostgator.com
(great reseller ability with tons of free php/mysql things with the aid of ‘Fantastico’)

Rock on. Great site. I have been looking for this website for years! Thanks for all the work.

CMS For Designers: http://www.obdev.at/products/webyep/index.html

real basic stuff, but worth it in my opinion for what it delivers.

Excelente recopilación. Bye.

This list is an absolute treasure, thank you so much! I am surprised I haven’t heard about some resources like zoho and sitekreator, they seem to be a real find!! Well-done!!

Great list … but …

Bit US biased – would be nice if list indicated resources that are really
only of interest to a particular country. And also it would be useful to indicate if the resources were free or not.

For now though I’ll visit them all ….

Thanks

Great list. I’d add Creative Commons to your list of legal resources. http://creativecommons.org/

Aquent’s another friend of freelancers looking for gigs. They match you up with mostly design and marketing work. Good clients and they treat people well (health, 401k, and vacation).

http://www.aquent.com

Awesome list! Thanks a lot!
But you missed remote desktop access tools in the Business Tools category:
http://www.techinline.com
It’s a great service for freelancers!

Great tool but I can’t see many research sites like the one we run http://www.askcharity.org.uk This can save freelancers lots time because it is a search engine of charities’ PR people and their mobile numbers and allows journalists to send out case study requests to hundreds of charities at once

Hello, I just noticed a little problem on your site.

Your post 101 Essential Freelancing Resources at:
http://freelanceswitch.com/general/101-essential-freelancing-resources/

Has 102 posts so the text saying so overlaps your image.

I looked at your HTML and CSS and found that you have a static image which the text lays over top of here:
http://freelanceswitch.com/wp-content/themes/FSw%202/images/comments.jpg

If you were to make this into three different images
1) Left part of image with little girl and a little bit of the green
2) A rectangle block of green just a few pixels wide
3) The Right port of the image

You could have that text say 1,000,000 posts and the image would never break again.

Give it a shot if you feel like it some time.
I’m not sure if you have many post numbers that high, but I’m sure as your website continues to grow you will see it more and more.

Please, feel free to email me any questions or comments.

Have a great day!

- ByzX

This is a great site and I have book marked it and will be coming back. I thought I would add a timetracking tool I use to your list. It is called timepanic…www.timepanic.com…I have found it very useful. It is inexpensive and easy to use.

Just thought I would add to your list.

Greeeeat list!
You need webzine administration:

PublicSquare

@ByzX, Thanks for that, yep that is my dodgy CSS, I hadn’t really thought about what would happen when we had comments numbering in the three figures

I’ll get that sorted, thanks for the tip off!

I must say Timepanic ( http://www.timepanic.com ) looks very impressive – I may have finally found a replacement to my 8 year old Microsoft Access time keeping database!

thanks great resources!!

Anyone on the Mac looking for a great project timer that works with Basecamp, Tick or Harvest? Timepost ( http://www.timepostapp.com/ ) is a great piece of software for Mac OS X that automatically posts project hours online.

I have found a very good web based office suite. It offers everything you can think about similar to word, excel. powerpoint, crm, Project management, planner, wiki, Chat and many others.

Add the site http://www.zoho.com. Great Suite!!!

One more great site: http://www.tutorialized.com

Regards
Rajesh (http://www.rajeshshakya.com)

I can’t believe you didn’t mention wordpress.

I’ve written a shareware time sheet application which automatically records how much time you spend working in each kind of Window on your computer, and lets you assign the time to jobs. If you can recognise which job from the window title, you can tell it to make the assignment automatically. I think it’s the best time sheet program available (but then I would, wouldn’t I!).
It’s fully functioning shareware (no nag screens, no crippling, no timeout), so it’s free to try, and I’m very much looking for user feedback.
http://www.trumphurst.com/TimeSheet.phtml

Anotherone for the Stock Libraries: imageafter.com. Free hi-res images for commercial use without the need to credit the site.

Shamless plug: For freelancers who work in media, my company, mediabistro.com, offers a number of invaluable tools. Our premium AvantGuild membership offers benefits including discounted health insurance, personal LexisNexis accounts, How to Pitch Guides for more than 180 publications, and lots more. Meanwhile, our Freelance Marketplace service allows users to post their profile and clips in a searchable database so that employers can find them.

I invite anyone with questions to check out the site (www.mediabistro.com) or send me a message at http://www.mediabistro.com/aboutus/contactus.asp?to=gh&subject=message%20for%20greg

Best,

Greg Horowitz
Membership Director
mediabistro.com

Hi.. very good work…
You could complete your list with billster, http://www.billster.net, a web2,0 site for invoicing and keeping track of expenses…

Seems appropriate to add WriteMaps here – http://www.writemaps.com – Create visual sitemaps online.

This is so good! Thanks for sharing and for helping the freelance community!

