8 Best Metricool Alternatives in 2026 (Tested)

August 5, 2026 · AI Tool Reviews

Most Metricool alternatives lists rank tools by their starting price, which is the one number that cannot be compared across them.

I tested and priced these myself rather than rewriting vendor copy. Every figure here was checked against each tool's own pricing page the day I wrote it, and each card tells you exactly how much hands-on time I have with that tool.

That ordering matters here, so I will say it plainly up front. Blotato sits first because it is the tool I actually run in production every day, and it is also a client of mine with a comped account and affiliate links.

Weigh that placement accordingly. The tools below it I have used less, and the ones at the bottom I have not run at all, which I flag on each entry rather than burying.

Why Comparing Starting Prices Tells You Nothing

Metricool charges per brand. Buffer charges per channel and Hootsuite charges per seat, a split I ran into again when testing social media automation tools.

Later sells you a "social set" of eight profiles. Publer runs two separate multiplying sliders, one for accounts and one for teammates.

That is Metricool plus the eight alternatives below, and six different billing units between them.

So a table of starting prices puts $6 next to $99 and implies Buffer is sixteen times cheaper than Hootsuite. The real answer depends entirely on how many accounts and how many people you have.

So this post does the arithmetic instead. I picked two situations, a solo creator running six accounts and a small agency running twenty-five, and priced every tool at both.

The ranking changes between them, which is the whole point.

Metricool Alternatives at a Glance

Figures are the entry paid tier from each vendor's own page, monthly billing, except Hootsuite which publishes per-seat rates annually only.

The 8 Best Metricool Alternatives in 2026

Every entry gets the same treatment, including how much of the tool I have actually used.

1. Blotato (Best for Publishing From an AI Agent)

Blotato is the one tool here I use every working day, and it does not look much like Metricool. There is a dashboard, but I almost never open it, because everything publishes through its MCP server from Claude Code.

Pros:

• The bill does not move when you add accounts or teammates inside a tier.
• An MCP server and API that an AI agent can drive directly, which is the whole reason I use it.
• Nine platforms behind one key, so there is no per-network approval process to sit through.

Cons:

• No free plan, and the 7-day trial excludes the API, so the people most likely to want this cannot properly test it.
• Analytics are far thinner than Metricool's, which is the main reason to stay put.
• If you want a calendar to click around in, you are paying for machinery you will not touch.
• Credits meter your AI usage, so heavy generation months cost more than the sticker price.

Best for: people publishing through an agent or a script rather than a dashboard. If that is the job, the wider field of social media APIs is worth reading first.

Pricing: Starter $29 per month for 20 social accounts and 1,250 AI credits. Creator $97 for 40 accounts and 5,000 credits. Annual billing saves around 17 percent.

Free trial: 7 days, card required, and it does not include the API.

My experience: Production use, daily, for over a year. It is also a client and my account is comped, and I wrote up the full picture in my hands-on review.

Bottom line: The right swap only if your reason for leaving Metricool is that you want a machine posting for you. If you want better reports, this is the wrong direction entirely.

So if you are evaluating it for the API, plan on starting the subscription rather than trialling it. I went deeper on where each tool wins in my full Blotato and Metricool comparison.

2. Buffer (Best for the Simplest Possible Scheduler)

Buffer is the tool I recommend when somebody wants a clean calendar and nothing else. Its pricing is also the most misread on this list.

Pros:

• A genuinely useful free plan covering three channels.
• The cleanest interface of anything here, with almost no learning curve.
• You pay only for the channels you actually connect.

Cons:

• That per-channel price multiplies fast, and most people do the math too late.
• Reporting is shallow next to Metricool, which is probably why you are reading this.
• One user on the entry plan, so collaboration means moving up a tier.

Best for: a solo creator with a handful of channels who wants zero complexity.

Pricing: Free for 3 channels. Essentials is $6 per month per channel on monthly billing, or $5 on annual. Team is $12 per channel, or $10 annual, with unlimited users. The rate drops above 10 channels, to $4 each between 11 and 25.

