-Companies like TRUiC, Google, Avast and Wix are leading the way with free business tools.

-Cutting costs is a priority during recession times - business owners are increasingly re-evaluating their options as the IMF reports all major economies face recession.

Running a business in uncertain times? That is the case worldwide as the IMF points out that all major economies are in a pandemic-induced recession. Like most business owners, you most likely have a budget, and want to get the best possible spread of tools and services based on that budget. To help you, we’ve scanned the market for the latest free tools and have put together a short list of options. From managing legal documents, creating logos and business names, to taking care of cybersecurity.

Endpoint Protection from Avast

When you get a business one of the first things you’ll want to do is protect it, especially as you start getting sensitive consumer information and details. And there isn’t any point of growing a business that can easily be shut down by viruses and hackers. Unfortunately many sites that can protect you tend to have expensive package deals. Avast’s endpoint protection comes in two versions - a free and premium one.

Opting for the free option means that you don’t get access to proactive controls, a firewall, or data shredding. However, you still get access to solid malware blocking, security scanning, and rescue disk functionality. Even if you’re not entirely sure whether these are helpful to you, believe us - they are.

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Free Logo Maker from TRUiC

“Starting a business does mean you have to work on branding your business in the best way possible, hopefully without breaking the bank” says Nagabhushanam "Bobby" Peddi, CEO at TRUiC. A key part of business branding is creating a logo, and this can be tricky - especially if you don’t know where to start. TRUiC’s free logo maker allows you to easily brand your company and create the best logo design for your business. And it takes only a few clicks!

Their website allows you to choose from over 50 industries to categorise your business, so it’s likely yours will be in there, generating thousands of options for you within seconds.

And you know you’re dealing with good stuff here - their designs are unique, created by their own designers so there are no legal issues with your business: simply pick one and take it. Find the TRUiC logo maker here - see for yourself why it beats Wix, Namecheap and Placeit: no catches or upsells are perhaps the main drawing card for users.

Accounting from Wave

Having an accountant means incurring another cost. Ideally you want to save as much money as you can when starting a new business so you can funnel that money into areas in your business that might actually need it. One such way you can save some money is by holding off on getting an accountant. Wave is helpful as it allows you to keep your books balanced. In the free version you get accounting and reports functionality, the ability to create and scan invoices, and receipts too.

You can get pretty far with this without having to pay anything, but for an extra $19 a month - much cheaper than an accountant, you can also get facilities such as payments and automatic integration with direct deposit payroll.

Website builder from Wix

If you haven’t considered having a website for your business, consider it now. Being online means your business reaches many more people from all over, rather than ones who just see it driving or walking past. And once you’re ready to make the website, Wix is the perfect site for you to do so. Wix offers you a free account in which you can create a full-featured, mobile-friendly website. Although Wix is a great place to start off with creating a website for the first time, the website Wix helps you create is pretty basic, and if you decide you want more features as part of your website you can find many sites online to do so.

Domain name generator from TRUiC

Once you’ve decided you want to create a website, and are in your design phase, one thing you’ll definitely want to have is a good domain name, and you definitely don’t want to be spending money on finding one. Again TRUiC, a company that offers various free tools and guides to help you start a business and succeed in doing so, offers a tool for this.

Their domain name generator tool uses AI technology and human-centred strategies in order to generate thousands of catchy, memorable and creative names for your website within seconds.

Another great thing about this tool is that TRUiC promises to keep all your private information safe. Once you’ve searched a domain name, TRUiC protects it for a whole month until you’re certain of your choice, so it’s not for anyone else. All you have to do is enter keywords you’d like in the name, and you can refine it down by entering your state and preferred Tld.

Elementor drag and drop editor for Wordpress

Now, running a Wordpress website with zero coding is entirely possible thanks to the free version of Elementor. It may not be a very SEO friendly tool and not so fast to load, but for the first time it is possible to take care of Wordpress site design a complete “what you see is what you get” editor.

Bonus tip: Google Docs

Let’s face it, the world is switching over to Google Docs at an alarming rate. Businesses are using the all free Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word, Excel and other paid tools like never before. Although Google made this available in order to sell more cloud hosting, the message is clear: they succeeded largely to impress people worldwide with free productivity tools.