Top 17 Essential Free Marketing Tools

Learn how free tools can help you achieve big marketing goals without stretching your budget.

Have you ever spent hours struggling with design tools, manually compiling reports, or searching for ways to optimize your marketing campaigns? Most marketing professionals have a list of repetitive or overly complicated tasks they dread every week or month.

These frustrations often arise because of tools that don’t integrate seamlessly or platforms that hide essential features behind countless clicks—or worse, expensive paywalls.

At Databox, we’ve experienced these challenges too, so we turned to our community of marketing experts to share their favorite free tools that help simplify and streamline their work.

Many of these recommendations come from marketers at agencies who manage multiple client accounts, making efficiency and cost savings a top priority. To make it into this list, each tool had to offer a free plan that provides real value—not just a preview or limited trial.

Without further ado, here are the Top 17 Essential Free Marketing Tools that marketers swear by to save time, increase productivity, and improve results.

The Best Free Marketing Software for Analytics and Reporting

1. Databox

Best free marketing software for reporting

Databox is a powerful marketing tool that consolidates data from various sources into one intuitive dashboard. It helps marketers monitor key performance metrics, visualize trends, and track goals in real time. With pre-built templates and seamless integrations with popular platforms like Google Analytics, HubSpot, and Facebook Ads, Databox makes it easy to streamline your marketing analytics.

“Databox is great if you wish to see the broad picture of your marketing activities today (and not after weeks of tinkering with hundreds of tools and connectors),” says Radek Zaleski of Netguru. “It also allows you to communicate with stakeholders very efficiently. We have used it for a short time, and we already love it.

Free plan details: Databox has a free plan for individuals that includes three data sources, three users, and three databoards.

2. Microsoft Clarity

Best free marketing tool for user behavior analytics

Microsoft Clarity is a free analytics tool that provides insights into user interactions on your website. It offers features like session recordings, heatmaps, and user engagement metrics, helping marketers understand how visitors navigate their sites and identify areas for improvement. Clarity’s intuitive interface and comprehensive data make it a valuable resource for optimizing user experience and enhancing website performance.

“Microsoft Clarity is the best free tool out there for website behaviour analytics—by far,” says Alexander Pavlinek. “It allows us to record up to 100,000 sessions per day and generate heatmaps with recordings, all for free. A particularly helpful feature is its ‘dead clicks’ tool, which helps identify site issues or UX problems.”

Free plan details: Microsoft Clarity’s free plan includes unlimited heatmaps, up to 100,000 session recordings per day, integration with Google Analytics, and advanced features like session filters and insights into user frustrations like dead clicks and rage clicks.

Related: How to Run Effective A/B Tests According to 28 Marketing Experts

3. Google Search Console

Best free marketing tool for keyword insights and website SEO status

Google Search Console is a powerful marketing tool designed to help website owners and marketers monitor and optimize their site’s presence in Google search results. It provides valuable insights into search performance, indexing status, and crawl errors. Marketers use Search Console to track keyword rankings, improve mobile usability, and submit sitemaps for better site indexing.

“For information about website performance, most people go straight to Google Analytics, but I always like to check Google Search Console as well,” says Michael J. Schiemer of Bootstrap Business.

“It lets marketers do many things that are helpful for SEO: check on the indexing status of your pages; view search impressions, CTRs, and keyword rankings; quickly and easily submit sitemaps; index individual pages; and check for crawling or indexing errors or pages that aren’t mobile-friendly.”

“There are countless other features, so it’s a great free and user-friendly tool for marketers.”

Free plan details: 100% free

Editor’s note: If you regularly check both Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor your most important website KPIs, grab this free SEO dashboard that consolidates and visualizes data from both Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Free Marketing Tools for Content Creation and Design

4. Canva

Best free marketing and design tool

Canva is a versatile marketing tool that empowers users to create stunning visuals without the need for professional design skills. It offers an extensive library of templates, fonts, images, and design elements, making it easy to create social media graphics, presentations, infographics, and more. Marketers love Canva for its simplicity and ability to produce high-quality, on-brand visuals quickly.