Free trial: 14 days on paid plans.

My experience: I have used Buffer and have recommended it publicly, though I do not run my publishing through it.

Bottom line: The best product here for one person with few channels, and quietly expensive the moment that stops being true. I compared it directly against my own stack in this Buffer breakdown.

The number to watch is the unit. Buffer's "$6" is a price per channel rather than a plan price, so ten channels is $60 a month.

Their own rate card publishes the worked examples, which is more than most vendors here manage.

3. Publer (Best Value Once You Pass Ten Accounts)

Publer also charges per account, but unlike Buffer the first one costs more than the rest, and then a volume rule kicks in that almost nobody mentions.

Pros:

• Every tenth social account is free, which quietly cuts the rate as you grow.
• A real free plan with three accounts.
• Cheaper per account than most of this list at double-digit volume.

Cons:

• Teammates are a second multiplying slider, so a team of five costs more than it first appears.
• API access is locked to the Business tier.
• The interface carries more clutter than Buffer's.

Best for: one person or a small team running a lot of accounts on a budget.

Pricing: Free for 3 accounts. Professional starts at $5 per month for the first social account, then $4 for each extra one and $2 per extra member. Business starts at $10, then $7 per extra account and $3 per extra member. Every 10th social account is free.

Free trial: Yes, and the free plan lets you test most paid features without a card.

My experience: Never run it. Everything above comes from their pricing page and help docs.

Bottom line: The cheapest way to run many accounts here, as long as you are not also adding many people.

4. SocialPilot (Best for Agencies That Want One Predictable Number)

SocialPilot bundles accounts and seats into tiers, which makes it boring to forecast in the best way.

Pros:

• Accounts and user seats move together, so there are no surprise per-unit add-ons.
• Client-facing reporting aimed squarely at agencies.
• 14-day trial with no card required.

Cons:

• Bundling cuts both ways, since you buy seats you may not need to get accounts you do.
• No free plan.
• Tiers step in jumps of five accounts, so being one over a limit costs a whole tier.

Best for: small agencies that want a single predictable invoice.

Pricing: Essentials $20 per month, or $17 billed annually, for 5 accounts and 1 seat. Standard $40 for 10 accounts and 3 seats. Premium $100 for 20 accounts and 6 seats. Ultimate $200 for 40 accounts with unlimited seats.

Free trial: 14 days, no credit card.

My experience: No hands-on time with it. I priced it and read the docs, nothing more.

Bottom line: The most predictable bill on this list for an agency, provided your account count lands near a tier boundary rather than just above one.

5. Planable (Best for Client Approvals Before Anything Publishes)

Planable ranks first on this SERP for a reason, and it is the only tool here whose pricing gets cheaper as your team grows.

Pros:

• Unlimited users on every workspace, which inverts how everyone else charges.
• Approval workflows built for showing a client work before it goes live.
• The first 50 posts are free with no time limit and no card.

Cons:

• Analytics and the social inbox are paid add-ons rather than included features.
• Post volume is capped per workspace, at 60 a month on the entry tier.
• Social pages are capped too, at 4 on Basic, so six accounts already pushes you to Pro.

Best for: teams and agencies where somebody signs off on posts before they publish.

Pricing: Basic $33 per workspace per month for 60 posts, 4 social pages and unlimited users. Pro $49 per workspace for 150 posts and 10 pages. Analytics and inbox add-ons cost extra per workspace.

Free trial: First 50 posts free, no time limit, no credit card.

My experience: Researched, not used. I have never had a client on it.

Bottom line: The only tool here that gets relatively cheaper as headcount grows, which makes it the natural pick if approvals are your bottleneck.

6. SocialBee (Best for Recycling Evergreen Content)

SocialBee is built around content categories that refill themselves, which is a different job from what Metricool does.

Pros:

• Category-based recycling that keeps evergreen posts in rotation automatically.
• 14-day trial with no card, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee.
• Straightforward tiers with no per-unit surprises.

