Later alternatives, compared on price, X and Bluesky, and AI agents
Buffer, Metricool, Publer, Planable and ten more, compared with Later on price, posts per month, free plans, X, Bluesky, approvals and AI agents.
By Mellow · UpdatedThe short answer
Later sells plans in sets of profiles rather than per channel: Starter is $25 a month, or $18.75 a month billed yearly, for 8 profiles, 30 posts per profile a month and one user. It no longer publishes to X, has never published to Bluesky, and documents no MCP server or public API, so an AI assistant cannot post through it. The alternatives keep X and Bluesky (Buffer, Hootsuite, Postiz, Sendible, SocialBee, Sprout Social, Zernio), charge per account instead of per plan (Publer from $4 an account billed yearly, Buffer from $5 a channel), or let an AI assistant work through an MCP server (Buffer, Metricool, Planable, Postiz, Publer, Vista Social, Zernio, Mellow Hub; Hootsuite’s and Agorapulse’s save drafts only).
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 7 November 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 Later alternative
X and Bluesky. Later ended its support for X on 28 August 2025, and Bluesky is not on its list of supported platforms. Anyone who posts to either needs a second tool beside it.
Sources: X help, platforms
Post caps per profile. The free plan allows 12 posts per profile a month and Starter 30, about one a day; Growth raises it to 180 and only Scale, at $110 a month, has no cap.
Sources: pricing, plans help
YouTube means Shorts. Later publishes YouTube Shorts and says long-form videos are not supported.
Source: platforms
No route for an AI agent. Later documents no MCP server and no public API, so Claude, ChatGPT or an automation cannot schedule through it.
Source: pricing
The trial takes a card. Later’s 14-day trial asks for a payment method; Buffer, Hootsuite, Sendible, SocialBee and Sprout Social run theirs without one.
Source: trial help
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 7 November 2026. Later for reference: Starter: $25 a month, $18.75 yearly; 8 profiles, 30 posts per profile a month, 1 user.
| 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 on current plans, not Legacy ones: inbox with replies, 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 |
| Buffer | channel | Essentials: $6 a channel a month, $5 yearly, for the first 10 channels; less per channel above that. Sources: pricing, tiers | Free: 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel at a time, 1 user. 14-day trial of paid plans, no card. Source: pricing | Both included. Source: pricing | MCP server and API on every plan, Free included: create, schedule and manage posts. Sources: MCP, API | Team plan: $12 a channel a month, $10 yearly. 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; the publishing one, Perch, saves drafts and does not publish or schedule. A REST API needs an approved developer account, and its publishing API does not reach TikTok, YouTube or Bluesky. Sources: MCP, Perch docs, API | From Advanced: $399 per user a month, yearly. Source: plans |
| 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. A free trial of unstated length, no card. Sources: free plan, pricing | Bluesky included; no X. Sources: Bluesky, platforms | No MCP server or public API documented; a Zapier integration. Source: integrations | From Starter. Source: pricing |
| Mellow Hub | brand profile | Solo: $19 a month, or $190 a year; 1 brand profile and unlimited publishing, with a fair-use ceiling of 900 publications a month. Source: pricing | No free plan. A new account starts with a 7-day free trial of a monthly plan: it takes a card, charges $0 that day and nothing if cancelled before it ends. A yearly plan is charged the day it is chosen. 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. Sources: pricing, plans help | MCP on every plan, Free included, within plan limits: it creates and edits scheduled posts. The API from Advanced. Sources: MCP plans, MCP and API | 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: X per plan, platforms | MCP on every paid plan; public API from Pro. Sources: pricing, 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 under AGPL-3.0, so you can host it yourself. 7-day trial. Sources: pricing, home, self-hosting | 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 | Single-stage approvals on every plan; multi-stage from Advanced. 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
- X and Bluesky in the same queue. Buffer from $5 a channel billed yearly, Postiz from $23 billed yearly for 5 channels, SocialBee from $24.17 for 5 profiles; Hootsuite, Sendible, Sprout Social and Zernio include both too.
- Many accounts on a budget. Publer charges per account, from $4 a month billed yearly; Zernio’s first two accounts are free and later ones cost less as you add them; Metricool charges per brand, five brands from $20 billed yearly.
- A free plan to start. Buffer’s free plan covers 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts each; Publer’s 3 accounts, without X; Metricool’s one brand with 20 posts a month; Zernio’s first two accounts with unlimited posts.
- Posting from Claude, ChatGPT or an automation. Buffer and Metricool include MCP on their free plans; Postiz includes MCP, an API and a CLI on every plan; Mellow Hub gives each agent its own channels, review or autopilot, a daily ceiling and an expiry.
- Approvals for a team. Planable from Pro, per workspace with unlimited users; Loomly from Starter with three users; Sendible from Plus with unlimited users.
What you give up by leaving Later
Later was built around Instagram: its link-in-bio page comes with every plan, the free one included, and its analytics keep up to two years of history on Scale. It also publishes to Snapchat, which Mellow Hub does not. If those are what you use and you do not post to X or Bluesky, an alternative may cost more for less.
Sources: pricing, platforms
For a small team it is not expensive: Growth, at $50 a month or $37.50 billed yearly, adds approvals, an inbox and a second user to two sets of 8 profiles, where Hootsuite and Sprout Social charge for every person.
Source: pricing
Where Mellow Hub fits, and where it does not
Mellow Hub publishes one post to 10 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 plan. Publishing needs a plan. A new account starts with a 7-day free trial of a monthly plan, which takes a card; a yearly plan is charged the day it is chosen.
- 10 networks. No Google Business Profile, Mastodon, Reddit or Snapchat.
- No inbox and no listening. No shared inbox, comment moderation or monitoring. On Instagram it answers by keyword: a comment gets a public reply and one private message, a direct message gets an answer (comment-to-DM). 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
Does Later still post to X (Twitter)?
No. Later’s help centre says its support for X ended on 28 August 2025. Bluesky is not on its list of supported platforms either.
Is there a free version of Later?
Yes. Later’s help centre lists a free plan with 8 profiles, 12 posts per profile a month and one user; the pricing page does not show it. Paid plans start with a 14-day trial that asks for a card. Checked on 7 November 2026.
What is cheaper than Later?
Per account: Publer from $4 an account a month billed yearly, Buffer from $5 a channel billed yearly. For free: Buffer’s 3 channels, Publer’s 3 accounts, Zernio’s first 2 accounts. Later Starter is $18.75 a month billed yearly for 8 profiles.
Can ChatGPT or Claude post through Later?
Not directly: Later documents no MCP server and no public API. Buffer, Metricool, Planable, Postiz, Publer, Vista Social, Zernio and Mellow Hub each offer an MCP server; Hootsuite’s and Agorapulse’s save drafts only. The table above says which plan includes it.
Which Later alternative is best for Instagram?
It depends on what you use Later for. For grid planning and a link-in-bio page, compare the Instagram features on each tool’s page; for scheduling Reels, carousels and stories to Instagram beside other networks, every tool in the table publishes through Instagram’s API and is bound by its limits.
Sources
Each vendor’s cells link to the pages above, all read on 7 November 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.
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