The 10 tools at a glance
Every price below is the vendor's own published starting price, read on 27 October 2026, in US dollars. Where a vendor publishes only a quote, or its page did not show a price we could read, the table says so rather than guessing. Plans change often, so check the linked page before buying.
| Tool | Type | What it is for | Free plan? | Starting price (as of Oct 2026) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buffer | Scheduler | Queueing and publishing posts for individuals and small teams | Yes: 3 channels | $5 per channel per month (Essentials) | buffer.com/pricing |
| Hootsuite | Scheduler and inbox | Publishing, engagement and analytics for social teams | No; 14-day trial | $99 per user per month (Standard, 10 accounts) | hootsuite.com/plans |
| Sprout Social | Management suite | Publishing, reporting and collaboration for larger teams | No; 30-day trial | $99 per seat per month billed monthly (Essentials, 5 profiles) | sproutsocial.com/pricing |
| Zoho Social | Scheduler and reporting | Scheduling and cross-channel reports for small businesses | Yes: 1 brand, 6 channels | Not shown in a readable form; see the page | zoho.com/social/pricing |
| Metricool | Scheduler and analytics | Scheduling with analytics for creators and agencies | Yes: 1 brand, 20 posts a month | $25 per month billed monthly for up to 5 brands (Starter) | metricool.com/pricing |
| Metrics Watch | Reporting | Automated marketing reports delivered by email | No; 14-day trial | $49 per month for up to 2 reports (Startup) | metricswatch.com/pricing |
| Rival IQ | Competitive analytics | Benchmarking social performance against competitors | No; 14-day trial | $239 per month (Drive) | rivaliq.com/pricing |
| Mentionlytics | Social listening | Monitoring brand mentions across the web and social | No; 14-day trial | $49 per month billed yearly (Basic) | mentionlytics.com/pricing |
| BuzzSumo | Content research | Finding popular topics, content and influencers | No | $199 per month billed yearly (Content Creation) | buzzsumo.com/pricing |
| Brandwatch | Consumer intelligence | Social listening and audience research for enterprises | No; demo only | Quote on request | brandwatch.com/pricing |
The selection follows the tools named in Whatagraph's social analytics roundup and Four Pillars' 2026 tools list, with Metricool added as a widely used scheduler. The order is by type, not a ranking.
The schedulers
Buffer is the simplest of the five. The free plan covers 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts per channel at a time, and paid plans are billed per channel: Essentials at $5 and Team at $10 per channel per month. That keeps one brand cheap and makes the bill grow with every account. The review of whether Buffer is a good fit works through the arithmetic.
Hootsuite adds an engagement inbox, listening and analytics to publishing. It bills per user, from $99 a month on Standard with 10 social accounts, then $199 on Professional with unlimited accounts. A second person doubles the bill, which is the main thing to price. See what Hootsuite does and its limits for more.
Sprout Social is aimed at mid-size and enterprise teams that want publishing, reporting and collaboration in one system. Essentials is $99 per seat per month on monthly billing with 5 social profiles; unlimited profiles start on Professional. It is the most expensive scheduler here per person.
Zoho Social has a permanent free plan for 1 brand, 6 channels and 1 team member, which the account drops to after a 15-day trial. Paid plans add brands, channels and team members; its pricing page did not show prices in a form we could read on 27 October 2026, so check it directly.
Metricool pairs scheduling with analytics. The free plan covers 1 brand and 20 scheduled posts a month but excludes LinkedIn and X. Starter is $25 a month billed monthly for up to 5 brands, which makes it one of the cheaper options for agencies with several small clients.
The analytics, listening and research tools
Metrics Watch does not publish posts. It turns marketing data into scheduled email reports, from $49 a month for 2 reports. It suits an agency whose clients want a report in their inbox rather than a dashboard login.
Rival IQ benchmarks your social performance against competitors, from $239 a month on Drive. It answers "how do we compare?" rather than "did our post go out?", and is worth it only when competitor benchmarking drives decisions.
Mentionlytics monitors mentions of a brand across social networks and the web, from $49 a month billed yearly on Basic. It suits brands that need to hear about conversations they were not tagged in.
