Alternatives
Best Metricool Alternatives in 2026
Metricool puts planning, publishing, analytics, ads reporting and client-ready reports in one dashboard, and prices itself by the number of brands you manage rather than by seat. One brand covers one profile per network across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, LinkedIn and Google Business Profile, plus a website or blog and Facebook, Google and TikTok ads. People still shop around, and usually for the same three reasons: X is not included in any plan, LinkedIn sits behind a paid tier, and the AI assistant is metered by credits per brand. The five alternatives below split into schedulers that do the same job on a different pricing unit and platforms that do a bigger or a narrower job.
Why look for Metricool alternatives?
Start with what Metricool already does well, because for a lot of readers the answer is to stay put.
- → The free plan is a real plan: 1 brand, every network except LinkedIn and X, 20 scheduled posts a month, 5 competitor profiles, 30 days of analytics and the AI assistant
- → Billing is per brand rather than per seat, and Advanced adds team and client management, role management and a post approval system
- → Analytics covers a website or blog and Facebook, Google and TikTok ads next to organic posts, with up to 100 competitor profiles on paid plans
- → Client reporting is included from Starter up: PDF and PPT reports, customizable templates on Advanced, a Looker Studio connector, the Metricool MCP and the Metricool API
And the reasons people still leave, all of them from the live pricing table.
- → X (Twitter) is an add-on on every tier, at $10/month per connected account, and complete X analytics arrives only on Advanced
- → LinkedIn needs a paid plan, and the free plan keeps 30 days of analytics where paid plans keep unlimited history
- → The AI assistant is metered per brand per month: 5 credits on Free, 20 on Starter, 35 on Advanced, and custom credits only on the quoted Custom tier
- → You buy brackets of brands, not the brands you have. Starter is $20/mo billed annually for up to 5 brands ($25 month to month) and $36 for up to 10 ($45). Advanced is $53 for up to 15 ($67), $85 for up to 25 ($107) and $159 for up to 50 ($210)
- → Advanced analytics, extra campaign dashboards and Metricool Studio are sold as a separate add-on, and the listed prices exclude VAT
Buffer
Best for a handful of channels and the simplest calendar
Hootsuite
Best for social listening, approvals and governance
Later
Best for Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest planning
Publer
Best for many networks at per-account prices
SocialBee
Best for recycling evergreen posts on autopilot
How they compare to Metricool
Two of the five score higher than Metricool and two are level with it. The real decision is the pricing unit: Metricool charges per brand, Buffer per channel, Publer per social account, Later per social set, Hootsuite per user, and SocialBee sells flat plans.
Buffer · 4.3/5
Best for a handful of channels and the simplest calendar.
Buffer is the simplest tool in this group and the cheapest way to cover a small number of accounts. It bills per channel. Essentials is $5 per channel per month billed annually, shown on the pricing page as $60 billed yearly for one channel, or $6 per channel month to month. Team is $10 per channel per month billed annually, $120 billed yearly for one channel, or $12 month to month, and it adds unlimited team members, access levels and content approval workflows. The free plan connects up to 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts per channel that refill as they publish, 100 ideas, 1 user account, the AI Assistant and Insights, and both paid plans open with a 14-day free trial. The unit is what matters against Metricool. A Metricool brand bundles one profile per network, so one client running six networks is a single brand in Metricool and six separate channels in Buffer. For a creator with three or four channels Buffer is cheaper and calmer; past that, Metricool's bracket pricing closes the gap fast. Our review scores Buffer 4.3/5 and names the trade honestly: analytics are lighter than Hootsuite or Sprout Social, and no plan includes social listening.
Hootsuite · 4.2/5
Best for social listening, approvals and governance.
Hootsuite is the enterprise end of this list. Its pricing page states that paid plans start at $99 for Standard, $199 for Professional and range up to $399 for Advanced, quoted per user per month and billed annually, with Enterprise by quote. Standard carries 10 social accounts; Professional and Advanced are unlimited, and Advanced is where team approval workflows, advanced analytics, competitive benchmarking and social listening live. Hootsuite states that there is no free plan, and each paid tier opens with a 14-day trial that needs no credit card. What you buy over Metricool is governance and listening rather than scheduling: a unified inbox across networks, sentiment analysis, multi-level approvals, and monitoring of mentions and competitors beyond your own profiles. The arithmetic is blunt. Metricool Advanced covers up to 15 brands for $53/mo billed annually and includes post approvals and client management; Hootsuite Standard is $99 per user per month billed annually for 10 social accounts, and our review notes that extra seats bill at the full plan rate. It scores 4.2/5, level with Metricool, and the cons are cost and a cluttered interface. Buy it when compliance and listening are the requirement, not when scheduling is.
Later · 4.3/5
Best for Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest planning.