Cons:

• No free plan at all.
• Profiles, users and workspaces all step together, so you overbuy on two axes to fix one.
• Analytics do not approach Metricool's depth.

Best for: people with a library of evergreen posts they want recirculated.

Pricing: Bootstrap $29 per month, or $290 a year, for 5 profiles, 1 user and 1 workspace. Accelerate $49 for 10 profiles. Pro $99 for 25 profiles, 3 users and 5 workspaces.

Free trial: 14 days, no credit card.

My experience: Never signed up. This is a docs-and-pricing read.

Bottom line: Worth it specifically for the recycling engine, and hard to justify if you post fresh content each time.

7. Later (Best for Instagram-First Visual Planning)

Later sells its plans in "social sets," a unit nobody else on this list uses and the one most likely to catch you out.

Pros:

• Visual grid planning that genuinely suits Instagram-led brands.
• A social set covers eight profiles, one per network, which is generous for a single brand.
• Extra sets and users can be added individually rather than by jumping a tier.

Cons:

• A set holds one profile per network, so two Instagram accounts means two sets.
• No free plan.
• Post volume is capped per profile on the entry tier.

Best for: one visual brand posting across many networks.

Pricing: Starter $25 per month, or $18.75 billed annually, for 1 social set of 8 profiles and 1 user. Growth $50 for 2 sets, Scale $110 for 6 sets and 4 users. Extra sets and users can be bought individually, priced on their annual rates.

Free trial: 14 days.

My experience: No firsthand use. I only worked through what they publish.

Bottom line: Excellent for a single visual brand, and structurally wrong for anyone running several accounts on the same network.

8. Hootsuite (Best for Teams That Need Social Listening)

Hootsuite is the most expensive entry point here by a wide margin, and it is priced per person rather than per account.

Pros:

• Social listening and analytics depth that most of this list does not attempt.
• Unlimited social accounts from the Professional tier upward.
• 14-day trial with no card and no automatic charge at the end.

Cons:

• Sold per seat, so the bill tracks headcount rather than workload.
• $99 per user per month is a steep jump from every other tool here.
• Overkill for a solo creator by a wide margin.

Best for: established teams that need listening and governance, not just scheduling.

Pricing: Standard $99 per user per month billed annually, covering up to 10 social accounts. Professional $199 per user with unlimited accounts. Advanced $399 per user.

Free trial: 14 days, no credit card required.

My experience: Never run it, and at this price I have never had reason to.

Bottom line: The right answer only if listening is the feature you are missing, and an expensive mistake if you just want to schedule posts.

The Same Job, Priced at Two Real Volumes

Below is what each tool costs at two situations, every figure computed from the rates on each vendor's own page.

How each figure is built, so you can check it. Publer is $5 for the first account plus $4 for each additional, with every 10th free, so 25 accounts means paying for 23, and the two extra teammates add $2 each.

Later's $25 assumes those six accounts sit on six different networks, because a social set holds one profile per network.

Its agency row is the Scale tier at $110 monthly, the first tier carrying enough sets and users for twenty-five accounts and three people.

Blotato stays on Starter at six accounts and moves to Creator at twenty-five.

Buffer charges $6 a channel on Essentials for the solo row, and the agency row uses its Team rate.

On Buffer's Team plan the rate card lists $12 a channel for the first ten and $4 for eleven to twenty-five, and its published example table puts 25 channels at $180 a month.

Planable's Basic covers only four social pages, so six accounts already needs Pro and twenty-five needs three Pro workspaces.

SocialPilot jumps from Standard to Ultimate. Hootsuite is per seat, so three people on Professional is three times $199.

Billing basis: Hootsuite publishes per-seat rates on annual billing only, and every other figure is the monthly rate. Later and SocialBee both display annual pricing by default on their sites, so their monthly figures run higher than the number you see first.

Read the two columns against each other and the ranking scrambles. Publer and Later tie for cheapest at the solo end, and by twenty-five accounts Later has more than quadrupled while Publer lands level with Blotato.