Mega source you must checkout http://www.jumpola.com
Also I’ve worked with http://www.voice123.com and it might be the best voice talent site on the web. I got 350 quotes & actual samples of a voice-over I needed within 24 hours and the service is basically free to find talent for publishers, and advertisers.

New Timepost update is available with support for Blinksale (http://www.blinksale.com/) and Checkboard (http://www.checkboard.com/).

Get it while it’s hot:

http://www.timepostapp.com/download

AWESOME list!!!

I’d add http://www.w3schools.com to the list for “foot-in-the-door” quick intro/tutorials for HTML, CSS, server-side technology… It’s where I send my students when there’s not enough time to cover everything in class.

Resources for Freelancers? Sure.

Graphic Define Magazine: Focuses on the business of running a graphic, interactive, or web design studio

Creative Latitude: a worldwide community that unites various creative disciplines for collective promotion, education and ethical business practices

BoDo: Business of Design online

There are a ton more (you can find them in the Creative Latitude and BoDo resources) but one that should absolutely not be missed is Creative Business

Thanks for the [very] helpful list – I’ve got two to add, both of which provide free media. The first is http://www.morguefile.com – an online resource for hi-res, royalty-free stock images. The site is wonderfully intuitive, and a large number of the images are former stars (but are now dead and in the “morgue”…) The second is dafont.com – yet another beautifully intuituve site that offers a myriad of free fonts, and comes complete a preview for the line of text of your choice. These two are on the top of my list. Hope that helps!

Under “Timing” my free desktop timer for mac should be added downloadable from http://www.gersh.no/

Aah, its named Worktimer (forgot to mention)

Hi Cyan,

I would also like to suggest Fanurio which does both time tracking and invoicing (I’m one of the people involved in this project).

We have designed Fanurio to help freelancers manage their work and be paid for it. It can do basic project management, time tracking and invoicing in order to have all the functionality in one place.

Thanks,
Nicu

There are many resources out there for designers that feel more like a dumping of links and some banner ads. It’s hard on the eyes and hard to digest. This site gets it done right. After all, you are catering to people who spend a great deal of time simplifying information for the eyes. How refreshing that you consider that with your layout.
Like the friendly characters and delicious colour palete. But most of all – i dig the content. I hope that this site grows into something successful, without loosing it’s philosophy. Proud to support it. – Respect.

To manage your finances in an easy way, try http://moneytrackin.com

It’s a simple yet powerful tool

Thank you for compiling this huge and helpful list. Another program that may be helpful for anyone with some programming background is Visual Web Developer by Microsoft (A mini version of the Visual Studio IDE). http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vwd/

And no, I don’t work for Microsoft =P

Another good resource for fast coding of designs is codeyourdesign.com. Very friendly, fast, and best of all he is a student doing this side project to help costs of school.

A great list and resource. Thanks!

Does anyone have any positive experiences with any web ad services?
I’m trying to push my vector art collections. Budget is certainly a factor.
Looking for something that gets results at a reasonable price.

Anyone?

http://www.vectorvault.com

My vector software collection got a fantastic review.
Check it out:

http://www.bittbox.com/news/vectorvaultcom-product-review-interview-with-adam-jarvis-and-the-future-of-free-vectors-online/

http://www.vectorvault.com

Nice list, Thanks. I found a couple things I hadn’t seen yet.
Thanks again,
Shelby

My online list management application http://listigator.com is sort of a Tada on steroids, with item categories, list import&export, extensive sharing options and more.

Excellent list. Thanks

I think you should add http://www.stockxpert.com to your Stock Libraries section.

Check this:
http://www.8ung.at/ukrebs
You should/must include Kalender in
http://freelanceswitch.com/general/101-essential-freelancing-resources/
Kalender is a fantastic diary-and-to-do application, which I selectd from a few dozen other freewares. It is much better than several paid softwares.

There can only be one not 101

Interesting reading – but honoustly you only need one!

http://www.comapping.com / see the video first to make sure
that all 101 resources are covered –

If any of the above 211 comments do not agree please
send a comment -

ps. I am using this tool for a collaboration project with
a IT school in Burkina Faso and Ghana -

Big ups to all!!!

Hamayun

Toggl (http://toggl.com/) is the best free time-tracking tool I’ve used.

Good job! Your site is great!

this is a really good (and possibly only) xml/xsl based cms – symphony

Here’s a couple definitely worth taking a look at:

Editor + FTP + CSS + Terminal + More
http://www.panic.com/coda

Simply send large files (Free)
http://www.senduit.com

Hi,
nice list. CAN I TRANSLATE it in Hindi and post it in my above Hindi Blog?

धन्यवाद (Thanks!)

thanks for the great resource!

A low cost alternative to WebMeeting and any kind of Voice conferencing is Infinite Conferencing (www.infiniteconferencing.com).

It’s actually very reasonably priced and high quality of customer service.

