Last updated on March 12th, 2019
Launching an eCourse isn’t for the faint of heart. As someone who’s launched several digital products and done-for-you services, I can vouch that with every launch you feel a bit braver but you still have the new-kid-in-class feeling! 😉
It’s funny but true.
One of the things that we learnt early on was to invest in tools that helped us save time and money when launching anything.
Today, I’m excited to share an EPIC collection of carefully tested and hand-picked sales-spiking eCourse launch tools for a profitable and productive launch.
At over 4000 words, this post is definitely a massive beast and because I know I will be updating this often to add more tools and remove ones that no longer do the job {yes, it happens!}, I’d strongly recommend you pop in your details below so you can snag a pretty PDF that you can keep handy with you when you launch. PLUS, doing so will mean that you get an updated version automatically as well!
Now without further ado and faffing around, let’s get down to the business of launching powerfully and profitably with The Launchall!
How to Use This Library
This jam-packed library has been divided into 5 main categories – copywriting tools, image and video design tools, social media tools, launch and project management tools as well as a delicious Launch Tool Potpourri section.
Each section includes a selection of tools that we’ve personally used and tested for you.
Each tool has 3 distinct sections:
Name: The clickable name of the tool will take you to the site for that tool.
What does it Do: This section will talk about the function of the tool and how it can help you.
Why do We Love It for Launches: This is where the juicy stuff is and we’ll share why we love it for our launches.
How much does it Cost: Is it free or do you have to pay for it?
Disclosure
Some of the links in this eBook are affiliate links, which means that if you sign up for them, we get commissions. You, however, would not have to pay anything extra. Win-win!
Disclaimer
While all efforts have been made to ensure that the tools included are effective and work well, we cannot give any guarantee and have no liability for the work rendered by them.
Copywriting Tools
What Does It Do?
It helps you come up with portmanteau words – words that are a combination of two or more other words and refer to a single thing. Like mompreneur, bromance, brunch and even blog.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
It’s great for juicing up creativity and coming up with names and titles for your products or services. Yes, we came up with SalesPlates with this baby!
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Wordoid
What Does It Do?
Helps you come up with made up words that make for creative names for your products and services.
You can choose language – English, Spanish, French, Italian and German, Pattern – add a word you’d like to have at the beginning, in the middle or at the end, and Quality – High, Medium and Low when making your wordoid.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
We love it because it’s another cool creativity-booster and a good way to have fun with words while brainstorming names.
Guess where we came up with The Launchall? 😉
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Edit Any Website
What Does It Do?
It does what it says. Edits any website copy so you can see what your changes will look like before going ahead and making them final.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
It’s great for seeing how a certain headline or sub-head will look on a sales page before actually making the changes and then, going back to rework them!
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Rhyme Zone
What Does It Do?
Helps you find words and phrases that rhyme with your seed word.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
We love words that rhyme and this tool makes it a LOT easier to come up with clever product and offering names.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Words to Use
What Does It Do?
This is the stuck-in-a-rut copywriter’s friend.
There will be times when writing copy, where you would struggle to come up with a word or phrase, and you’d feel like flinging your dog-eared copy of the Thesaurus across the room.
That is when you can power up Words to Use and discover the perfect word or phrase.
Unlike a dictionary, Words to Use “groups subject-related words by parts of speech.”
You’ll find words to describe love, romance, business, food and just about anything and everything under the sun!
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Because it fires up our creative juices like nothing else.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!!
Airstory
What Does It Do?
This is writing software for pro copywriters, content creators and bloggers.
You can use it for keeping your research, drafts, outlines and final product in one place.
You can also collaborate with team members so everyone can contribute while you have control.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
We used Airstory for the first time when writing the sales copy for Steaming Hot SalesPlates and LOVED it.
Not only were we able to keep our market research, competitor insights and drafts in one place and cut down our production time by half, it also helped us to come up with a brand-new template that we then included in Steaming Hot SalesPlates as well!
So, we love it because it keeps everything in one place, is easy-to-use and saves us a ton of time!
How much Does it Cost?
Free 14-day trial and $59/month afterwards
Easy-as-Pie eBook Marketing Recipe Book
What Does It Do?
It gives you plug-and-play copywriting templates for ALL your eBook launch needs. So, you get fill-in-the-blank sales copy, email funnels, social media updates, author bio templates, guest post pitch templates and so much more!
