Short answer: For most small businesses, Buffer is the cheapest honest start: its free plan covers three channels with unlimited AI captions, and paid plans cost $5 per channel a month on annual billing. Later is cheaper once you run four or more channels, but its Starter plan rations AI to five captions a month. Metricool is the pick when reporting matters, and Postiz is the only one built for AI agents — but it has no free plan. The four AI social media schedulers do not compete on scheduling. They compete on what they meter, so pick by the limit you will hit first.
AI social media schedulers at a glance
| Tool | What it bills you for | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan (annual) | AI rationing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buffer | Per connected channel | Yes — 3 channels, 10 posts each | $5 per channel/month | Unlimited AI Assistant credits, every plan |
| Later | Per social set (8 profiles) | No — 14-day trial only | $18.75/month | 5 AI credits/month on Starter |
| Metricool | Per brand | Yes — 1 brand, 20 posts/month | $20/month | 5 AI text credits/month on free; paid allowance unpublished |
| Postiz | Per channel bundle | No — 7-day trial; self-host free | $29/month | AI images and videos metered per plan |
Prices are US dollars from each vendor’s own pricing page, read on 8 November 2026, except Metricool, whose page did not render its price table that day — its figures come from three converging October 2026 trackers. Annual figures are monthly equivalents.
Four schedulers, four different meters
All four tools schedule posts, all four have an AI writing helper, and all four publish to the same big networks. What decides your bill is the unit each one counts. Buffer counts channels: one Instagram profile is one channel, and you pay $5 a month for each on annual billing. Later counts social sets: one set is one profile from each of eight platforms, so a single set can cover up to eight channels for a flat $18.75 a month. Metricool counts brands: one brand holds one profile per network, and the entry paid plan covers up to five brands for $20 a month. Postiz counts channel bundles: $29 buys five channels, $39 buys ten, $49 buys thirty. That is why there is no single cheapest tool — at three channels Buffer costs nothing and Later costs $18.75; at eight channels Buffer costs $40 and Later still costs $18.75. The honest question is never “which is cheapest” but “which meter will I run out of first”. Our guide to the real cost of AI tools for small businesses makes the same point: the headline price is rarely the bill.
What Buffer charges, and what its free plan really covers
Buffer’s free plan is free forever: up to three channels, ten scheduled posts per channel at a time, one user, the AI Assistant with unlimited credits, 30 days of analytics history, and a community inbox. The ten-post cap refills as posts go out, so three channels can hold 30 scheduled posts at once. Buffer’s pricing page lists all of this in plain text. Essentials costs $5 per channel a month on annual billing ($6 monthly) and removes the post cap, adding advanced analytics, a hashtag manager and first-comment scheduling. Team costs $10 per channel a month on annual billing ($12 monthly) and adds unlimited team members, approval workflows and access levels. Both paid plans come with a 14-day trial.
Two catches: upgrading means paying for every channel, including the three that were free — Buffer’s own FAQ says so. And the per-channel price falls above ten channels: Buffer’s machine-readable rate card lists Essentials at $6 a channel for 1–10, $4 for 11–25, $3 for 26–50 and $1 above 51 on monthly billing, per two trackers that read the card in October 2026. The rendered page does not show those bands, so treat them as secondary-source figures.
What Later charges, and why its cheapest plan is a trap for heavy writers
Later sells three flat tiers, metered by social set, post volume and AI credits. Starter is $18.75 a month on annual billing for one social set (up to eight profiles), one user, 30 posts per profile per month and five AI credits a month. Growth is $37.50 a month for two sets, two users, 180 posts per profile and 50 AI credits. Scale is $82.50 a month for six sets, four users, unlimited posts and 100 AI credits. All three figures are the annual-billing monthly equivalents on Later’s pricing page; the page does not publish monthly-billed rates, and the $25, $50 and $110 monthly figures quoted by trackers are derived by reversing the 25% annual discount — our calculation, not a published price.
