Hootsuite alternatives, priced honestly.
The best Hootsuite alternatives in 2026 are Buffer for per-channel publishing from $5 a channel, Publer for the cheapest paid entry at $5 a month per social account, Metricool for agencies managing several brands from $20 a month, Later for visual and Instagram-led planning from $25, and Agorapulse or Sprout Social for teams that need a full inbox and reporting. Postiva, our own tool, is on this list for a narrower job: producing the content, not publishing it.
Prices were read from each company's own pricing page on 5 September 2026, and every entry links to its source. Hootsuite starts at $99 per user per month with no free plan, which is the number everything here is being compared against.
By PostivaPublished Prices checked 5 September 2026
The short version
- Cheapest paid entry: Publer and Buffer, both from about $5 a month for one account or channel.
- Still free: Buffer, Metricool, and Publer. Hootsuite itself no longer has a free tier.
- Best for agencies with several brands: Metricool, because it prices by brand rather than by seat.
- Closest like-for-like replacement: Agorapulse, which is also the most expensive on this list.
All seven at a glance
The whole comparison on one screen, with Hootsuite in the first column as the thing being replaced. The written entries below explain the marks; this is for deciding which entries are worth reading.
Two rows do most of the work. Free plan sorts the tools you can try without a card, and Comment and message inbox sorts the ones that can carry a busy account.
Hootsuite
- Starts at
- $99 / user
- Billed by
- User
- Free planNo
- Publishes to the platformsYes
- Scheduling calendarYes
- Analytics and reportingYes
- Comment and message inboxYes
- Approval or client reviewYes
- Writes the posts from a source you give itNo
- Exports finished carousel slidesNo
Buffer
- Starts at
- Free, then $5
- Billed by
- Channel
- Free planYes
- Publishes to the platformsYes
- Scheduling calendarYes
- Analytics and reportingPartly
- Comment and message inboxPartly
- Approval or client reviewPartly
- Writes the posts from a source you give itNo
- Exports finished carousel slidesNo
Publer
- Starts at
- Free, then $5
- Billed by
- Social account
- Free planYes
- Publishes to the platformsYes
- Scheduling calendarYes
- Analytics and reportingPartly
- Comment and message inboxPartly
- Approval or client reviewPartly
- Writes the posts from a source you give itNo
- Exports finished carousel slidesNo
Metricool
- Starts at
- Free, then $20
- Billed by
- Brand count
- Free planYes
- Publishes to the platformsYes
- Scheduling calendarYes
- Analytics and reportingYes
- Comment and message inboxPartly
- Approval or client reviewPartly
- Writes the posts from a source you give itNo
- Exports finished carousel slidesNo
Later
- Starts at
- Free, then $25
- Billed by
- Plan, plus add-ons
- Free planYes
- Publishes to the platformsYes
- Scheduling calendarYes
- Analytics and reportingPartly
- Comment and message inboxPartly
- Approval or client reviewPartly
- Writes the posts from a source you give itNo
- Exports finished carousel slidesNo
Agorapulse
- Starts at
- $99 / user
- Billed by
- User
- Free planNo
- Publishes to the platformsYes
- Scheduling calendarYes
- Analytics and reportingYes
- Comment and message inboxYes
- Approval or client reviewYes
- Writes the posts from a source you give itNo
- Exports finished carousel slidesNo
Sprout Social
- Starts at
- $79 / seat
- Billed by
- Seat
- Free planNo
- Publishes to the platformsYes
- Scheduling calendarYes
- Analytics and reportingYes
- Comment and message inboxYes
- Approval or client reviewYes
- Writes the posts from a source you give itNo
- Exports finished carousel slidesNo
Postiva
Ours- Starts at
- $15 / month
- Billed by
- Team
- Free planNo
- Publishes to the platformsNo
- Scheduling calendarYes
- Analytics and reportingNo
- Comment and message inboxNo
- Approval or client reviewYes
- Writes the posts from a source you give itYes
- Exports finished carousel slidesYes
Marked from each company's own feature and pricing pages on 5 September 2026. A tick means the vendor presents it as included at or above the plan in the Starts at row, a half tick means it ships but is limited next to the specialists here or sits behind a higher tier, and a cross means it is not offered. Feature sets move; confirm anything you are about to buy on the vendor's own page.
Seven alternatives, with the catch attached.
Ordered by who each one actually suits, not by price. Every price links to the page it came from.
Postiva
Our product- Best for
- Filling an empty calendar, when the problem is producing content rather than posting it.
- Price
- $15, $29, or $79 per month
- Free plan
- No free tier. 14-day trial, no card.
