# Ship a free tool as the top of your funnel

- Category: distribution
- Author: Valentin Bora (https://indie.md/people/vali/)
- Source: https://indie.md/events/indie-tm-9-timisoara-may-2026/
- Canonical URL: https://indie.md/advice/free-tool-as-top-of-funnel/

A narrow, free, no-signup tool that solves one frequently-Googled problem is not charity, it is a lead magnet. The whole email-deliverability category (mail-tester, GlockApps, Warmy) gives away the check because running it is itself an admission of a problem the same vendor sells the fix for: it self-qualifies warm prospects and ranks for high-intent queries like "does my email go to spam." The indie sequence is to ship the magnet first, let it accumulate search traffic and word of mouth, and only then bolt on the paid layer (monitoring, a plugin, a done-for-you fix). The catch the room raised: a magnet only works if activation is effortless, so the single most important screen is the one where the user gets their answer.