The Rise of Free SaaS Tools as Lead Magnets (and How Marketers Can Benefit From Them)

As Tom Orbach, Head of Marketing at Wiz, says: “Mini tools are ten times more powerful than free trials.”

Tech marketers have been giving away eBooks and PDFs for 20 years. I think Orbach would agree that this era is coming to an end.

Thanks to AI, no-code, and outsourcing, the smartest tech marketers are now giving away mini software tools…completely free.

This is something I like to call “free tool marketing.”

This is how it works.

What is Free Tool Marketing?

In MBA parlance, free tools are called “loss leaders.” A loss leader is a free mini product that persuades customers to purchase a larger product.

For a perfume company, it could be a free perfume sample at the mall. For my hometown gas station, Wawa, that was it Free coffee every Tuesday in 2024. It’s common in tech these days to give away free tools in order to give you access to paid tools.

But how do you figure out which mini tools to build?

There are two main methods:

1. Look for low difficulty, high volume keywords.

The goal here is to grab some traffic that might be interested in your paid software.

You won’t rank for your niche’s main keyword overnight, but mini tools are like mini bets. Each mini tool gives you a better chance of ranking higher for your most important main keywords.

Use tools like Ahrefs to find keywords that are low difficulty keywords with a KD of around 0-5 with as high volume as possible. Even 1,000 searches per month is a good start.

For example, the keyword “Social Media Manager Jobs‘ has a keyword difficulty of 0 and 7,200 searches per month. If you run an AI resume writing tool or a hiring platform like Indeed, you could set up a free AI resume writing tool special for social media managers looking for a job.

Here is another example: The keyword ‘Instagram giveaway template‘ has a keyword difficulty level of 5 and 500 searches per month.

If you are an image creation platform like Canva or an advertising agency that helps brands run Instagram giveaways, you can use something like “ The DALL-E model from OpenAI or In the middle of the journey.

2. Look for features in your product, which may be free tools.

Are there already features that could be free tools?

For example, if you run a personal finance app, it might be a compound interest calculator. Or if you use video editing software, maybe it’s a free video resizer. The possibilities are endless.

Pro tip: Obviously, you shouldn’t give away the whole secret of your software. However, in most cases you can offer at least one feature for free.

What this looks like in practice

Let’s take me as an example.

I run a meme marketing software called Memelord Technologies.

Late one evening I couldn’t sleep. So I did a little keyword searching on Ahrefs and found that the keyword “memes png‘ had low difficulty and high volume (0 keyword difficulty and 4,000 searches per month!).

I’ve already created an AI tool for removing backgrounds for memes, so I took that feature and built one Free Meme PNG Maker It’s exactly the same feature – just provided for free.

And of course I pay a little API fees every time someone uses the tool, but I’m already seeing free signups (and no ads!).

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Here is another personal example.

I also saw that keyword “Marketing memes” The keyword difficulty level was low and the search volume was relatively high (2 keyword difficulties and 1,200 searches/month).

So what did I do? I built a tool for marketers to get inspiration for memes: a simple, searchable and filterable gallery without code Marketing memes Examples.

Like the meme PNG creator, I’m already seeing signups from this free tool that uses only pure SEO – no ads required.

But I’m not the only example out there.

The newsletter platform Beehiiv has launched one free LTV calculator to calculate the lifetime value of your subscribers. HubSpot has one free AI search grader This will help you evaluate your brand’s performance in AI search results. Wiz started a free QR code generator.

And I have good news: You don’t have to be a VC-backed company or a big brand to build free tools.

How marketers can get started

I’m an enterprising founder building free tools and first learned about this marketing tactic when I was Head of Growth at Product Hunt.

I saw these crazy individual founders and I realized that you no longer need a million-dollar budget to develop free software. (It may even be easier for solo hackers and startups, as there is less oversight, little to no red tape, and minimal need to demonstrate clear ROI.)

Marc Lou is one of those solo software founders and a big proponent of free tools.

“I’m a developer and love creating apps,” he explains. “But I also need marketing to pay the bills. Free tool marketing is a symbiosis. It consists of launching free and viral mini-apps to promote your startup.”

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Lou recommends the following guidelines for best results:

1. The tool must be free – this creates a viral loop.
2. One function is enough. It has to be super easy.
3. The name should tell exactly what the tool does. This is how people remember and search on Google.
4. The experience must start on the homepage. Visitors should not log in or click on any links.

Matt Merrick is another solo hacker who develops free tools.

“Over the years I have developed over 100 free tools. And every time I’m amazed at how well they work,” Matt told me via DM on X.

“The process is simple: I start with a keyword related to the website I’m working on (e.g. “color”) and ask ChatGPT for free tool ideas related to it. I only target low competition, high search volume keywords to rank quickly and increase traffic.

Free tools naturally attract views, backlinks, and domain authority. My page Niche tools has 20+ free tools and start generating free sales.”

Merrick dedicated his entire career to free tool marketing.

Why?

Because we are entering the era of free tool marketing.

Free e-books are So 2010s. The 2020s and beyond are all about free software.

Let me ask you: What free tools can you create?

Think about it for a minute. Take a minute to browse your product for ideas for free features. Go to Ahrefs Keyword generator (another free tool) to optimize for search.

Then grab a Red Bull, create some free tools and start using them!