Leaving Later, or not

Later alternatives: what you lose and gain across 7 tools

A checklist for the person deciding whether to leave Later and where to go, organized by the five reasons people leave, with every Later and rival figure read off the vendor's own page on 8 September 2026 with both billing toggles pressed. Written by a company that sells one of the seven, and says so.

Start free

Ours is free every week: 3 posts, 1 video, 1 cross-post, plus 300 credits a month refilled forever. No card required, and free-plan media carries a small watermark.

The short answer

Metricool if the plan ceiling is why you are leaving, Buffer if you only ever used the queue and want the cheapest one, SpeedRun Social if the calendar is empty because nobody made anything to put in it. Those are the three Later alternatives this page keeps coming back to, each for one reason.

This page is organized by the reason a person leaves Later rather than by a score. There are five, every one of them read off later.com/pricing on 8 September 2026 and none off a rival's blog, and under each reason you will find which of seven tools removes that ceiling, which only moves it, and which keeps it.

One of the seven is ours. SpeedRun Social sits third, behind two schedulers that cost less, and the only reason it is on the list at all is the fifth one: none of the other six will make the post. Whether you should leave Later is a question this page tries to answer honestly, including with no.

What your Later plan gives you today, from later.com

Every reason below is measured against this card. Read on 8 September 2026 with both billing toggles pressed; the yearly row comes first because that is the one the page opens on.

Later's three plans by seven limits, read from later.com on 8 September 2026.
LimitStarterGrowthScale
A month, billed yearly$18.75$37.50$82.50
A month, billed monthly$25.00$50.00$110.00
Social sets (profiles)1 set (8 profiles)2 sets (16 profiles)6 sets (48 profiles)
Users1 user2 users4 users
Scheduled posts per profile a month30180Unlimited
AI credits a month550100
Analytics history3 months1 year2 years

The page lists no free plan, only a 14-day free trial, and opens with its yearly toggle selected under a "3 months free, 25% off" badge. Extra social sets, users and AI credits are not available on Starter at all; on Growth and Scale an extra set was $15 a month, an extra user $5 and 100 extra AI credits $5, all billed monthly, or $11.25, $3.75 and $3.75 billed yearly. Prices are in USD and taxes are extra. later.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026

Five reasons people leave Later, and what each one costs you if you stay

Each reason is a line on Later's own card above, never a line from a rival's blog. If none of the five is yours, the honest answer may be to stay.

  1. There is no free plan under the trial

    You lose
    Later's card lists a 14-day free trial and then three paid plans, so the day the trial ends, the account does too unless you pay. A business that posts twice a week is paying the Starter price for a calendar it barely fills.
    You gain by switching
    Four of the seven tools below keep a plan that costs nothing and does not expire, and for a business on two or three channels that free plan is often the whole answer rather than a demo of it.
    Tools that fix it
    Metricool, Buffer, SpeedRun Social, Publer

  2. Thirty posts per profile, priced by the social set

    You lose
    Starter holds 30 scheduled posts per profile a month inside 1 social set, and its own card says extra sets cannot be bought on it. A second brand, or one busy month, means Growth at double the price.
    You gain by switching
    The tool that removes this publishes no per-profile post cap and sells several brands at the price Later charged for one set. Four others move the ceiling rather than remove it: no post cap, but a bill that grows with every channel or seat.
    Tools that fix it
    Metricool

  3. One user, and no add-ons on Starter

    You lose
    Starter seats 1 user and its card says extra users are not available on it, so the first person you want to hand the calendar to costs the jump to Growth, not the $5 a month billed monthly, or $3.75 billed yearly, that a second seat costs there.
    You gain by switching
    Switching gets a second person for the price of a second person, or for nothing: Planable seats unlimited users on every plan, Publer sells extra members on a counter, and Buffer's Team plan takes unlimited team members at a higher per-channel rate.
    Tools that fix it
    Planable, Publer

