Metricool vs Buffer in 2026: Free Plans, Pricing and Which to Choose

Pick Metricool if you manage one or more brands across many networks and care about numbers: analytics history, competitor tracking, ad reports and client reports. Its Starter plan costs $25 a month for up to 5 brands, or $20 a month on yearly billing, per Metricool's pricing page. Pick Buffer if you mainly want to get posts out on a few channels with as little setup as possible, if X is one of your main networks, or if you want an unlimited AI writer on a free plan. Buffer's Essentials plan costs $6 per channel a month, or $5 on yearly billing, per Buffer's pricing file. Both pages were read on October 19, 2026.

The two price models give opposite answers at different sizes. One person with 4 channels pays $24 a month on Buffer Essentials (4 times $6), a dollar under Metricool Starter. At 5 channels Buffer costs $30 and Metricool still costs $25. Add X and the order flips back, because Metricool charges $10 a month for each X account on top of the plan. Add more brands and Metricool pulls far ahead: five client brands on five networks each cost $120 a month on Buffer and $25 on Metricool Starter before X. The worked sums are in the pricing sections below.

The feature gap is just as clear. Metricool has things Buffer does not sell at any price: competitor tracking for up to 100 profiles, private messages from Facebook, Instagram and X in its inbox, Facebook Ads, Google Ads and TikTok Ads reporting, web analytics and a Looker Studio connector. Buffer has things Metricool holds back: LinkedIn and X on the free plan, an API on every plan, unlimited AI writing everywhere, Mastodon and Substack Notes as channels, and unlimited team members on its Team plan.

A word on who wrote this. We make Spreadcast, which designs and publishes social posts for apps on the App Store. Neither Metricool nor Buffer works with us, both names are trademarks of their owners, and every fact about them on this page comes from their own pricing pages, help centers and changelogs. Spreadcast gets one section near the end, for readers who have an app.

For one brand on the visual networks, Metricool Free is the bigger gift. Twenty published posts a month across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads, Pinterest, Bluesky and YouTube is close to one a weekday, and you also get 30 days of analytics, five competitors and an inbox with private messages. Metricool's article on Free and paid plans also lists what is held back: LinkedIn, X, report downloads, SmartLinks, the post library, Canva, Google Drive, Looker Studio, Make and Zapier.

For anyone who lives on LinkedIn or X, Buffer Free is the only one of the two that works, because Metricool Free cannot connect either. Buffer's limit is per channel and per moment rather than per month: 10 posts waiting in each queue, and the slot frees up when one publishes. With 3 channels and posts going out daily, that is roughly ten days of planning ahead. Buffer's video below shows how the refill works. Buffer also gives you the API, the MCP connection, unlimited AI writing and a CSV upload at $0, which Buffer's pricing file lists on the Free column.

Two details catch people out. On Metricool, posts you published earlier in the month on a paid plan still count toward the 20 after a downgrade, and the five competitors you pick can never be swapped while you stay on Free. On Buffer, upgrading means paying for every connected channel, including the 3 you had for free, and Buffer's downgrade guide says that dropping back to Free locks every channel past the third and hides post history older than 30 days.

So the free plan answer is the same as the paid one, in miniature. One brand on many networks: Metricool. Three accounts that include LinkedIn or X: Buffer. Many people run both free plans side by side, since neither blocks the other.

Metricool counts brands. Metricool's guide to brands calls a brand a folder for one client, company or project, holding at most one connection per network: a website, a Facebook Page, a professional Instagram account, Threads, X, Bluesky, a LinkedIn Page or profile, Pinterest, TikTok, a Google Business Profile location, YouTube, Twitch and three ad accounts. Adding networks to a brand costs nothing. Adding a second Instagram account means a second brand, which is free while your plan has a slot left. The bill only moves when you cross 5, 10, 15, 25 or 50 brands, or when you add X.

Buffer counts channels. Buffer's pricing file defines a channel as one connected social account, so five brands with an Instagram account and a Facebook Page each make 10 channels. Every channel is billed from the first, and the rate falls past the 10th. Buffer's FAQ calls yearly billing a 20 percent discount, but its own example table works out to two months free: $5 a month instead of $6, or $60 a year against $72, which is about 17 percent. Metricool's pricing page says yearly billing saves up to 24 percent, and the real figure depends on the plan: 20 percent on Starter ($20 against $25) and 24 percent on the 50 brand Advanced plan ($159 against $210).