“Before Canva, we had to rely solely on team designers to create all visual assets,” says IMPACT’s Ramona Sukhraj. “That created capacity and efficiency issues—especially when we needed something quickly (e.g. social graphics).”

“Canva allows non-designers to create high-quality, perfectly-sized visual assets for a variety of social media platforms (and their paid ads), emails, blogs, and even print ads/materials.”

“Whether you need a quick graphic for a holiday greeting or a full infographic, Canva’s library of icons, templates, fonts, etc. makes it fast, easy, and fun to do. With it, we can still present and maintain a professional, consistent visual brand without needing our trained designers to drop everything to make it happen,” Sukhraj says.

Darrell Evans of Yokel Local Internet Marketing also recommends Canva: “There are great places to find low-cost stock imagery all over the internet. But if you really want to stand out in the crowd, you must personalize those stock photos to enhance your brand.”

“In my opinion, Canva is the simplest graphic design tool if you’re not proficient with Adobe’s suite of tools. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find Canva to be a lifesaver,” Evans says.

Free plan details: Canva is completely free to use and offers tons of free templates, images, and design elements. If you want to use a premium element, you just pay a-la-carte pricing for each design you create that includes a premium element.

Related: 22 Design Tools That Top Marketers Use To Quickly Create Beautiful Things

5. Wistia –  Webcam & screen recorder

Best free marketing tool for creating personalized videos

Wistia’s video recording feature enables users to create, edit, and share high-quality videos directly from their browser. It offers capabilities such as recording your screen and webcam simultaneously, utilizing an AI script generator with a built-in teleprompter, and polishing recordings with a free video editor. This tool is ideal for producing product demos, tutorials, sales videos, and more, allowing marketers to engage their audience effectively through personalized video content.

“Webcam & Screen recorder by Wistia (previously called Soapbox is a great free tool,” says Tyler Pigott of Lone Fir Creative. “It’s very easy to create simple videos to embed on your website or use as a sales tool in your emails.” 

“I was up and running in like three minutes and have seen great results from including videos in my email signature.”

Free plan details: Wistia’s free plan includes unlimited videos that you can export to your Wistia account (but cannot download).

Tools for Optimizing SEO and Content Marketing

6. Chat GPT

Best free marketing tool for content creation & more

ChatGPT is an AI-powered tool that enables users to generate high-quality, engaging content quickly and efficiently. With its ability to understand context, mimic tone, and generate ideas, ChatGPT is perfect for creating blog posts, email copy, social media content, video scripts, and more. Its intuitive interface makes it easy for marketers to brainstorm ideas, write drafts, and refine content—all in one place.

“ChatGPT has completely streamlined our content research process,” says Alexander Pavlinek of Databox. “We rely on it for strategic research and creating outlines. It’s like having a personal research assistant dedicated to supporting all our marketing needs.”

“What I love most is how quickly I can go from idea to execution,” adds Aleks Bauman of Stejt Agency. “I’ve saved hours on creating personalized content while maintaining the quality and tone my audience expects.”

Free plan details: ChatGPT offers a free plan that provides access to GPT-4o mini capabilities, including assistance with writing, problem-solving, and text generation for content creation. It also offers limited access to GPT-4o features like data analysis, file uploads, vision, web browsing, and image generation, making it a versatile option for marketers to boost productivity without incurring costs.

7. Ubersuggest

Best free marketing tool for SEO and keyword research

Ubersuggest is a comprehensive marketing tool that assists users in enhancing their SEO strategies. It offers features such as keyword suggestions, domain overviews, backlink data, and content ideas, enabling marketers to identify valuable keywords, analyze competitors, and optimize their content for better search engine rankings. Its user-friendly interface and actionable insights make it a popular choice among marketers aiming to improve their online visibility.

