Starting a small business is no easy feat, and managing cash flow is super important to staying afloat and thriving. In these uncertain economic times, every little bit of savings can make a big impact. Unfortunately, a staggering 66% of small businesses struggle with financial issues (source).
But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! We’ve handpicked a list of three amazing tools that won’t cost you a dime, but will help you save money on things you need to buy today. And to sweeten the deal, we’ve even added a bonus tool as well. These tools are simple to use, readily available, and most importantly, totally free. So, let’s get started and see how we can help you stretch your dollars today!
Free Cost Saving Tool 1 (To ensure you are buying at the right time) – CamelCamelCamel
What is it:
CamelCamelCamel is a free cost savings tool that allows you to track the prices of products sold on Amazon. It’s a price tracker that lets you know when the price of a product you’re interested in drops, so you can buy it at a discounted price.
What’s great about it:
It’s extremely easy to use and provides valuable information at the click of a button. All you have to do is enter the product link or name and you will get a detailed history of the product’s price. This way, you can make an informed decision on when to purchase the product, saving you money in the process.
What are the limitations:
CamelCamelCamel does have its limitations. The most obvious being that it only tracks prices on Amazon, so if you’re shopping from other retailers, this tool won’t be of much help. Additionally, the tool only tracks prices and doesn’t give you information about shipping or delivery times.
Pricing model: Genuinely free to use – You just need to create a free account which enables you to set up pricing alerts.
Free Cost Saving Tool 2 (To get you free access to Premium Content) – 12 Ft Ladder
What is it:
12 Ft Ladder is a great free tool that enables you to bypass paywalls and contact walls to access premium content. We’ve all got annoyed when we click on a google link and find out that you either have to pay a subscription to read the full article or sign up. This tool takes advantage of the fact that news sites want Google to index their content so it shows up in search results. To do this they don’t show a paywall to the Google web crawler, 12ft Ladder takes advantage of this as Google crawler will cache a copy of the site every time it crawls it. 12ft Ladder shows you that cached, un-paywalled version of the page.
What’s great about it:
It’s very simple to use, head to their site, paste the site you are trying to access that has a contact or paywall and they’ll try and get you around the paywall. They also have an iOS app too so you can use it on the go.
What are the limitations:
It can’t get around every contact/pay wall. There have been a few occasions where the tool wasn’t able to get me access which can be super annoying. I’d recommend checking your existing subscriptions to see if it can get you in without have to sign up/pay.
Pricing model: Genuinely free to use – Just enter the URL of the site that you are trying to access.
Free Cost Saving Tool 3 (To try and find cheaper/free alternatives to popular software) – Alternative To
What is it:
Alternative To is a software finder tool that helps you discover the best alternatives to most software platform. It helps you compare different platforms together and potentially either find a free bit of software to replace something you are paying for or a cheaper one. A very helpful resource when either looking for new software or looking to save money on your existing software.
What’s great about it:
The platform has a huge library of platforms but also decent information on each platform, you can see how users rate each program, what features they like, and what they don’t like. You can also see the software’s popularity and read user reviews to get a sense of what the software is really like. The platform is also user-friendly and easy to navigate, making it simple for you to find what you’re looking for. They also have filters for free, freemium and open source platforms to try and find cheaper alternatives.
What are the limitations:
Alternative To doesn’t feature every single bit of software available, so you might not find less well-known alternatives. Additionally, not all of the information on the site is up-to-date, so be sure to do your own research before making any purchases, particularly as the platform relies on user contributions which can be unreliable.
Pricing model: Genuinely free to use – Just enter the software/platform you are looking for alternatives to and click search.
Bonus Free Cost Saving Tool 4 (To help lower the total cost of software for your business) – Dealify
Dealify is a free SaaS lifetime deal tool that helps you discover the best lifetime deals for software, tools and online courses. Offering you a deal where you only pay once for some software instead of every month you can save money in the long run. The deals are handpicked by the Dealify team and every purchase is backed by a 30 day money back guarantee.
One thing to be mindful of is that the platforms offered on there are usually early stage or growing platforms looking to gain popularity, this is a double edged sword as it can mean you get an awesome deal on emerging, brilliant software. Or you can end up with a buggy platform that’s still in its early stages. Either way make sure you test fully in the first 30 days so you can take advantage of the money back guarantee if things don’t work out.
Additional Help
As these platforms are pretty straightforward we don’t have a quick tips guide, however if you’ve missed any of the other articles in the free tools series, enter your details below and we’ll email them to you every few weeks.
We’re obsessed with helping organisations do more with less, check out our Automated Maturity Assessments, Small Business Automation and Visualise Business Impact services to find out how you can do more with less!
In our next post, we’ll share 3 free tools that will save you money on things you need to buy for your business today.
