The Cheapest Social Media Scheduler in 2026

The cheapest social media scheduler in 2026 is Buffer’s free plan if you run 3 channels or fewer, Publer at $21 a month or SchedPilot Silver at $21 if you run 5, and SchedPilot Gold at $35 for anything from 10 to 20 accounts.

Metricool has the best free plan for a single brand, Postiz is free if you’re willing to host it yourself, and Zoho Social is the cheapest paid entry point at $15 if you only have one brand and never add a second user.

Every “starting at” price on a scheduler’s homepage is for one account. Almost nobody runs one account.

So this guide prices each tool at four realistic sizes, using monthly billing checked in the first week of September 2026.

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Cheapest scheduler by number of accounts

Single user, monthly billing, no annual discount applied.

Three things that table hides:

• Metricool, Pallyy and Zoho bill per brand, not per account. One business on eight networks is one unit. Eight clients is eight units, and the price stops being cheap.
• Buffer’s per-channel rate drops to $4 for channels 11 to 25, which is already reflected in the 20-account figure.
• SchedPilot Silver caps you at 450 posts a month. Gold and up are unlimited.

What “cheapest” actually means

The tools on this list use four different billing units, and the unit decides who’s cheapest for you:

1. Per channel (Buffer, Publer). Cheap for 1 to 3 accounts, expensive past 10.
2. Per brand (Metricool, Pallyy, Zoho Social). Cheap for one business on many networks, expensive for agencies.
3. Account bundles (SocialPilot, Postiz). Predictable steps, usually the value pick in the middle.
4. Flat plans (SchedPilot). Cheapest from about 10 accounts onward, and the only model where adding accounts costs nothing until you hit the next tier.

Count your accounts first. Then pick the billing unit that fits. That order matters more than any feature list.

1. SchedPilot, cheapest from 5 accounts up

SchedPilot is our tool, so weigh this section accordingly. It’s first because at 10 accounts it costs $35 and at 20 accounts it still costs $35, which no per-channel tool can match.

Pricing

• Silver: $21 a month. 5 accounts, 450 posts a month, analytics, AI post suggestions, API access.
• Gold: $35 a month. 20 accounts, unlimited posts, 5 workspaces, AI-generated posts and hooks, comment replies, 300 GPT-5 credits.
• Platinum: $49 a month. 40 accounts, 10 workspaces, Chrome extension.
• Enterprise: $79 a month. 100 accounts, 10 team seats, post approval workflow, advanced reports.
• Annual billing takes 20% off. A $299 lifetime licence exists, capped at 100 buyers.

Where it wins

• At 5 accounts, Silver ties Publer on price but includes analytics, which Publer’s Professional plan doesn’t.
• At 10 accounts, Gold is $35 against $37 on Publer, $39 on Postiz, $40 on SocialPilot and $60 on Buffer.
• At 20 accounts, Gold is $35 against $73 on Publer, $100 on Buffer and $100 on SocialPilot.
• It ships an MCP server, so you can point Claude, Cursor or any MCP client at it and have an agent draft and queue posts across every account. None of the legacy tools do this.

Where it doesn’t

• No free plan. The 7-day trial needs a card (charged $0, one-click cancel).
• For 1 to 3 accounts, Buffer free or Publer at $13 is cheaper.
• Team seats only arrive at Enterprise, so a 3-person team on 10 accounts pays $79 here against $41 on Publer or $39 on Postiz. SchedPilot wins for teams once you need approvals or pass 30 accounts.
• No social listening.

SchedPilot publishes to Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky and Pinterest. Pricing is here.

2. Publer, cheapest paid scheduler for 1 to 5 accounts

Publer’s per-account pricing is the lowest in the category at small sizes, and its free plan mirrors Buffer’s almost exactly.

Pricing

• Free: 3 accounts, 10 scheduled posts each. No X.
• Professional: $5 for the first account, $4 for each extra. Unlimited posts, bulk CSV up to 500, RSS auto-posting. No analytics at all, and AI Assist needs your own OpenAI key.
• Business: $10 for the first account, $7 each extra. Adds analytics, unlimited AI, competitor tracking.
• Extra team members $2 each on Professional, $3 on Business. Every 10th account and 10th member is free. Annual billing is 20% off.

Real cost

• 3 accounts: $13
• 5 accounts: $21
• 10 accounts: $37 (10th free)
• 10 accounts with analytics on Business: $66

Publer is cheapest if you have 1 to 4 accounts and pull analytics from somewhere else. The moment you want a performance report inside the tool, Business roughly doubles the bill and SchedPilot or SocialPilot are cheaper.

3. Buffer, cheapest for 3 channels or fewer

Buffer’s free plan is still the best zero-cost way to find out whether you need a scheduler at all: 3 channels, 10 queued posts per channel, and X is included where Publer’s free tier excludes it.

Pricing

• Free: 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts each
• Essentials: $6 per channel monthly, $5 annual. Single user.
• Team: $12 per channel monthly, $10 annual. Unlimited users, approvals.
• Channels 11 to 25: $4 each. Channels 26 to 50: $3 each.
• 14-day trial on paid plans. The Agency plan was retired in November 2025.

Real cost

• 5 channels: $30
• 10 channels: $60
• 20 channels: $100
• 10 channels with a team: $120

Buffer is the cheapest tool on this page at 1 to 3 channels and one of the most expensive at 10 or more. No bulk import, no recycling, basic analytics. If you’ve outgrown the free plan, our Buffer alternatives piece runs the numbers in more depth.

4. SocialPilot, cheapest for a small team

SocialPilot sells account bundles with users attached, which makes it the value pick for 2 or 3 people managing 10 accounts.