For all the freelance web designers out there, I’d add Protonotes – a great free tool I use every day to communicate with my clients to discuss their website designs. It lets you easily add/share notes on any webpage. http://www.protonotes.com/

Try this for Web Freelancer Humor and Therapy: (Flash Game)

http://www.templatekit.com/tstore/wrapper.php?file=propgame.htm

u forgot http://www.getafreelancer.com. it’s one of the best freelancing sites. http://www.essaywriters.net is also a pretty good one

In time tracking I would suggest Rachota. It is free, open source, runs anywhere, and can run from a USB drive (portable). It is an excellent task management tool.

rachota.sourceforge.net

Fixing link:

rachota.sourceforge.net

Please consider adding http://LiveTimer.com to your list of Timing applications. We’ve spent quite a bit of time making LiveTimer.com as flexible, yet easy to use, as possible. LiveTimer.com is especially well suited for freelancers because every account, regardless of size, is protected with SSL security. There’s a 30 day free trial if you’re interested. Thanks!

Great list! All my tools are on there except for Protonotes – I use it to collaborate on web design with my clients. It lets you add/share notes on any webpage. http://www.protonotes.com/

nice collection of freelancing tools. sad to know that activecollab is not going to be fully free next time.

Hello – A site you may want to add to your list: my web site, WebDevBiz.com, offers resources for freelancers, web developers in particular, including free articles and a package of documents and forms for sale called “Professional Web Business Tools”. It looks to me like it would belong under your “Business Tools” section, if you decide to include it. The site is http://www.webdevbiz.com.

Any questions, feel free to contact me.

Best regards,

Patty Ayers
WebDevBiz.com

VancouverOnlineMedia.com is another great resource for those developers on the west coast of Canada.

What is Vancouver Online media?

Vancouver Online Media, or ‘VOM’, is an online resource for Vancouver based developers. Here you can:

* Discuss projects and receive help in the message forum
* List your portfolio items through the Portfolio Manager
* Publish your resume through the Resume Manager
* Browse job listings through the Job Manager.
* Use your profile on VOM as a ‘home base’ to send clients to when looking for potential work.

It’s a nice list, but to be honest, what would have made it even better is if you’d indicated the cost of the individual software packages beside each listing – would have made referencing the list even more valuable.

2c.

wow, very helpful, have been trying to figure out for the last year how to get my billing in order..

Please think about adding our tool for remote control over the Internet, TeamViewer (http://www.teamviewer.com)

Our solution offers a very quick and simple way to give support over the Internet, even through firewalls. TeamViewer also includes full file transfer.

The solution is completely free for non-commercial use, commercial licenses start at $460.-

Thanks a lot for this great listing you provide!

What a great list! I would like to add a few more resources:

1. Alertbox – Jakob Nielsen’s personal newsletter
2. AListApart.com provides really useful wide collection of articles on web design.

Enjoy,
Faina Shpiler
http://www.formvisual.com

it-globalized.com is another job resource site for freelancers, web designers and programmers to connect and build relationships with project buyers. The site doesn’t yet have the scale of some of the other players, but the site is definitely growing.

Kind Regards
Bjoern Fredriksen
CEO – IT-Globalized.com
http://www.it-globalized.com

TRUE!

monkey on your back.. i love that!

nice list for a freelancer or a to-be freelancer.

i simply would recommend this page to everyone i know.

good work.

Add some organization to your business. Big Contacts is the BEST on-line tool to help you manage your contacts. I have used Act!/Salesforce etc… Big Contact is the BEST!. Basic Version is free. Works great with a team! http://www.bigcontacts.com

Another site to help technical freelance consultants find local clients (and vice-versa) is http://www.FreelanceLocalTech.com. It’s organized around the idea that most clients want to work with local freelance consultants instead of somone on the other side of the world… and freelance consultants can be much more successful working to create lasting relationships with clients in their respective communities instead of jumping from project to project with no obvious long-term prospects. It’s free to post your services or your projects.

The site only launched two months ago, but they’re actively marketing it and reporting that traffic is running about 50-50 between clients and consultants. Check it out!

Cyan, I would like to request that you add SimplifyThis.com to the invoicing section. While there are a lot of options out there already, we strongly believe there is additional value being provided by Simplifythis.com, including the ability to see and do everything from one single screen. Thanks!

I just found one free domain name lookup service.http://www.ajaxlookup.com, Free and instantly checks domain name availability and see whois detail. Pretty cool stuff! …

Need an Ajax loading gif, favicons, or a cool sounding web 2.0 name? If you answered yes to any of those, then head on over to WebScriptLab. This site is simple yet utterly practical. The first tool out of the lab is a gif generator; if you haven’t already got a little round icon to indicate your Ajax is loading you can create one; simply pick an indicator type, background color, foreground color, speed, and presto, you’ve got yourself a handy yet elegant loading icon. To create favorites icons upload a picture (150KB max.), convert it to the 16×16 Favicon standard and hit generate. The same goes for your web domain, just click generate and see what’s available. WebScriptLab may not have tons to offer, but what they’ve got so far is pretty useful.

http://www.solocrm.com is a new crm tool designed for freelancers and independent professionals.