  4. Three months of analytics history

    You lose
    Starter keeps 3 months of analytics. The comparison every owner actually wants, this September against last September, is not in the plan you are paying for, and the history you build is gone when you leave.
    You gain by switching
    One tool below says its paid analytics history has no limit, one reaches two years on its second tier, and the rest either sell analytics as an add-on or print no history window at all, which is worth knowing before you count it as a reason to move.
    Tools that fix it
    Metricool

  5. The post still has to exist before Later can schedule it

    You lose
    Every Later plan schedules media you already made. If the feed went quiet because nobody shot the photo or wrote the caption, a cheaper scheduler leaves you with a cheaper empty calendar.
    You gain by switching
    One tool on this list starts from your website and hands back the caption, the image and the short video together, held in an approval queue until you release them. That is the only version of switching that changes what shows up on the feed.
    Tools that fix it
    SpeedRun Social

The switcher's checklist: 7 tools, keep / give up / gain

No crowns and no verdicts. Each tool is stated as what a Later user keeps, gives up and gains by moving to it, with the price and the limit read off the vendor's own page on 8 September 2026.

  1. Metricool

    What you keep
    The planner, the analytics and a link-in-bio page, which is most of what Later sold you, plus a calendar that looks familiar on day one.
    What you give up
    Later's social-set bundling and its Instagram-first feel. Metricool's free plan leaves out LinkedIn and X, and unlimited publishing on paid plans sits under a fair use policy.
    What you gain
    Several brands at the price Later charged for one set, publishing with no per-profile post cap, analytics history the page says does not expire, and a free plan under it all.
    What it costs
    The page prices in USD and opens on its "Annual (save up to 24%)" toggle. Free was listed at $0 a month. Billed annually it listed Starter from $20 a month and Advanced from $53; billed monthly the same two read from $25 and from $67. Inside Starter the bands were up to 5 brands for $20 a month annually or $25 monthly, and up to 10 brands for $36 or $45. Inside Advanced they were 15 brands for $53 or $67, 25 brands for $85 or $107, and 50 brands for $159 or $210. A Custom tier is quoted on request, and the page states the figures exclude applicable VAT. metricool.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026
    Where it runs out
    The free plan covers 1 brand, connects every supported network except LinkedIn and X, caps scheduling at 20 posts a month, analyses 5 competitor profiles and keeps 30 days of analytics. Team and client management, role management and the post approval system start on Advanced, and the page footnotes that unlimited publishing on paid plans is held to a fair use policy. metricool.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026

  2. Buffer

    What you keep
    The queue and the calendar, plus a community inbox on every plan including free, which Later sold only from Growth up.
    What you give up
    Plan-shaped pricing. Buffer charges per channel, so the bill climbs with every account you connect, and a second person means the Team plan.
    What you gain
    A free tier for three channels, and the smallest paid bill on this page if all you ever used Later for was lining posts up.
    What it costs
    Free was listed at $0 forever: up to 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel that refill, 100 ideas and 1 user account. The page opens on its Yearly toggle. Billed monthly it listed Essentials at $6 a month per channel and Team at $12; billed yearly the same two read $5 and $10 a month per channel, printed as $60 and $120 a year for one channel and badged "save 2 months". Both paid plans start with a 14-day free trial. buffer.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026
    Where it runs out
    Buffer publishes what you bring it, so the photography and the writing stay your job. It also charges per channel, so the bill rises with every account connected. Free and Essentials each list a single user account, while team members, access levels and content approval workflows begin on Team. buffer.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026