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Full disclosure: We are the creators of Easy-as-Pie eBook Marketing Recipe Book and the reason we created it is because there was NOTHING like it in the market.
That’s right.
It’s your all-in-one launch copy package if you have an eBook that you want to sell more of!
How much Does it Cost?
$49 for the Deluxe version
Image and Video Design Tools
Thrive Landing Pages
What Does It Do?
It is the easiest, drag-and-drop way to build stunning sales pages, opt-in pages and thank you pages without struggling with code, design how-to or anything else.
It is a WordPress plugin though so you would need to have a WordPress site to begin with.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
It’s super simple to use Thrive Landing Pages. The tutorials are short and to the point while being incredibly helpful and also the support forum and community is great!
Plus, you can do SO much with your landing pages – add timers, pricing tables, feature grids, testimonials, guarantee forms, content boxes without struggling with even a bit of code!
We’ve used Thrive Landing Pages for a whole bunch of our sales pages, including Fully Loaded Launch Copy and Easy-as-Pie eBook Marketing Recipe book.
They’re ridiculously easy to create using the fully customizable templates that are included and it usually takes us under 4 hours to put together a pretty profesh sales page!
How much Does it Cost?
$67 for a 1 License Pack
Crello
What Does It Do?
If you’ve struggled with Canva, you will love Crello. It has a similar interface, minus the bugginess.
You can use this design tool to create blog and social media images, Facebook ads, business cards, posters and more.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
It’s super easy to use, gives you access to a huge library of both free and paid photos and templates to use, allows you to download your images as PDFs too and runs pretty smoothly so that’s a big plus point when you’re on a launch timeline!
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Stencil
What Does It Do?
Like Crello, it is an image creation tool that has backgrounds and templates but it has a few unique features that make it an integral part of our launches.
For one, you can create Facebook ads with this tool AND it tells you if your ad has too much text so you can tweak it to FB’s weird standards.
Next, it has Quotes included in it so you don’t have to hunt Planet Internet for those cool sayings and quotes to share on social.
Third, you can add your logo to images with just the click of a button.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
For all of the reasons listed above!
How much Does it Cost?
Free for up to 10 images and with limited backgrounds and icons.
$9 for the next level that includes up to 50 images/month and additional features.
Word Swag
What Does It Do?
This is a cool app {yes, not a desktop tool} for your iPhone or Android.
It allows you to create gorgeous images with text on them in minutes.
Word Swag has a Typomatic ™ Engine that lets you create stunning text layouts in seconds.
It has an in-built inspiration station that has tons of sayings, phrases and quotes that you can use to create beautiful images for your launch or business easily.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
We’ve used Word Swag to create a series of quotes and also “countdown”-style images that stand out and create buzz for our launches.
How much Does it Cost?
$4.99
PlaceIt
What Does It Do?
Helps you generate a lovely iPhone, MacBook or iPad mockup of your product, program or service.
You get both image and video mockups!
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Mockups look lovely and convert beautifully on sales pages and even for social media images and ads.
They’re a great way for prospective customers to “see” your product in action.
How much Does it Cost?
$0 for small images or videos.
It has both one-time purchase options and subscription options if you need better images or longer videos.
Lumen5
What Does It Do?
It turns your blog posts or content into beautiful videos with branded images and background music.
They use “computer vision” technology which allows for the tool to automatically find relevant visuals and audio for your video. SO cool, isn’t it?!!
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Do you have blog posts for your launch?
Add a video to them in minutes with this cool tool! Then put that video on social and drive more traffic to your post!
Want to add a video to your sales page?
Add your own copy to the editor and let it go to work.
You can add your logo and also, a call-to-action!
We love it so much and have used it for several videos now!
A word of caution though: The tool is still in beta so it takes quite a bit of time to render your video. Also, sometimes {actually a lot of the times} the images it pulls isn’t that relevant but you can easily swap them out by searching in the library.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!!
Animatron
What Does It Do?
Creates animated videos in minutes!
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Creating fun animated videos, whiteboard explainer videos and more is SUPER quick and easy with Animatron.
We love it because it allows us, non-tech geeks, to create professional-looking videos in under 30 minutes. HUGE achievement there!
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
The free option allows you to create 5 projects but no commercial rights. Great for seeing if you like the tool and the videos it creates.
