Free CV maker
Folio is a free online CV maker. In the UK, India, Ireland, Australia and most of the Commonwealth, a CV is the everyday two-page document you send with a job application, which is the same thing an American calls a resume, and that is the CV this page makes. Enter your details, choose a layout, and download the finished CV as a PDF or a DOCX at no cost, with no watermark and no paid plan waiting at the download button. Before you export, Folio shows a deterministic ATS score out of 100 built from 7 weighted criteria, so you can see how a parser will read it. The Free plan is honest about its edges: 10 AI drafting generations a month, core portfolio designs, a "Made with Folio" credit, and a Folio address rather than your own domain, which is Pro at Rs 599 or $9 a month.
Make your CV free. Take the file with you.
No card to start, and nothing is held back at the download: every layout, both file formats, zero watermark. Free keeps your CV on a folio address with a small credit line, and your own domain plus the full design gallery live on Pro at Rs 599 or $9 a month.
Start here
A CV maker is a tool that turns your work history, education, and skills into a formatted document you can send to an employer. The formatting is the point. A hiring system parses text out of the file before a person opens it, so a CV that looks handsome and parses badly is worse than a plain one that parses cleanly. Good makers hand you a layout where the parsing rules cannot be broken by accident.
The catch is almost always the last step. You spend forty minutes filling in a builder, the preview looks right, you click download, and a plan selector appears. Folio removes that step. The export routes check that the CV belongs to you and nothing else, so the PDF and the DOCX come down free, unwatermarked, on the plan that costs nothing.
How it works
Everything below happens on the Free plan, including the download.
01
Type your experience, education, and skills, or paste an old CV and let Folio split it into structured sections. You can also copy your LinkedIn text in and paste it: there is no LinkedIn connect button, and we would rather say so than pretend.
02
Every CV layout family and preset is available at no cost, because the resume engine has no plan gating in it. Choose a single column for a strict parser, or a two column layout when the role expects some craft.
03
Folio scores the CV it just built, 0 to 100, across 7 weighted criteria: structure is worth 30, headings 18, selectable text 16, contact details 12, length 10, contrast 8, and risky elements 6. At 90 and above the CV carries the ATS-friendly badge.
04
Export as PDF for the application portal and as DOCX when a recruiter asks for an editable copy. There is no export credit to spend, no watermark to remove, and no upgrade prompt between you and the file.
What is included
The CV is the file you attach. The account it comes from also holds the site a recruiter opens next.
Export
Both formats download on the Free plan with no watermark and no export counter. Portals usually want a PDF; some recruiters and agencies still ask for a Word file, so you get both rather than being asked to pay for the second one.
ATS
The score is deterministic and runs on our servers, not through a chat model, so the same CV always returns the same number. It reads the layout, the theme, and the content Folio holds, which is why it can promise the result rather than estimate it.
Layouts
Instead of scanning a finished file for damage, Folio builds the CV inside layouts that keep text selectable, headings machine-readable, and risky elements out. Getting a clean parse is the default state, not a repair job.
AI
AI writes a first draft of a summary or a bullet from what you give it, and Free includes 10 generations a month. The drafting step calls an external model; the ATS score, the job match, and the keyword gap analysis all run natively and stay deterministic.
Cover letter
The letter draws on the experience already in your CV, so the two documents agree on dates, titles, and wins. You are not retyping your career into a second tool an hour before the deadline.
Website
The same account publishes a portfolio site, a blog, and a lead inbox at portfolio.wrxstack.com/yourname on Free. Mapping yourname.com to it is a Pro feature, and the full 60 design gallery is Pro too. Free ships the core designs.