The add ons are where Metricool's headline price grows. X has cost $10 a month per account since July 13, 2026, and Metricool's guide to the X add on says accounts that had the add on before then keep the old $5 rate unless they remove every X add on. The Advanced Analytics add on starts at $12 a month on Starter. A hashtag tracker costs $25 a day per network. Buffer has no add ons, so its bill is channels times rate and nothing else.

Refunds and changes differ too. Metricool's refund policy gives a 15 day withdrawal window on your first purchase only, says renewals are not refundable and says annual plans get no partial refund after that window. Buffer's refund policy offers a refund within 7 days of starting a monthly plan and within 30 days of starting an annual one. Both let you cancel at any time and keep the paid plan until the period ends, then drop to Free.

For one brand without X, the lines cross at 4 or 5 channels. On monthly billing Buffer Essentials costs $24 for 4 channels, a dollar under Metricool Starter at $25, and $30 for 5. On yearly billing they tie at 4 channels ($20 each) and Metricool is cheaper from the 5th. So a person who posts to three or four networks pays about the same either way, and anyone on five or more networks pays less on Metricool.

Add one X account and the crossing moves out by one channel. Metricool Starter with X costs $35 a month, so Buffer stays cheaper up to 5 channels ($30) and costs more from 6 ($36). On yearly billing Metricool with X is $30 a month, which Buffer matches at 6 channels (6 times $5).

For approvals the crossing sits at 5 channels too. Buffer Team costs $60 a month for 5 channels and $72 for 6, against $67 for Metricool Advanced. On yearly billing it is $50 against $53 at 5 channels and $60 against $53 at 6. Past that point Buffer's bill keeps climbing with every channel while Metricool's stays flat up to 15 brands, which can hold well over 100 accounts.

For several brands there is no contest. Metricool Starter charges the same $25 for one brand or five, so a freelancer's price per client falls to $5. Buffer charges every client account, and even with its lower rate past the 10th channel, 25 accounts cost $120. Only X narrows that gap, at $10 per X account on Metricool. The honest summary of Metricool vs Buffer pricing: Buffer is the cheaper tool for small, X heavy setups, and Metricool is the cheaper tool as soon as the setup grows.

The way you schedule is the biggest day to day difference. Buffer is built around a queue. Each channel has weekly time slots, and when you add a post Buffer puts it in the next free slot, so you never pick a date unless you want to, per Buffer's posting schedule guide. There is also a calendar, a drafts view, a board view and a CSV upload on every plan: 10 posts per channel per file on Free and 100 on paid plans, text and single image posts only and not for YouTube, per Buffer's bulk upload guide. Since September 28, 2026 one post can mix images and video.

Metricool is built around a planner. You open the calendar, create a post and give it a date and time, often guided by its best time heatmap for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn and YouTube. Metricool's planning guide lists three other ways in: autolists for recurring content, a CSV import for batches and copying posts to other brands. Metricool's autolists page describes lists that publish on a loop and can pull new items from an RSS feed, which Buffer does not offer. Metricool can also schedule polls and PDF documents and add music to videos.

Limits differ in shape. Metricool's paid plans have no post cap, with a manual review once a brand passes 600 posts in a month, per Metricool's fair use policy. Buffer's paid plans cap each channel at 5,000 scheduled posts, a limit Buffer says nobody has reached. Both send a phone reminder for posts a network will not accept from a scheduler, and Metricool's planning guide names Instagram stories with links or stickers as one case.

Buffer is stronger for a person who wants a set and forget routine on a few channels. Metricool is stronger for a planner who works by calendar, repeats evergreen content or schedules for several brands at once.

Analytics is the reason Metricool exists, and it shows. Paid plans keep unlimited history, and the charts cover your own networks, your website and your ad accounts. Metricool's guide to reports puts reports on Starter and above: a PDF or PowerPoint file with your logo, a monthly report emailed automatically to one or more recipients, and a download manager that keeps your last 100 reports. Advanced adds your own report templates and a Looker Studio connector for custom dashboards. Since May 2026 a Reporting section also holds Campaign Dashboards and Metricool Studio, an AI report builder, which Metricool's May update says are free on Starter and Advanced for a limited time before becoming a paid add on.

One limit is worth knowing before you connect anything. Metricool's article on historical data says a first connection shows the previous 30 days, and that follower counts on X, TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and personal LinkedIn profiles start counting the day you connect and cannot be recovered. Paid plans can ask support for a deeper sync. Full X analytics need Advanced.

