Comparison
The cheapest social media scheduler, with the unit spelled out
A price means nothing without its unit. $5 per channel, $99 per user and $4.99 flat are three different products. This page lists the cheapest paid plan of twelve schedulers as their own pricing pages showed them on one day, so you can compare like with like.
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Cheapest paid plan, twelve tools, one day
| Tool | Cheapest paid plan | The unit | Free plan? | Bluesky | AI bundled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bloom | $4.99/month or $49.99/year (Pro) | Flat, any number of accounts, one person | Yes, no time limit | Yes, free plan too | No |
| Buffer | $5/month per channel, or $60/year per channel (Essentials) | Per connected channel | Yes: 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel | Yes | Yes |
| Planoly | $14/month (Starter) | 1 social set, 1 user | Mobile app only: 10 uploads a month | No | Yes |
| Nuelink | $16/month, billed as $192 a year (Standard) | 10 channels | No, 7-day trial | No | Yes |
| Later | $18.75/month billed annually, $225 a year (Starter) | 1 social set of up to 8 profiles, 1 user | No, 14-day trial | No | Yes, credits |
| Metricool | From $20/month (Starter, 5 brands) | Per brand; X is a paid add-on | Yes: 1 brand, 20 posts a month, no LinkedIn or X | Listed | Yes |
| Pallyy | $25/month (Pro) | 1 social set, +$10 per extra set | Yes: 1 set, 15 image posts a month | Yes | Yes, on paid |
| SocialBee | $29/month, or $24.20/month billed yearly (Bootstrap) | 5 profiles, 1 user | No, 14-day trial | Yes | Yes |
| Postiz | $29/month, about $23 billed yearly (Standard) | 5 channels | No, 7-day trial | Yes | Yes |
| Loomly | $65/month, or $49/month billed yearly (Starter) | 12 accounts, 3 users | No | No | Yes |
| Hootsuite | $99 per user/month, billed annually (Standard) | Per user, 10 accounts | No, 14-day trial | Yes | Yes |
| Zoho Social | Prices not shown on the page we loaded | Per brand | Yes: 1 brand, 6 channels | Paid plans | Yes |
Every price on this page was read from the company’s own pricing page on 2 October 2026. Prices change; check theirs before you decide. Where a page would not load for us, the tool is named and left unquoted.
Not in the table because their pricing pages would not load on 2 October 2026: Publer, Typefully, Sendible and Fedica. Third-party summaries exist for all four, and we do not quote those.
Three ways to be charged, and what each does to the bill
Per channel (Buffer): the price scales with every account you connect. One Instagram account is $5 a month; Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, X and TikTok is $25. Cheap for one account, not for five.
Per social set or per brand (Later, Planoly, Pallyy, Metricool): one “set” bundles one account per network for one brand. Good for one brand with many networks; a second brand doubles the price or adds a fee.
Per user (Hootsuite, and Loomly’s three-user bundle): built for teams, so a single person pays for the collaboration features whether they use them or not.
Flat (Bloom): $4.99 a month whether you connect one account or ten. The trade is that Bloom is one person per account with no seats, so it cannot be split across a team at all.
So which is cheapest?
For one account, Buffer at $5 a month and Bloom at $4.99 are within a dollar of each other, and both have free plans that might cover you entirely.
For several accounts of your own, Bloom’s flat $4.99 is the lowest number in the table; Buffer reaches $25 at five channels and Planoly’s $14 covers one set.
For several brands or clients, Bloom is not the tool (one person, no workspaces per client); Metricool’s $20 for five brands is the cheapest multi-brand entry we read.
For a team, nothing here is cheap. Loomly’s $49 a month billed yearly for three users is the lowest team bundle in the table.
Cheapest is also only cheapest if it publishes where you post. Bloom covers Instagram, Facebook Pages and Bluesky automatically, X on paid plans and TikTok as an inbox draft, and has no LinkedIn or Pinterest. Several tools above cover both.
What Bloom’s price buys, and what it leaves out
Free: unlimited scheduled posts and connected accounts, automatic posting to Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky, TikTok videos to your inbox, ready-to-post kits for Reddit, Threads, YouTube and Tumblr, the income ledger, and 500MB of media storage. Pro ($4.99): automatic X posting up to 5 a day without links, a 10GB vault and files up to 500MB. Plus ($12.99): 1 X post a day may carry a link. Why X costs extra is explained in this guide.
Left out, on purpose or not yet: AI writing, analytics pulled from the platforms, team seats, LinkedIn, Pinterest, direct TikTok publishing, Instagram Stories. If any of those is the reason you are shopping, the cheaper tool is the one that has it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest social media scheduler?
On the pricing pages we read on 2 October 2026, the lowest paid entry prices were Bloom Pro at $4.99 a month flat and Buffer Essentials at $5 a month per channel. Which is cheaper for you depends on how many accounts you connect: Buffer’s price grows per channel, Bloom’s does not.
Which social media schedulers have a free plan?
Bloom, Buffer, Metricool, Pallyy and Zoho Social have free plans with no time limit; Planoly has a free tier in its mobile app. Later, Hootsuite, SocialBee, Postiz, Nuelink and Loomly offer trials only. See free social media schedulers compared.
Is a scheduler under $10 a month any good?
Bloom ($4.99) and Buffer ($5 per channel) are the two under $10. Both publish to Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook. Buffer reaches more networks and includes AI writing; Bloom is flat-priced, has no AI and tracks your income. Neither is a team tool at that price.
Why do prices on this page differ from other comparison articles?
Because they were all read on the same day, 2 October 2026, from the vendors’ own pages, with the billing unit written out. Many roundups mix monthly and annual prices or omit the per-channel unit, which makes a $5 plan look cheaper than it is.
Write it once. Bloom posts it everywhere.
Connect your accounts, schedule your first post and let Bloom publish it. The free plan includes automatic posting to Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky.
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