“Then, the tool provides you with related keywords, search volumes, CPC data, and competition data. The best part is that you can export the results to a CSV file.”

“For a free SEO tool, it is fantastic. It saves you a lot of time, and the results are very detailed and can lead to many keyword opportunities you didn’t think existed before.”

“Ubersuggest is a free SEO keyword research tool that allows you to enter the main keyword you want to optimize for,” says Kevin Williams of SurgeStream. 

Free plan details: While Ubersuggest continues to operate, its free features have been significantly limited. Users now encounter restrictions on daily searches and access to certain data, with full functionality reserved for paid subscribers.

Related:How to Do Keyword Research & Outrank Your Competitors

8. AnswerThePublic

Best free marketing tool for content ideas and keyword research

AnswerThePublic is a unique marketing tool that helps marketers uncover what questions and topics their audience is searching for online. By visualizing data from search engines, it provides long-tail keywords, popular queries, and content ideas to guide SEO and content strategies. Marketers value its ability to reveal customer needs and inspire engaging content.

“Marketing revolves around content, and as digital marketers, we are always looking for content ideas,” says Adam Rowles of Inbound Marketing Agency. “AnswerThePublic helps us find topics and questions people are searching for online.”

“AnswerThePublic is brilliant for finding long-tail keywords and understanding more about what exactly your customers are searching for,” says Richard Owens of First Five Eight Media.

“Once you submit a keyword, a comprehensive view of questions related to that keyword is displayed. This provides great insight into what questions people are asking related to your selected topic, which makes it a fantastic tool for content marketing,” Owens says.

Free plan details:  AnswerThePublic has reduced the number of free daily searches available to users. To access unlimited searches and additional features, a subscription is now required.

9. Yoast SEO

Best free marketing tool for WordPress SEO optimization

Yoast SEO is a popular marketing tool designed to help WordPress users optimize their websites for search engines. It offers features like on-page SEO analysis, readability checks, XML sitemap creation, and meta tag customization. Marketers rely on Yoast SEO to improve rankings, enhance content quality, and ensure their sites meet SEO best practices.

“The Yoast SEO plugin is the best tool there is for optimizing a WordPress site,” says Ryan Howard of HeadsUp Marketing. “It allows you to add page titles, meta descriptions, and more—along with easy-to-follow recommendations for optimizing your page or post.” 

“It’s a must-have for helping your WordPress website rank higher in search engines.”

Free plan details: The free version of the Yoast SEO plugin lets you edit SEO title and meta descriptions for every page on your site, get a readability score, check for duplicate content, create a sitemap, and more.

MarTech Tools for Social Media and Automation

10. HubSpot Marketing Hub

Best free marketing tool for lead generation and marketing automation

HubSpot Marketing Hub is a comprehensive platform that offers a suite of tools to help marketers attract, engage, and delight customers. It includes features like email marketing, forms, landing pages, and ad management, all integrated with HubSpot’s free CRM. Marketers appreciate its user-friendly interface and the ability to manage campaigns, track performance, and nurture leads effectively.

“HubSpot Marketing Hub is a starting point for those new to HubSpot,” says Gerry of Strategic IC. “At a high level, it is a lead capture, contact storage, and analysis tool that allows users to capture, track, and convert leads with features like contact forms, conversion popups, lead flow tools, and lead tracking and analytics.”

“You can use HubSpot to streamline and automate sales and marketing,” says Sarena Brown of SalesHub. “You can set up campaigns, schedule blog posts, automate social, set goals, generate leads, automate email workflows to nurture leads, book meetings, and close—all in the same tool!”

“We recommend this tool for new websites that are looking to convert website visitors into leads and nurture their contact database with email marketing,” says UNINCORPORATED’s Ian Evenstar.

Free plan details: HubSpot’s free CRM includes several free Marketing Hub features like forms, email marketing, ad management, conversational bots, and more.

