Cool Tools

Web design is a tool-heavy job, and I’ve tried a lot of them. These are the ones I’ve used and loved for years.

Some of these are affiliate links that save you money and/or earn me money. I only recommend stuff that I use regularly and love heartily.

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Featured
Monarch
Monarch

Best-in-class personal finance app. My link gets you an extended trial.

Novo
Novo

Online business banking made easy. It just works, and integrates with lots of things.

Fortitude
Fortitude

Protect yourself from fallacious chargebacks and avoid Stripe’s invoicing fees with Fortitude’s free invoicing that layers on top of Stripe.

Kick
Kick

Accounting software that does most of the work for you. Way easier than Quickbooks etc.

GoCardless
GoCardless

For avoiding credit card fees by taking direct debit/ACH payments. Great for subscriptions too - avoids the expiring card problem.

Clarityflow
Clarityflow

Like Loom, but with replies. Save yourself meetings + emails by sending videos instead. I use it daily to teach and provide support.

Cal.com
Cal.com

I’ve used many - Acuity, Calendly, etc - and they’re pretty similar. Cal stands out with how much you can do on their free tier.

Descript
Descript

It’s like Canva meets iMovie meets ChatGPT. Edit videos as docs, remove filler words and gaps with 2 clicks, you name it.

Squarespace
Squarespace

This should come as no surprise, but I think Squarespace is the best-fit website platform for 8 out of 10 small businesses.

PrintMe1
PrintMe1

Print and bind letter size PDFs with no fuss. Great way to offer a print version of a big digital workbook.

Dub.co
Dub.co

All the shortlinks on this site? They were made with Dub. Completely free.

Stickermule
Stickermule

For stickers, magnets, and other high-quality physical printables. Even temp tattoos!

Moo
Moo

For stunning business cards and other printed business stationery.

Format
Format

If you need a photography or other visual portfolio website.

Carrd
Carrd

If you just need a one-page site.

mmm
mmm

If you want to make it weird. Check out my personal landing page, vic.ooo.

Siteground
Siteground

If you want to use Wordpress, they’re my top hosting rec.

Circle
Circle

If your business is centered around courses and/or online community.

Ghost
Ghost

If all you need is a blog and/or email newsletter. Check out Gloat for a great deal on managed self-hosting.

Porkbun
Porkbun

Awesome indie domain registrar with great pricing and customer service with a sense of humor.

Spaceship
Spaceship

New arm of Namecheap with crazy domain and webmail pricing.

Repuso
Repuso

For collecting, filtering, and showing off customer reviews. Cheaper than better-known review mgmt platforms. 

Local Falcon
Local Falcon

For local SEO rank tracking at scale. Gives good auto-suggestions.

Brightlocal
Brightlocal

All things local SEO. Cheap citation building and quality monitoring. Great free courses.

Launchappy
Launchappy

Affordable SEO packages for Squarespace websites.

SEOspace
SEOspace

For all things Squarespace SEO. Fantastic plugin & resources.

Thrivecart
Thrivecart

A more robust checkout than Squarespace - I use it to sell my templates and I use Learn+ for my courses.

Colorslurp
Colorslurp

The best color picker tool out there.

Elfsight
Elfsight

For codeless widgets and plugins.

Termageddon
Termageddon

Dynamic policies pages. Great affiliate and reseller programs for designers.