The client portal included is really helpful in managing clients.

-Adrian

Thanks for coming up with the idea for this list. Looks like a good resource.

Vasudev Ram
http:/www.dancingbison.com
http:/sourceforge.net/projects/xtopdf
http:/jugad.livejournal.com

This is fascinating piece of work. It seems like you can find anything you need to get started or to improve yourself! Great job and thanks!

This is a great Canadian Job Board. Creative, Development and Marketing Jobs. Here the link: http://www.CDMJOBS.ca

Excelente colección de 101 recursos para webmasters. Gracias.
Saludos!
NestaVista.com

Ohhh this is so so useful to me! Especially the Misc where I discovered several new things. Thanks.

Cyan,
Great list and great looking website! I run a startup (www.BeenVerified.com) that helps freelancers find and stand out to clients by marketing verified only information about their identity and credentials. Think of it as a network of freelancers whose resumes have all BeenVerified. With all the noise on current freelance websites, we thought it would be a nice change of pace to have a network of individuals who you could trust their claims are real. Freelancers can learn more at http://www.beenverified.com/freelancers. Keep up the awesome work!

Hey Cyan,

Just wanted to let you know that activeCollab is no longer free or open source, however ProjectPier (www.projectpier.org) is a fork of the old code that has been improved and is being actively developed further.

Also, I’m a bit surprised that you mention Basecamp in one of the items descriptions, but don’t explicitly have it on your list. Either way, great list and glad to see you’ve been updating it.

I cant believe Getafreelancer.com is not on the list. Its one of the biggest Freelancing websites on the internet! I started on it and Its my favourite. Much user friendly than rentacoder and doesnt ask you to pay such huge amount as Guru when you start. You should add this site!

http://www.snapcontract.com is a great new tool that allows you to create and sign contracts online. Electronic signatures are legal in many contries including the US.

The tool is free.

http://www.snapcontract.com

-Adrian

I’m working as a contractor on part of a small, distributed, creative team. We’re looking for a way to manage digital assets. Not as tightly controlled as CVS, but something that is sane.

How do you manage large graphic files in a distributed way, available to people working remotely?

Thanks! Very, very useful list of resources!

Great list! Nice collection of freelancing tools. Thank you!

Thanks for this amazing list. I’ll be putting a link to it on our site – http://www.freelancentral.co.za – which is an online directory of freelancers in South Africa’s creative and IT industries. Maybe you’d consider adding us to your List if you have a South African readership? Thanks.

WOW! Thanks for this great list, full of resources. ^_^

Hi,

I would also like to add http://www.nineMotion.com under the categories of Project Management & Organizations and Job Boards. It is another excellent resource for freelancers to showcase their talent and win projects.

Cheers
Monique

In the interest of designers and photographers everywhere, I ask that you remove the micro-stock companies such as iStockphoto due to their market killing strategies of pricing RF images and illustrations for as little as $1. Not only does it kill our industries, it also floods the advertising market with less than sub par work letting clients think its perfectly acceptable to buy “sub-par” imagery on the cheap.

Here’s my time tracking tool. You need a web host to deploy it for yourself, and it only supports one user. Free and unsupported, but you get the code. Does not require a database. Designed for Firefox. http://riceball.com/drupal/?q=node/345

How about Billings for timing and invoicing…
very good in every way, but only for the mac
i think £40 for a single-user license
i use it, and i find it really good
scriptable, customisable
Sam

I just stumbled across this using roScripts. Awesome resource. Thanks!

you should add http://getcashboard.com to the invoicing list.
I haven’t tried most of the other listed, but I’d definitely recomend cashboard. Plus the guys behind it are very responsive and good about addressing anything you bring up. fixes, changes, and new features.

This should really help freelancers find freelance jobs, be more productive, manage their business and be more successful.

Add to it http://TheFreelanceNation.com, a network of 119 local freelance websites that help freelancers market themselves on the Internet and find freelance work and self-employment support.

What about the people who don’t know how to land the freelance jobs yet? Luckily, I have them covered. I’ll have to add your link to my site so that they can have access to these tools since I haven’t gotten to the part about listing all of the tools yet!

I’ve mainly focused on teaching people how to find legit jobs and how to land them since it’s a very competitive market where you have to know how to stand out above the other hundred proposals that have been submitted for the same work at home job!

I’ve started a new blog on freelancing here http://freedomfreelancing.blogspot.com/ or people can go directly to my site where they can find the report at http://www.virtualfreelanceguide.com

Good luck everyone!

Here’s an excellent new Freelance Site. This one gives you all the essential tools to help get that next client or project. Everything from E-marketing to directory service to freelance jobs to event posts.