Editor’s note: Easily track where your most qualified leads are coming from with this free HubSpot Sources Report dashboard from Databox that shows what marketing source generated your leads and where those leads are in the funnel.

11. Mailchimp

Best free marketing tool for email marketing

Mailchimp is a widely-used marketing platform that enables businesses to create, send, and analyze email campaigns. It offers a range of features, including customizable email templates, audience segmentation, and basic reporting, allowing marketers to effectively engage with their audience and track campaign performance. Its user-friendly interface and comprehensive tools make it a popular choice for businesses aiming to enhance their email marketing efforts.

“This free email tool allows you to create lists and send emails to specifically selected lists,” says Andrew Chao Daongam of Bethink Marketing Consulting. “You can also use personalization tokens so that it’s customized to each person as much as possible.”

“It also has forms you can embed into your website so that you can grow your number of subscribers. It’s a great tool for those who are looking to get started with email marketing.”

Free plan details: Mailchimp’s free plan includes unlimited marketing emails for up to 2,000 subscribers.

Free Tools for Competitor Research

12. SimilarWeb

Best free marketing tool for competitive website analysis

Similarweb is a digital intelligence platform that provides insights into website traffic, audience behavior, and marketing strategies. Marketers use it to analyze competitors’ online performance, identify industry trends, and optimize their own digital strategies. Its comprehensive data coverage and user-friendly interface make it a valuable resource for understanding the digital landscape.

“SimilarWeb gives you insights into the traffic sources for a particular website and the ability to list and compare competitors of that website,” says Nigel Williams of TryWebFree. “I used to use Alexa but found SimilarWeb to be more accurate.”

Free plan details: SimilarWeb’s free plan includes five results per metric, one month of mobile app data, and three months of web traffic data.

13. Built With

Best free marketing tool for website technology profiling

BuiltWith is a web analysis tool that identifies the technologies used by websites, such as content management systems, analytics tools, and hosting providers. Marketers use BuiltWith to gain insights into competitors’ technology stacks, discover potential leads, and inform strategic decisions. Its comprehensive database and user-friendly interface make it a valuable resource for understanding the technological landscape of the web.

“Built With’s Chrome extension allows me to quickly review businesses’ digital marketing footprint and the technology they use,” says Brendon MacDonald of Yello Veedub. “This allows me to make an educated guess on their digital marketing strategy and the level to pitch prospects our services and products.”

“As an agency, I always find it extremely helpful in my sales process to be able to assess a prospect’s tech stack,” says Nettly’s Thorstein Nordby. “Do they use a certain marketing automation tool, CRM, retargeting tools, or CRO tools?” 

“If they have plenty of tools running on their website, it tells me that they are investing in marketing and they are probably constantly looking for more opportunities to improve. This makes my prospecting job easier, and it helps me to assess how mature a client is.”

Free plan details:100% free for individual site lookups.

14. MozBar

Best free SEO software for checking the competitiveness of search queries

MozBar is a browser extension that provides instant SEO insights while browsing the web. It displays key metrics like Domain Authority (DA), Page Authority (PA), and spam scores directly in your browser. Marketers use MozBar to analyze search engine results pages (SERPs), evaluate competitors, and identify opportunities for link building and content optimization.

“MozBar is a browser extension that gives you instant metrics on any web page or search engine results page you’re viewing,” says Michael Rand of Market Veep. “It lets you view page and Domain Authority and compare link metrics across multiple pages while viewing a search engine results page.”

“Basically, it gives you a quick view into how awesome—or not-so-awesome—a website or web page is in terms of SEO. We like to use it to look at competitor’s websites and then use it on our own so we can dream about having as many backlinks as they do,” Rand says.

“MozBar is a must-have tool for any real-time data junkie,” says Linda Kyzar of Stream Creative. “I put it to use daily for link building strategies and competitive analysis.”

