Buffer is the scheduler most people start with, and its free plan and $5-per-channel pricing are hard to beat. People leave it for what it does not do: manage an inbox, listen, report on competitors, or handle twenty channels without the bill creeping past the full suites. Eight tools compared for exactly those moments.
8 tools compared · Last reviewed
Buffer is honest, cheap and simple: free for three channels, then $5 per channel per month for Essentials and $10 for Team, as its pricing page listed on 14 September 2026. It schedules to more networks than most rivals and its interface is the cleanest in the category. If you are searching for alternatives, it is almost never because Buffer failed at scheduling.
It is because of what Buffer leaves out. There is no unified inbox for comments and DMs, no social listening, no competitor benchmarking, and the per-channel model that makes it cheap for a creator makes it surprisingly expensive for a brand with fifteen channels, where $75 to $150 a month buys a full suite elsewhere. The tools below each cover one of those gaps, and two of them are free at the entry level too.
Every price was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 14 September 2026 and is quoted with its billing term, because the difference between annual and monthly billing on these tools is often 20 to 25 percent. Where a vendor's page did not publish a figure in readable HTML, the entry says so rather than guessing.
Buffer schedules and reports; it does not manage replies, comments or DMs. The moment social becomes a conversation rather than a broadcast, you need Agorapulse, Metricool, Vista Social or Sprout Social, all of which put the inbox at the centre.
Per-channel pricing scales the wrong way for multi-channel brands
Five channels on Essentials is $25 a month, which is excellent. Twenty channels is $100, which buys Metricool's Advanced plan for fifteen brands or Agorapulse Standard with an inbox. Buffer is cheapest below about eight channels and rarely above.
Analytics stop at your own accounts
Buffer's analytics are clear but only about you. Competitor benchmarking, paid-ads reporting, Looker Studio connectors and listening live in Metricool and Sprout Social, and agencies that bill on reporting outgrow Buffer fast.
Approval is basic
Buffer's Team plan approves posts, but there is no client-facing preview, comment thread or multi-level sign-off. Planable exists for that single job and does it better than anything else here.
How we chose
We added the tools people actually move to from Buffer — Metricool, SocialBee, Later, Planable, Postiz, Agorapulse, Sprout Social and Hootsuite — to our directory, alongside Vista Social which was already listed, then opened each pricing page on 14 September 2026 and read the figures from the HTML. Prices are quoted with billing terms. Later's page showed only annual rates; Sendible's lower tiers rendered client-side and it is not ranked here; Publer and SocialPilot published no readable prices. A promotional discount on SocialBee's page that day is not quoted.
Best for: Anyone who wants Buffer's price with an inbox and real analytics
The natural upgrade. Metricool schedules like Buffer, adds a unified inbox, competitor benchmarking and the strongest analytics below Sprout's price (organic, paid and web in one report), and charges per brand rather than per channel: Starter was listed at $20 per month on annual billing ($25 monthly) for up to five brands and Advanced from $53 ($67 monthly) for fifteen on 14 September 2026. A brand with twelve channels pays $20 instead of Buffer's $60.
Free tier: Yes — 1 brand with 30 days of analytics.
Watch out: Less polished than Buffer and analytics-first in feel. The X/Twitter connection was a $10 per month add-on per account.
Best for: Solo marketers who want evergreen content to keep posting itself
Buffer schedules posts; SocialBee schedules categories of posts on their own rhythm and recycles the evergreen ones, so a queue you filled in January is still posting in June. It adds an AI writer, a light inbox and analytics, and was listed at $29, $49 and $99 per month billed monthly ($290, $490 and $990 a year) on 14 September 2026.
Free tier: No; a 14-day trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Watch out: No free plan, so it costs more than Buffer for a two-channel creator. The inbox is basic.
Best for: Instagram- and TikTok-first brands that plan visually
If Buffer's calendar feels like a spreadsheet, Later's visual grid preview is the alternative, with a link-in-bio page, hashtag suggestions and an influencer marketplace bundled. Its pricing page on 14 September 2026 listed Starter at $18.75 per month, Growth at $37.50 and Scale at $82.50, all billed yearly, with extra social sets at $11.25 and extra users at $3.75.
Free tier: No; a 14-day trial.
Watch out: Only annual-billing prices were readable; monthly is stated as higher (yearly is 25% off). No inbox to speak of, and LinkedIn-first teams will find it the wrong tool.
