The 12 best creator platforms

The creator economy is booming, and there's a huge ecosystem of apps that creators rely on to grow their income and audience, especially if they're a solo team or running their creator business as a side gig. With so many apps to choose from and a limited budget to spend on monthly subscriptions, which should you shortlist? 

I've been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. I run a community on the side of my "real job" and have spent the past four years building a toolstack that helps me automate repetitive tasks, build an audience, and ultimately earn a . 

This article shares the tools I've picked up (and stuck with) along the way, as well as insights from loads of other creators who've done the same. 

The 12 best apps for creators

I asked multiple creators to lift the lid and share which apps they're using to run their business. From membership site owners and social media influencers to podcasters and YouTubers, here's the toolstack of the modern day creator.

Best creator platform for graphic design

Looking for a simple way to create graphics? Whether it's a social media post or YouTube cover photo, is a firm favorite among creators. 

Canva offers: 

• , with magic media that lets you turn prompts into images, videos, and graphics

• A Brand Kit to save custom colors and fonts

• A library of 60+ million stock media to enrich content

• Pre-designed templates you can build on (instead of starting new designs from scratch)

• The ability to create and design digital products, such as workbooks or cheat sheets

"I think some of my readers might struggle to visualize my ideas and frameworks if I only used text," says , creator of . "Canva makes it simple to modify their templates—so I can make visuals fast. When you have a daily email like I do, you can't spend two hours on each issue."

Podcast host adds: "I use Canva for anything design-related, whether a YouTube thumbnail, episode artwork, email banner designs, or simply cropping a photo. Canva Pro has a background remover that's super easy to use and has better results than other free background removal tools. Although I was trained in Adobe Photoshop, Canva's ease of use and built-in templates and assets make it faster to create assets. Plus, more and more people are using it, so collaboration is simple." 

With , you can build automated systems across your apps. Automatically create designs based on form submissions or upload assets based on spreadsheet entries—or build your own automations from scratch. Learn more about how to automate Canva, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

If Canva isn't quite right for you, check out these other .

Canva pricing:  Free for 1M+ templates and other assets, and 5GB cloud storage; from $15/month for Canva Pro, which offers 1TB of storage, hundreds of millions of assets, powerful AI features, and more.

Best creator platform for project management

There's no shortage of to choose from when shortlisting options for your creator business. But your use case as a creator is unique: you're likely managing several channels and projects simultaneously. Your software needs to step up and support multiple projects, while still being easy to navigate.

In this case, comes out on top—three of the creators I spoke to voted it as one of the most important assets in their creator toolstack.

Creators can use Notion to:

• Create a daily/weekly/quarterly plan

• View a content calendar 

• Track brand collaborations and sponsorships 

• Sell Notion templates

• Brainstorm and collect ideas for new content 

"My favorite feature is the access to various templates that it provides," says . "The templates are designed intuitively so you can organize your thoughts, workflows, and teams in a way that just makes sense. I'm a very A-type organizer, but I also appreciate a client aesthetic that has personalization. Notion gives me that without the headache of coding or going through hoops." 

Erin Balsa agrees: "I use Notion to store and organize my ideas, examples, and essays, all of which I use when writing my daily email. I'm using Notion because I love the toggle feature, which helps me see the big picture, but click to view more details."

, founder of , integrates Notion with Zapier to run her online community. She says: "Notion's Web Clipper allows me to quickly add job listings I spot to a Notion database with just one click (super handy when I see jobs whilst doing other tasks!). From there, I've set up a Zapier automation that shares all the details (e.g., job title, company) in our #jobs Slack channel. This saves me lots of manual work and eliminates the need to constantly switch between apps and tasks."

Here's a workflow you can use if you want to mimic Christina's setup.

Or you can . Learn more about , or get started with one of these templates.

And if Notion isn't quite right for you, take a look at Zapier's picks for the .

Notion pricing: Free for unlimited blocks for individuals, up to 5MB per file upload, and 10 guest collaborators. Plus plan starts at $8/user/month.

Best creator platform for note-taking

Tried Notion but found the interface too complex? agrees: "While the rest of the world goes gaga over over-loaded notes apps like Notion, I want to focus. As an ADHD entrepreneur, I find all those features distracting."

Rob opts for Bear Notes instead—a simple with a Slack-style interface that lets you:

• Take notes, whether you're brainstorming new product ideas or jotting down notes while on a sponsorship call

• Find notes by searching for the tag

• Clip web pages to save inspiration 

"Bear Notes (which is free) gives me a beautiful, clean place to write without the distractions of being on the internet," Rob continues. "It looks clean and sharp with the Dark Graphite theme and text size set to 24pt. And I can hide everything so all I can see is the letters on the page and nothing else… and get so much more done."

Here are some other tried-and-tested , if Bear isn't the right fit for you.

Bear pricing: Free for local access to your notes and document scanning; from $2.99/month for export options, themes, search, and more.

