Comparison · Checked against each vendor's own pages

The best social media scheduling tools in 2026, compared

Published 23 October 2026 · Every vendor page read 23 October 2026

A social media scheduling tool holds your posts on one calendar and publishes them to your connected accounts at the time you set. The eight below are the ones a small business or an agency meets first when shopping; all of them schedule, most of them publish by themselves to most networks, and they differ in which networks, how they charge, and what the free plan holds. Everything here comes from the vendors' own pricing pages and help centres, read on 23 October 2026.

Two things to know before the table. "Publishes directly" does not mean the same thing at any two vendors: a network's own interface can refuse some formats, so a tool may post a photo by itself and send your phone a reminder for a carousel, and the vendors describe that line differently. And the pricing models are different shapes, not different numbers: Buffer charges per channel, Hootsuite, Sprout and Agorapulse per user, Metricool per brand, Publer per account, SocialBee and Later per profile bundle. An entry price only compares with another entry price once you have converted both to your own channels, brands and people.

The eight tools at a glance

Entry prices are the vendor's published price before tax for the smallest paid plan, monthly billing where the vendor shows it, read on 23 October 2026. "Publishes to" is the vendor's own list of networks it posts to by itself.

In no particular order. Where a monthly-billed price renders only inside the vendor's page script and we could not read it, the table says so rather than inventing one. Network lists are the vendor's; the "by hand" caveats are in each tool's section.

Buffer

One person or a small team paying per channel, with a free tier and direct posting to Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads

buffer.com

Free plan

Yes. Up to 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel at a time, 1 user, 30 days of insights, the AI Assistant and 100 saved ideas.

Starts at

Essentials, from $6 per channel a month billed monthly or $5 billed annually, for 1 user, with unlimited posts under a fair-use cap of 5,000 per channel. The per-channel price steps down at 11, 26 and 51 channels.

Publishes directly to

Facebook Pages, X, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Pinterest and Google Business Profile by itself. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook Groups may fall back to a phone reminder for formats the network does not allow. Also Substack and its own Start Page. Not Telegram or LINE.

Approval and AI

Approval workflows and branded reports on Team ($12 per channel monthly, $10 annual, unlimited users). AI Assistant on every plan including Free, with no cap stated.

Buffer's shape is simple: pick the channels, pay per channel, and everything else comes along. Essentials carries advanced analytics with unlimited history, a community inbox with AI replies, first-comment scheduling on Instagram and LinkedIn, a hashtag manager and an unlimited ideas library; the Start Page link in bio is on every plan. Its network list is one of the broadest here, and it is one of the few that posts to Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads without a reminder.

The per-channel model is also its cost. A brand on eight networks pays eight times the entry price, and Essentials is a one-user plan, so a second person means Team at double the rate. Reminder-based publishing for some Instagram and TikTok formats is the network's limit rather than Buffer's, but it is still you pressing post on your phone. Its own pricing page describes the annual discount as "about two months" in one place and "20%" in another.

Hootsuite

Teams already budgeting about $100 per user a month who want inbox, listening and reporting in one tool

hootsuite.com

Free plan

No. A 14-day trial without a card, with daily posting limits of 10 to 20 posts per organisation while it runs.

Starts at

Standard, $99 per user a month billed annually, 10 social accounts. The monthly-billed price is not stated anywhere we could read. Professional is $199 and Advanced $399, per user, both annual.

Publishes directly to

Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Threads and Pinterest per its FAQ, plus Bluesky on its integrations page. WhatsApp is inbox only; Google Business Profile publishes through an app-directory integration. Not Mastodon, Telegram or LINE.

Approval and AI

Content approval on Advanced and Enterprise only. AI post and image generation from Standard, no cap stated.

Hootsuite sells the whole desk, not just the calendar: from Standard you get one inbox for messages, analytics and reporting, and brand and competitor monitoring, with a best-time heatmap and bulk scheduling of hundreds of posts (not during the trial). Professional lifts the ten-account limit.

The entry price is per user and rules out most solo operators, and approval only arrives at $399 per user. No monthly-billed price is published, and the price has moved: write-ups from mid-2026 list Advanced at $249, so an older article will understate what you pay today. Its help centre still hosts a 2022 plan overview naming plans that no longer exist; read the plans page, not the archive.

