Running a small business in the UK means wearing every hat at once: sales, admin, HR, compliance and marketing, often before lunch. Software subscriptions add up fast, and a handful of £10 and £20 monthly fees can quietly cost more than a new laptop each year. Yet some of the most useful tools cost nothing at all. Several are run by the government itself and are underused simply because people don’t know they exist.
Here are nine free tools worth bookmarking, grouped by the jobs they help with.
Checking who you do business with
1. Companies House search
Before signing with a new supplier or extending credit to a new customer, look them up on the Companies House register. It is free and shows a company’s registered address, directors, filing history and whether its accounts are overdue. Late filings, frequent director changes or a recent incorporation date for a business claiming decades of experience are all worth a second look. It takes two minutes and can save you from chasing an unpaid invoice for months.
2. HMRC’s VAT number checker
If a supplier charges you VAT, their VAT number should be real. The GOV.UK “Check a UK VAT number” service confirms whether a number is valid and shows the business name and address it is registered to. It takes seconds and protects you from paying VAT to someone who isn’t registered to charge it, which matters if you later try to reclaim that VAT.
Funding and compliance
3. Find a grant
The government’s Find a grant service lists funding schemes in one place, with filters for business size and location and eligibility details for each scheme. Grants come and go, and many have short application windows, so it is worth checking every few months rather than once. Local councils and growth hubs also run their own schemes, so check their websites too.
4. The ICO data protection fee checker
Most organisations that process personal data, even just customer emails or staff records, must pay an annual data protection fee to the Information Commissioner’s Office unless they are exempt. The ICO’s online self-assessment tells you in a few minutes whether you need to pay. Missing the fee can lead to a penalty, so it is a quick check worth doing, especially if you have just started trading or taken on your first employee.
5. Acas templates and guidance
Hiring your first employee? Acas, the government-funded workplace advice service, publishes free templates and guidance, including job offer letters, alongside clear advice on contracts, holiday, absence and difficult conversations. They are a solid starting point before paying for legal review of anything unusual, and Acas also runs a free helpline if you are unsure about a situation with a member of staff.
Day-to-day admin
6. A free PDF toolkit
Invoices, contracts, quotes, receipts and payslips almost all end up as PDFs, and the paid PDF editors are expensive for occasional use. PDFVerge is a free set of online tools for the everyday jobs: merge a month of receipts into one file for your accountant, compress a large brochure so it fits in an email, convert a Word quote or an Excel price list to PDF, or turn photos of paper receipts into a single PDF. It runs in the browser, with no signup or watermark. As with any online service, keep highly confidential documents on tools your business has approved.
7. Trello
For a small team, Trello’s free plan is often all the project management you need. A simple board with “To do”, “Doing” and “Done” columns works for customer orders, content calendars or onboarding a new hire, and it is easy for staff to pick up without training. Cards can hold checklists, due dates and attachments, so the board becomes the single place where work is tracked.
8. Calendly
If you spend time going back and forth over email to book calls, Calendly lets clients pick a slot from your available times and adds it straight to your calendar. The free plan covers the basics for a sole trader or a small sales team, and it removes one of the most tedious tasks from the working week.
Marketing
9. Canva
Canva’s free version covers social media posts, flyers, simple logos and presentation templates. For a small business without a designer, it is the quickest way to make materials that look consistent and professional. Tip: set up your brand colours and fonts once and reuse them everywhere, so every post and leaflet looks like it came from the same business.
How to use free tools safely
Free doesn’t have to mean risky, but a few habits help:
- Use a business email address for sign-ups, not a personal one, so access stays with the business if someone leaves.
- Turn on two-factor authentication wherever it is offered.
- Check where data goes. For anything involving customer or staff personal data, read the provider’s privacy policy and make sure it fits your UK GDPR obligations.
- Keep a simple list of every tool you use, who has access and what it holds. It makes audits, staff changes and renewals far easier.
Review your toolkit once a year
Free plans change. A tool that was generous when you joined may cap features or users later, and a government service may move to a new address. Once a year, perhaps when you prepare your annual accounts, run through your bookmarks and subscriptions. Remove anything nobody uses, check that free plans still cover what you need, and confirm that former staff no longer have access. It takes less than an hour and keeps your business tidy and secure.
Before you sign up for paid software
It is easy to collect subscriptions you barely use. Before paying for any tool, ask two questions: does a free government service already do this, and will the free tier of a popular tool cover your actual volume? For many small businesses the honest answer is yes, and that money is better spent on the business itself.
Bookmark the government services above in particular. They are free, official and kept up to date, and they answer questions that small businesses otherwise pay advisers to answer.
