Free Tools Every Online Seller Should Have, From Product Photos to Chat Replies and Order Tracking

When you open a new shop, it feels like you need software for everything: a photo editing app, a back-office system, a chatbot, accounting software. Add up the monthly subscriptions, and before you’ve sold a single item, several hundred baht are already gone.

The truth is that a small shop can start almost entirely on free tools. We’ve gone through the tools that actually work, sorted by the jobs you do each day, and we’re upfront about the limits of each free plan. Everything was checked as of October 2026, but free plans change their terms all the time, so look at each company’s pricing page again before you rely on it.

1. Product photos: your phone camera + the built-in photo app

Quick Answer: Today’s phone cameras are good enough for product photos. What improves your photos most is window light and a plain background, not a paid app.

• What to use: The camera and photo app that come with your phone. You can adjust brightness, crop and rotate right there.
• Tip: Shoot from late morning to afternoon next to a window, use white paper or fabric as a background, and wipe the lens before every shoot.
• Limits to know: Canva’s background remover is in the paid plan. If you want a clean white background, it’s much easier to shoot on a plain surface from the start.
• Short videos: Editing apps like CapCut have free plans, but their commercial use terms and free features change often. If you’ll use it for sales clips, read the latest terms first.

2. Designing posts, logos and cover images: Canva Free

Quick Answer: Canva Free has lots of free templates and graphics plus 5GB of storage. It’s plenty for posts, shop cover images, price tags and thank-you cards.

• What you can make: Sales posts, Shopee and Facebook Page cover images, stories, thank-you cards for your parcels.
• Free plan limits: No background remover or automatic resizing. Some templates and images are paid-plan only.
• Watch out: If you’re making a logo to register as a trademark, don’t use templates or stock images. Read why in Design your own brand logo for free.

3. Answering customer chats: free LINE OA plan

LINE is the messaging app most people in Thailand use, and LINE OA (Official Account) is its business version.

Quick Answer: On the free LINE OA plan, one-to-one chats with customers don’t count toward the quota. Broadcast messages (sent to many followers at once) are limited to 300 a month.

According to LINE for Business’s help pages, these messages don’t count toward the quota:

• Chats sent and received with customers
• Auto-reply messages
• Greeting messages when someone adds you as a friend

What does count is broadcasts, step messages and messages sent through the Messaging API.

The 300-message quota is counted by number of recipients. If you have 150 friends, you can broadcast about 2 times a month. So most small shops can stay on the free plan for a long time, since the main job is answering customers one by one anyway.

Tip: Set an auto-reply that tells people your chat hours, for example “Mom answers chats 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 to 9:00 p.m.” Most customers are happy to wait as long as they know in advance.

4. Tracking orders and stock: Google Sheets and Google Forms

Quick Answer: Free with a Google account, works on both phone and computer, and is enough for a shop that doesn’t have many orders yet.

An order table only needs these columns:

Date	Customer name	Channel	Product	Quantity	Amount	Paid	Tracking number

• Google Forms lets you make an order or pre-order form. Answers go into Sheets automatically, so there’s less retyping.
• Share the file with family members who help pack orders, with view-only or edit access.
• Limits: It won’t deduct stock automatically when you sell on several platforms. Once you sell on multiple channels and orders pick up, then look for a paid shop management system.

5. Comparing shipping rates: SHIPPOP and each courier’s own app

Quick Answer: SHIPPOP brings several couriers into one system so you can compare prices, book shipments and track parcels. You can sign up for general use with email or Facebook.

• What it’s for: Comparing rates for the parcel sizes you send most, and picking the courier that’s best value and most convenient for you.
• Good to know: SHIPPOP’s PRO-level service has separate conditions based on parcel volume. Small shops can use the general service.
• If you sell on Shopee or Lazada, just use the couriers the platform is linked with. No need to compare yourself.
• Other options: Each courier’s own app can also check rates and book a pickup. Try comparing 2 or 3 that have drop-off points near your home.

Don’t forget to include shipping and box costs in your costs when you set prices.

6. Receipts and bookkeeping: free FlowAccount plan or Google Sheets

Quick Answer: FlowAccount has a free-forever plan for 1 user, with unlimited quotations, invoices and receipts. It suits shops whose customers often ask for receipts.

• What the free plan includes: Unlimited documents, unlimited products and customer contacts, sales summaries, and it works through the mobile app.
• Limits: Tax invoices on the free plan carry a watermark. Features like bank reconciliation and stock management are in paid plans.
• If you don’t need to issue receipts yet, recording income and expenses in Google Sheets every week is enough. The key is doing it consistently.

For a simple way to do your own shop bookkeeping, read Do your own online shop bookkeeping.

7. Scheduling posts: Meta Business Suite

Quick Answer: Meta Business Suite is free and lets you schedule posts, reels and stories on both your Facebook Page and linked Instagram account. You can do it all in the mobile app.

• Why it suits moms: In one nap, you can prep a whole week of posts and let the system publish them on time.
• Use it with Canva: Make your image in Canva, download it, then schedule it in Meta Business Suite.
• Limits: It only works for Facebook and Instagram. TikTok and LINE need to be scheduled in their own apps.
• You still need to check comments: Posts can be scheduled, but customer questions still need your own replies.

How do you know when it’s time to pay for an upgrade?

Quick Answer: When you hit the free plan’s limits so often that you lose time or customers, not when you see other people using paid tools.

Think about upgrading if these happen often:

• You run out of LINE broadcasts every month, and LINE promotions really do bring sales
• You sell on so many platforms that the stock in your sheet often doesn’t match what you actually have
• You need to issue full tax invoices without a watermark (usually once you’ve had to register for VAT)

If you’re not at that point yet, it’s better to put the money into your products and customer care. A small shop that uses free tools in an organized way runs just as smoothly as one paying for several programs. If you’re just opening your shop, read the next steps in Your first day opening a Shopee shop.

Tools just help you get less tired. What really keeps a shop going is a mom who still has the energy to show up every week. Use only what you need for now, and add more bit by bit.