  3. SpeedRun Social

    our product
    What you keep
    The approval step: nothing publishes until you release it, and one schedule sends the week out natively to the accounts you connect.
    What you give up
    The link-in-bio page, the social inbox and social listening. A business whose Later habit was answering comments keeps that job somewhere else.
    What you gain
    The posts themselves. It reads your website into a brand kit and generates the caption, the image and the short video together, then holds them for approval. Disclosure: this is our product, and we put it third on our own list.
    What it costs
    Free plan at $0: 300 credits a month refilled forever, 1 free campaign a week (3 posts, 1 video, 1 cross-post), no card required, and media watermarked on the free plan. Paid plans are $49.99, $99.99 and $199.99 a month billed monthly, or $39.99, $79.99 and $159.99 a month billed annually. speedrunsocial.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026
    Where it runs out
    Free-plan media carries a watermark. There is no link-in-bio page, no social listening and no shared inbox, so a business whose Later habit was answering comments keeps that job elsewhere: Buffer lists a community inbox on every plan including free, and Planable sells a social inbox as an add-on. speedrunsocial.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026

  4. Publer

    What you keep
    A scheduler with a calendar, first-comment scheduling and a link-in-bio, priced low enough that a two-channel business barely notices it.
    What you give up
    Analytics, best times to post and competitor analysis until the Business plan, and X on the free plan. The total climbs with every account you add to the counter.
    What you gain
    The cheapest paid entry on the page, a free plan that does not expire, and extra team members bought one at a time instead of by jumping a tier.
    What it costs
    Publer's pricing link resolves to publer.com/plans, where a Social Accounts counter sets the price and the billing toggle offers Monthly or Yearly with "2 months free"; the page opens on Yearly. Free was listed at $0.00 forever. With the counter at its default of 1 social account, Professional was $5.00 a month billed monthly or $4.00 a month billed yearly, and Business $10.00 or $8.00. The page states that for every 9 social accounts the 10th is free, and the same for additional members. Professional carries a 7-day free trial, Business a 14-day one, and Enterprise is quoted on request. publer.com/plans, read 8 September 2026
    Where it runs out
    The free plan connects 3 social accounts, cannot connect X at all, holds 10 scheduled posts per account and 25 saved drafts, and keeps published post history for 24 hours. Analytics, competitor analysis, best times to post and unlimited AI prompts start on Business, and because the price is set by the account counter, the total climbs with every channel added. publer.com/plans, read 8 September 2026

  5. SocialBee

    What you keep
    Scheduling and analytics at roughly Later's Starter price, with 5 profiles connected instead of one social set of eight.
    What you give up
    A free plan (SocialBee offers a trial only), a second user until Pro, and analytics beyond 3 months until Accelerate: the same two ceilings you left Later over, one tier up.
    What you gain
    Categories that recycle evergreen posts on rotation, unlimited AI caption generation on every plan, and a 30-day money-back window on top of the trial.
    What it costs
    The plans open on a Yearly toggle badged "16% off", and the comparison table further down prices both modes outright: Bootstrap at $29 a month billed monthly or $290 a year billed annually, Accelerate at $49 or $490, and Pro at $99 or $990. The cards render those annual plans as $24.20, $40.80 and $82.50 a month. Bootstrap connects 5 social profiles, Accelerate 10 and Pro 25. The page offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card and a 30-day money-back guarantee. socialbee.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026
    Where it runs out
    No free plan appears on the page, only the trial. Bootstrap and Accelerate each seat 1 user in 1 workspace, so a second person means Pro, which seats 3 users across 5 workspaces. The post approval system starts on Accelerate, and Bootstrap keeps 3 months of analytics against 2 years on the tiers above it. socialbee.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026

  6. Planable

    What you keep
    A calendar and a feed view the whole team can see, with the approval round Later sells only from Growth built into every plan.
    What you give up
    A post cap, again: 60 posts per workspace a month across 4 pages on Basic. Analytics and the inbox are paid add-ons, and the bill follows workspaces.
    What you gain
    Unlimited users on every plan, layered approval with comments on the post itself, and the first 50 posts free with no clock running.
    What it costs
    The page opens on its Yearly toggle, branded "2 months free", and prices per workspace rather than per channel or per seat. Billed monthly it listed Basic at $39 per workspace a month and Pro at $59; billed yearly the same two read $33 and $49. The Analytics add-on was $14 per workspace a month billed monthly or $12 billed yearly, the social inbox $9 or $7.50, and a social listening add-on $99 or $82.50. Enterprise is custom priced. The page offers the first 50 posts free with no time limit and no credit card. planable.io/pricing, read 8 September 2026
    Where it runs out
    Basic holds 60 posts per workspace a month across 4 social pages and Pro 150 posts across 10, so the post ceiling that pushes people off Later exists here too. Analytics, the social inbox and social listening are paid add-ons rather than plan features. Users are unlimited, which means the bill follows workspaces: one brand pays for one, and an agency pays per client. planable.io/pricing, read 8 September 2026

