Build Freelance Management System with These 21 Tools

Working on a project on your own to provide services to a company/client which pays you to complete that work can be called freelancing. Freelancers can work on multiple projects and clients at the same time. That would lead to raising several invoices, making edits, finding new clients, virtual meetings with a few existing clients to complete the pending discussions, and a few other tasks in between the actual work. Handling all these tasks along with actually working on a project can get overwhelming and lead to losing some precious clients or ending up with some low-quality submissions.

A freelance management system helps freelancers and companies to communicate, collaborate, and automate their work/ tasks. A freelance management system helps freelancers to automate their tasks, raise invoices, virtually meet the clients, schedule edits and discussions, and market themselves through email marketing and find new clients. Freelance management system enables companies to manage their contractors/ group of freelancers that work on multiple projects. Working with freelancers and remote teams has been made possible with tons of software tools that make video conferencing, screen sharing, scheduling, emailing, invoicing, and many other tasks with ease.

Upskill, offer additional services, considering log term/ large projects, marketing, build a good relationship with the existing clients, and build a network of fellow freelancers are some of the ways to stay successful and develop your freelance business online. Working on multiple projects and managing tons of details at the same time can make you lose sight of your goals. While persistence and opportunity have helped many using the right set of tools to stay on top of things can play a vital role in achieving success for freelancers.

Influencers in freelancing

Upton Sinclair, Hunter S. Thompson, Cameron Crowe, Chase Jarvis, and Aline Brosh McKenna are some of the famous freelancers that made it big in their freelance career.

Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair started freelancing at an early age. He wrote joke books and dime novels to pay for his college. At the peak of his freelancing career, Sinclair wrote pulp fiction books with up to eight thousand words a day. Fourteen years later he wrote a book called "The Jungle" which he intended to expose the poor working conditions for workers in the packaging industry. However, the book became famous for bringing out the substandard goods in the meat products industry.

Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter started his career of writing with time as a copyboy who typed Hemingway and Fitzgerald novels in the night to learn their style of writing. He did not make it big with freelancing. Hunter published his first feature in the magazine "Rogue". His big break was when he spent a year with the motorcycle gang to write a story about the Hells Angel's motorcycle gang. After this big break, he began his feature writing career with many other famous magazines.

Cameron Crowe

Cameron started his freelance career at the age of thirteen by writing music reviews for " The San Diego Door". Later continued his freelance career with the Rolling Stone magazine. He also interviewed many famous artists like Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan. His first novel was at twenty-two.

Chase Jarvis

Chase originally had plans to apply for medical school. His grandfather left him a camera that ignited his interest in photography. He began his professional photography journey with REI licensed photos that let him start his shop.

Chase Jarvis planned to apply medical school after college, but right before he graduated, his grandfather, who was a photographer, died and left Chase one of his cameras. He succeeded in his profession and worked with some of the biggies and is now the CEO of an online education company called Creative Live.

Aline Brosh McKenna

Aline is a Harvard graduate who began her freelance writing career with a women's magazine in New York. She also took a screenwriting course and soon got an agent for one of her scripts. She got her first movie break after eight long years and became famous for her movie Three to Tango. Aline says persistence is the key to success in a freelance career.

Freelance Management Software providers

Freelancing can prove to be lucrative if you use the right software tools to market, work, earn, and build your network. There is a variety of freelance management system that offers web application software available in the market. Each of them provides a variety of features and different pricing plans.

Invoice Ninja

Invoice ninja is an open-source invoicing app available for free online and works best for freelancers and small businesses. Task automation, invoices, expense tracking, and much more can be done with a few clicks making it one of the best freelance management system.

Features

• Real-time quote and invoice creation
• Payment gateway integrations
• Task/project automation
• Recurring auto-billing invoices
• Customized invoicing
• Time Tracking
• Customized URL link

Uses Usage

Brand building, invoicing, to improve customer relations, and automating tasks are all made possible on a single platform with the help of invoice ninja.

Top Customers

HuffPost, SMART, and a few other leading companies and freelancing individuals use invoice ninja.

Pricing

• The free forever subscription covers up to hundred clients & unlimited invoices, auto-billing and invoicing, up to four customized templates, up to forty payment gateway integrations, set up recurring invoices, payment alerts, Google Analytics support, automatic currency conversion, and a few other features.
• The Ninja pro plan offers a fourteen-day free-trial and costs $10 per month. Two months free if you pay annually. Up to ten customized invoice templates, customized URL can remove the watermark, bulk emailing, password-protected client end portal, reporting, and auto-reminder emails are a part of the pro plan.
• The enterprise plan costs $14 per month and offers a thirty-day guarantee. All the features available in the free and Pro subscription is available along with additional user permission, attach third party files to invoices, branded client portals, and customized templates.