Buffer's analytics, rebuilt in April 2026 under the name Insights, are lighter and quicker to read. Every plan shows follower growth, engagement, impressions and a table that ranks posts by engagement rate, and AI Takeaways suggest what to post next. Free keeps 30 days. Paid plans unlock last month and custom date ranges, comparisons with the previous period or the same period last year, reports and exports, with branded reports on Team, per Buffer's guide to Insights. Google Business Profiles are not covered in Insights.

Metricool is stronger here without much contest. Buffer's own comparison article, Buffer vs Metricool, says as much: it calls Metricool's reporting deeper and pitches Insights as faster for deciding the next post. If you send client reports every month, Metricool does that natively from $25.

Competitor tracking is the clearest line between the two tools. Metricool's competitors page offers up to 100 competitor profiles at once, with their followers, posts and engagement in one table you can sort and export. The free plan tracks 5, on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Twitch, and they are fixed once added. Paid plans track up to 100 and let you swap them, X competitors need the X add on, and Threads competitors arrived in May 2026.

There is a history rule here too. Metricool's article on historical data says a new competitor brings in data from the first day of the previous month, except followers and likes, which count from the day you add it, and paid plans can sync up to 300 of the competitor's posts. So add competitors early, before the quarter you want to report on.

Buffer does not offer competitor tracking on any plan, and its own comparison article says so plainly. If watching rivals is part of the job, that alone decides Metricool vs Buffer.

Metricool treats paid social as part of the job. Each brand can connect a Meta Ads account, a Google Ads account and a TikTok Ads account, the free plan included, and Metricool's ads page describes a guided creator for Google and Facebook Ads campaigns plus dashboards with impressions, clicks, conversions, cost per click and cost per thousand impressions. Paid plans sync ad data every day, except TikTok Ads. Buffer has no ad tools of any kind.

In the inbox the two cover different ground. Metricool's inbox guide lists comments and private messages on Facebook and Instagram, private messages on X, comments on TikTok business accounts and YouTube, comments and mentions on LinkedIn, and Google reviews. It does not keep history, cannot delete or hide comments and sends no alert for new messages. Buffer's Community guide covers comments on 10 networks, among them Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon, which Metricool's inbox does not list, plus X mentions, with saved replies and AI reply suggestions. It pulls in the last 30 days when you connect a channel. Buffer lists no private messages anywhere.

Metricool also sells something Buffer has no answer to: Flows, which reply to a keyword comment with a private message, for example to send a link to everyone who comments a word under a Reel. The pricing page lists Flows on Starter and above at no extra cost for a limited time.

So the inbox pick depends on your messages. If customers write privately on Instagram, Facebook or X, Metricool. If the conversation happens in comments on many networks, Buffer.

Metricool does not connect LinkedIn or X on its free plan, includes X on no plan without a $10 monthly add on per account, and keeps team members, approvals, the API, Zapier and Make for Advanced. It has no posting queue with time slots, does not list Mastodon or Substack, and connects Instagram only through business and creator accounts. Its AI writing runs on monthly credits, and its inbox keeps no history and sends no alert for new messages. A Metricool brand holds one profile per network, so two Instagram accounts for one business need two brands.

Buffer does not track competitors, report on ads, create ads, connect a website or show private messages. It has no RSS or recurring autolists, publishes YouTube Shorts rather than long videos, has no Twitch connection and leaves Google Business Profiles out of its analytics. Approvals need the Team plan at twice the Essentials rate for the first 10 channels, and upgrading from Free bills every connected channel, the first 3 included.

Both vendors publish a page comparing themselves with the other, and both pages are out of date in places. Metricool's Metricool vs Buffer page still says its free plan plans up to 50 posts a month, while its own pricing page says 20, and it puts Buffer's approvals at $110 a month, a figure Buffer's pricing does not support. Buffer's article, dated July 9, 2026, says Metricool Starter has 100 scheduled posts a month and that Metricool's inbox is on paid plans, while Metricool's pricing page shows unlimited posts on Starter and an inbox on Free. Read the pricing pages, not the rival's summary.

Buffer changed its prices in November 2025, adding the lower rate for channels past the 10th. Buffer's changelog then records post templates in the composer (March 19, 2026), TikTok, YouTube, Google Business Profile and Mastodon in the comment inbox for 10 networks in total (April 7), a rebuilt analytics product called Insights (April 14), MCP connections to Claude, ChatGPT and Perplexity (June 10), a new Home view (June 24), X mentions in the inbox (July 13), custom templates and new team permissions (July), Substack Notes as a channel (September 23), posts that mix images and video (September 28) and music and collaborators for Instagram posts (October 7, 2026). The direction is steady: new networks and native options through the year, with no price change since November 2025.