Best for: Teams and agencies whose real problem is getting posts approved
Buffer approves posts; Planable runs the whole approval: pixel-accurate previews, client comment threads, suggested edits and multi-level sign-off before anything schedules. It charges per workspace, not per user or channel: Basic at $33 and Pro at $49 per workspace per month on monthly billing, two months free yearly, as listed on 14 September 2026.
Free tier: Yes — the first 50 created posts, no time limit.
Watch out: Analytics ($14), inbox ($9) and listening ($99) are add-ons per workspace per month, so a fully loaded Planable costs more than it first appears.
Best for: Developers, and creators on Bluesky, Mastodon or Nostr
The open-source Buffer. Postiz supports the mainstream networks plus Bluesky, Mastodon, Nostr, Dev.to, Hashnode, Medium and WordPress, exposes an API, an MCP server and n8n nodes, and can run on your own server for nothing. Hosted plans were listed at $29 (5 channels), $39 (10), $49 (30) and $99 (100) per month with unlimited posts on 14 September 2026.
Free tier: Self-hosting is free (open source); the hosted version has a 7-day trial.
Watch out: No inbox, basic analytics and a younger product. Self-hosting is free only if someone on the team can run a server.
Best for: Teams moving from broadcasting to conversation
The step up to a full suite with the inbox as the centrepiece: comments, mentions and DMs in one queue with assignment and moderation rules, plus listening, ROI reporting via Google Analytics and agency approvals. It was listed at $79 per user per month on annual billing ($99 monthly) for Standard with ten profiles, $119 or $149 for Professional and $149 or $199 for Advanced on 14 September 2026.
Free tier: Yes — a free plan for light use, plus a 30-day trial.
Watch out: Per-user pricing, so a five-person team pays five times more than one on Buffer. Extra profiles beyond ten were $10 to $15 each.
Best for: Agencies that want inbox, listening, reviews and white-label in one account
An agency suite priced per account rather than per user: Professional was listed at $79 per month billed monthly or $758 a year with 15 profiles, Advanced at $149 or $1,430 with 30, and Scale at $349 or $3,638 with 70 on 14 September 2026. DM automation, review management and white-label reports are things Buffer will never do.
Free tier: No; a 14-day trial without a card.
Watch out: Listening beyond your own profiles was a $75 per month add-on and X (Twitter) $29 per month. Check the billing toggle; the annual-per-month figures are about 20% lower than the monthly ones.
Best for: Enterprise teams that need the widest network and integration coverage
The incumbent, for completeness. Hootsuite covers the most networks and CRM integrations of anything here, with listening, benchmarking and a mature inbox, and its plans page on 14 September 2026 listed Standard at $99 per user per month billed annually, Professional at $199 and Advanced at $399. For a large team with budget it remains the safe choice.
Free tier: No; a 14-day trial without a card.
Watch out: It is the most expensive tool on this page per user, and if you left Buffer over price you are going the wrong way. See our Hootsuite alternatives comparison before signing.
Metricool is free for one brand with 30 days of analytics, Agorapulse's pricing FAQ says you can stay on its free plan after the trial, Planable gives 50 free posts with no time limit, and Postiz is free if you self-host it. Buffer's own free plan covers three channels, which is still the most generous free scheduler for a small creator.
What is the cheapest Buffer alternative?
For up to eight channels, nothing here beats Buffer's $5 per channel. Above that, Metricool's Starter at $20 per month on annual billing for five brands, or SocialBee's $29 per month, cost less than Buffer's per-channel total. Prices as read on 14 September 2026.
Which alternative has an inbox?
Agorapulse, Sprout Social, Vista Social, Metricool and Hootsuite all have a unified inbox for comments and DMs; Agorapulse and Sprout have the strongest. SocialBee's is light. Later, Planable (without its add-on) and Postiz do not have one.
Which is best for agencies?
Metricool if you bill per brand, Planable if client approval is the bottleneck, Vista Social or Agorapulse if you need inbox and white-label reporting. Buffer's Team plan works for small agencies but has no client-facing approvals or branded reports.
What does Buffer cost?
Free for three channels; Essentials $5 per channel per month ($60 per channel billed yearly); Team $10 per channel per month ($120 billed yearly), as listed on 14 September 2026. Paid plans have a 14-day trial.
Will my Buffer queue transfer?
No. Social accounts reconnect in minutes through each network's authorisation, but scheduled posts do not move between tools. Let the Buffer queue finish or export it, rebuild it in the new tool, and download any analytics you want to keep before cancelling.