Later

Instagram- and TikTok-first creators and small brands; not for anyone who needs X, Bluesky or Google Business Profile

later.com

Free plan

Not on the pricing page, where every card starts a 14-day trial. The help centre describes one: 12 posts per profile a month, one YouTube Short, Link in Bio, introductory analytics and a calendar limited to two weeks either way.

Starts at

Starter, $18.75 a month billed yearly, for 1 Social Set of 8 profiles (one per platform), 1 user, 30 posts per profile a month and 5 AI credits. The monthly-billed price renders inside the page script and was not in what we could read.

Publishes directly to

Instagram, Facebook Pages, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, Threads, YouTube Shorts and Snapchat, with Threads, Shorts and Snapchat desktop-only. Its help centre lists Google Business, Mastodon, Bluesky and Reddit as unsupported; X appears in neither list.

Approval and AI

Approval workflows and the Social Inbox from Growth ($37.50 a month yearly, 2 Social Sets, 2 users). AI credits: 5 a month on Starter, 50 on Growth, 100 on Scale, with 100 more for $3.75 a month.

Later grew up on Instagram and it shows in the useful ways: Link in Bio on every plan including the free one, Best Time to Post and Instagram First Comment from Starter, platform analytics up to three months at entry, and a media library.

The Social Set model (one profile per platform) means a second brand needs Growth, Starter cannot add users, and there is no inbox until Growth. X is missing entirely. The company's homepage now leads with influencer marketing, so the scheduler is one product among several. Small inconsistency to know about: the pricing page says yearly billing is "3 months free", the help centre says four.

Sprout Social

Teams buying several seats for customer care and reporting; the highest entry price per seat on this page

sproutsocial.com

Free plan

No. A 30-day trial without a card.

Starts at

Essentials, $99 per seat a month billed monthly or $79 billed annually, with 5 social profiles. Standard is $199 annual ($249 monthly) and Professional $299 ($399), per seat.

Publishes directly to

X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn pages and personal profiles, Instagram business profiles, Pinterest, YouTube brand accounts, Bluesky and Threads; its post-types article also covers Google Business, Reddit and Snapchat. WhatsApp and Trustpilot connect for messages and reviews. Not Mastodon, Telegram or LINE.

Approval and AI

Message approval from Professional, external approval from Advanced. "Enhance post by AI Assist" from Professional, AI alt text on every plan, and 100 AI agent credits per seat a month on every plan.

Sprout's entry plan is built around reporting: profile- and post-level reports and optimal send times in the composer from Essentials, then from Standard a consolidated inbox, keyword and location monitoring and review management, with bulk scheduling and a content library from Professional. It is the tool here most clearly designed for a customer-care team.

It is also the dearest per seat, with five profiles at entry, no inbox listed on Essentials and approval starting at $299 per seat. The monthly-billed prices exist only in the page's embedded data, not in the visible cards, which is why most articles quote the annual figure as if it were the price.

Metricool

Freelancers and agencies running several brands on a small budget, with an inbox on the free tier

metricool.com

Free plan

Yes, free forever: 1 brand with one profile per network (except LinkedIn and X), 20 scheduled posts a month, 5 competitor profiles, 30 days of analytics, the AI assistant and an inbox for Instagram, Facebook, Google Business Profile and TikTok. No team members.

Starts at

Starter, from $25 a month billed monthly or $20 billed annually (EUR 20 and EUR 16) for 5 brands; 10 brands is $45 or $36. Prices exclude VAT and Starter has no team members.

Publishes directly to

Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube and Google Business, with per-network media and character limits in its help centre; formats a network's interface blocks are finished by hand in that network's app. Not Mastodon, Telegram or LINE.

Approval and AI

Post approval, unlimited team members and roles on Advanced (from $67 a month monthly or $53 annual, 15 brands). AI assistant on every plan: 20 credits per brand a month on Starter, 35 on Advanced.

Metricool prices per brand rather than per user, which is why agencies like it: five brands for the price most tools charge for one channel or one seat. Starter brings analytics with unlimited history, 100 competitor profiles, SmartLinks link in bio and best times in the planner, and the free tier is unusually complete, inbox included. Prices are shown in euros and dollars.

X is an add-on at $10 a month per connected account. Free and Starter have no team members at all, so collaboration starts at Advanced. The pricing page does not label which price block is annual and which monthly; we inferred it from the "save up to 24%" tab and the arithmetic, and you should confirm it at checkout.