Best creator platform for audience growth

(formerly ConvertKit)

Kit originally started as built for creators. It's since evolved into a platform that not only lets you build an email list, but also grow your audience and monetize your following. Here are some of the standout features for creators using Kit:

• and forms to build your list

• Advanced email analytics to see which emails your audience responds best to

• Visual automations, which you can use to build email sales funnels that divert subscribers toward your paid or premium content

• The Creator Network, which acts as a referral engine to recommend other creators' (and have them do the same for you) 

• A to collect tips from your audience—perfect if you're offering free content

"With Kit, I can capture new subscribers, set up automations, and even make money via paid recommendations," says , creator of Content Connect.

Kit is actually what we use to run Peak Freelance's newsletter. Each week, our co-founder Brooklin answers a question from a fellow freelancer. We send it through Kit to our subscribers' inboxes and also publish it to our Kit web page for non-subscribers to get a sneak peek before signing up themselves.

"[Kit] is the hub of my creator business because it's a list of all the audience members I can reach out to directly without relying on an algorithm," says YouTuber . "It's also what I use to sell my digital products and gauge interest for new product ideas."

Charli even to automate repetitive tasks. She says: "One of my favorite Zaps is a message that pops up for me in Slack whenever someone purchases one of my products through Kit Commerce." 

Here's what that workflow looks like:

You can connect Kit with thousands of other apps using Zapier, too. Here are a few more examples, or you can learn more about .

Kit pricing: Free for up to 10,000 subscribers, 1 email sequence, and 1 basic automation; from $29/month for 1,000 subscribers, unlimited email sequences and automations, and more advanced features.

Best creator platform for simple email marketing

beehiiv is another email service provider—it's much simpler than ConvertKit, but it's growing in popularity among creators. It's worth considering beehiiv if you want an email platform that:

• Lets you customize emails without coding knowledge

• Helps you refer (and get referred by) other creators

• Can segment your audience for refined targeting

• Is free for up to 2,500 subscribers 

"I think the easy connection to potential sponsors is my favorite thing about beehiiv," says Tamilore Oladipo, creator of . "While I'm not making a lot of money from it yet, it's been fulfilling to see even a few dollars from. I've experimented with a lot of email service providers, and I find beehiiv to be the most intuitive, visually appealing and the right fit for what I need at the moment. Also, the prices are pretty stable, which is ideal for my current needs." 

, so you can automate your email marketing workflows. Learn more about , or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

And if you want to see your other options, here are some of the and the .

beehiv pricing: Free for up to 2,500 subscribers and a decent number of features; from $39/month for access to the ad network, email automations, AI, and more advanced features.

Best creator platform for chat marketing

Building an engaged audience is no small feat, but it's critical if you're to generate money through your creator business. Your audience needs to know, like, and trust you before they'll buy into paid products. 

Manychat is a chat marketing tool that can take care of interactions with your audience on Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger. It can:

• Respond to every DM or mention 

• Answer FAQs without making followers wait for a response

• Auto-send DMs when someone sends a specific word (e.g., "Book" will send them a link to buy your eBook)

It's the tool voted in by , who uses Manychat to encourage Instagram followers to sign up to , a weekly email newsletter for freelance writers. She says: "I use it to automatically send landing page links to people who comment on my posts. They can then sign up and enter my email nurturing sequence." 

You can to all the other apps you use with Zapier, too. Learn more about , or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

If Manychat isn't exactly what you need, you can try these other that can help take some of the manual work out of audience engagement. 

Manychat pricing: Free for up to 1,000 contacts, limited segmentation, and limited channels; from $15/month for more channels (including SMS and email) and more advanced features.

Best creator platform for video editing

There's a lot that goes into producing video content. Recording your footage is one half of the equation—but how do you make a rough-around-the-edges clip into a world-class video that gets your audience's attention? 

For some creators (myself included), the answer is . It offers features that go above and beyond a traditional video editor, including AI tools like:

• to edit video or audio using text 

• Studio Sound to improve audio quality

• Clip creator to repurpose long-form footage into social media clips

• AI voice cloning to fix audio mistakes in post-production

"As an AI trainer who produces a lot of video courses, Descript has been on my top list of apps for years," says Rob Lennon. "I love to automatically remove filler words (all the 'ums' and 'uhs') and convert my audio to studio sound quality. It makes my Lennon Labs courses feel really professional, and all I did was click two buttons."

"My other favorite feature is Descript's AI assistant preset to 'generate show notes,' which I use for my office hours recordings so that people can easily see what we covered," Rob adds.

And if Descript doesn't work for you, try one of these or .

Descript pricing: Free plan available for 1 transcription hour/month; from $19/month for 10 transcription hours/month, 1080p exports, and limited AI use.

Best creator platform for booking meetings

Sometimes, the best way to interact with your audience is 1:1. Acuity's scheduling tool lets you take the hassle out of arranging meetings—no more "are you free this Tuesday at 3 p.m. or next Friday at 10?"

Creators can use Acuity Scheduling to:

• Create a custom calendar to show your availability

• Build to gather information on your contact pre-meeting

• Send automated reminders and prevent no-shows

• Charge customers for calls (great for coaches or consultants!)