Buffer sits mid-pack at six channels and second-highest at twenty-five, because the unit that felt cheap is the unit that multiplies, even after its volume discount. SocialBee runs the opposite way, joint-most-expensive for one person and third-cheapest at agency scale.

And Hootsuite goes from roughly three times the price of this list to six times it, purely because seats and accounts scale differently.

Blotato moves the least across both columns in proportional terms, though Publer matches it on the agency figure. That is the honest argument for flat pricing, and it is an argument about billing rather than features.

These are list prices at a snapshot. Confirm against the vendor's page before you commit, because several changed tiers in the last year.

Which Metricool Alternative Should You Pick?

Match your situation to the pick. The rule underneath all of these is to match the billing unit to whatever grows in your business, accounts or people.

• An agent or script does your posting: Blotato.
• One person, few channels, wants simple: Buffer.
• Many accounts, small budget: Publer.
• Clients approve posts before they publish: Planable.
• A library of evergreen posts to recycle: SocialBee.
• One visual brand across many networks: Later.
• You need social listening: Hootsuite.
• Reporting is the actual deliverable: stay on Metricool.

What About Sprout Social, Sendible, and SocialBu?

These three come up constantly on this query and are not ranked above, so here is why.

Sprout Social is a genuine Metricool alternative on features, and it sits well above this price bracket. It starts far north of Hootsuite for most teams, which puts it outside what the people reading this are shopping for.

Sendible overlaps almost entirely with SocialPilot for the agency use case. I cannot separate them on anything except price, so ranking both would pad the list without helping you choose.

SocialBu ranks on this term largely through its own comparison page rather than through adoption I can verify.

These three sit outside the ranking because they are out of this price bracket, redundant with something already ranked, or thin on evidence anyone is switching to them.

Ryan's Final Thoughts

Metricool is genuinely good at the thing it is built for, which is reporting. Most people leaving it are not leaving because the analytics failed, they are leaving because the bill stopped matching how they work.

Pick the tool whose billing unit matches your growth axis, and check the arithmetic at the size you will be next year rather than the size you are now. If an AI agent is doing your posting, that changes the answer more than any feature comparison will.

Metricool Alternatives FAQs

What is the best Metricool alternative?

There is no single best one, because these tools bill on six different units. Buffer is the best pick for a solo creator with a few channels. Publer is cheapest once you run more than ten accounts. Planable wins if clients approve your posts. Hootsuite is the answer only if you need social listening. If a machine does your publishing, Blotato is the closest fit, and that is the tool I use.

Is there a free Metricool alternative?

Yes, three of them. Buffer's free plan covers 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts each. Publer's free plan also covers 3 accounts, though it excludes X. Metricool's own free plan leaves out LinkedIn and X too. Planable gives you your first 50 posts free with no time limit and no credit card. Metricool itself has a free plan for 1 brand and 20 posts a month, so leaving is not required to stop paying.

Why is Metricool so cheap compared to alternatives?

Because it prices per brand rather than per account or per seat. One brand bundles all of that brand's connected networks under a single price, which is excellent value for a single business and gets expensive for an agency running many separate clients. The tools that look pricier next to it are often charging for a unit you do not need many of.

Does Metricool have an API?

Yes, but it is gated to the Advanced tier and above. Worth knowing that Metricool's MCP server is available on every plan including the free one, while the HTTP API that Zapier and Make connect through requires Advanced. Those are two separate products with two different requirements, so check which one your workflow actually needs.

Which Metricool alternative is best for agencies?

It depends on whether you are adding clients or staff. SocialPilot bundles accounts and seats into one predictable tier. Planable charges per workspace with unlimited users, so it gets relatively cheaper as your team grows. Avoid per-seat pricing like Hootsuite's if headcount is what expands. Three seats on Standard runs $297 a month, and $597 once you need Professional for unlimited accounts.

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Blotato is also a client of mine and my account there is comped. I only recommend tools I have used or researched directly, and I have labeled on each entry above how much of it I have actually run. See my full disclosure.