Buffer charges per connected channel — free for three, then roughly $5 to $6 each on Essentials and $10 on Team. That model makes it the cheapest serious scheduler for anyone running a handful of accounts, and the most expensive one for agencies. Five channels on Essentials is about $25 to $30 a month; twelve channels on Team is $144, and thirty is $360. It's also one of the few tools in this category whose pricing hasn't lurched in years — 98 pricing snapshots since 2015 show a company that simplified its tiers and then left them alone.
Reviewed by EdGrows·Updated Aug 18, 2026Affiliate link — we may earn a commission
This analysis is based on documentation, public user reports, and vendor materials — not yet on our own hands-on testing. How we rate
Buffer charges per connected channel. Everything else about the buying decision follows from that.
| Channels | Essentials (~$5–6 each) | Team (~$10 each) |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Free plan covers this | — |
| 5 | ~$25–30 | ~$50 |
| 12 | ~$60–72 | $144 |
| 30 | ~$150–180 | $360 |
At the top of that table Buffer is the cheapest serious tool in the category. At the bottom it's one of the more expensive ones, and agencies usually work this out after they've already built their process around it.
There's no per-seat charge, which is worth noting — three people managing five channels pay the same as one person managing five channels. That's the opposite of how Hootsuite and most of the sales-adjacent tools work, and it suits small teams sharing a handful of accounts.
Three channels, ten scheduled posts each, no card, no expiry, no artificial crippling.
That deserves emphasis because the category moved the other way. Hootsuite discontinued its free plan entirely. Later's covers one profile. Most tools here offer a trial with a countdown.
For a solopreneur posting to Instagram, LinkedIn and one other platform, Buffer is the only option on this list you can run indefinitely without paying anything. Whether that's generous or simply a well-designed funnel is a fair question — but it works either way if three channels is genuinely your setup.
An analysis tracking 98 pricing snapshots since 2015 found something mildly remarkable: Buffer simplified from five tiers to three, dropped its $99 Agency plan, settled into per-channel pricing around 2022, and then stopped changing things.
No dramatic hikes. No enterprise pivot. No sudden repositioning as an AI visibility platform.
That sounds like the absence of a story and it's actually the story. This year alone, Hootsuite killed its free tier, Metricool accumulated auto-renewal complaints, and several tools in adjacent categories doubled their prices or moved upmarket. Buffer being boring is now a competitive feature — you can plan a budget around it.
Buffer schedules posts and reports on them. It doesn't do social listening, review management, DM automation, competitor tracking or paid ad analytics.
That's a deliberate scope, and it's why the interface stays comprehensible. It also means:
The AI assistant fits the same pattern — it rewrites captions and suggests variations competently, and it isn't a reason to pick the platform. Anyone already paying for ChatGPT or Claude has better writing available one tab away.
Ten or more channels. Run the multiplication. It usually recommends something else.
Instagram-first visual strategies. Later's grid preview and visual planning do a job Buffer doesn't attempt.
Agencies with multiple clients. Per-channel pricing across client accounts compounds badly.
Anyone needing listening or reputation management. Out of scope entirely.
Against Hootsuite: Hootsuite starts around $99 a month with no free plan, and bundles listening, inbox and advocacy features Buffer lacks. For a small business the gap is stark — Buffer at $25 does the publishing that matters, Hootsuite at $99 adds capability most small teams never open. The comparison flips for larger organisations that genuinely use the suite.
Against Later: Later starts at $25 for a "social set" of profiles and leads on Instagram-first visual planning. Buffer is broader and simpler; Later is better if your content is visual and your grid matters.
Against Metricool: Metricool is analytics-first with a strong free tier and per-brand pricing, plus ad data Buffer doesn't cover. Buffer publishes more cleanly; Metricool explains performance better.
Against Vista Social: Vista Social bundles review management, DM automation and listening at higher entry pricing. More platform for more money — the right call for agencies, overkill for a solo creator.
Against Canva: Canva includes scheduling inside a design suite, which can remove the need for a separate tool entirely if you're already designing there.
| Plan | Cost | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel, no expiry |
| Essentials | ~$5–6/channel/mo | Unlimited scheduling, analytics, AI assistant, engagement tools |
| Team | ~$10/channel/mo | Adds collaboration, approvals, unlimited users |
Checked August 2026. Reported per-channel pricing appears at both $5 and $6 depending on billing period and source. Buffer charges per channel rather than per user, so team size doesn't affect the bill. Pricing has been notably stable since the per-channel model settled around 2022. Confirm on buffer.com/pricing before committing.
Do the channel multiplication before anything else. It's the entire decision, and it takes ten seconds.
Start free if you have three channels. No expiry means there's no rush to convert, which is unusual enough to use.
Watch the crossover around ten channels. Past that, per-brand or flat-rate models generally win.