, creator of , uses Acuity to schedule guests for her podcast, set up coffee chats, and arrange 1:1 strategy sessions with clients. She says: "The petpreneurs I help work all kinds of hours and are based all over the world. This scheduling tool makes it easy to coordinate everyone's schedules. It saves me a ton of time and totally eliminates those painful back-and-forth scheduling emails!"

"I especially love that people can reschedule without having to ask me," Tori adds. "It automates a ton of admin work in my business." 

to automate your scheduling. Try these workflows, or learn more about .

There are plenty of other to choose from if Acuity doesn't vibe with you.

Acuity Scheduling pricing: From $20/month for 1 calendar

Best creator platform for YouTube

YouTube has been around for years, but the introduction of short-form video platforms like TikTok begs the question: is YouTube still really worth pursuing? 

Absolutely it is.

If YouTube is part of your creator strategy, TubeBuddy is worth shortlisting in your search for creator tools. It lets you:

• Find keywords your audience is searching for

• Spot emerging trends 

• Determine how easy it'd be to rank for the phrase in YouTube search 

"I use TubeBuddy to research keywords, titles, and tags, while getting insights from my videos compared to competitors using VidiQ," says Moni Vuong, YouTuber at . "These tools make YouTube's algorithms easier for me, and I just love the fact that they can turn those data into actionable steps. And their user-friendly features save me a lot of time, which is a huge help to content creators like me."

TubeBuddy pricing: From $7.50/month for search optimization features and limited access to other engagement tools

Best creator platform for LinkedIn

The downfall of X (formerly known as Twitter) has caused some B2B creators to pivot their audiences and lean into LinkedIn. 

, creator and founder of , has grown his LinkedIn following to over 43,000+ followers in the past year. He's also accumulated over 9,000+ newsletter subscribers and runs a podcast. Kleo makes it possible.

Kleo is a browser extension that lets LinkedIn creators:

• Find your top-performing LinkedIn posts

• Sift through old content with keyword, format, and popularity filters

• View top-performing posts on LinkedIn, so you can analyze and replicate them 

• Schedule posts in advance and see what they'll look like when they go live 

Ben says: "I love how easy it makes it to view what your final LinkedIn post will look like before publishing. It also makes finding other creators' top-performing content easy, which is an amazing place to get inspiration for my own content with proven ideas."

Kleo pricing: Free

Best creator platform for building a community

Circle is an all-in-one creator platform to run an online membership or virtual community.

It's what we use at , the freelance writing community that I co-founded. We migrated from Podia to Circle to combine community features like chat and events with online courses, without needing multiple subscriptions to cover the gaps that Podia had. 

Circle's best features and use cases include: 

• Built-in chat, discussion, and DM tools

• Customizable member profiles 

• Gamification like leaderboards to recognize and reward VIP members

• Paywalls to gate access to your paid community and online courses

• Events to bypass the need for extra video tools like Zoom or Google Meet 

of also voted it as an important tool for creators to consider: "We chose Circle because it has a deep feature set that allows us to scale our community beyond just a discussion forum. There's a discussion forum aspect, we have over 200+ videos and templates in there, and we do two events per month such as website and ad teardowns where marketers can get free advice on their marketing strategy."

Matt adds: "My favorite feature is the ability to do sophisticated searches inside the community. We have thousands of posts in the community all time, so it's super valuable for members to be able to search for something like 'SEO' and view the most popular content and questions about SEO all time."

You can do even more with Circle when you , so you can connect it to all the other apps you use. Learn more about how to automate Circle, or try these pre-made workflows.

Circle pricing: From $49/month for up to 100 members and 4% transaction fees

Best creator platform for automation

This is the Zapier blog, yes, but as a user, I can vouch for it. The automation platform helps you build systems to automate the repetitive tasks involved in running an online business, leaving you with more time to do what you do best: create.

"My top app is definitely Zapier—it's the glue that holds together my Google Forms, WordPress, Slack, and Kit, plus a bunch of other things I'm probably forgetting," says , founder of .

, owner of , uses the Paths feature to configure multi-step automations: "As an example, I often create paths to help me catch errors, or to funnel people to different experiences based on attributes from another source (like Airtable)."

And it's more than simple automations: 

• lets you create custom forms that instantly launch workflows in all the other apps you use for your business. 

• lets you store, organize, and take action on your important data, to keep your business processes running seamlessly.

• lets you build an AI-powered chatbot based on your live and static knowledge sources. You can even view analytics and conversation history to make your customer interactions more seamless.

Here are a few templates to get you started.

Zapier pricing: Free plan available for basic workflow automation; from $29.99/month for advanced workflows.

Being a creator is no small feat

Running a creator business means keeping up with new features on every platform and differentiating yourself from thousands of other creators—all while building and interacting with your audience. You're not alone if you're on the edge of burnout, but these tools should help spread the load.

Whether it's a project management tool to manage incoming sponsorships or a way to automate repetitive tasks, you'll soon start to see the value of building out a creator toolstack that you can lean on. 

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