Low-cost tech solutions for your business

A dollar saved is a dollar earned, and for small businesses, healthy finances can determine success or failure.

While companies strive to keep costs low, software and technology expenses can add up quickly. Fortunately, you can find free solutions that often work as well as paid options.

If you pick up an Office Suite for your team, you may pay $10 or more per user each month. Not into subscription costs? You could buy stand-alone software, but that may set you back $250 or more. Or, you could use LibreOffice, a free open-source office suite that works on Mac, Windows, and Linux, providing free alternatives for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other tools. You can also use the free Linux operating systems to replace Microsoft Windows and Mac OS completely.

An image is worth a thousand words. When writing blogs or putting together sales materials, you may need pictures. There are tons of stock photo websites, but with many, rights to the photos will set you back some bucks. With Pixabay and Unsplash (among others), you can find images that are free for commercial use. Just make sure you check individual licenses. Need to touch up photos? Photoshop sets you back a few hundred dollars. Or you can use GIMP for free.

Many businesses now use Dropbox and other services to store and share files. These services get pricey, often starting at $10 or more per month. Over a few years, you’ll quickly shell out hundreds in fees. However, you can buy a lifetime membership from a service like pCloud for less than $200, or pay just $4.99 a month.

Do a bit of searching and you’ll find plenty of other free or low-cost alternatives. Just make sure you check out customer and professional reviews first to ensure they’re up to the task.