Hive, a cloud-based freelance management system works well for teams of all sizes. Hive enables chats, file sharing, automated task management, and much more on a single platform, making it a complete freelance management system. Planning, executing, communicating, and project monitoring is all made possible with a few clicks when you use Hive.

Features

Gantt chart, multiple views, chat, file sharing, analytics, project tracking, group communications, collaboration, Kanban board, and integration with Slack, Google, Dropbox, One Drive, and other platforms enable effortless project management.

Uses Usage Top Customers

Smartsheet, Flow, Liquidplanner, Boston College, DELL, Mountain goat, Starbucks Coffee, and many others are the leading companies using Hive.

Pricing

• Hive charges $12 per user per month and includes features like chat, project layouts, summarized views, automated workflows, meeting notes, and dashboards.
• Enterprise plans work well for large organizations and cover the basic features and also allows add-ons like proofing, resourcing, time sheets, external users, and enterprise security is available for $4 per month. Analytics is another add-on that costs $6 per month per user.

Every business, freelancer, and the team works with email. Workflow, team collaboration, real-time chats, and much more is made effortlessly with loop. The loop email enables teams to work with shared mailboxes, split conversations on email as per discussion and much more with ease.

Features

• Signature Management
• Canned responses
• Email monitoring
• response management
• task management
• real-time editing

Uses Usage

Sales and support teams

Top customers

Hemptouch, CEED Slovenia, Sutton, Delnorth, and a few other leading companies use the loop.

Pricing

NiftyPM is an excellent freelance management tool that enables task management, communication, collaboration for both freelancers and remote working teams. Nifty apps work well on Android, Windows, Mac, and iOS platforms.

Features Uses

Idea sharing, workflow collaboration, delivery deadline reminders, improves team productivity, and collaboration with remote teams.

Usage

Agile Development, digital agencies, marketing teams, client management, product teams, and legal case management.

Top Customers

Verizon, Periscope Data, VMWare, IBM, NYU, and LOREAL are some of the top brands using NiftyPM.

Pricing

Plutio is one of the best freelance management systems that offer a one-stop solution for all the project management challenges. Plutio enables freelancers to work closely with the customers and collaborate with teams across the globe. Plutio provides a single platform which is easy to use and offers a reliable solution for every step of the project, starting from task assignment to billing/ invoicing.

Features

Invoicing, CRM, Calendar, Time tracking, tasks management, project management, and proposals management.

Uses Usage Top Customers

Workzilla uses Plutio, and tons of developers love Plutio.

Pricing

Shopify project management is best suitable for ecommerce activities. Freelancing individuals/teams looking to optimize their productivity and to time track their teams working remote must try the Shopify - e-commerce project management system.

Features Uses Usage

Ecommerce automation, B2B ecommerce, Ecommerce automation, and multi-channel ecommerce

Top Customers

Let's hug it out, Triple T Studios, Eliza Lu, and a few other brands use Shopify.

Pricing

TimeDoctor

This time tracking app enables individuals and teams to stay organized with their daily work schedule. A freelancer or a business looking to communicate and collaborate with individuals/ teams from different locations then time doctor would be an excellent fit for you to manage work with the communication tools, integrations, reporting tools and much more to operate and improve overall productivity.

Features Uses Usage Top Customers

Comparakeet, Complitech, 2nd office, GoMoment, KPMG, Mokriya, and many others are using Time doctor.

Pricing

Mailerlite

Mailerlite works well for all types and sizes of business. It is user friendly. A great way to manage / edit content helps in reporting and enables better data-driven decisions with its statistics.

Features

Popups, landing pages, drag-and-drop editor, built-in photo editing, campaign reports, file manager, newsletter design template, rich text editor, user permissions, click maps, email automation, and integrations.

Uses Usage Top Customers

GitLab, Buffer, Dollar Flight Club, Onthegosystems, Automattic, and BestSelf are some of the top customers of Mailerlite.

Pricing

Hippo Video

A personalized video editing and distribution platform that enables companies to achieve their marketing and sales goals.

Features

Create and edit videos with annotation, images, recording, GIFs and much more for video testimonials, sales pitch, audience demography, lead generation, and branding.

Uses

Remote Work, Personalization, Video making, video marketing, and video management.

Usage

Enables screen recording for gamers, freelancers, you tubers, and customer service teams

Top Customers

Freshworks, Tailwind, Chargebee, Hearsay, Essilor, and a few other companies use Hippo video.

Pricing

SoapBox is the easiest to use freelance management system that enables managers to conduct meetings, take notes, and integrate with other platforms in a single click. Recording, editing, sharing videos on various platforms, split-screen view, and screen sharing are some of the things done effortlessly.