One set is one profile from each of eight platforms, so a small business with one account on each fits inside a single $18.75 set — making Later the cheapest of the four from four channels upward. The trap is the AI ration: five credits a month on Starter means five captions, or fifteen ideas, and then the Caption Writer stops until next month. Growth’s 50 credits is the first tier where the AI feature works as a daily habit. Later’s visual calendar and best-time recommendations are the strongest planning tools here, but buy it for the calendar, not the AI, unless you are on Growth. Later has no free plan: its page lists only the three paid tiers.
What Metricool charges, and why it is really an analytics tool
Metricool’s free plan covers one brand, 20 scheduled posts a month, 30 days of analytics, five competitor profiles and five AI text credits a month — but it leaves out LinkedIn and X entirely. That matters: a free Metricool account cannot touch the two networks where most B2B small businesses actually post. Metricool’s pricing page confirms the free plan and the brand model in its FAQ, though the price table did not render when we read the page on 8 November 2026. On the figures three converging October 2026 trackers report from that page, Starter costs $20 a month on annual billing ($25 monthly) for up to five brands, or $36 a month annual for up to ten. Advanced costs $53 a month annual ($67 monthly) for up to 15 brands, $85 for 25 and $159 for 50. Both paid plans include unlimited publishing subject to fair use, LinkedIn, unlimited analytics history, downloadable reports and competitor tracking. Connecting X on a paid plan is a $10-a-month add-on per account.
The reason to pick Metricool is the reporting: competitor benchmarking, unlimited analytics history and client-ready PDF reports on a $20 plan are unmatched here. If you manage social media for clients, or report results to a boss every month, that is worth more than Buffer’s free tier. If you only need a queue, Metricool is the worst deal of the four for a single-brand business posting more than 20 times a month — you pay $20 for what Buffer gives away free at three channels.
What Postiz charges, and who its open-source angle actually suits
Postiz is the outsider: an open-source scheduler that sells hosted plans and lets technical users run the code themselves for free under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its cloud plans are Standard at $29 a month ($23 annual) for five channels, Team at $39 ($31) for ten channels with unlimited team members, Pro at $49 ($39) for 30 channels, and Ultimate at $99 ($79) for 100 channels. Every plan includes unlimited posts, the AI copilot, a public API, webhooks and a hosted MCP server, and every plan starts with a 7-day free trial. There is no permanent free cloud plan. All of this is on Postiz’s pricing page, read on 8 November 2026.
What makes Postiz different is the agent layer. Every plan, including the $29 Standard, includes the MCP server, a command-line tool, the API and webhooks, so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any other agent can schedule posts for you at no extra charge — and Postiz does not meter API use at all, where Buffer rations requests per channel. The meter here is AI media, not text: Standard includes three AI videos a month and no AI images at all. Team adds 100 AI images and ten AI videos; Pro jumps to 300 images and 30 videos. Postiz has no native mobile app as of 2026, and annual plans are not refundable — start monthly if you are unsure.
The AI rationing, side by side
| Tool | Cheapest plan’s AI allowance | What runs out first |
|---|---|---|
| Buffer | Unlimited AI Assistant credits, free included | Nothing — the 10-post queue cap binds first |
| Later | 5 credits/month (5 captions or 15 ideas) | AI credits, in the first week of daily posting |
| Metricool | 5 AI text credits/month on free | The 20-post monthly cap, then LinkedIn/X exclusion |
| Postiz | 3 AI videos/month, 0 AI images on Standard | AI images — there are none on the entry plan |
The honest read: only Buffer treats AI writing as a core feature rather than a metered extra. Later and Metricool both ration it to five units a month on their cheapest tiers — a demo, not a workflow. Postiz rations images and video instead of text. If you want AI to do the writing, count the credits before you count the channels. The same lesson applies to appointment booking — see our guide to AI scheduling and no-shows.
What we can’t confirm
Five things stayed unresolved, and we would rather list them than smooth them over.
- Later’s free plan: two trackers disagree, and the vendor’s own page lists no free tier.
- Postiz Standard post cap: one tracker lists a 400-post monthly cap on Standard; Postiz’s own page says “unlimited posts per month” on every plan.