Publer

Cost-led users with few accounts, and anyone who needs Telegram, WordPress or Mastodon publishing

publer.com

Free plan

Yes, free forever: up to 3 social accounts (not X), 10 scheduled posts per account at a time, 1 user, 25 drafts, 24 hours of published-post history and per-network daily caps.

Starts at

Professional starts at $5 a month for 1 social account and 1 user. Each extra account or member is priced by the plans page's calculator, which we could not read; yearly billing is 20% off and every tenth account or member is free. 7-day trial.

Publishes directly to

Facebook pages, groups, locations and profiles; Instagram business; X (paid plans only); LinkedIn profiles and pages; Pinterest; Google Business locations; YouTube; TikTok; Telegram groups and channels; Mastodon; Threads; Bluesky; and WordPress. Not LINE.

Approval and AI

Approval workflows, best times to post, advanced analytics and unlimited AI Assist on Business (from $10 a month). Free and Professional users can plug in their own OpenAI key instead.

Publer has the longest network list of the eight, including Telegram and WordPress, and the lowest paid entry. Its Linkie link in bio is on the free plan, Professional adds bulk scheduling of up to 500 posts and a media library, and Business adds recurring and recycled posts.

The per-account price climbs with volume and the exact figure for your count appears only in the page's own calculator. No inbox is named on any page we read, analytics is Business-only, and X is paid-only.

SocialBee

A solo operator who recycles evergreen content by category and wants AI without a counter; no free tier

socialbee.com

Free plan

No. A 14-day trial without a card; posting stops when it ends.

Starts at

Bootstrap, $29 a month billed monthly or $290 a year, for 5 social profiles, 1 user and 1 workspace. Add-ons: 5 more profiles $15 a month, an extra user or workspace $10 a month each.

Publishes directly to

Facebook profiles, pages and groups; Instagram business and personal; Threads; LinkedIn profiles and company pages; X; Pinterest; TikTok; YouTube; Google Business Profiles; Bluesky. "Universal Posting" sends a phone reminder for WhatsApp, Telegram, Mastodon, Quora and anything else. Not LINE.

Approval and AI

Post approval, advanced analytics, CSV uploads and the hashtag organiser from Accelerate ($49 a month or $490 a year, 10 profiles). AI content generation is unlimited on every plan, no cap stated.

SocialBee's idea is the content category: put evergreen posts in up to ten categories and ten RSS sources on Bootstrap and let the schedule recycle them. Best time to post is on every plan, and the entry plan already handles comments, mentions and messages for Facebook Pages and Instagram Business, with three months of analytics.

There is no free plan, and the entry plan is one user, with each extra at $10. Threads appears in both its direct-posting and reminder lists, so ask which one you get. The pricing page was still showing a June promotion in late October, trivial in itself, but a hint about how closely the page is kept.

Agorapulse

Teams whose daily work is the inbox and reporting rather than scheduling alone, buying per user with 10 profiles each

agorapulse.com

Free plan

Its pricing FAQ still offers one, but its help centre says the Free plan ended on 6 July 2026 and was replaced by an "Archie" plan, where posts are created only through its AI assistant on four networks. 30-day trial, no card.

Starts at

Standard, $99 per user a month billed monthly or $79 billed annually, with 10 social profiles. Extra profiles are $15 a month each, or $10 on annual billing.

Publishes directly to

Facebook Pages, Instagram, LinkedIn company pages and profiles, X, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, Google Business Profile and Bluesky. Threads counts toward the profile limit, but its integrations page gives Threads no stated function. Not Mastodon, Telegram or LINE.

Approval and AI

Simple approvals from Professional ($149 a month monthly, $119 annual, per user); multi-step approvals on Custom only. AI Writing Assistant on every plan, no cap stated.

Agorapulse's entry plan is an inbox first: every message and organic comment in one place, basic reports with branded export, and ten profiles per user. Professional adds PulseLink in bio, first comment on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, and internal comments; recommended publishing times and CSV bulk scheduling of up to 200 posts arrive at Advanced.

It is priced per user, so a three-person team is three times the entry price, and the two features most schedulers include at entry (best times, bulk upload) sit two tiers up. Do not plan around a free tier: the FAQ and the help centre disagree, and the help centre is the newer document.

