Buffer alternatives, compared on price, free plans and AI agents
Publer, Metricool, Zernio, Postiz, Hootsuite and nine more, compared with Buffer on price per channel, free plans, approvals, X, Bluesky and AI agents.
By Mellow · UpdatedThe short answer
Buffer charges per channel: $6 a channel a month, or $5 billed yearly, for the first ten, and less per channel after that; its Team plan, with approvals, is $12, or $10 yearly. The free plan covers three channels with ten scheduled posts each, and its MCP server and API work on every plan, the free one included. Alternatives are cheaper per account at scale, such as Publer from $4 an account billed yearly or Zernio from $3 above ten accounts; free for more, such as Zernio’s first two accounts or Postiz hosted yourself; or built around something else: per-brand pricing at Metricool, approvals with unlimited users at Planable and Sendible, or an inbox and listening at Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Agorapulse, which charge per person.
Disclosure: Mellow publishes this page and makes Mellow Hub, one of the tools below. Hub’s row comes from its own pricing configuration and code. Every other cell links to the vendor’s own page, read on 1 October 2026; where a vendor’s pages do not say something, the table says so. Rows are in alphabetical order, not ranked.
Why people look for a Buffer alternative
The price follows the number of channels. With 20 channels, Essentials is $100 a month on monthly billing and Team, the plan with approvals, $160: the first ten channels at the full rate, the next ten at $4 each.
Source: price tiers
The free plan is a queue, not a calendar. It holds ten scheduled posts per channel at a time, refilling as they publish, for one user.
Source: pricing
Approvals only on Team. Essentials has no approval step; Team adds it at twice the per-channel price for the first ten channels.
Source: pricing
Not for lack of satisfaction. On G2, a review site, Buffer scores 4.3 out of 5 from 1,041 reviews, and its summary finds few complaints: the most frequent, missing analytics, has four mentions.
Source: G2 reviews
14 alternatives, side by side
Prices are US dollars a month for the cheapest paid plan; “yearly” is the monthly price when billed for a year. Checked on 1 October 2026. Buffer for reference: Essentials: $6 a channel a month, $5 yearly, for the first 10 channels; less per channel above that.
| Tool | Priced per | Cheapest paid plan | Free plan or trial | X and Bluesky | AI agents: MCP and API | Approvals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agorapulse | user | Standard: $99 a month, $79 yearly, per user; 10 social profiles. Source: pricing | No free plan since 6 July 2026; a free AI-content plan, Archie, replaced it. 30-day trial, no card. Sources: pricing, Archie plan | Bluesky included; X is an add-on sold through sales. Source: pricing | MCP in beta on current plans: inbox, listening and analytics; publishing only as drafts. A reporting API on Custom. Sources: MCP help, pricing | From Professional: $149 a month, $119 yearly, per user. Source: pricing |
| Hootsuite | user | Standard: $99 per user a month billed yearly; 10 social accounts. The monthly-billing price is not published. Source: plans | No free plan. 14-day trial, no card, limited to 10 to 20 posts a day. Source: plans | Both included. Source: networks | Hosted MCP servers since June 2026, one of them for publishing; a REST API needs an approved developer account, and its publishing API does not reach TikTok, YouTube or Bluesky. Sources: MCP, API | From Advanced: $399 per user a month, yearly. Source: plans |
| Later | plan (sets of 8 profiles) | Starter: $25 a month, $18.75 yearly; 8 profiles, 30 posts per profile a month, 1 user. Source: pricing | A free plan with limited scheduling; its post limit is not stated. The 14-day trial takes a card. Sources: plans help, trial help | Neither: X support ended on 28 August 2025, and Bluesky is not supported. Sources: X help, platforms | No MCP server or public API documented. Source: pricing | From Growth: $50 a month, $37.50 yearly. Source: pricing |
| Loomly | plan | Starter: $65 a month, $49 yearly; 12 accounts, 3 users. Source: pricing | Free: 3 accounts, 5 posts a month; Loomly says it may not be available to everyone. 7-day trial, no card. Sources: free plan, home | Bluesky included; no X. Sources: Bluesky, channels | No MCP server or public API documented; a Zapier integration. Source: integrations | From Starter. Source: pricing |