- Later’s monthly rates: $25, $50 and $110 a month are our calculation from the published 25% annual discount.
- Metricool’s prices and paid AI allowance: its pricing page did not render its price table on 8 November 2026, so the Starter and Advanced figures come from three converging October 2026 trackers. Metricool also does not publish how many AI credits paid plans receive.
- Buffer’s volume bands: the per-channel discount above ten channels comes from Buffer’s machine-readable rate card via two trackers, not from the rendered pricing page.
Work out your own monthly bill
Enter your numbers and the calculator prices all four tools on annual billing, using the same figures quoted above. It counts Buffer per channel at $5, Later by social set, Metricool by brand, and Postiz by channel bundle, and it flags when Later’s AI credits run out. The maths is our calculation from the published prices.
Scheduler bill calculator — monthly cost on annual billing, USD.
How the maths works. Buffer is channels × $5 on Essentials, or $0 when three or fewer channels each hold ten or fewer posts. Later is priced by social set: channels are divided by eight and rounded up, because one set holds one profile per platform. Metricool is priced by brand on the annual rates above, with the free plan covering one brand and 20 posts a month in total. Postiz is priced by channel bundle. All four figures are monthly equivalents on annual billing.
Which one should you buy?
Buy Buffer if you run one to three channels and want a free plan that actually works — the only free tier here with unlimited AI writing.
Buy Later if Instagram or TikTok leads your posting and you plan visually. One social set covers eight profiles for $18.75 a month, which beats Buffer from four channels upward. Do not buy Later Starter if you need AI captions daily — five credits a month is a demo allowance, and the honest entry price for an AI-assisted workflow is Growth at $37.50. If your reviews live on Google, read our guide to AI review management for small businesses first.
Buy Metricool if you report results to clients or a boss: competitor tracking, unlimited analytics history and client-ready reports on a $20 plan are unmatched here. Do not buy it for the free plan if LinkedIn or X is your main channel — both are excluded until you pay.
Buy Postiz if you want AI agents to run your scheduling, or you self-host: no other tool here gives you an MCP server, CLI and API on the cheapest plan. Do not buy Postiz if you need a mobile app, or if you generate an AI image for every post — Standard includes none, and the real entry price for that workflow is Team at $39. For the workflow around the scheduler, see our guide to AI tools for social media management in small teams.
The short version: count your channels, your posts, your brands and your captions, in that order. The cheapest AI social media schedulers on the pricing page are rarely the cheapest for your numbers, and the AI feature that sold you the plan is the first thing to check for a meter. Run the calculator above with your real numbers before you pay for a year of anything. For the rest of the stack, see our comparison of Zapier, Make and n8n, our guide to AI search visibility, our guide to using AI for market research, and our AI CRM guide for small businesses.
Frequently asked questions
Which AI social media scheduler is cheapest for a small business?
Buffer, at $0, if you run three or fewer channels and post ten or fewer times per channel a month.
Is there a free AI social media scheduler?
Yes, two of the four. Buffer’s free plan covers three channels with unlimited AI captions, and Metricool’s free plan covers one brand and 20 posts a month, though it excludes LinkedIn and X. Later has no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and Postiz’s cloud plans start at $29 a month — though Postiz is free if you self-host it.
Does Buffer’s free plan really include unlimited AI?
Yes. Buffer’s own pricing page lists the AI Assistant with “unlimited credits” on every plan, including free.
How many AI captions does Later’s Starter plan include?
Five AI credits a month. One credit generates three content ideas or one caption, so Starter covers about five captions a month; Growth raises that to 50 credits and Scale to 100.
Is Postiz really free to self-host?
Yes, under the AGPL-3.0 open-source licence — you run the server and set up each network connection yourself. The hosted cloud version is not free: it starts at $29 a month with a 7-day trial.
Which scheduler is best for managing several client brands?
Metricool, priced per brand rather than per channel: Starter covers up to five brands for $20 a month on annual billing, with client reporting built in.
Shurah is the founder of AI Tools Daily, tracking pricing, licensing and policy changes across AI tools so readers can make decisions without wading through marketing claims themselves.
