I built my own AI clone that gets me customers while I sleep - and here is how you can too.

Free tools can drive compounding organic growth for your B2B SaaS - if you do it right.. And they're now faster than ever when building with AI. Copy this PLG playbook to market your SaaS and get leads with free tools.

To show exactly how. Here is my SaaS Univid - built to create engaging webinars in 60 seconds.

And marketed with simple PLG growth hooks like free tools.

We will dive into more examples and ways you can do the same below. But first... Let's look at the basics of a free tool in marketing - and why it works.

A free tool helps your ideal customer solve an important problem or challenge. And you offer it for free as a lead magnet for your real offer - your SaaS product.

Free tools work because they provide big value for the right people, and do it for free.

This creates good karma for your SaaS brand (awareness), and prospects that already experience value upfront - will naturally be likely to convert and be interested in your full SaaS offering.

Good free tools will also be shared with peers. This creates viral growth through word-of-mouth.

Also, with your free tools, you will naturally be EEAT (the Google way of measuring good content). You will differentiate from basic blog posts. Thus, being able to rank for difficult search terms.

Ideally, a free tool for marketing should do 5 things to win (and get you new customers):

Make sure your free tool solves a single key and niche problem. This helps make it easy to find and position. And faster to build.

The free tool should help the right people, meaning potential customers of your startup, ie. your ideal customer (ICP).

Help them solve a key pain, and they will remember you. If your tool is good enough, congrats! You have now engineered viral growth. People will share the tool with peers and convert to your SaaS product.

The tool should be free to use. Also, it should be super easy to use. So don't require the user to sign up to use your tool.

Your free tool should have a clear name. It should be both (A) easy to market, and (B) easy to find.

For example, through AI search and Google.

At the end of the day. The free tool is just a lead magnet for your real offer - your SaaS product.

However, most people skip this step and just put a generic CTA to "try our product".

Instead, you should provide a smooth way into your product through a growth hook. And it should be tailored to the specific tool👇

For example, if you are building a:

• Webinar platform: a free webinar title generator, with a CTA button to use the title to create your first webinar with 1 click.

• Job board: a free CV generator, with a CTA to directly publish your CV on a job board.

Note: The free tool should not cost too much to provide or develop. If it does, you could put some usage caps on it.

When building, make sure of two things: that (1) your tool is valuable for YOUR ideal customer, and (2) that the UX is superior.

Can your ideal customers solve their problems in other ways? Yes. But by building a faster, easier, and more beautiful way to do it - you win.

Check out the tools I created for this website here. Or check out 4 examples of free tools for marketing to draw inspiration from (and copy).

Build a tool to help people answer and calculate things like:

• How much invested funds do they need to reach financial independence (FIRE)?

• What is the ROI of running webinars?

• How much does it cost to hire FTEs vs using (your) AI agents?

Free tool example in marketing - FIRE calculator

Let people generate ideas easily with your free tool. For example, ideas on great polls to launch in a webinar, blog post articles, or keywords to rank for in AI Search.

Free tool example in marketing - Webinar CTA generator

Use the proprietary data you have in your SaaS to help people compare themselves against a golden standard or learn from the best.

Free tool example in marketing - Webinar scheduler

For example, finding the ideal time to host a webinar or writing the perfect LinkedIn post.

This one is simple. Provide people with a proven and interactive checklist they can use to make sure they remember all the steps in a process. Whether it's them procuring a new software, or creating a world-class job ad.

If your free tool is good, marketing your free tool should be easy. As it will spread organically through word-of-mouth. However, you still have to push the tool in some channels to get the momentum going.

Ideally, you would already have a few strong channels. Then start there. That's where you will be most efficient. For example you can:

• post in the feed on X or LinkedIn

• plug in your newsletter

• mention in your YouTube videos

Some other ideas that have worked well for me are:

Plug your tools with backlinks inside all your content on the company blog. Anywhere it adds value.

If you use a headless CMS and built your own blog - I would suggest creating nice component you can easily plug into your blog posts with a slug. For example, like mine below.

Then I can plug the CTA as a dynamic component like the LinkedIn preview tool I built below.

LinkedIn Post Preview Generator [FREE]

Preview LinkedIn content before you publish it. Go viral.

Start writing now

Pretty sleek, right?

Let people find your tool through Google and generative search by optimizing each free tool page for organic search.

For example, add an FAQ or content to the tools page.

Don't underestimate doing things that don't scale. Make tools that are so good you will use them yourself, and start to share them in your demos, follow-up emails, etc, where it makes sense.

You will fine-tune the tools as you go. And your prospects will love you as the expert who helps them out for real and for free. You are no longer just another rep wasting their time with worthless outbound calls and emails, and zero value.

Social media and specifically Reddit work great to get alot of eyeballs on both your tools and SaaS.

Reddit is especially powerful if you don't already have a big following, as it does not require you to have built a personal brand to work.

Redditors love free and useful value bombs, like free tools. I have gotten over 1M views on my posts on Reddit, and even wrote a book about it. Learn more about how you can do the same here

Need cheat codes to grow your SaaS in 2025?

The startup founder's playbook to hack growth on Reddit. Proven tactics to:

• ✅ Find high intent buyers for your SaaS
• ✅ Get large exposure to relevant prospects
• ✅ Show up in AI search and Google without SEO
• ✅ Get deal flow from Reddit

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YouTube is way underrated for startup growth - as there is not a lot of competition, and you can quickly gain organic search benefits too. Make a YouTube video explaining your free tool - how it works, and why it's awesome. Put the link in the description.

Example of how to plug a free webinar tool in a related YouTube video (3:30)

Or even better - create content of the greater challenge you are helping to solve. For example, like the video above, "how to create a webinar in 2025". Then plug your free tools as lead magnets throughout the video. This will be appreciated by the viewer, it will position you as an expert, and give natural next steps for the viewer towards becoming your customer.

And your videos will show up in generative search and Google too.. 👇

Free tools can be a fantastic way to grow and market your SaaS. Instead of generic blog posts or unsolicited DMs, build valuable lead magnets that people will love to get in their feed or inbox.

People love free, whether you are marketing using organic search, outbound email, LinkedIn, AIO, or Reddit. Provide big value upfront, and create strong word of mouth and viral growth. Also, free tools can feed direct signups and conversions into your SaaS through growth hooks.