Postiva is ours, so read this row with that in mind. It is not a scheduler and not a Hootsuite replacement: Postiva does not publish to any platform. It writes and renders the content, and you post it. What it does is take one blog post, article, or URL and write the week of content that comes out of it, then render the Instagram and LinkedIn carousel slides as finished files with your brand applied. People pair it with a cheap scheduler rather than using it instead of one.
How the bill works
Billed per team, not per seat and not per channel. The plan sets how much you generate each month, not which features you can open.
What it does well
- Priced per team, so extra reviewers cost nothing.
- Produces platform-native copy plus finished carousel images and a LinkedIn PDF, not just text.
- Client approval links, which agencies usually pay a higher tier for elsewhere.
What you give up
- No publishing, no connected accounts, no inbox, no analytics.
- No free tier, only a 14-day trial without a card.
- Useless on its own if your queue is already full and you just need to post it.
Buffer
- Best for
- A small brand on a handful of channels that wants the bill to stay small.
- Price
- Free, or from $5 per channel, per month
- Free plan
- Yes, up to 3 channels.
Buffer is the default answer to this search and usually the right one. It publishes reliably, the interface stays out of the way, and the free tier covers three channels, which is enough for a solo business to run indefinitely. Pricing is per channel rather than per person, so a team of five on four channels pays for four channels.
How the bill works
Billed per connected channel, not per person. Essentials is $5 a channel billed yearly and $6 monthly; Team is $10 a channel yearly. The per-channel rate drops above 10 channels.
What it does well
- Free tier that a small operation can genuinely live on.
- Per-channel pricing means team size costs nothing.
- Simple enough that nobody needs training on it.
What you give up
- Analytics are thin next to Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or Agorapulse.
- Per-channel billing turns expensive at high channel counts, even with the volume discounts.
- No serious social inbox for message-heavy accounts.
Publer
- Best for
- The lowest possible paid bill for one or two accounts.
- Price
- Free, or from $5 per month
- Free plan
- Yes, with limits.
Publer is the cheapest paid entry point in this comparison and does more than the price suggests, including bulk scheduling and post recycling. Read the $5 as a unit price rather than a plan price: it covers one social account, and every further account and teammate is its own line item, so the quoted figure is rarely the final number. The AI and the analytics sit on Business, which starts at $10 for that same single account.
How the bill works
The $5 buys one social account, not a plan with everything in it. Publer bills per social account, and it works out at roughly $4 an account on Professional and $7 on Business, so five accounts is $20 or $35 a month. Teammates are charged separately again, yearly billing takes 20 percent off, and VAT is added on top.
What it does well
- Lowest paid starting price here, with a free tier underneath it.
- Bulk scheduling and recycling that usually sit in pricier tiers elsewhere.
- Pay only for the accounts you actually connect.
What you give up
- Billed per social account, so the $5 headline is one account and five is $20.
- AI and analytics are Business-tier only, which starts at $10 for one account.
- Reporting is basic.
- Smaller company than the incumbents, which matters to some buyers.
Metricool
- Best for
- Agencies and freelancers running several brands at once.
- Price
- Free, or from $20 per month
- Free plan
- Yes, for one brand.
Metricool prices by how many brands you manage rather than by how many people work there, which is exactly backwards from Hootsuite and exactly right for an agency. Analytics are stronger than the price implies, and there is a free tier for a single brand, which makes it a low-risk thing to try.
How the bill works
Priced by how many brands you manage. Starter is $20 a month billed annually and $25 monthly; the tiers climb with brand count rather than with features.
What it does well
- Priced by brand count, so headcount does not inflate the bill.
- Analytics and competitor tracking well above what the price suggests.
- Free tier for one brand, with no time limit.
What you give up
- Inbox and engagement tools are lighter than Agorapulse or Sprout Social.
- The brand-count tiers step up sharply as you grow.
- Interface takes more getting used to than Buffer.
Later
- Best for
- Instagram-led and visual-first accounts that plan by looking at a grid.
- Price
- Free, or from $25 per month
- Free plan
- Yes, with limits.
Later grew up around Instagram and still shows it, in a good way. The visual planner and grid preview are the best in this list for anyone whose feed is a designed object rather than a stream of updates. The catch is that the plan price is a base, and users, social sets, and AI credits are all charged on top.
How the bill works
Starter is $25 billed monthly and $18.75 billed annually. Extra users, extra social sets, and extra AI credits are all separate line items.
What it does well
- Visual planning and grid preview that nothing else here matches.
- Free tier available.
- Strong on the Instagram-specific formats.
What you give up
- Add-ons for users, social sets, and credits make the real cost climb.