Metricool spent the year on reporting, AI and price. The X add on went from $5 to $10 a month per account on July 13, 2026. Metricool's May update opened a Reporting section with Campaign Dashboards and Metricool Studio, trending audio for Reels and trial Reels, and Threads competitors. The June update brought full post data for LinkedIn personal profiles, and the August update added an Explore insights button that answers questions about your best and worst posts. The September update split YouTube views into views and engaged views and added Instagram followers gained and lost and collaboration post metrics.

On September 10, 2026 Metricool announced official connectors for Claude and ChatGPT, open to every user, the free plan included. With Buffer's MCP live since June, both tools can now be driven from an AI assistant, which was not true of either a year ago.

Metricool and Buffer share one thing that no row above shows: both start with an empty planner. You decide what to post, design the image, write the captions and then schedule it, and the AI in either tool helps with the wording once you know what to say. For an app founder, that first step is usually why the feed goes quiet between releases.

Spreadcast does that step for apps on the App Store. You paste your App Store link once at the start page, and Spreadcast checks the listing every day. When a new version ships, it designs an update post with your own screenshot in an iPhone frame, a headline and two or three points from the release notes, in your icon colors, and writes a caption for each network. A rating milestone becomes a thank you post. Review quote posts and carousels are made on demand. You approve each post with one tap, or let paid plans publish on full autopilot.

On price, Spreadcast's Free plan drafts 3 posts for one app to download, and Pro is $29 a month or $290 a year and includes design, captions and publishing to Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, Threads, Pinterest, Bluesky and Telegram. Metricool and Buffer each reach 7 of those 8, because neither has Telegram. Seven channels on Buffer Essentials cost $42 a month (7 times $6) and Metricool Starter costs $25, $13 above and $4 below Pro, and in both every post is still yours to design and write. Studio covers 5 apps with their own brands, 50 social accounts and 3 seats for $79 a month. Plans are on the pricing page.

Spreadcast is narrower than either tool. It works only with apps on the Apple App Store, has no inbox, no competitor tracking and no ad reports, does not edit video and does not post to X. Keep Metricool or Buffer for those jobs: Metricool's free plan can measure the posts Spreadcast publishes, and Buffer's free plan is a good queue for the occasional post written by hand.

Hootsuite sits a price tier above both. Its plans page lists Standard at $99 per user a month on annual billing for up to 10 social accounts, Professional at $199 and Advanced at $399, with a 14 day trial and no free plan. What the seat buys is an inbox for messages, monitoring of your brand and competitors and ad tools in one place, for a team that answers customers all day. One person on 6 networks pays $25 on Metricool Starter, $36 on Buffer Essentials and $99 on Hootsuite Standard. Our Buffer vs Hootsuite comparison works through that pair in detail.

Later is the visual planner of the four. Its Starter plan is $18.75 a month billed yearly for one social set, which holds one profile on each of Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Snapchat, with 30 posts per profile a month and one user. Growth at $37.50 adds a social inbox and approvals for 2 users, and competitive benchmarking waits for Scale at $82.50. Later is closest to Metricool in model, since a social set works like a brand, but it lists no X and no Bluesky. Our Buffer vs Later comparison covers that pair.

The short rule across all four: Buffer for a cheap queue on a few channels, Metricool for analytics and many brands, Later for an Instagram and TikTok grid, Hootsuite for a team that lives in the inbox. And if the hard part is making the posts for an app, Spreadcast.

Everything on this page was read on October 19, 2026. For Metricool we used its pricing page, its own Metricool vs Buffer page, its about, ads, competitors, autolists, Flows and Twitch pages, four monthly product updates, its connector announcement and fourteen help center articles. For Buffer we used its pricing page, its machine readable pricing file, its changelog, its MCP page, its about page and open dashboard, its own comparison article and twelve help center articles. Prices are in US dollars before tax.

Three things could not be confirmed and are left out: whether Metricool offers a free trial of paid plans from its pricing page, a Metricool discount for nonprofits, and the price of Metricool's Starter Mobile 5 plan in the app stores. We did not quote Reddit threads or review sites, because we cannot check who wrote them, and we did not run paid accounts on either tool for this page, so nothing here is a claim about speed or reliability.

We make Spreadcast, and it appears in one section and one table. If a price or a limit here no longer matches a vendor's page, the vendor's page is right. Both tools changed prices within the last year.