I’ve built this site in order to help my fellow freelancers and try to provide as much as possible. Feel free to give me some feedback and what you think might be good on this site.

Check it out at: http://freelancerlisting.net

Whizolve.com – network of freelancers and clients.

I would like to invite to freelancers working in the construction business to try out our site (http://www.tangentworks.com) and, if you care to, let us know what you think.

The construction administration forms are fairly vanilla and allow for some customization.
There is demo-verse available via the “Test-Drive” buttons on the marketing site. It has enough data within to give one an idea of the possibilities.

Signing up to try the site is free as well. No 30 day limits.

By the way, we aren’t much for marketing emails, newsletters, etc so please free to write to us. We guard privacy jealously, and tread lightly the path to your inbox.

Thanks!

Zaina

Great resource list!

For online client collaboration, I’d like to add ClientSpot, which handles project and task tracking, time tracking and reporting, calendars, and file sharing.

Check it out at: http://www.myclientspot.com

What a great and very stumbleworthy list! Bookmarked
Cheers,
Dana

Heres a completely free freelancer site http://www.eTEQ.com check it out.
J

Hi, Just wanted to update the status of one of the Project Tracking and Invoicing applications. http://www.sidejobtrack.com no longer accepts new accounts. The say go to basecamp.. what the @#$% !

Cheers

MJ

Amazing List! So resourceful!

However, i think tracktime record nicely about what had already happen (past), it would be nice if the software can suggest/ hint the future base on what one have done in the past, e. g. if i had use iphoto for long period of time on last monday, there will be a popup or some kind of reminder, suggesting that i should use iphoto again on monday, that way, one will always have things to do….

Amazing list, very useful! Very appreciated

Thanks a lot that list! You should add also “evoice” to it… from the same guys of efax you mention… voicemail with your choice of area codes… great to add to business cards instead of own cel#

http://www.evoice.com

Great list you’ve got going there! Very well done!

How about free domains? http://www.prizecollect.com

Bless this site!!

You need to mention http://www.mbopartners.com. MBO is an awesome way to work as a freelancer — by joining, you can either just outsource your back office administration to them and stay your own corporate entity, or you can work with them as your portable employer of record, and get group benefits and a bunch of other advantages. I particularly appreciate the complimentary E&O insurance that I have to carry as an independent consultant. Their former name is MyBizOffice, mentioned above by another commenter.

Thanks, great list!!

Products and projects can be complex – project management tools do not need to be – that’s what these guys believe in – http://www.statuswiz.com

Unfortunately, I suspect at least several of the listings here, which appear to be users recommending some company (for example an agency), are actually those companies recommending themselves while pretending to be a “user”. Other than that it seems like a useful list.

I got another site to add to the list.

http://www.FreelancersUnion.org

They offer health insurance to members in the US and have a job board as well. It’s mostly New York-centric.

The post is/was a great one. Thogh i think that since then a lot of new tools came to light, it would be just wonderful to see a new list….if it is possible

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I agree, Skellie, it’s been a year since this list was published. How about another one with all the new contributions in it and some of the no-longer-good sites dropped? This is too awesome of a list to just leave it as a long-ago blog entry.

I would say out of all of these sites, the one that I have used and really hate is efax. They didn’t get the job done. If you could do a review of faxpipe.com, or just include them in the list here, I think everyone would be greatly benefited.

Thought I’d throw this one into the mix, would be a good one to add if a new version of the list is published.

http://www.TeamLive.com – an online collaboration tool, great for mocking up website designs and collaborating with clients. Also useful for highlighting changes to existing websites using the capture tools.

Mark

Single Wrench is a file sharing solution that is secure, reliable and easy to use. With no software to install or maintain, Single Wrench requires only a web browser and works on all operating systems. Whether you need to send or receive files, Single Wrench has an extensive feature set that makes it the perfect file sharing solution for your business.
There are several ways that businesses can share files, each with its own set of drawbacks. Email attachments are limited by size, often blocked by corporate firewalls and suffer from a lack of security. FTP has similar security weaknesses, requires ongoing maintenance and is difficult for users to understand. Finally, burning DVDs or other media is expensive, time-consuming and requires the use of couriers to ultimately deliver the files. Single Wrench addresses these shortcomings with one comprehensive file sharing solution.

Yeah, I agree with Andy and Skellie you should update the list. This is a great list as it is by itself, with some new modifications it is even better.

The service buysellads.com is new and really amazing, I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to outsource ad management.

really great info here, I found them really useful, thanks!

Another great site: http://www.tutorialo.com/

Another great resource you should include in this list is Contract Worker. I’ve always liked how the author shares the lessons of his freelance experiences.

I couldn’t help to notice that you missed the company that I work for. It’s call TSheets.com and it’s an online time tracking resource that’s free for the freelance type.

I’m impressed with the size of your list, quite impressed in deed. Great work!!

123rf.com is my choice for stock Photos. Its much cheaper than nearly all others and have some great features like lightboxes and searching for vector only pieces.