- Less useful if LinkedIn or X is your main platform.
- Reporting is mid-range.
Agorapulse
- Best for
- Teams that want Hootsuite replaced with something very close to it.
- Price
- From about $99 per user, per month
- Free plan
- No free plan. Free trial.
Agorapulse is the closest like-for-like swap on this list: a proper unified inbox, approval workflows, and reporting that agencies bill against. It is also priced per user like Hootsuite, so it solves the feature complaint and not the cost one. Choose it when the objection to Hootsuite was the product rather than the invoice.
How the bill works
Per-user pricing across Standard, Professional, Advanced, and a custom tier, so a three-person team pays three times the headline.
What it does well
- Unified inbox is the strongest here for message-heavy accounts.
- Approval workflows built for agency and client review.
- Reporting that stands up in a client meeting.
What you give up
- Per-user pricing reproduces the exact problem people leave Hootsuite over.
- Highest starting price in this comparison alongside Sprout Social.
- Overkill for a solo operator.
Sprout Social
- Best for
- Larger teams where reporting quality decides the renewal.
- Price
- $79 to $399 per seat, per month
- Free plan
- No free plan. Free trial.
Sprout Social is the upmarket option, and it is on this list because a real slice of people leaving Hootsuite are moving up rather than down. The Essentials tier at $79 a seat undercuts Hootsuite Standard, though it is a reduced product; the tier people usually mean is Standard at $199.
How the bill works
Four tiers, billed annually. Essentials is $79 a seat annually and $99 billed monthly. Seats multiply.
What it does well
- Best reporting in this comparison.
- Essentials undercuts Hootsuite Standard on headline price.
- Mature approval and permission controls.
What you give up
- Per-seat pricing, and the seats are expensive.
- Essentials is thin enough that the real comparison is Standard at $199.
- No free tier.
The comparison in one table
Starting prices only. Every one of these tools costs more than its headline once you add accounts, seats, or brands, and the middle column is where that happens.
Postiva (ours)
- Starts at
- $15 / month
- Billed by
- Team
- Free tier
- No, 14-day trial
Publer
- Starts at
- $5 / month
- Billed by
- Social account
- Free tier
- Yes
Buffer
- Starts at
- $5 / month
- Billed by
- Channel
- Free tier
- Yes, 3 channels
Metricool
- Starts at
- $20 / month
- Billed by
- Brand count
- Free tier
- Yes, 1 brand
Later
- Starts at
- $25 / month
- Billed by
- Plan, plus add-ons
- Free tier
- Yes
Agorapulse
- Starts at
- $99 / month
- Billed by
- User
- Free tier
- No
Sprout Social
- Starts at
- $79 / seat
- Billed by
- Seat
- Free tier
- No
Hootsuite
- Starts at
- $99 / user
- Billed by
- User
- Free tier
- No
Read from each company's own pricing page on 5 September 2026. Sprout Social and Metricool headline their annual rate; monthly billing costs more. The Publer and Buffer figures are one account or channel, not a whole plan: five of either is $20 and $30 a month.
What is the best free Hootsuite alternative?
Buffer, for most people. Its free tier covers three connected channels with a working queue, which is enough for a solo business or a side project to run on permanently rather than as a trial.
Metricool is the better free choice if analytics matter more than channel count, since its free tier covers one brand with reporting attached. Publer sits between the two. None of the three will carry an agency, and all three exist to move you onto a paid plan eventually, which is fine as long as you know it going in.
How to pick without regretting it in three months
Almost every bad choice in this category comes from comparing headline prices across different billing models. A $5 tool billed per channel and a $99 tool billed per user are not five and ninety-nine, they are whatever your actual shape of team and accounts makes them. Publer is the clearest example on this page: the $5 covers one social account, so five accounts is $20 a month on Professional and $35 on Business, before any teammates.
Work out your own numbers first, then read the table above. It takes ten minutes and it is the only part of this that reliably saves money.
- Count seats, connected accounts, and brands separately. Different tools charge on different ones.
- Price the setup you expect in twelve months, not the one you have today.
- Check whether analytics and listening are included or sold as add-ons.
- Export your scheduled queue before you migrate. Not every tool makes that easy on the way out.
The thing none of these tools fix
Every tool on this list, ours included, assumes you have something to post. Schedulers move content from a queue to a platform, and a cheaper scheduler moves it for less money, but none of them fill the queue.
If the reason you are shopping is that the calendar keeps going empty rather than that the invoice is too high, changing schedulers will not change much. That is a production problem, and it is worth being honest with yourself about which of the two you actually have before you migrate anything.