  7. Sprout Social

    What you keep
    Scheduling, reporting and an inbox, with review management and keyword monitoring from Standard up, which Later does not sell at all.
    What you give up
    Small-business pricing. Every figure is per seat, so the second person doubles it, and Essentials and Standard connect 5 profiles against Later's set of eight.
    What you gain
    The tier above everything else here: a shared inbox, reporting a board will read, and 30 days to try it without a card.
    What it costs
    The pricing page states "No credit card required. Annual billing." under its 30-day trial headline and prices per seat. Essentials was listed at $79 per seat a month with "$99 per seat/month billed monthly" printed beside it; Standard at $199 per seat a month, Professional at $299 and Advanced at $399 on that annual billing, with the page's own billing FAQ, "What is the difference between annual and monthly billing?", listing the monthly billing prices for all four plans: $99, $249, $399 and $499 per seat a month. Enterprise stayed quoted on request. sproutsocial.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026
    Where it runs out
    Essentials and Standard connect 5 social profiles; unlimited profiles start on Professional. Every figure is per seat, so a second person doubles it, and the page sells Social Insights, Premium Analytics, Listening and Employee Advocacy as add-ons on top of the seat price, from Standard up. sproutsocial.com/pricing, read 8 September 2026

Reason-to-tool matrix

Find your row, read across. Removes means the ceiling is gone on the entry plan; partly means it moved; same ceiling means it is still there. Every note is a reading of the vendor's own plan card.

Five reasons for leaving Later against seven tools, each cell marked removes, partly or same ceiling.
ReasonMetricoolBufferSpeedRun SocialPublerSocialBeePlanableSprout Social
There is no free plan under the trialremovesFree plan: 1 brand, 20 scheduled posts a month, 30 days of analytics.removesFree forever: 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel.removesFree plan with 300 credits a month refilled forever, no card.removesFree forever: 3 social accounts, no X, 24 hours of post history.same ceilingA 14-day trial, then Bootstrap; no free plan on the page.partlyThe first 50 posts free with no time limit, then a paid workspace.same ceilingA 30-day trial with no card, then a per-seat plan.
Thirty posts per profile, priced by the social setremovesPublishing the page calls unlimited under fair use, up to 5 brands on Starter.partlyUnlimited scheduled posts on Essentials, but the bill grows per channel.partlyNo per-profile cap; output is metered by credits, one free campaign a week.partlyUnlimited scheduling on Professional, priced per social account.partly5 profiles on Bootstrap and no per-profile post figure on the card, at a higher price than Starter.same ceiling60 posts per workspace a month across 4 pages on Basic.partly5 profiles on Essentials and no post cap printed, but every seat is paid.
One user, and no add-ons on StarterpartlyTeam, client and role management start on Advanced.partlyOne user on Free and Essentials; unlimited team members on Team.partlyPriced once per business rather than per seat; the one add-on is a credit top-up.removesExtra members bought on the counter; every tenth is free.same ceiling1 user on Bootstrap and Accelerate; 3 users start on Pro.removesUnlimited users on every plan, including Basic.partlyAny number of seats, each at the full per-seat price.
Three months of analytics historyremovesAnalytics with unlimited history on paid plans; 30 days on free.partlyAdvanced analytics on Essentials; no history window printed on the card.same ceilingNot what it sells: it makes the posts and prints no analytics history window.partlyAnalytics start on Business; no history window printed on the card.partly3 months on Bootstrap, the same window; 2 years from Accelerate up.partlyAnalytics is a paid add-on per workspace, not a plan feature.partlyReporting on every plan; no history window printed on the pricing page.
The post still has to exist before Later can schedule itpartlyAn AI assistant writes captions on a credit allowance; the photo is yours.partlyAI Assistant on every plan rewrites text; the media is yours.removesGenerates the caption, the image and the short video, then holds them for approval.partlyUnlimited AI prompts on Business, for text; the media is yours.partlyUnlimited AI content generation on every plan, for text; the media is yours.partlyAI post generate and rewrite, for text; the media is yours.partlyEnhance Post by AI Assist from Professional up, for text; the media is yours.