Features

Screen sharing, split-screen view, sharing/exporting videos on social media platforms, text overlays, looping GIFs, and customized video thumbnails.

Uses

One-on-one meetings, team meetings, team management, better customer relationship and a few others are the primary uses of SoapBox.

Usage

Task assignment and team management

Top Customers

Netflix, Hubspot, Wealthsimple, Foodora, and GoDaddy are some of the top clients of SoapBox.

Pricing

• The free plan covers meeting rating, shared and suggested agendas/ items, private notes, and search history for the previous thirty days.
• The Pro plan costs $12 per month and covers everything in the free plan along with assigning next steps, unlimited search, and adding deadlines.

Toggl enables remote team management with its easy to use tools like time-tracking, project planning, hiring, and other daily workflow activities.

Features Uses Usage Top Customers

Boloo, CodeCraft, Dlabs, Sizebay, ROI Hunter, and CyanCor are some of the top customers of Toggl.

Pricing

DeskTime can follow employee activity tracking on mac and PC with the websites, apps, and programs.

Features

Leave tracking, time tracking, billing & invoicing, reporting & analytics, idle time monitoring, and screen activity recording.

Uses Usage

Manage team, manage project, boost productivity

Top Customers

Mindwo, adverbum, Delonix, Diversity travel, Sixt, and a few others are the top customers of desk time.

Pricing

People box enables building and engaging high-performance remote teams. People box helps managers to perform check-ins, provide feedback, and to manage distributed teams.

Features

Performance, engagement, one-on-one meetings, automated survey, and anonymous messaging.

Uses

Better work relations, productivity & performance check-ins.

Usage

The automated survey, Engagement insights, and anonymous messaging

Top Customers

Pindrop, Zendrive, Walmart labs, Linkedin, and Optimizely, are the principal customers using People box.

Pricing

The intelligent capturing, retrieving information, conversion of meeting content into saved knowledge for the meeting management lifecycle is managed by adam.ai effortlessly. Adam.ai works well for startups/ large enterprises, senior management, and managers supervising multiple teams.

Features

Track meetings, record meeting votes, quick meeting setups, file sharing with multiple apps, and team accountability are some of the essential components of adam.ai

Uses Usage

Works best for managers, teams, and individuals.

Top Customers

Microsoft, Uber, Facebook, Cisco, Accenture, HP, The University of Tennessee, Pepsico, Dell, and many other leading companies use adam.ai

Pricing

Eyeson is a video meeting software that enables you to chat, conduct meetings, screen share, and much more with a click helping remote working with multiple teams a breeze.

Features

Screen sharing/ file sharing, unlimited meeting time, can add up to twenty-five participants per call, permanent meeting room links, quick join link, chat on desktop meetings, ticket support, and PDF presentation available with a click.

Uses Usage Pricing

• The basic plan works well for individual freelancers and small teams. This plan costs $9 per host per month, and a free trial is available. Add-ons like integrations, conference, storage, and streaming is available.
• The corporate plan is suitable for large teams, and a free trial is available. Dedicated customer success manager, domain licence, basic plan with selected add-ons and a few other features are general for customization with the corporate subscription.

Spreadsheets, integrations, APIs, and other work tools that facilitate the entire project lifecycle works excellent as a freelance management system.

Features Uses Usage Top Customers

UCLA, Shake digital, Black & White real estate, Alchemy digital media, Tomorrow Capital, and a few other leading companies use Stackby.

Pricing

• The personal plan works best for an individual freelancer and costs $5 per user per month. The subscription covers single users, unlimited guests, up to ten stacks, up to four GB storage, up to five MB file upload limit, thirteen weeks of history, and five API integrations. It also includes features like Grid, Kanban, Templates, and imports from Google spreadsheet.
• The economy plan costs $9 per month per user and works best for small and medium organizations. All the features available in the personal subscription and also covers twenty-five stacks, up to ten integrations, and allows twenty-five guests.

Meeting clients, scheduling appointments, document annotation, and much more are all made possible virtually and useful for both freelancers and businesses to manage their client relationship and work in sync with their remote teams. The features also enable users to keep track of tons of meetings and appointments effortlessly.

Features

Interactive video meetings, Intelligent scheduling, audio & video conferencing, screen sharing, co-browsing, recording, integrations, time zone detection, and many more features are a part of Vectera.

Uses Usage Top Customers

TOCO, Athlon, MediaHuis, Schipper, and Optimizely are some of the leading companies using Vectera.

Pricing

Hubstaff is another freelancer management system that enables freelancers to manage their billing and track work. Hubstaff is not only useful as a freelance management system but is also helpful for full-time employees. It helps to manage their timesheets and enable companies to understand any productivity issues making it an excellent management system for all kinds of the workforce.

