15 Ultimate Tools to Help You Build a Personal Brand
A personal brand is one of the most valuable assets a consultant, creator or founder can build. It brings clients, job offers, partners and speaking invites to you instead of the other way round.
X and LinkedIn make it possible to reach thousands of people in your niche without a marketing budget.
If you post regularly, you know how much of the work happens outside the post itself: graphics, scheduling, replies, newsletters and keeping track of what works.
But the tool market has changed since this list first went up in 2022. Some tools dropped their free plans, others changed their fees, and new tools now cover LinkedIn and email better than the old Twitter-only apps did.
The 15 tools below cover scheduling, design, links, email, video, writing and research.
Affiliate disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I will appreciate if you use them.
How to choose personal branding tools
A tool earns its place if it saves time on something you do every week. Buying a stack of apps before you have a posting habit usually means paying for features you never open.
A few questions help:
- Which platform do you post on most? X and LinkedIn have their own specialist tools. General schedulers cover several platforms but go less deep.
- What slows you down? If writing takes the time, look at drafting and idea tools. If design does, Canva templates help most.
- What do you want followers to do next? Buying a product, booking a call or joining a newsletter each needs a different tool.
- What can you afford every month? Several tools here quote yearly prices by default, and paying month to month usually costs more.
Tools only speed up a brand you have already defined. A one-line positioning statement for your brand tells you which platform to focus on and which tools you can skip.
Tools for X (Twitter)
1. Tweet Hunter
Tweet Hunter is an all-in-one tool for growing on X. It schedules posts and threads, shows which of your posts perform best and includes a library of high-performing posts for inspiration.
It also has an AI writing assistant that drafts posts and threads, and it can automatically retweet your best posts or plug a product link once a post takes off.
Tweet Hunter is owned by lempire, the company behind lemlist. It covers X only.
Pricing: no free plan, with a 7-day trial. Discover costs $29 a month, Grow $49 and Enterprise about $200, or $23, $36 and $167 a month billed yearly.
2. Hypefury
Hypefury is a scheduler built around X that also posts to other platforms. It schedules posts and threads, recycles your best older posts and can automatically share a product link when a post gets traction.
Its pricing is simple for anyone who posts on one or two platforms.
Pricing: no free plan, with a 7-day trial. $6 per channel a month ($5 billed yearly), or $19 a month ($199 a year) for all channels.
Tools for LinkedIn
3. Taplio
Taplio is the LinkedIn equivalent of Tweet Hunter. It schedules posts and carousels, suggests post ideas, shows a library of viral LinkedIn posts and tracks your profile analytics.
It suits founders and consultants for whom LinkedIn is the main channel.
Pricing: 7-day trial. Starter costs $39 a month or $32 billed yearly, Growth $69 or $49, and Pro $199 or $149.
4. AuthoredUp
AuthoredUp focuses on writing LinkedIn posts rather than scheduling them. It adds text formatting LinkedIn lacks, such as bold and italics, previews how a post looks on mobile and desktop, and saves drafts and templates.
It is a good fit if you already post regularly and want each post to read better.
Pricing: $19.95 a month, or $199.50 a year. Free trial, no card needed.
Design
5. Canva
Canva is the easiest way to create visuals for your personal brand. You can make X and LinkedIn banners, post graphics, carousels, thumbnails and simple logos from templates, even with no design background.
The free plan covers most of what a personal brand needs. Pro adds brand kits with your colours and fonts, background removal, a bigger stock library and resizing a design for other platforms in one click.
Pricing: Free plan. Canva Pro costs US$144 a year for one person. Business costs US$250 a year per person.
Link in bio and a personal site
6. Linktree
X gives you one website link on your profile. Linktree turns it into a page of links, so you can point people to your latest post, product, newsletter and booking page at once. It also tracks clicks on each link.
Pricing: the free plan includes unlimited links. Starter costs $8 a month ($6 billed yearly), Pro $15 ($12) and Premium $35 ($30). Selling products through Linktree costs a 12% fee on Free, 9% on Starter and Pro, and nothing on Premium. On a $47 product, Stan Store costs less than Linktree’s free plan from the sixth sale, because it charges a flat $29 a month and no cut.
7. Carrd
Carrd builds simple one-page websites. It is a cheap way to get a personal site with your bio, links, a newsletter sign-up and your work, on your own domain.
A one-page site often does the job of a link-in-bio page and a portfolio together.
Pricing: free account. Pro Lite costs $9 a year, and Pro Standard, which adds a custom domain, costs $19 a year.
Email newsletters
Social platforms can change their reach or rules at any time. An email list is the part of your audience you own, which makes a newsletter tool one of the most important in the stack.
8. Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Kit is an email platform built for creators. It handles sign-up forms, landing pages, automated email sequences and a creator network that recommends newsletters to each other.
The free plan is generous enough for most people starting out.