What a generator hands a visual business instead of an empty calendar

Thistle & Fern Florals

Demo brand

Generated post: a finished autumn-toned floral arrangement in a low urn vase on a florist's workbench with loose stems and clippers scattered nearby, headline about building arrangements stem by stem with same-day delivery baked into the image

Thistle & Fern Florals

Demo brand

Generated post: two pairs of hands passing a kraft-paper-wrapped bouquet across a counter, headline about fresh flowers wrapped for same-day delivery baked into the image

Thistle & Fern Florals

Demo brand

Generated post: the open rear doors of a delivery van showing boxed flower arrangements stacked on shelves inside, headline about fresh-from-market same-day delivery baked into the image

Real generator output for Thistle & Fern Florals, a demo brand we built ourselves to show a trade we have no customer in yet.

Before you cancel: a six-step export checklist

Whichever tool you land on, and even if you stay, these six things are cheaper to save tonight than to rebuild in a month.

  1. Download every original photo and video

    Wherever the scheduler stores the media you uploaded, pull every original down to a folder on your own machine before you cancel, and check the count against what you remember uploading. For some businesses the scheduler's copy is the only copy of their own product shots.

  2. Copy the captions and hashtag sets out

    Open the posts that worked and paste the captions into a plain text file, one per line, with the hashtag sets underneath. Saved hashtag groups do not travel between tools, and rewriting thirty captions from memory is the job that makes people give up on the switch halfway.

  3. Write down the posting times you settled on

    You spent months learning that Tuesday at seven beats Sunday at noon for your account. That knowledge lives in your head and in the old calendar, not in an export, so note the day and time slots per channel before the calendar is gone.

  4. Screenshot the analytics window you are about to lose

    Whatever history the old plan kept, take a screenshot of each channel's overview and top posts for the full window it shows. History does not move with you, and a screenshot is enough to compare against the new tool three months in.

  5. List every connected profile and who owns its login

    Write down each connected profile, the email or phone number that owns it, and who on your side can get into it. Reconnecting in a new tool asks for those logins, and the one nobody can find is usually the Facebook page an old employee set up.

  6. Time the switch to the new tool's trial window

    Start the new tool the week the old calendar is still running, load the same week into both, and cancel the old one only after a real post has gone out from the new one. A free plan makes this cheap; a trial makes it a deadline, so put the trial's end date in your calendar the day you start it.

How this page was built

The bias first: we build SpeedRun Social, and it sits third on this list. A vendor wrote most of the roundups in this category too; the difference here is that we say so above the list rather than below it, and that ours is on it for one reason only.

Every figure was read on 8 September 2026 off the vendor's own pricing page, in a real browser, and each one links back to the page it came from. Where a page hid its second price behind a billing toggle we pressed the toggle and re-read the numbers after they changed, and both modes are printed for every vendor, ours included. Nothing here is repeated from another roundup, a review site or an AI answer.

The page is organized by the reason a person leaves Later, and each of the five is derived from a line on Later's own pricing card: the 14-day trial with no free plan under it, the 30-post ceiling and the social-set pricing, the single user with no add-ons on Starter, the 3-month analytics window, and the plain fact that a scheduler schedules what already exists. No reason here comes from a rival's blog, and Later itself is never ranked.

