Reports from organizations like Gartner and Forrester have become the gold standard for businesses looking to procure new technology or gain a better understanding of their industry space. But with prices reaching 5 figures, these reports are often out of reach for small companies and businesses on a budget.

Instead, check out these alternative resources, full of industry reports, statistics, reviews, and research, all free of charge...

1. G2Crowd: G2 Crowd hosts over 800,000 free reviews, reports, and ratings, covering for a long list of business solution categories, including customer relationship management, human resources, business analytics, device management, and IT security.

2. Gartner Peer Insights: Sign up for a free account to view this alternative to Gartner, by Gartner, offering over 100,000 reviews of 4200 products across 310 categories.

3. Capterra: Also owned by Gartner, Capterra offers free, verified reviews covering over 600 business solution categories, along with a helpful sorting interface that makes software buying simple.

4. OpenCorporates: allows users to search a database of over 100 million companies and view documents and public filings compiled from government websites and other public resources.

5. OpenCharities: OpenCharities, as the name suggests, is a mirror service to OpenCorporates, providing information on registered nonprofit organizations.

6. Bizstats: free online resource for industry ratios, financial benchmark reports, profitability risk data, and more. The search engine is easy to navigate and mobile-friendly.

7. SBDCNet: Funded in part by the US Small Business Administration, the Small Business Development Center Network provides free statistics on/for small businesses across various industries.

8. Mintel: Mintel offers dozens free market research reports covering a variety of areas, from the beauty industry to the automotive industry. Mintel has published over 1,345 reports so far in 2019, although not all of them are available free of charge.