Pricing: free up to 10,000 subscribers. The Creator plan costs $33 a month billed yearly for 1,000 subscribers.
9. beehiiv
beehiiv is a newsletter platform designed for growth. It includes a website for your newsletter, a referral program, a recommendation network and an ad network for paid placements once you have an audience.
Pricing: free up to 2,500 subscribers. Paid plans start at $49 a month billed yearly, or $59 month to month.
Selling
10. Gumroad
Gumroad lets you sell digital products such as templates, ebooks, guides and courses without building a store. You create a product page, share the link and Gumroad handles checkout and delivery.
There is no monthly fee. Gumroad takes a cut of each sale instead, which suits creators testing their first product. A digital product needs no follower minimum, which makes it one of the easiest ways to make money on X with a small audience.
Pricing: 10% + 50¢ on direct sales, plus card processing (2.9% + 30¢) or PayPal fees. Sales through Gumroad’s Discover marketplace cost a flat 30%, including processing.
Video and repurposing
11. Descript
Descript edits video and audio by editing the transcript. Deleting a sentence from the text removes it from the video, which makes it fast to turn a long recording into clips, posts and podcast episodes.
Descript’s Studio Sound cleans up echo and background noise in one click, and filler word removal cuts the “ums” from a recording in seconds.
Pricing: free plan. Hobbyist costs $16 a month billed yearly or $24 month to month.
12. Opus Clip
Opus Clip cuts long videos into short vertical clips with captions, ready for X, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts and Reels. It suits founders who record podcasts, webinars or talks and want to post short clips from them.
Pricing: free plan with a watermark. Starter costs $15 a month. Pro costs $29 a month or $14.50 a month billed yearly. Prices vary by region.
Writing
13. Grammarly
Grammarly checks spelling, grammar and clarity as you type, in the browser, on X, on LinkedIn and in email. Error-free posts make a brand look more credible.
Grammarly is now sold by Superhuman, the new name of its parent company. Grammarly Pro adds full-sentence rewrites and a plagiarism check on top of the free spelling, grammar and tone feedback.
Pricing: free plan. Grammarly Pro costs $12 a month billed yearly ($144), or $30 month to month.
Research and management (for teams)
The last two tools were on the 2022 version of this list. Both dropped their free plans, and their prices now suit teams and agencies more than solo creators.
14. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo finds the most shared content on any topic, shows who is sharing it and tracks mentions of your name or brand. It is useful for content research and PR.
For a solo creator, free options such as Google Alerts and X’s own search cover simple mention tracking.
Pricing: no free plan, with a 30-day trial. Content Creation costs $199 a month or $159 billed yearly. Higher plans run to $999 a month.
15. Hootsuite
Hootsuite schedules posts across many social platforms, manages team approvals and reports on performance. It is built for marketing teams handling several brands.
For one person on one or two platforms, Hypefury, Tweet Hunter or Taplio cost less and go deeper.
Pricing: no free plan, with a 14-day trial. Standard costs $99 per user a month billed yearly, Professional $199 and Advanced $399.
Three starter stacks
Free stack: Canva Free, Linktree Free and Kit’s free plan. That covers visuals, a link page and an email list at no cost.
X-focused stack: Hypefury or Tweet Hunter, Canva, Kit and Gumroad. You can schedule posts, design graphics, grow a list and sell a first product for roughly $20 to $50 a month plus Gumroad’s per-sale fees.
LinkedIn-focused stack: Taplio or AuthoredUp, Canva Pro, Carrd and Kit. It suits consultants and founders who want a personal site and a newsletter alongside LinkedIn.
With a bit of creativity and the right approach, these tools help you show up consistently and make it easy for followers to take the next step. If you need help choosing, feel free to reach out to me.
FAQ
What are personal branding tools?
Personal branding tools are apps that help you publish, design, sell and measure the content that builds your reputation. They include post schedulers, design apps, link-in-bio pages, newsletter platforms, video editors and writing assistants.
What is the best free personal branding tool?
Canva’s free plan covers profile banners, post graphics and simple carousels, which makes it the most useful free tool for most people. Linktree, Kit and beehiiv also have free plans that are enough to get started.
What tools do I need to build a personal brand on X?
A scheduler such as Tweet Hunter or Hypefury, a design tool such as Canva and a link-in-bio page cover the basics. A newsletter tool such as Kit lets you move followers to an email list you own.
What tools help with personal branding on LinkedIn?
Taplio and AuthoredUp are built for LinkedIn. Taplio adds scheduling, post ideas and analytics, while AuthoredUp focuses on formatting, drafts and post previews. Canva helps with carousels and profile banners.
How much does a personal branding tool stack cost?
A starter stack can cost nothing: Canva Free, Linktree Free and Kit’s free newsletter plan. Adding a scheduler such as Hypefury or Tweet Hunter brings it to roughly $20 to $50 a month.
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