No stars, no scores, no bake-off: nobody ran one. Where a cell in the matrix says a tool only partly removes a ceiling, that is a reading of the vendor's own plan card rather than a test, and the sourced line under each entry exists so you can check the reading against the page today instead of taking ours.

Questions people ask before leaving Later

  • What is the best Later alternative for a small business?

    It depends on which reason brought you here. If the plan ceiling did, Metricool: its Starter tier was from $25 a month billed monthly or from $20 billed annually for up to 5 brands, with publishing it calls unlimited under a fair use policy and analytics history it says has no limit, against Later's $25.00 billed monthly or $18.75 billed yearly for one social set, 30 posts per profile and 3 months of analytics (both pages read 8 September 2026). If you only used the queue, Buffer, at $6 a month per channel billed monthly or $5 billed yearly, with a free tier. If the posts themselves are what is missing, that is what SpeedRun Social does, and it starts free.

  • Does Later have a free plan or only a free trial?

    Only a trial. On 8 September 2026 later.com/pricing offered a 14-day free trial and three paid plans: Starter, Growth and Scale at $25.00, $50.00 and $110.00 a month billed monthly, or $18.75, $37.50 and $82.50 a month billed yearly. The page opens with the yearly toggle selected, so the figure most people quote is the one that comes with a twelve-month commitment.

  • Is there a free Later alternative that does not expire?

    Four on this page. Metricool's free plan covers 1 brand, every network except LinkedIn and X, and 20 scheduled posts a month. Buffer's covers 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts each. Publer's covers 3 social accounts, excluding X, with 24 hours of post history. Ours is 300 credits a month refilled forever, 1 free campaign a week (3 posts, 1 video, 1 cross-post), no card required, and media watermarked on the free plan. Planable gives the first 50 posts free with no time limit, which is an allotment rather than a plan; SocialBee and Sprout Social offer trials only.

  • What does Later's Starter plan actually limit?

    Read on 8 September 2026, Starter carried 1 social set of 8 profiles, 1 user, 30 scheduled posts per profile a month, 5 AI credits a month and 3 months of analytics history, and its card stated that extra social sets, extra users and extra AI credits are not available on it. So a second brand, a second person or one busy month each mean Growth, at $50.00 a month billed monthly or $37.50 billed yearly.

  • Which Later alternative makes the posts instead of just scheduling them?

    SpeedRun Social is the only one on this page built for that. It reads your website into a brand kit, generates the caption, the image and the short video together, and holds them in an approval queue until you release them. The free plan is 300 credits a month refilled forever, 1 free campaign a week (3 posts, 1 video, 1 cross-post), no card required, and media watermarked on the free plan. The other six schedule media you supply; most of them will help write a caption, and none of them will supply the photo.

  • What is the cheapest Later alternative?

    Publer, on the paid side: with its account counter at 1 it listed Professional at $5.00 a month billed monthly or $4.00 billed yearly. Buffer Essentials came next at $6 a month per channel billed monthly or $5 billed yearly. Both were read on 8 September 2026. But four tools on this page cost nothing and do not expire, so for a business on two or three channels the cheapest workable answer is usually zero.

  • What should I export from Later before I cancel?

    Six things, in the order they are hardest to recreate: every original photo and video you uploaded, the captions and hashtag sets from the posts that worked, the posting times you settled on per channel, screenshots of the analytics window you are about to lose, a list of every connected profile with the login that owns it, and the end date of the trial you are switching into. The checklist above walks through each one.

Keep comparing

Run a week through two of them

Four of the seven cost nothing to try without a card, so the cheapest way to settle this is a week of your own brand in two of them, side by side, while the old calendar is still running. Ours has no countdown on it, and approval stays switched on until you turn it off.

Start freeSee real output

Every vendor figure on this page was read on 8 September 2026. Prices move; the links exist so you can check ours and theirs.