| Mellow Hub | publication: one post to one account | Solo: $19 a month, or $190 a year; 1 brand profile and 900 publications a month. Source: pricing | No free publishing; connecting accounts, drafts and checks cost nothing. 7-day trial with a card on file. Source: pricing | Both included. Source: networks | Hosted MCP server and REST API. Each key or OAuth grant carries its channels, review or autopilot, a daily ceiling and an expiry, and every action goes in a journal. Source: MCP guide | Review mode: an agent’s posts wait for a signed-in person to approve them. No team seats. Source: MCP guide |
| Metricool | brand | Starter: $25 a month, $20 yearly; up to 5 brands. Source: pricing | Free: 1 brand, 20 scheduled posts a month, without LinkedIn or X. Source: pricing | Bluesky included; X costs $10 a month per account, on paid plans. Source: pricing | MCP on every plan, Free included, within plan limits; the API from Advanced. Sources: MCP plans, pricing | From Advanced: $67 a month, $53 yearly. Source: pricing |
| Planable | workspace, unlimited users | Basic: $39 a month, $33 yearly; 4 pages and 60 posts a month per workspace. Source: pricing | A trial of 50 posts with no time limit, no card. Source: pricing | X, limited to one post a day on Basic; no Bluesky. Sources: pricing, platforms | MCP on every plan, the trial included; public API from Pro. Sources: MCP, API | Required approvals from Pro: $59 a month, $49 yearly. Source: pricing |
| Postiz | plan, by channels | Standard: $29 a month, $23 yearly; 5 channels, no team members. Source: pricing | No hosted free plan; open source, free to host yourself. 7-day trial. Sources: home, pricing | Both included. Source: pricing | MCP, API, CLI and webhooks on every plan. Sources: MCP, pricing | Not listed on the pricing page. Source: pricing |
| Publer | social account | Professional: $5 an account a month, $4 yearly. Source: plans | Free: 3 accounts, not X, 10 scheduled posts per account. Source: plans | Bluesky included; X on paid plans only. Source: plans | MCP, since 28 September 2026, and API on Business ($10 an account a month) and above. Sources: MCP, API | The plans page does not say in words which tier includes them. Source: plans |
| Sendible | plan, unlimited users | Core: $35 a month, $30 yearly; 6 profiles, unlimited users, 100 sends a day. Source: pricing | No free plan. 14-day trial, no card. Source: pricing | Both included. Source: pricing | No MCP server; the only documented API is for single sign-on. Source: white-label help | From Plus: $99 a month, $84 yearly. Source: pricing |
| SocialBee | plan, by profiles | Bootstrap: $29 a month, $24.17 yearly; 5 profiles, 1 user. Source: pricing | No free plan. 14-day trial, no card. Source: pricing | Both included. Source: accounts help | No MCP server and no public API. Source: API help | From Accelerate: $49 a month. Source: pricing |
| Sprout Social | seat | Essentials: $99 per seat a month, $79 yearly; 5 profiles. Source: pricing | No free plan. 30-day trial, no card. Source: pricing | Both included. Source: profiles help | MCP for ChatGPT only, reading TikTok data; the API, from Advanced, creates drafts only. Sources: ChatGPT help, API docs | From Professional: $299 per seat a month, yearly. Source: pricing |
| Vista Social | plan, by profiles and users | Professional: $99 a month, $79.17 yearly; 15 profiles, 2 users. Source: pricing | No free plan listed. 14-day trial, no card. Source: pricing | Bluesky included; X is a $29 a month add-on. Source: pricing | MCP on every paid plan; the API on Enterprise or as a paid add-on. Sources: MCP help, API help | The pricing page marks them only with icons. Source: pricing |
| Zernio (formerly Late) | connected account | The first 2 accounts free, then $6 an account a month for accounts 3 to 10, less above. Source: pricing | The first 2 connected accounts, with no card. Source: pricing | Both; X’s own API charges are passed on. Source: pricing | The product is an API; a hosted MCP server on every account. Source: MCP docs | Not stated. Source: pricing |
Which one fits which need
- Many accounts on a budget. Publer charges per account, from $4 a month billed yearly, with every tenth account free on its calculator; Zernio’s price falls to $3 an account from the eleventh; Metricool charges per brand, five brands from $20 billed yearly.