Features

• Remote work and collaboration
• GPS tracking, asset tracking, billing & invoicing, employee monitoring, time tracking, and biometric recognition.

Uses Usage

Construction, healthcare, e-commerce, real estate, and landscaping.

Top Customers

ENC Construction, LinkUp Studio, Rise, Emsisoft, Terran, Tallyfy, and Epic Coders are some of the leading companies using Hubstaff.

Pricing

Streak - CRM for Google

Streak-CRM enables a freelancer to view tracking, send personalized emails, schedule emails, split conversations on email, and much more, making it an excellent freelancer management system. It works as management software for your CRM and inbox integration and also works as a connector to all your other Google applications. The Google connect, and the integration works great for both companies and as a freelancer management system.

Features

Customized view of the pipeline, easily export/ import(built into GMail), quick access through mobile, view tracking and integrations.

Uses Usage

Sales, Business Development, Fundraising, real estate, and project management.

Top Customers

AffiniPay, The Medically, KBS Network Builders, Llano Media LLC, and many other leading companies use Streak-CRM for Google

Pricing

If you are an individual with a freelance career and is looking for a CRM tool that blends well with the Gsuite to keep all your work connected then Nethunt is an excellent fit for you. It enables email capturing, saves customer interaction, manages deals, and helps with pipelines making it available with your emails.

Features

Call logging, meeting notes taking, deal/contact management, data import/ export, email link tracking, personalized email campaigns, Gmail chrome extension, and campaign analytics features makes it a perfect freelance management system.

Uses

Usage

Financial services, technology, Retail, Photography, Biotech, Landscaping, education, and construction.

Top Customers

iplan, Xorcom, Momenzo, Universal Genetics, Agave Lab, and many other companies use NetHunt.

Pricing

Promo.com is an easy to use app that helps in boosting sales, improving marketing strategies, and enables personal branding.

Features Uses Usage

Marketing videos, YouTube ads, Instagram ads, Facebook videos, and promo videos for Business, Travel, marketing, real estate, and e-commerce.

Top Customers

Bluecross Blue shield, Techpoint Solutions, Blitzmetrics, and Optimize Online are some of the ultimate happy customers using promo.com

Pricing

Invoicely works well as a freelance management system with its invoicing, time and expense tracking, and online payment accepting tool. Invoicely is a one-stop solution that enables a company or a freelancer. It works as an excellent management system that allows users to automate workflow, manage clients, track time, raise invoices, and accept payments. A freelancer can also use it for vendor management/ client management.

Features Uses Usage

• An online record of sales
• Small business accounting

Top Customers

K Glyphics, Envato Tutsplus, Conscious comms, and a few other freelancers, love to use inovicely.

Pricing

The web monitoring enables a company to manage its workforce both full-time and freelancers. Freelancers can use it for discovering influencers in their niche and monitor competitors. The boolean alerts, reporting, sharing, and other management tools available in a single platform helps both a company and a freelancer.

Features

Unlimited monitoring, analytics, social selling, boolean search, organized workspace, and white-label reports.

Uses Usage

Social media monitoring, Influencer marketing, hashtag tracking, and social selling

Top Customers

Michael Ruiz Consulting, UpJourney, Content Amplified, Geekwise academy, and a few others are the leading companies using Awario.

Pricing

NordVPN offers protection, high-speed servers, excellent data encryption, and unrestricted internet for businesses that are big and small. NordVPN works on all major platforms and can work on a minimum of six devices simultaneously.

Features

Next-generation encryption, Cybersecurity, automatic kill switch, smart play, streaming support, dedicated IP address, VPN apps for various devices, and 24/ 7 customer support.

Uses Usage Pricing

Conclusion

Whether you are a freelance individual, small/ medium/large company, an entire project management life cycle requires a management software that covers all aspects of the management system. A freelance management system software usually covers task automation, reminder setting, online audio and video conferencing, team meetings, time and expense tracking, time sheet management, monitoring, email/ chat, invoicing, payment acceptance, and all other steps of the project management cycle.

There are several top-notch management software available in the market with a variety of features and pricing policies. While each one of them is great with the features, they offer there is no perfect tool. The features and pricing suitable to a freelancer may not be ideal for a small/ medium-sized business. Thorough research about the features offered, the pricing plans available, its benefits, and other details about some of the best web application tool has been discussed in this article to enable freelancers and businesses to make the right decision.

Questions asked while looking for Freelance Management System:

Regina is Guest Contributor at Sprout24 and Web content analyst at Ad Week. She loves writing about sales and marketing software reviews in business that help them in a big way with driving conversions.