Tools like Adobe Creative Suite, ProContent, Loomly, and Klaviyo can be a huge help in your church’s digital communications—but they’re not cheap. And for small churches and church plants, every cent in your budget counts. 

Fortunately, there are plenty of free resources out there if you know where to look. 

Here are 5 tools we at GraceLed swear by for online content creation and social media management. And the best part? They’re totally free.

1. Creative Market

Creative Market is a website for purchasing digital design assets like shapes, textures, fonts, filters, and templates. Every week, Creative Market allows you to download a free asset—like this pack of 90 shapes and patterns or this font. 

You may not have a use for every free asset right away, and that’s okay. You’ll slowly build your personal library of digital assets to incorporate into your communications, like email blasts, sermon graphics, and social media posts. Upload the assets to your preferred photo editing program, and get creative!

In addition to the free downloads, Creative Market has a monthly bundle of digital assets valued at $1,000, available for just $10/month. 

2. Canva

Canva is a free photo editing tool with plenty of templates and assets you can add to your photos. Visually pleasing posts are a must-have for most social media platforms, and Canva makes it easy for you to turn your pics into Instagram-worthy graphics. 

Use Canva to create graphics for your next sermon series, social media posts, and upcoming events. There are paid options with extra features and assets, but you can do plenty with the free plan. 

3. GifRun

Spice up your communications with some custom GIFs! 

You don’t have to be a video editor or fancy software to create your own GIFs. Gif Run is a free tool that allows you to create GIFs from sites like YouTube. 

Create GIFs from your YouTube videos like sermon videos or footage from church events. Once you’ve made your GIFs, add them to social media posts or emails to show your church family in action. 

4. Rebrandly

Long URLs can clutter up your social media posts, and they could be mistaken for spam. 

Rebrandly allows you to create short, branded URLs. It also tracks the click rates your URLs receive, giving you a way to measure how successful your social media posts are. 

A free Rebrandly account allows you to create 10 branded links and track up to 100 clicks per month. You can delete old links and create new ones to stay within your limit, but Rebrandly will no longer track clicks to deleted links.

5. Opus

Need to turn your sermon videos into 60–90 second clips for social media? Use Opus! 

Opus is a video editing program made for creating short clips for social media. Its free plan includes AI-generated captions and 60 credits per month, which allows you 60 minutes of video processing. However, the free plan means your videos will have a watermark. 

If you opt for a paid plan, starting at $15/month, you’ll have much more editing freedom in creating your sermon clips. But if you’re just starting out, the free plan is a great way to test out the program and see if it’s worth investing in.