The next option is $15/month and gives you unlimited projects with commercial rights for your business only. There are also other features in this option such as access to royalty-free photos, videos and audio clips.
Biteable
What Does It Do?
Like Animatron, Biteable helps you create animated videos in the easiest way possible.
It is drag-and-drop and super fun to use.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
We love it because it was the first drag-and-drop video creation tool we ever used and it helped us make such easy explainer videos in minutes.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
However this option does not let you download the video to your computer. You need to upgrade in order to do that and also get rid of the watermark and get access to 85,000 extra clips.
Upgrading is $29/month.
Social Media and Email Marketing Tools
Linktree
What Does It Do?
Linktree helps you increase the traffic you get from Instagram by giving you the flexibility of having more than one link in your bio.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
It’s awesome because you can use your Linktree URL to include links to your opt-in page, blog content and sales page.
Not just that, you can also see stats and reports for each link so you know how they’re performing.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Emojipedia
What Does It Do?
Gives you access to thousands of emojis along with their meanings so you don’t get embarrassed when you realize that the “chocolate ice cream” emoji is actually “poop!”
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Emojis are awesome to add to social media posts, Facebook ads, email subject lines and even, copy!
You can use emojis to add personality to your launch with this cool tool!
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Grum
What Does It Do?
Allows you to post to Instagram from your desktop AND schedule your posts complete with hashtags and emojis, etc.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Instagram is great for generating buzz and building community and if you can schedule your posts out with the right hashtags, you save a ton of time too. Grum does that.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Buffer
What Does It Do?
Buffer is our fave social media scheduler and data analyzer.
You can use it to post to all social media networks, analyze the data and also, curate content.
Yes, very cool indeed.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Again, because it helps us save time, keeps us active on social and helps us to generate buzz with ease.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
The free option gives you 1 account per network and you can schedule 10 posts per accounts.
The next option starts at $10/month and has more accounts, more features and the RSS feed and calendar features we love!
Promo Republic
What Does It Do?
Like Buffer, Promo Republic is a social media scheduling tool that also includes ready-to-publish content as well!
Plus, it has a pretty nifty post ideas library as well as integrated photo stock!
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Promo Republic gives you premade templates and also, a cool calendar that outlines all the major events and holidays so you can tailor your updates accordingly.
How much Does it Cost?
$15/month
Email Marketing Tools
ConvertKit
What Does It Do?
Automates your email marketing with ease.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Launches, especially profitable launches, rely heavily on emails.
ConvertKit makes emails effective.
Not only do you get better deliverability, you get excellent support and you get features, like tagging and segmenting as well as setting up autoresponder sequences, etc. in the easiest way possible.
How much Does it Cost?
Depends on your email list size.
Motionmail App
What Does It Do?
Helps you create timers for your emails.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
We love this cool tool because it helps us build urgency in the easiest and most effective way – Showing email subscribers the exact time left for them to snag the offer.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Nifty Images
What Does It Do?
Creates personalized images for emails.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Personalization is powerful and personalized emails are well, a tad outdated.
So, how can one personalize an email and still stand out?
With personalized images that Nifty Images creates for you using the merge tags from your email marketing system.
How much does it Cost?
FREE! For up to 10,000 opens
The next plan is $20/month for 50,000 opens/month
Mail Tester
What Does It Do?
Helps you test the spammyness of your email 😉
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
You’d hate to schedule a last-call email only to have it flagged as spam during a launch, right?
Testing your email with Mail Tester ensures you know that your email wouldn’t be flagged as spam.
Simply send a preview of the email to the Mail Tester email ID, check the score and then, sit back to see sales roll in.
How Much does it Cost?
FREE!!
Launch Management and Project Management Tools
Asana
What Does It Do?
Helps you stay on track with your projects and your launches.
Collaborate with your team and never let anything fall through the cracks.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Launches have a million moving parts and pieces. Asana keeps all those parts in one place so you never have to wake up in the middle of the night wondering if you’ve sent those changes to the designer!
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Trello
What Does It Do?
Like Asana, Trello is a project management tool that uses boards and cards to keep you organized.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Although we no longer use Trello for our launches in favor of Asana, we loved it when we used it because it’s super easy, extremely flexible and again, keeps things from falling through the cracks!