Don't buy it for the AI. It's fine and it isn't the point.
Buffer is the most straightforward tool in a category that keeps finding new ways to complicate itself. Per-channel pricing means the bill is a multiplication you can do in your head, there's no seat charge so team size is irrelevant, and the free plan genuinely covers three channels indefinitely rather than dangling a trial. For a solo creator or small business running a handful of accounts, it remains the cheapest sensible answer and the easiest to live with.
The model has an obvious limit and it's arithmetic rather than opinion. Past roughly ten channels the per-channel structure turns against you — twelve on Team is $144 a month and thirty is $360, at which point flat-rate and per-brand competitors are clearly better value. Agencies in particular should run the sum before adopting rather than after.
The scope is narrow too. No social listening, review management, DM automation or ad analytics, and an AI assistant that's convenient rather than compelling. Buffer publishes and reports; anything beyond that means a second subscription.
What tips it toward a recommendation anyway is stability. In a year when Hootsuite removed its free plan and several rivals repriced sharply, Buffer's pricing has barely moved since 2022. Predictability is worth something, and almost nobody else in this category is offering it.
For three to five channels, recommend without hesitation. For ten or more, calculate first and expect the answer to be somewhere else.
Note: Buffer does not currently have an affiliate program with AIVario. We earn no commission, and this rating carries no commercial incentive.
Best for: Solo creators and small businesses, teams sharing three to five accounts, anyone wanting a genuinely free scheduler, buyers who value predictable pricing Not ideal for: Agencies with many client channels, Instagram-first visual planning, teams needing listening or reputation management, ten-plus channel operations Bottom line: The simplest, steadiest scheduler in the category — unbeatable value under five channels and quietly expensive past ten.
The free plan covers three channels with ten scheduled posts each and no expiry. Essentials runs roughly $5 to $6 per channel per month, and Team about $10 per channel with collaboration features. Because it's per channel rather than per user or per plan, your bill is a straight multiplication: five channels on Essentials is $25 to $30, twelve on Team is $144. There's no seat charge, so a three-person team on five channels pays the same as one person would.
Yes, and it's unusual in this category for being genuinely usable rather than a trial. Three channels, ten scheduled posts per channel, no credit card, no expiry date and no feature crippling designed to force an upgrade. Hootsuite discontinued its free plan entirely and Later's covers a single profile. For a solopreneur posting to Instagram, LinkedIn and one more platform, Buffer is the only tool here you can operate on indefinitely without paying.
Around ten channels, give or take your tier. At five channels Buffer is the cheapest option in the category by a wide margin. At twelve channels on Team it's $144 a month, and at thirty it's $360 — at which point flat-rate platforms and per-brand models look considerably better. The crossover is worth calculating before committing, because agencies typically discover it after they've built workflows around the tool.
Adequate for repurposing and caption variations, not a reason to choose the platform. It rewrites posts for different networks, suggests variations and helps with ideas — useful for saving a few minutes, unremarkable against a general model you may already pay for. Buffer's own positioning is honest about this: the AI is a convenience inside the scheduling workflow rather than a content engine.
Social listening, review management, DM automation, competitor tracking and paid ad analytics. It's a publishing tool with analytics attached, not a social media suite. That narrowness is deliberate and it's why the tool stays simple — but if you need to monitor brand mentions or manage client reputations, you'll be buying something else alongside it or instead of it.
Unusually so. One analysis tracking 98 pricing snapshots since 2015 found Buffer simplified from five tiers to three, removed its $99 Agency plan, settled into the per-channel model around 2022, and then largely left it alone — no dramatic hikes, no enterprise pivot. In a category where Hootsuite killed its free plan and several rivals repriced upward, that stability has become a genuine selling point rather than an absence of news.
Depends on whether you want publishing or analytics. Buffer is publishing-first: cleaner, simpler, covering the major platforms with a free-forever plan and per-channel pricing. Metricool is analytics-first with per-brand tiers, deeper reporting, competitor tracking and ad data — but charges extra for X and lists prices excluding VAT. For scheduling and getting on with it, Buffer. For understanding performance across brands, Metricool.
The major ones, including newer additions like Bluesky and Mastodon alongside Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, X, Pinterest, YouTube and Threads. Coverage is broad rather than deep — platform-specific features like Instagram grid preview or Pinterest pin design belong to specialists. If your strategy is Instagram-led and visual, Later's grid planning does something Buffer doesn't attempt.
The leading GTM data platform, repriced from the ground up in March. Two plans now, two credit types, and a lot of stale advice floating around.
The category leader in revenue intelligence, priced accordingly. The per-seat number is the smallest part of what you'll actually pay.
The best backlink data in the industry, sold with a credit meter and single-seat plans that make the real cost hard to read.