Does anyone have a good resource for finding out when to/not to charge sales tax?

Thank you, I can feel my productivity grow as we speak. That might just be my hunger pangs…………

This is probably THE most impressive list of resources I have come across in a while. Thanks alot for this one.

Peter Piper’s Palette Picker. Neat little tool for juxtaposing colors when you’re looking for a color scheme.

http://www.worqx.com/color/palette.htm

I always tell everyone I know about this site Its been helpful to so many, thank you many times over.

I thought that this may be of use

http://www.lance-it.com

Free Hi-Res Texture Library:

http://www.textureking.com

http://www.iJobid.com! That’s all.

Cheers, great freelance resource. Congrats freelanceswitch.

Excellent list! Take a look at http://www.billingboss.com as well. It is a free online invoicing app where you can share your data with your bookkeeper.

http://www.adderuppa.com – simple time tracker with a base tariff of £1 per month – you decide how much to pay on top of that !

Thanks for the list – love to see all this in one place (including the additions via comments from the community) and can’t wait to go check things out!

Thanks for the article!

I’d recommend http://www.celtx.com as an addition. It’s a free sofware / online service, that combines a script editor, storyboarding, character and crew lists and much more and let’s you share it all online so your team can be anywhere and you don’t get confused with the version numbers of your Excel sheets. It can be used for comix, theatre, audio plays, film etc.

I see someone already mentioned portable employer-of-record services and mybizoffice.com, which is now http://www.mbopartners.com. They are a fantastic resource and offer services from several different categories that you’ve listed resources for: invoicing, legal, timing and organization to name a few. You find your own clients, and they set up contracts for you; you keep track of your hours in their incredibly user-friendly system, they bill your clients, and process your payroll at certain times or intervals that you pick. They offer access to group healthcare benefits, retirement funds, flexible spending accounts, expense reimbursement. The best part of it all is, you get ONE W-2 at the end of the year, making it very easy to file your tax returns, and you don’t have to bother with the hassle of setting up a legal entity, but still reap all the benefits of running your own show. Can’t beat it, I would never work any other way after using MBO Partners!

Dear Cyan,

My name is Gijs Nelissen and I actually work in the web marketing department over at Track My People (OK, so technically I’m also the technical support manager and the guy who has to clean the desks after hours but that’s beside the point).

As a regular reader of freelanceswitch.com i wanted to get in touch to see if you could possibly check out our time tracking solution and possibly add it to the above list (if you think it’s relevant, i surely do).

Another free reminder service

Free email reminders and SMS text alerts

Hope it’s of use to you all.

There are new ‘crowdsourcing’ marketplaces (job boards as well as contest boards) emerging that are tailored to specific industries/services.

Advertising
- OpenAd.net

Graphic/Web/Logo Design
- DesignBay Freelance Web, Logo, Graphic Design Jobs
- Logosauce for Logo Design Contests

Photography
- istockphoto

The most affordable PSD to HTML service for freelancers with high-quality slice
in 24 hours for me is

http://www.mydesign2html.co.uk

Great list bookmarked thanks for help!

Hey!!

I’m a freelancer from paraguay and your tips are very usefull!!!

My url: http://www.designfreelance.info

Thanks a lot!Thanks a lot!
Andre Darugna

Great list,great analyses.Good job.

Creative Briefcase is a subscription-based, online resource for Graphic Designers that focuses on the business side of running a creative services business. For a small annual fee, members can access articles and tips on how to run their business, grow their sales, and more. They’ll have access to a resource directory – an online “yellow pages” full of companies that can help them improve their profitability and better serve their clients. Plus, they’ll have access to a member-to-member forum to share ideas and advice with other members, business forms they can customize, and more.

Some of our contributing authors include nationally recognized speakers and authors including: Ilise Benun, Lee Silber, Steve Gordon, Jr., Peleg Top, Emily Cohen, David Berman, Jere Gradone, and many more.

http://www.creativebriefcase.com

Great list,great analyses.Good job. Thankyo very much

Hi Guys..
For all your freelance work.
Use http://www.siteclipse.com

Its easy to use and affordable.!
Cheers

Hi Cyan,

There’s a great free Web tool that I would like to suggest for your list: Mikogo – the free online meeting tool http://www.mikogo.com
With Mikogo you have a free screen sharing, remote support and online meeting tool all in one. Great for freelancers or anyone who needs an affordable solution to Web conferencing. Simply start a meeting and invite up to 10 people to view your screen in real time. Features: switch presenter, remote keyboard and mouse control, application selection, file transfer, Skype Extra, 256bit AES encryption, and more.
Feel free to contact me if you would like more info. I’d be interested in hearing from you and discussing how Mikogo can benefit freelancers.