Later is the visual option, built around a grid preview and a drag-and-drop calendar, and it sells by social set. A social set is one profile of each platform Later supports, eight profiles in total. Starter is $18.75 per month billed yearly for 1 social set, 1 user, up to 30 posts per profile per month, 5 AI credits a month, platform analytics up to 3 months and Link in Bio. Growth is $37.50 per month billed yearly for 2 social sets, 2 users, 180 posts per profile, 50 AI credits, the social inbox, internal and external approvals and analytics up to 1 year. Scale is $82.50 per month billed yearly for 6 social sets, 4 users, unlimited posts, 100 AI credits, custom analytics, competitive benchmarking and analytics up to 2 years. On Growth and Scale, extra social sets are $11.25 a month each, extra users $3.75 a month each and extra AI credits $3.75 a month per 100. Later runs a 14-day free trial in place of a free tier. Two things decide it against Metricool. X is not on Later's list of supported platforms, so X scheduling has to live somewhere else, and Metricool's paid plans keep unlimited analytics history where Later caps history by tier. If the work is genuinely visual, Later still wins the calendar.
Publer · 4.2/5
Best for many networks at per-account prices.
Publer is the closest thing here to a straight swap for a solo operator, and it prices per social account. The free plan is 1 user, 1 workspace, 3 social accounts with X excluded, 10 scheduled posts per account at a time, 25 saved drafts and 24 hours of post history. Professional is $5 a month per social account, or $4 billed yearly, and brings unlimited scheduling and drafts, scheduled first comments and threads, unlimited media storage and workspaces, RSS automations, eternal post history and X support. Business is $10 a month per social account, or $8 billed yearly, adding unlimited AI prompts, analytics and reports, best times to post, competitor analysis, hashtag suggestions, spintax-powered post recycling and access to the Publer API and MCP. Every tenth social account is free, and the same applies to additional members; yearly billing is advertised as two months free, VAT is charged on top, and each payment carries a 14-day full refund window. Network coverage is the widest on this page, with Mastodon, Bluesky, Telegram, Google Business Profiles and WordPress alongside the majors. The catch against Metricool is where analytics sit: Publer keeps reporting and AI on Business, while Metricool includes PDF and PPT reports from Starter.
SocialBee · 4.1/5
Best for recycling evergreen posts on autopilot.
SocialBee organizes posting around content categories. You sort posts into buckets such as tips, promotions or blog posts, give each bucket its own schedule, and SocialBee fills the calendar from them, recycling evergreen posts and expiring the time-sensitive ones. Every plan includes the AI Copilot and unlimited AI content generation, which is the sharpest contrast with Metricool's credit meter. Plans are flat rather than per unit: Bootstrap is $29 a month, or $24.20 a month billed annually, for 5 social profiles, 1 user and 1 workspace; Accelerate is $49 a month, or $40.80 billed annually, for 10 profiles; Pro is $99 a month, or $82.50 billed annually, for 25 profiles, 3 users and 5 workspaces. Agency tiers run Pro50 at $179 a month ($149.20 billed annually), Pro100 at $329 ($274.20) and Pro150 at $449 ($374.20). SocialBee lists no free tier; every plan opens with a 14-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee, and yearly billing saves 16%. Our review scores it 4.1/5, the lowest on this page, mostly because a single seat costs $29 a month where Metricool's free plan already covers one brand. Buy it for the category engine, not for the price.
Which one to pick
- → Publer if you post to unusual networks. Mastodon, Bluesky, Telegram, Google Business Profiles and WordPress in one queue at $4 per social account per month billed yearly is the best value on this page
- → Buffer if you run three or four channels and want the cleanest interface here. It scores 4.3/5 and its free plan covers 3 channels
- → Later if Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest are the job and you plan the feed visually before you write anything
- → SocialBee if the point is keeping evergreen content in rotation without touching it every week, or if metered AI credits are what pushed you to look
- → Hootsuite if you need social listening, sentiment analysis and multi-level approvals, and the budget carries $99 per user per month billed annually
- → Stay on Metricool if you manage several brands and need ads analytics and client reports sitting next to the calendar. Per-brand pricing beats per-seat and per-channel once you pass a few clients, and the free plan covers one brand indefinitely. Read our Metricool review →
Other Metricool alternatives worth knowing
Well-known options that don't yet have a full ToolChase review, so we give no score and no pricing for them here.
Agorapulse ↗
Agorapulse is a social media management platform built around a shared inbox and team workflows, aimed at agencies and in-house teams that answer a lot of comments and messages.
Sendible ↗
Sendible is an agency-oriented scheduler with client dashboards and white-label reporting, positioned for teams that publish on behalf of many separate clients.
Loomly ↗
Loomly is a brand-management and collaboration tool that pairs a content calendar with post ideas and approval flows, useful when the bottleneck is sign-off rather than scheduling.