OTW Motion Social (that's us)

A business that wants scheduling free, on LinkedIn, LINE, Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram, Discord and YouTube today, inside the same Console as its search, AI and ads data

otwmotion.com

Free plan

Everything in Social is free for every signed-in user: every screen, every supported network, approval, 60 AI captions per business a month and 15 X posts a month.

Starts at

Free. The one paid add-on is Posts from your website: $5 a month for up to 100 draft posts a month written from your own website, each with a photo taken from it, at most 30 per request.

Publishes directly to

LinkedIn profiles, LINE Official Account (Thailand), Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram, Discord, X, and YouTube (you choose the video; uploads stay private until Google finishes reviewing us). Instagram, Facebook Pages and Threads: direct posting is built, but until Meta approves our app most accounts cannot connect, so the calendar hands those posts back to you to post by hand at the time. TikTok, Pinterest, Google Business Profile and LinkedIn Pages: by hand, with a reminder and a paste-back link.

Approval and AI

An owner can require approval, so a team member's posts wait for the owner. "Write with AI" captions are free, 60 per business a month; writing from your photos uses 4 of them per press.

Plan the week on one calendar, give each post a time or let it fill the next free slot, and the posts go out by themselves to the accounts you connected. Every post is checked against each network's own limits (length, number of photos, file size, hashtags) before it goes, photos crop to Instagram's shapes, links can carry tracking tags so Google Analytics shows the visits a post brought, and a new post can start from a blank page, from your photos or from your website. It sits in the same Console as your Google Search Console data, your paid ads and your AI visibility measurement, so one sign-in covers the four channels.

What the others do better, stated plainly. Buffer, Metricool, Publer and SocialBee post directly to Instagram, Facebook and Threads today; we hand those back to you until Meta approves our app. Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Agorapulse have a real inbox and listening; we show clicks and visits, not conversations. Later and Publer post to Pinterest; we do not. If Instagram is your main channel this month, pick one of them. If LinkedIn, LINE or the open networks are where you post, and you would rather not pay per channel, per seat or per brand, start here.

How to choose

• Want a free plan with a real network list? Buffer (3 channels), Metricool (1 brand, 20 posts a month, with an inbox) and Publer (3 accounts) all have one. Later's exists only in its help centre; Agorapulse's ended in July 2026.
• Several brands on a small budget? Metricool: 5 brands from $25 a month, priced per brand rather than per person.
• Cheapest paid entry, few accounts, or you need Telegram, WordPress or Mastodon? Publer, from $5 a month for one account.
• Recycle evergreen posts by category? SocialBee, $29 a month for 5 profiles, AI included without a counter.
• Instagram- or TikTok-first creator? Later Starter, $18.75 a month billed yearly, with Link in Bio on every plan. Not if you need X.
• A team that lives in the inbox and reports to clients? Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Agorapulse all start around $99 per user or seat a month; choose by workflow, and note that approval sits one or two tiers up on each.
• LinkedIn, LINE, Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram, Discord or YouTube, free, beside your search and ads data? That is OTW Motion Social, with the Meta networks by hand until Meta approves our app.

FAQ

What does "direct publishing" mean, and why does the list differ by tool?
Direct publishing means the tool posts to the network by itself at the scheduled time, through the network's own interface for developers. Each network decides which post types that interface allows, so a tool may publish a single photo by itself and send a phone reminder for a format it is not allowed to post. Vendors describe that line differently, and some list a network as supported when what they support is a reminder. Ask any vendor for the list by network and by format before you rely on it.

Per channel, per user or per brand: which pricing is cheapest?
It depends on your shape. One person running one brand on six networks pays six channels at Buffer and one seat at Hootsuite, Sprout or Agorapulse. An agency running five brands with one person pays five brands at Metricool and one seat elsewhere, but needs a tier that allows several profiles. A team of four on two brands pays four seats at the per-user tools and one plan at Metricool or SocialBee plus user add-ons. Count your channels, brands and people first, then price each tool at that shape.

Can I schedule Instagram posts for free?
Yes, within limits. Buffer's free plan schedules to an Instagram business account with 10 posts queued per channel; Metricool's free plan allows 20 scheduled posts a month across its networks; Publer's free plan covers 3 accounts with 10 queued posts each; Later describes a 12-posts-a-month free plan in its help centre. Some Instagram formats will fall back to a phone reminder at every vendor, because Instagram decides what can be posted by a tool. OTW Motion Social hands Instagram posts back to you by hand until Meta approves our app.

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