Cheers,

Andrew
The Mikogo Team
andrew(at)mikogo.com

A new application for Client & Project Management is Freelance Suite. It’s lean, fast, and looks impressive. FreelanceSuite.com

For Projects and Tasks Management I would recommend a new tool:

5pm (www.5pmweb.com).

Wow!!! This is very helpful. Thank you!

Another great tool for freelancers is Intervals, as it it a web-based app that handles time tracking, project management, and invoicing, all under one login.

Wow, I don’t even know where to begin with this list. Very comprehensive! Thank you for taking the time to compile it.

Best wishes,
Shannon

First thanks for this wonderful artical, As i m a starter Freelancer and i m having problem to find work , i have around 3 years of exp and worked allmost all technology in web design. some of my website is world famous in design , but y i don’t know i m not getting work. Is it that i m going on a wrong way or there is any trip or trick. can any one just help me in stating it.
Contact : Mikulgohil@gmail.com

you left out Bill4Time – it does time tracking, billing, and project management. more info and free trial at http://www.bill4time.com

Very interesting list for a freelancer or a to-be freelancer. I would recommend this page to everyone I know.

Thanks for your effort in putting this article together.

For all your Domain and Hosting Needs!!
Dorbank!

hi there

you missed

curdbee – http://www.curdbee.com

a Free web based invoicing service

Home appliances, cool price etc., many video – irons и blenders

I know this is like a year later, but wow, what an awesome list! Thanks for taking the time to put something like this together

I just stumbled upon this article and I think a site called Amazing Mail (http://www.amazingmail.com) would be good for the advertising and marketing section. It’s a postcard printing company that freelancers could find handy to send out to clients for discounts, promotions or even just to say hi.

-Sam

Hi,

It’s a gr8 post. But, I have one more “Project Management and Organization” tool that generates proposals, business letters, contracts and invoices. Get free TRIAL at: http://www.proposalsmartz.com

Thanks

I´ve got a cool link to. Its a project management app. really cool thing and free.

http://collabtive.o-dyn.de/

have fun

I design custom invoices!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16870138

I did not see http://www.ifreelance.com on the list. i have pulled many great freelancers from this site for various creative projects.

I’ve not seen Jexxe Freelancer in the list,
I think its new, I only found it myself last week but had good comments from
clients already
Well worth considering for the list

I recommend to look also at http://youweyoucoding.com – they offer the best price/quality ratio for PSD to HTML and PSD to Wordpress slicing service.

TimeXchange is a free-to-use site where time can be tracked, reported and improved for freelancers or project groups. Simply create a project and invite team members. All time tracking communication is than managed for you. Add workers, admin, managers and even clients to your project team.

There is even an iPhone app for tracking time on the go and loading it to your TimeXchange.net account.

This is great! Thank you so much for doing this. This definiteley worth Bookmark.t

Your designers toolbox link doesn’t seem to be working…..

I tell you what, this is a fantastic site. I wish I would have thought of it first. Good luck

I love this site I think it’s excellent for a beginner like my self and I found that this site could be very rewarding as well http://www.msxvipconcierge.com

This site is AWESOME! Thank you for the feedback and links.

I just found a good tool at http://www.easynth.com/profriend , it can subscribe job information from many freelancer sites, and remind me to bid once the new jobs come.

Our company is small but growing fast, and outgrew our Excel timesheets. We are now using Pacific Timesheet On-Demand (http://www.pacifictimesheet.com) for the last few months and it has really streamlined time tracking, time report and billing. We added payroll integration last month to integrate with our Lawson system, and have seen near 100% adoption across the company.

Jamil

Pacific Timesheet – Web Time Tracking Software

This is a great list. There are some I’ve already been using but many more that were new to me. Thanks for the hard work. David, from http://www.WriterIncome.com

Under invoicing you could also add Bionic Books (http://www.bionicbooks.com) – its a proper accounting app behind the scenes, but v easy to enter invoices, cash in and out.

Wakoopa!!!

Also, check out this excellent post summarizing on-line tracking apps: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/10-excellent-online-time-trackers-to-track-your-time-effectively/

Nice list. Paymo is another great tool. You can manage all your projects, track time, export invoices, and more. They also have a widget which makes things that much easier. I highly recommend checking it out.

http://www.paymo.biz/signup/

Great list of tools there, thanks. I’m not sure what to make of online invoicing though… I really like the oldschool postbox trick! Someone make me change my mind about this!

Here’s another great resource for online invoicing and business forms:

http://www.FastDue.com

FastDue provides essential online tools for businesses.

Here is how FastDue’s online tools can help a small business and freelancers stay organized, save money, and help them survive this tough economic environment:

• Collect Anything from Anyone Anywhere – FastDue invoices are extremely easy to use and are sent instantly via email so you get your money faster. Automatic past due reminders ensure that your clients won’t forget. Customizable forms maintain a professional appearance with details including your company’s logo.

• Negotiate and Execute Business Contracts Online – an internet first. All parties can negotiate within the contract form and add legally binding electronic signatures. Now you can have signed contracts and agreements at internet speed.