- More for free. Zernio’s first two accounts are free with unlimited posts; Publer’s free plan covers three accounts, without X; Metricool’s one brand with 20 posts a month; Postiz is free if you host it yourself.
- Approvals for a team without paying per channel. Planable charges per workspace, with unlimited users and required approvals from $49 billed yearly; Sendible has unlimited users and approvals from $84; Loomly from $49 with three users.
- An inbox and listening. Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Agorapulse sell both beside scheduling, priced per person; check which plan includes them, since Sprout Social’s inbox, for one, starts with Standard at $199 a seat a month billed yearly.
- An AI agent with limits set on the server. Mellow Hub gives each agent its own channels, review or autopilot, a daily ceiling and an expiry, and records every action. Postiz and Metricool include MCP on every plan; Buffer’s own MCP stays on every plan too.
What you give up by leaving Buffer
Two things are rare. Buffer’s MCP server and API are on the free plan: among the other hosted tools above, only Metricool’s free plan, Planable’s trial and Zernio’s two free accounts offer agent access without paying. And Buffer reaches networks several others do not, including Mastodon and Google Business Profile.
Sources: MCP, pricing
If you post to a handful of channels and publish steadily, Buffer’s Essentials may already be the cheapest option; the alternatives pay off when you have many accounts, a team that needs approvals, or a need Buffer does not cover.
Where Mellow Hub fits, and where it does not
Mellow Hub publishes one post to 9 networks at once, by hand in its composer or through an AI agent, and checks every network’s rules before anything is sent. It is built for agents that publish: each key or OAuth grant is limited to the channels, the mode, the daily ceiling and the expiry its owner chose, and every action is recorded where the owner can revoke it. It is weaker in these ways:
- No free publishing. Connecting accounts, drafts and checks are free; publishing needs a plan, and the 7-day trial takes a card.
- 9 networks. No Google Business Profile, Mastodon, Reddit, Snapchat or Telegram.
- A monthly allowance. Plans include a set number of publications a month, where several tools above advertise unlimited posts.
- No inbox and no listening. No comments, direct messages or monitoring; analytics are per post.
- No team seats. One owner’s brand profiles, without roles or client logins.
- Newer. Mellow has published live, with public links, to Instagram, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest and Facebook. On TikTok, uploads are accepted but, on our test accounts, visible only to their owner.
See the plans, each network’s rules, or the comparison of publishing APIs if an agent or your own code will do the posting.
Questions
Is Buffer still free?
Yes. Checked on 1 October 2026, Buffer’s free plan covers 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel at a time and 1 user, and includes its MCP server and API.
What is cheaper than Buffer?
Per account at scale: Publer from $4 an account a month billed yearly, and Zernio at $3 an account from the eleventh. For free: Zernio’s first 2 accounts, and Postiz if you host it yourself. Buffer itself is $5 a channel billed yearly for the first ten.
Which Buffer alternatives have approval workflows?
Planable from Pro, per workspace with unlimited users; Sendible from Plus; Loomly from Starter; Later from Growth; SocialBee from Accelerate; Metricool from Advanced; Agorapulse from Professional, Sprout Social from Professional and Hootsuite from Advanced, each priced per person. At Buffer, approvals come with Team.
Does Buffer work with ChatGPT or Claude?
Yes. Buffer’s MCP server is available on every plan, the free one included, and lets an assistant create, schedule and manage posts; calls count against the API limits.
Which alternatives include both X and Bluesky?
Hootsuite, Postiz, Sendible, SocialBee, Sprout Social, Zernio and Mellow Hub, as Buffer does. X costs extra at Metricool, Vista Social and Agorapulse; Later and Loomly have no X, and Planable no Bluesky.
Sources
Each vendor’s cells link to the pages above, all read on 1 October 2026. Prices change; check the vendor’s page before you buy. Figures marked as reviews come from G2’s summaries of its users’ reviews, not from the vendor.