“Right from SERPs, you get an immediate snapshot of authority scores, spam scores, backlinks, keyword difficulty, and more for each result on the page. This instant access lets me know what I’m up against, on the spot.”

“Its on-page analysis tools allow you to highlight internal and external links and review page elements (title, H1, meta, etc.) without having to view page source. I use it more than anything else in my research process,” Kyzar says.

“With MozBar, I can set up Google, Yahoo, or Bing city-based targets so I can see specifically what users are seeing when they search in their geographic areas,” Villa says.

Free plan details: 100% free (though Moz Pro users get a few additional MozBar features like keyword difficult scores and page optimization suggestions).

15. Google Keyword Planner

Best free marketing tool for keyword research

Google Keyword Planner is a must-have marketing tool for discovering keywords to enhance SEO and PPC campaigns. It helps marketers identify search volumes, competition levels, and estimated costs for keywords, making it easy to plan effective advertising strategies and create targeted content.

“Google Keyword Planner is great for researching keywords and outlining a PPC campaign based on the results,” says Mary Jo Preston of Stream Creative. “It tells you about the competition for keywords, provides keyword search volumes, and helps you establish the budget needed for a PPC campaign.”

Free plan details: Anyone with a Google account can use Google Keyword Planner for free, even if you never run Google Ads. However, users that run Google Ads regularly get more accurate search volume data.

16. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Best free marketing tool for SEO audits

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a powerful marketing tool for performing in-depth technical SEO audits. It crawls your website to identify issues like broken links, redirect chains, duplicate content, and missing metadata, helping marketers optimize their site’s structure and performance. It’s widely praised for its comprehensive analysis and actionable insights.

“Screaming Frog SEO Spider is one of the best (if not the best) SEO audit tool available,” says Andrew Vinas of T-3. “It makes it easy to do a comprehensive audit of your clients’ websites to maximize SEO effectiveness.”

“As it crawls through every page of your site, it develops a roadmap so you can understand what needs to be done, what needs to be improved, and what needs to be fixed!”

Free plan details: Download the free version of Screaming Frog SEO Spider to crawl up to 500 URLs to identify issues like broken links, redirect errors, hreflang attributes, duplicate pages, and more.

Related: Conduct a DIY Technical SEO Audit with These 17 Questions

17. G2 Track

Best free marketing tool for SaaS spend management

G2 Track is a SaaS management platform that helps businesses monitor and optimize their software expenditures. It offers features like spend tracking, contract management, and utilization analysis, enabling marketers to gain visibility into their software stack and identify cost-saving opportunities. By consolidating software data into a single dashboard, G2 Track simplifies the management of SaaS subscriptions and enhances financial oversight.

“G2 Track is a game-changer because it connects to your accounting or payment systems and shows you all the SaaS products you use (even those you forgot about), broken down by cost, time, and subscription terms,” says Eric Quanstrom of CIENCE.

“We’ve implemented this tool and were astonished—no, flabbergasted—at the volume and breadth of tools adopted inside our growing organization. Seeing them all in one place, and having an accounting process for them, is positively brilliant.”

Free plan details: G2 Track’s free plan comes with unlimited spend tracking, monthly spending reports, smart alerts, and tracking for up to three departments and budgets.

Many Premium Tools Have Excellent Free Alternatives

Are you using a tool that costs more per month than you can really justify? If so, it’s probably worth checking around to see if there’s a freemium product out there that does the same thing. 

In recent years, freemium has become a popular acquisition model for SaaS businesses, so there’s a good chance that you might be able to cut the costs of premium tools from your budget by adopting newer software that offers a free-forever plan.

Why Free Marketing Tools Should Be in Your Martech Stack

With so many high-performing tools offering free plans, there’s no reason not to integrate these into your strategy. Empower your team with the right marketing software and achieve your goals without breaking the bank.

Originally published in February 2018, this post has been updated in December 2024 with recent screenshots and pricing information for each recommended tool—and to remove any software originally listed that is no longer available or no longer free.