Pricing

• Essentials: $20 monthly, $17 annual. 5 accounts, 1 user.
• Standard: $40 monthly, $34 annual. 10 accounts, 3 users, approval workflow, social inbox.
• Premium: $100 monthly, $85 annual. 20 accounts, 6 users.
• Ultimate: $200 monthly. 40 accounts, unlimited users.
• 14-day trial, no card. No free plan.

Ten accounts and 3 users for $34 a month annually is the number. Bulk scheduling up to 500 posts per CSV and white-label reports come standard. At 20 accounts, though, Premium at $100 is nearly three times SchedPilot Gold.

5. Postiz, free if you host it yourself

Postiz is open source under AGPL. The hosted plans are mid-priced, but the self-hosted version has full feature parity and costs nothing in licence fees.

Hosted pricing

• Standard: $29 monthly, about $23 annual. 5 channels, unlimited posts, single user.
• Team: $39 monthly. 10 channels, unlimited team members.
• Pro: $49 monthly. 30 channels.
• Ultimate: $99 monthly. 100 channels.
• API access on every tier. 7-day trial. Support is Discord only.

Self-hosting, honestly

A $5 to $10 VPS covers the server. The part nobody mentions is that you have to apply for your own API access on every platform, and Postiz’s own docs say Meta and YouTube approval can take over a month. You also supply your own OpenAI key for AI features and handle every breaking API change yourself. Free in licence terms, not free in hours. For a developer who wants to automate posting from n8n or their own scripts, it’s the best deal on this page. For anyone else, Team at $39 for 10 channels with unlimited seats is the plan to look at.

6. Metricool, best free scheduler for one brand

Metricool’s free plan is the most useful zero-cost option here if you run a single brand, because the analytics are better than what most paid schedulers include.

Pricing

• Free: 1 brand, 20 posts a month, 5 competitor profiles, 30 days of analytics. No LinkedIn or X.
• Starter: about $20 monthly. Up to 5 brands, unlimited posts, all networks. X is a $5 per account add-on.
• Advanced and Agency tiers scale by brand count.

One brand across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and Threads is one unit, so Metricool free beats Buffer free if you post fewer than 20 times a month and don’t need LinkedIn. Past 5 brands the per-brand pricing stops making sense next to a flat plan. Our Metricool pricing guide has the add-on math.

7. Pallyy, cheapest for one brand on every network

Pallyy charges per brand. A Social Set holds one profile from each of ten networks, so a business that posts everywhere is one unit.

Pricing

• Free: 1 account, 15 posts a month
• Starter: $15
• Pro: $25. One brand across every network, unlimited posts, client approvals.
• Agency: $75. Several client brands.

One brand on ten networks is $25 on Pallyy against $60 on Buffer Essentials. Two channels for one brand, and Buffer is cheaper. The free plan is the thinnest on this page.

8. Zoho Social, cheapest paid entry if you stay solo

Zoho Social Standard at $15 a month ($10 annual) is the lowest paid price for a full scheduler on this list, with a catch that arrives fast.

Pricing

• Free: 1 brand, 6 channels, limited features
• Standard: $15 monthly, $10 annual. 1 brand, 1 user, up to 11 channels.
• Professional: $40 monthly. 1 brand, 1 user. Bulk scheduling, inbox.
• Premium: $65 monthly. 1 brand, 3 users. First tier with approvals.
• Agency: $320 for 10 brands. Agency Plus: $460 for 20.

The second person costs you the jump to Premium at $65. The second brand costs you the jump to Agency at $320. Inside the Zoho ecosystem, with Zoho CRM already in place, Standard is a bargain. Outside it, the ceilings show up quickly.

Free social media schedulers, compared

If you refuse to pay, these are the free plans still standing in September 2026:

• Buffer: 3 channels, 10 queued posts each, X included. Best general-purpose free plan.
• Publer: 3 accounts, 10 scheduled posts each, no X. Nearly identical to Buffer, minus X.
• Metricool: 1 brand, 20 posts a month, competitor tracking. Best free analytics.
• Pallyy: 1 account, 15 posts a month. Thin.
• Zoho Social: 1 brand, 6 channels, limited features.
• Postiz: unlimited, if you self-host and manage your own API approvals.

Is Hootsuite still free?

No. Hootsuite dropped its free plan in 2023. The cheapest tier is $99 per user per month, with a 14-day trial. Later also dropped its free plan; it’s a 14-day trial now, despite what older articles say. Neither belongs on a “cheapest” list.

Where can I schedule social media posts for free?

Buffer or Publer for up to 3 accounts, Metricool for one brand, or the native schedulers inside Meta Business Suite (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok and LinkedIn, which are free with no post limits but only work one platform at a time.

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Which cheapest scheduler to pick

1 to 3 accounts: Buffer free. Don’t pay anyone.

One brand on many networks, light posting: Metricool free, or Pallyy Pro at $25 if you post more than 20 times a month.

4 to 5 accounts: Publer Professional at $21 if you don’t need analytics, SchedPilot Silver at $21 if you do.

10 to 20 accounts, one user: SchedPilot Gold at $35. Nothing else is close at 20.

10 accounts, 3 people: SocialPilot Standard at $40, Postiz Team at $39, or Publer at $41. SchedPilot Enterprise at $79 only makes sense here if you need approvals or will pass 30 accounts.

40 to 100 accounts: SchedPilot Platinum at $49 or Enterprise at $79. Buffer at 40 channels is $165.

Developer who wants to automate everything: Postiz self-hosted, or SchedPilot for the MCP server without the server maintenance.

The pattern across all of it: per-channel tools are cheapest small, per-brand tools are cheapest for one business, and flat plans are cheapest once you have a roster. Count your accounts, then pick. If you’re already past five, SchedPilot’s trial is the fastest way to see what $35 covers.