In case you’re wondering, we moved to Asana because it gives us lists as well as boards. We prefer lists 😉
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
The Launch Tool Potpourri
SmallPDF
What Does It Do?
SmallPDF has a suite of tools that anyone who does anything with PDFs needs.
From compressing the size of your PDF to converting it into PPT, PNG, Word or vice-versa to protecting it and so much more!
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Launches need PDFs!
Whether you’re launching an eBook or an eCourse, you will have a PDF to deal with and that is when SmallPDF will save you from hours of grief.
Have a PPT presentation for your modules? Turn it into a PDF with one click!
Want to merge several PDF worksheets into one workbook? Merge it in seconds.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
The monthly subscription option that gives you unlimited access is also a nominal $6/month.
PDF Escape
What Does It Do?
It’s an online PDF editor that allows you to edit PDF files as well as create PDF forms.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
If you want to create cool worksheets with form fields and more, PDFescape will help you do that!
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Add Play Button to Image Online
What Does It Do?
The name says it all 😉
Yes, this tool adds a cool play button to your video thumbnail image so you can use it in emails, etc. easily.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Because it makes sending “clickable” videos in emails so easy.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Call-to-Action Button Generator
What Does It Do?
Helps you create customized call-to-action buttons without needing a single line of code.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
While using Thrive Landing Pages has reduced our need for customized buttons greatly, we still use this tool for customizing CTA buttons for emails and even blog posts.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Beacon
What Does It Do?
Helps you turn blog content as well as regular content into beautiful eBooks easily.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
It’s great for turning a blog post into an opt-in freebie with the cool WordPress plugin.
Also, we’ve even used Beacon for actually creating our paid eBook and selling it so it works really well for that too!
A word of caution though: It is glitchy at times and has some limitations – for instance, the page breaks can be incorrect at times leading to blank pages in the middle and also, the background image for the Table of Contents doesn’t roll over to the next page should you have a longer ToC.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
It has a paid option {which is the one we use} if you want to remove the Beacon watermark.
ManyChat
What Does It Do?
It helps you create a Facebook messenger bot. Yep, the newest thing to hit Facebook marketing.
A bot is basically an automated messaging sequence that you can use for your Facebook page.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Launches have several time-sensitive events including webinars, FB lives, cart open/cart close timings and more.
A bot will make it super easy for you to pop in to your community’s inbox and let them know when a deadline is looming right ahead.
Not only that, you can use bots to build engagement with your audience before the launch and also create buzz around it.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
The free option has unlimited broadcasts but 2 sequences of broadcasts. You can easily get started with this version.
Drift
What Does It Do?
If ManyChat is a bot for Facebook, Drift is a bot for your pages and website.
It’s a live chat bot that helps you connect with prospects and customers on your page and answer their questions and help them make a decision.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
We’ve tested the live chat feature for our sales pages and found that it really increases conversions and that is why we love Drift.
It makes it super easy and simple for someone to send us a question while browsing our offer and it’s painless for us to respond to them either from our laptop or phone.
How much Does it Cost?
FREE!
Like most free options, this one has certain limitations but is definitely a great place to start.
Simple Page Tester
What Does It Do?
Put simply, this plugin helps you split test your sales pages. Now if you’re using landing page software that comes with in-built split testing, you’re set…
But if you’re not, then this plugin will make it quick and painless for you to test the best iteration of your page.
Why Do We Love it for Launches?
Since we use Thrive Landing Pages, we don’t have in-built split testing and that’s why we love this plugin.
“It doesn’t cost a dime and doesn’t require any fancy code or things to add to your site or page, so no headaches here!
How much Does it Cost?
FREE for WordPress!
Ready to Load Your Launch?
Wow!!
You now have over 30 tools that will give you more control over your launch and help you free up time while making more money.
The proverbial ball is in your court now, friend.
Time to load up your launch and set your sales ablaze!
Want more launch resources so you can focus on what you do best?
Pop your details below NOW! You’ll get a nifty PDF with all these tools and other incredible launch resources as well!
The LaunchAll: 30+ eCourse Free & Low-Cost Launch Tools for Profitable Launches
Want to launch an eCourse but don't want to burn a big, ugly hole in your budget? Grab the LaunchAll: A hand-vetted collection of 30+ low-cost and FREE tools to help you save time and make more money with every launch!