How it compares
The row that decides this is the first one. Check it on any vendor pricing page before you spend an evening in their editor.
| Capability | Folio | Zety | Novoresume | Canva |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Download the finished CV as a PDF | Free, no watermark | Paid plan at the download | Free tier is restricted | Free PDF download |
| DOCX export for recruiters | Free, same click | Paid plan | Paid plan | Design tool, not a CV file |
| ATS score before you export | 0 to 100 on 7 weighted criteria | Checker sits on a paid tier | Checker sits on a paid tier | Not offered |
| Every layout available at zero cost | All of them, no gating | Template is free to use, not to export | Premium templates are paid | Many free, some marked Pro |
| Portfolio site from the same account | Included on Free | Not offered | Not offered | Separate product |
| Your own domain (yourname.com) | Pro, Rs 599 or $9 a month | Not offered | Not offered | Paid plan |
Cells describe the published behavior of each vendor's free and paid tiers, which the vendor can change at any time, so confirm on their pricing page before you commit an evening to an editor. Folio's own Free limits are stated on this page and on /pricing: 0 custom domains, core designs, 10 AI generations a month, and a "Made with Folio" credit.
The numbers that are actually ours
We do not quote a percentage of resumes rejected by robots. Here is what we can prove instead.
$0
to export a CV
no entitlement key gates the download
7
weighted ATS criteria
structure alone is worth 30 of the 100
90
score for the ATS-friendly badge
shown before you export, not after
2
file formats, both free
PDF for portals, DOCX for recruiters
The limits, before you find them yourself
Free gives you the whole CV builder, the ATS score, every layout, and both exports. It does not give you a custom domain. Your public page lives at portfolio.wrxstack.com/yourname, and yourname.com requires Pro at Rs 599 or $9 a month. A small "Made with Folio" credit shows on the site, drafting is capped at 10 AI generations a month, and the portfolio design gallery on Free is the core set rather than all 60 themes. If a builder tells you that a free plan includes your own domain, read its pricing page twice.
One more limit worth naming. Folio scores the CV it builds, using the layout, theme, and content it already holds. It cannot take a PDF you made in Word or Canva, read it, and hand you a number. The trade is deliberate: instead of grading a finished file and leaving the repair to you, Folio constructs the document inside layouts where the parsing rules hold, then shows you the score before the download.
FAQ
Yes to both. Building the CV costs nothing and the download costs nothing: the PDF and the DOCX come out of the Free plan unwatermarked, with no export credit to buy and no plan selector in the way. What Free leaves out is the custom domain, which is a Pro feature, along with the full portfolio design gallery. The document itself is never held hostage.
It is built to be, and you see the evidence before you send it. Folio scores the CV it produced from 0 to 100 across 7 weighted criteria, with structure carrying 30 points, headings 18, selectable text 16, contact details 12, length 10, contrast 8, and risky elements 6. Reach 90 and the CV earns the ATS-friendly badge. The layouts themselves keep text selectable and headings readable, so a clean parse is where you start rather than where you hope to end up.
Judge them on one question: after the work, can you take the file? Most builders let you type for an hour and then ask for money at the download, so the honest test is to read the pricing page before you open the editor. Folio wins on that test because the export has no gate, and it adds a scored CV plus a public page from the same login. If your priority is a large gallery of visual templates for a design-led role, a graphics tool may suit you better.
It can write the first draft. Give Folio your role, a few facts, and the job you want, and it drafts a summary and bullet points you then edit into your own voice. The Free plan includes 10 of those generations a month. Be honest with yourself about the output: an AI draft that inflates what you did will fall apart in the interview, so treat it as a starting shape, not a finished statement.
In most of Europe, Asia, and Africa the words are used interchangeably for the same one or two page job document, which is what Folio builds. In the United States a CV usually means something different: the long academic record with publications, grants, and teaching, which has no page limit. If that is the document you need, use our academic CV builder instead, since it is structured for that record rather than trimming it to a page.
One page early in a career, two once you have several relevant roles to show, and beyond that only if you are writing an academic CV. Folio scores length as one of its 7 criteria and gives it 10 of the 100 points, so an overlong CV visibly drags the number down while you are still editing. Cut the roles that no longer earn their space rather than shrinking the type to fit.
Yes, and freshers and students are a large part of who this is for. Lead with education, coursework, projects you actually finished, internships, volunteering, and the tools you can genuinely use. The layouts let you put projects above employment, so the page shows evidence of what you can do rather than an empty gap where a job history would be.
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