What We Learned While Making 195 Free Tools
July 11, 2026
We ended up making 195 tools, one by one. There are a few things we learned while making so many. People don’t use flashy things, the real importance is whether each tool actually works, and maintaining simplicity is harder than it seems.
What People Use Is Simple and Immediate
Before making anything, it’s easy to imagine some grand tool. But looking at actual usage data always leads to the same conclusion: people are looking for small, immediate tasks. How much you actually earn after taxes from your salary, how to change your KakaoTalk theme without an app, converting iPhone photos to JPG to send to someone, counting the number of characters in a resume — these are not flashy, but they are clear moments when people are willing to search for solutions.
After learning this, the criteria for choosing tools became simpler. Is there a specific moment when someone needs this? If so, it’s worth making; if not, no one will use it, no matter how appealing it seems.
The Number Isn’t the Goal
Hearing 195 might make you think we’ve produced a lot, but we learned that the number can be a trap. Even if we make a lot of tools, if each page doesn’t actually work usefully, it’s just a pile of useless pages. This is true for users and search engines alike. We also had our share of trial and error in this area. Pages that are similar and thin ultimately didn’t help anyone.
So now, whenever we add a new tool, we ask: Does this page actually do real work? Is there a unique usefulness to this tool? If it doesn’t pass this test, we don’t increase the number. It’s good to be broad, but breadth shouldn’t be an excuse for being shallow.
Simplicity is the hardest thing to maintain
There’s always a temptation to add more features. But the more tools we create, the more we’ve come to believe the opposite. Most good tools should be completed on one screen. Users aren’t coming to read a tutorial, they’re coming to get work done. Showing immediately what needs to be done and getting results with just a few clicks is better than having ten features and something complicated. The decision to remove features is harder than the decision to add them, and most of the time, it was the right choice.
Maintaining a free, no-install, and no-upload service has its costs. Making tools that process files inside the browser is often more difficult than just sending them to a server. Still, we keep this principle because the trust that makes people want to use this site again is the true asset of our tools.
What ultimately remains
The number 195 itself isn’t important. What’s important is that whenever someone needs one of them and searches for it, it immediately gets the job done. Incrementally increasing those moments is everything we’ve learned while creating many tools. Free, no account required — try it out directly at Toolio.
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