The Cheapest Social Media Schedulers for Multiple Platforms (2026 Pricing)

If the budget is literally zero and you run one brand, start here. Metricool's Free plan connects one profile on each of 9 networks (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest, Twitch and Google Business Profile) and adds 30 days of analytics, an AI assistant and its MCP connector, so Claude or ChatGPT can read your numbers. The limits are volume and coverage: 20 scheduled posts a month, and no LinkedIn or X until you pay.

The paid plans are cheap for brands on many networks because Metricool counts brands, not accounts. Starter at $20 a month billed yearly ($25 month to month) covers up to 5 brands, and each brand holds one profile per network, so Northbeam Coffee on eight networks costs the same as a fitness coach on two. X is the exception: it costs $10 a month per account on top of any plan since July 2026 (it was $5). API access, post approvals and team roles start at Advanced, $53 a month billed yearly for 15 brands.

Buffer's per-channel model gives the cleanest low-end math in this list: one channel costs $6 a month ($5 billed yearly), three cost $18 ($15), and the Free plan runs three channels at $0. The Free plan also carries more than it used to: the AI Assistant, 30 days of analytics, the comment inbox, an API key and Buffer's official MCP server, so Claude or ChatGPT can draft and schedule for you. For a small presence, a SaaS founder on LinkedIn and X for example, nothing here is simpler.

The model gets expensive as you add channels, even with the volume break Buffer introduced in November 2025 ($4 a channel from the 11th). Our table shows Buffer at $60 a month for 10 channels billed monthly, against $36 for Publer and $39 for post-bridge or Postiz cloud; at 25 channels it reaches $120. On the Free plan the real limit is the queue: 10 scheduled posts per channel, which one post a day fills in 10 days. Know where your channel count is heading before you commit to per-channel pricing.

Publer prices per account with volume breaks: $5 a month for one account, $4 each from three, and every 10th account free, with 20% off on yearly billing. That puts Professional at $12 a month for 3 accounts, $20 for 5 and $36 for 10 (billed monthly), and it keeps features budget plans often hold back: first comments, X threads, RSS automations and unlimited workspaces. For someone posting a lot across a growing account list, it is the cheapest serious paid option at 5 accounts.

Read the plan list before comparing stickers. Analytics reports, best times to post, unlimited AI prompts and access to Publer's API and MCP server all sit on Business, at $7 an account ($21 for 3, $63 for 10). If you need those, Publer at 5 accounts costs $35 a month billed monthly, more than Buffer ($30), Breakreach or Postiz cloud ($29). Publer wins when you want cheap scheduling at volume and read your numbers in each network's own app.

Breakreach sells two flat tiers, 5 accounts for $29 a month ($23 billed yearly) and 15 for $49 ($39), and an Agency plan at $69 a month that includes 50 accounts and adds $2 per account past 50, billed monthly. Every plan includes the REST API and the MCP server, and Breakreach is listed in Claude's connector directory and ChatGPT's plugin directory, so you connect with OAuth and ask the assistant to schedule posts, pull analytics or answer comments. The network list covers ones budget tools often skip: Reddit posts with flair, Telegram channels, Discord, Bluesky and TikTok photo posts of up to 35 images.

The honest price check: Breakreach sits mid-pack in this table. At 5 accounts it ties Postiz cloud ($23 billed yearly) and costs $2 less than Buffer, which also includes an API and an MCP server. From 10 accounts, Postiz cloud and post-bridge cost less, and Publer or Metricool cost less still if you don't need an API. There is no free plan, Starter includes only 50 AI agent messages a month, and the small tiers step: a sixth account means Pro, a sixteenth means Agency. It fits someone who runs 5 accounts or a few hundred from Claude or ChatGPT, needs Reddit, Telegram or Discord next to the usual networks, and wants one flat bill.

post-bridge now sells two plans. Marketer costs $39 a month ($390 a year, so $32.50 a month) for 15 accounts with unlimited posts, carousels, bulk video scheduling, the API and an MCP connection for AI agents. Operator costs $99 a month for 99 accounts plus $1 for each account after that, and adds team members. The product is built for one person cross-posting quickly, and the pricing page says so.

Whether it is cheap depends on your count. At 3 or 5 accounts you pay for 15, so Breakreach, Postiz cloud or Buffer come in lower ($23 to $25 billed yearly). At 10 accounts it costs $32.50 billed yearly, against $31 for Postiz Team and $39 for Breakreach Pro; from 11 to 15 accounts it is the cheapest plan here with an API, since Postiz's next tier costs $39. At 25 accounts you jump to Operator at $82.50 billed yearly, above Breakreach Agency ($69 a month) and more than twice Postiz cloud Pro ($39).

Post Planner is the cheapest way into a paid plan here: Starter costs $9 a month billed yearly ($108 a year) or $14 month to month, for 3 accounts, 150 scheduled posts and unlimited AI captions and hashtags. It leans on curation: it suggests trending articles and media to share, sorts your posts into categories and recycles the evergreen ones. Northbeam Coffee posting to Instagram, Facebook and Google Business fits Starter exactly.

The plan is narrow, though. X and Pinterest stay locked until Growth, which costs $39 a month billed yearly ($59 monthly) for 15 accounts, so a fourth account more than quadruples the bill. At 25 accounts, Business costs $69 billed yearly, the third-lowest price in our table. We found no public API or MCP server on its site, so it is a dashboard-only tool. The Free plan (1 account, 10 scheduled posts, 3 posts a day) works as a long trial rather than a home.

Postiz is open source (AGPL-3.0) with a hosted version, and the hosted plans are the surprise of this table. Standard costs $29 a month ($23 billed yearly) for 5 channels, Team $39 ($31) for 10, Pro $49 ($39) for 30 and Ultimate $99 ($79) for 100, all with unlimited posts, analytics, webhooks, an AI agent, the public API and an MCP server. At 10 accounts that is the cheapest plan with an API in our table, and at 25 it undercuts every hosted option except Metricool's per-brand pricing.

Self-hosting is the true flat zero: a small server (Postiz's tested setup is 2 vCPUs and 2 GB of RAM) runs 5 accounts or 50 for about the same ~$8 a month. The bill is paid in hours. You register a developer app on every network and pass its review before you can post: Meta's App Review for Instagram and Facebook, TikTok's content-posting audit, and so on, which takes days to weeks. After that, each platform API change is yours to patch for as long as you run it. If tinkering is the hobby, this is the best deal on the page; if your hours cost money, the cloud plans are the cheaper way to use Postiz.