BuzzSumo researches which topics and pieces of content perform, and finds influencers and journalists, from $199 a month billed yearly. It is a planning tool for content teams, not a publishing console.
Brandwatch is an enterprise consumer-intelligence and listening platform. It publishes no prices and sells through demos, which is itself a signal: it is built for large budgets and dedicated analysts.
Separate publishing from analytics before choosing
Publishing tools move content to networks, while analytics tools explain what happened afterwards. Some products do both, but the quality of those jobs can differ. Judge a publisher on scheduling, account connections, delivery confirmation, retries and failure alerts; judge an analytics product on the data it collects and the decisions it supports.
Check these questions before treating a tool as a complete solution:
- Can the tool confirm that each network accepted the post?
- Can it distinguish an accepted post from one that later failed or disappeared?
- Does it retry a temporary failure without creating duplicates?
- Does reporting cover the networks and metrics that matter to the account?
- Are listening, inbox, link-in-bio and planning features actually needed?
A dashboard full of charts does not prove a post was delivered, and a delivery confirmation does not tell you whether the post performed well. Keep those two checks separate even when one product offers both. The guide to choosing a tool that proves posts went live covers the publishing side in depth.
Calculate the real cost of connected accounts
The real cost of a social media tool is the price of the seats, brands and channels your operation needs, not the advertised starting plan. The three billing units above behave very differently as you grow. Take one person running six brands on five networks each, 30 channels in all, at the October 2026 list prices:
- Buffer Essentials, per channel: up to $150 a month (30 × $5) before Buffer's unpublished discount for channels beyond 10.
- Hootsuite, per user: 30 accounts exceeds Standard's 10, so Professional at $199 a month for one person.
- Sprout Social, per seat: 30 profiles exceeds Essentials' 5, so Professional at $299 per seat a month as listed.
- Metricool, per brand band: six brands is above Starter's 5, so the next Starter band at $45 a month billed monthly.
Write down your brands, channels and people before comparing, and recalculate after the next client joins. The guide to scheduling without per-account fees looks at the billing models in more detail.
PostWharf, the tool we make, is not in the list above because it is not yet one of the popular ten. It is a scheduler priced per brand workspace with unlimited channels, from $15 a month, with a REST API, CLI and MCP server included. It has no listening, inbox or analytics dashboard, so it competes with the schedulers in the table, not with the other five.
Official sources to check
- Whatagraph (whatagraph.com)
- Four Pillars (fourpillars.in)
Common questions
What are the most popular social media management tools?
Among schedulers, Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Zoho Social and Metricool are the most widely used. Metrics Watch, Rival IQ, Mentionlytics, BuzzSumo and Brandwatch are popular too, but they handle reporting, competitor benchmarking, listening and content research rather than publishing.
Which social media tools have a free plan?
Of the ten, three have a permanent free plan as of October 2026: Buffer (3 channels), Zoho Social (1 brand, 6 channels) and Metricool (1 brand, 20 posts a month). Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Metrics Watch, Rival IQ and Mentionlytics offer free trials instead, and Brandwatch offers only a demo.
What is the cheapest social media scheduler for a small business?
For one brand on up to 3 channels, Buffer's free plan costs nothing. Past that, Buffer Essentials is $5 per channel per month and Metricool Starter is $25 a month for up to 5 brands, as of October 2026. Which is cheaper depends on how many channels you connect.
How much does Hootsuite cost compared with Sprout Social?
As of October 2026, Hootsuite starts at $99 per user per month with 10 social accounts, and Sprout Social starts at $99 per seat per month on monthly billing with 5 social profiles. Both charge per person, so a team of three pays three times the starting price.
What is the best social media tool for an individual?
An individual on a few channels is usually best served by Buffer's free plan or Metricool's free plan, depending on whether you need LinkedIn and X (Metricool's free plan excludes both). Listening and benchmarking tools such as Mentionlytics or Rival IQ are rarely worth their price for one person.
PostWharf is priced per workspace rather than per connected channel, and every plan carries unlimited channels. See per-brand pricing.