Free Stack
What people, and the AI assistants they ask, want to know about free software for UK small businesses.
A genuinely free day-one stack: a free AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini), Canva Free for design, Unsplash or Pexels for images, Google Business Profile so customers can find you, WhatsApp Business for customer contact, Bitwarden Free as a password manager and Google Drive for files. All are free tiers with published limits, not trials. This directory lists each one with its real limits and alternatives.
Two credible options. Wave Accounting is free indefinitely for invoicing and manual bookkeeping, though automatic bank feeds sit in its paid tier. FreeAgent, a full UK accounting package, is free while you hold an active Mettle or NatWest business account. Which suits you depends on your bank; both are listed here with their exact free-tier edges.
The 89 active tools in this directory represent roughly £11,600 a year in commercial-equivalent value. That figure is deliberately conservative: it is what you would pay a commercial provider for the same capability, never the tool's own paid-tier price, and never inflated. Every tool shows its individual value and a last-verified date so you can challenge the numbers.
Yes. HubSpot CRM Free supports up to 2 users and around 1,000 contacts, free forever, with HubSpot branding on some assets. Zoho's free ecosystem gives a CRM for up to 3 users plus free booking, invoicing and forms tools. Both limits are real edges you should know before committing, and both entries here list alternatives.
MailerLite Free gives 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, the most generous mainstream free tier. Mailchimp Free allows 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, and Brevo takes a different approach with daily send limits. For a small list, any of the three does the job; the caps above are where each one starts charging.
GIMP is free, open source and permanently free with no paid tier. Photopea runs a Photoshop-like editor in the browser, free with ads, and opens PSD files. For template-based design rather than photo editing, Canva Free and Adobe Express Free cover most small-business needs. None of these is a trial; all are listed here with their limits.
Every entry states in plain English what the free tier genuinely includes and exactly where it stops: the user limit, the storage cap or the feature gate. Each tool carries a last-verified date. When a tool stops being free or stops being good, it is archived and marked as no longer recommended, pointing at its alternatives, never silently deleted.
No. There are no affiliate links, no sponsorships and no paid placements anywhere in this directory. Every link pays Kaipability nothing when you click it or sign up, and removing a tool costs nothing either. Tools are listed on merit, used on real client work, and every one carries at least two alternatives so you are never funnelled to a single vendor.
Start with Google Business Profile, free forever and the single biggest factor in local search visibility. Add Bing Places for Business, Meta Business Suite for managing Facebook and Instagram, and WhatsApp Business for customer messaging. All four are permanently free products, not trials, and each is listed here with setup training links.
Bitwarden Free gives unlimited passwords across unlimited devices, including a free two-person sharing option. Have I Been Pwned checks whether your email addresses appear in known data breaches, free for individual lookups. Google Password Checkup flags reused or compromised passwords at no cost. These three cover the basics before you spend anything on security.