• Organize with FastDue So You Don’t Have to –FastDue keeps track of all transactions and contacts in your My Accounts section. Easily view the current status of your invoices, agreements, and accounts receivable and payable. Import or export contacts to and from your FastDue Address Book.

• Reduce the Need to Hire Expensive Lawyers – FastDue online agreement forms let you easily create common business contracts with FastDue’s intuitive, interactive templates. Forms include Non-Disclosure agreement, Non-Circumvent agreement, Finder’s agreement, Consulting agreement, Sale of Goods agreement, Promissory note, General release, Residential Lease, At Will Employment, and Intellectual Property.

Add http://www.aceproject.com to this list for project management.

Jenn

This is, without any doubt, THE POST! Thank you so much!

I noticed that you have ActiveCollab on the list, however it has recently become a licensed product. There is a similar open source software package called Project Pier http://www.projectpier.org/ that is built from the last open revision of AC.

One Royalty Free Stock Photo library missing is http://www.123rf.com, I was just comparing the hi res price for the same photo on iStockphoto and 123rf and it’s $45 on iStock and $8 on 123rf (Australian dollars).

Hi guys,

You should add Digiprove to the ‘Legal’ section of this list: http://www.digiprove.com. Digiprove is a great tool to help freelancers protect their intellectual property – Digiprove any piece of work (a photo, a website, a blog post, etc) to prove your ownership of it.
Digiprove also provides a certified email service, so if you need to be able to prove you sent something, as can often be the case in business or legal transactions, just use Digiprove to send it and you’ll have an indisputable record of the content, time and date of the communication.

Great list. Thank you! Don’t forget all the social networking groups to stay in contact with clients and partners like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

Please vote for me in the Start up Nation’s Leading Moms in Business contest: http://www.startupnation.com/leading-moms-2009/contestant/4170/index.php

Hello,

I want to appeal to people working in the field of website creation and referencing freelance.
We want someone familiar with the Internet and its mechanisms.
I can train on the specific tools if needed.
Thank you kindly send a resume by email.

Another great time-tracker app out there is Tempo – http://www.KeepTempo.com

What a wonderful list, this solved lots of headaches.

Awesome list! Really helpful information here. It’s already in my favs.

Just one thing, Diana from Artegami did not actually translate the list, just the intro…

Hi, Great Post!
Anybody know ” 22. TechInline – Remote Desktop Software ” working on Mac OS or Linux OS?

Thanks

Adobe Air app Klok:

http://klok.mcgraphix.com/klok/index.htm

Easy to use time tracking!

This is the first time I came across this site..it’s an amazing experience to have so much information..great going..

Thank you for the resource…don’t forget CurdBee for invoicing.

http://wwwIconfinder.net should be on that list

What about Skype and DimDim.com?

(shameless plug below but genuine.)

Can I add on a vote for Mingle, a project tracing/collab tool for agile projects. I find it tremendously useful for all kinds of projects not just software ones.

Free for upto 5 users with and all functionality and no time period lockdown

Good list but why does Your Web Job constantly get left off your lists?

Another list?! WOW!!! More sources!!! Yay!

Great post! I think you should add Amazon S3 for extremely affordable file storage and file distribution. Very handy if you need to serve some files that you know are going to be hit massively on your website… therefore saving your bandwidth.

Follow me on twitter.

Another great FREE (important for us little guys) invoicing tool is Billing Manager from Intuit (yes, the same people as Quickbooks). Check ‘em out:
https://billingmanager.intuit.com/billing/welcome.url

I just wanted to add http://timr.com to this list. timr is a time tracking and drive log application that can be used via a modern web UI and from your BlackBerry or iPhone.

We are currently in an Open Beta program and you can get 3 months of free usage.

http://www.GotFreeFax.com is a better choice for sending free fax online to the US and Canada as they don’t add any Ads to your fax, which is important for faxing formal documents.

Great information you have here guys. Definitely going into my bookmarks list on my laptop’s browser. Wouldn’t have known other great resources exist out there. What’s with http://www.ninemotion.com/? Is it temporarily down or totally gone?

The link for #19 isn’t working

8 June 2009 – TimeXchange.net has improved its commerce and collaboration network for people who work in virtual project reporting teams. Version 3.0 was launched last week and includes a simplified navigation and new features such as a timer for project tasks and a more robust tracking of time submitted for approval. Additional third-party affiliates with tools such as mobile companion devices were also announced.

Great list. Of course I have to post a tool I use for managing and creating project proposals for my clients — http://DrawbridgeApp.com — Drawbridge helps any freelancer manage and create project proposals and quotes for their clients. And it’s totally free!

Great post! Thanks for all the useful information!

Thanks for yet another great post, always good to see inspiring new tools to make all of our design lives easier

steve

Hey, great list! You did miss two large stock library resource:
fotosearch.com and canstockphoto.com