Ranked for people leaving Metricool

Best Metricool alternatives in 2026

Six tools ranked against the reasons people leave Metricool, with every figure read off the vendor's own pricing page on one named date, in both billing modes, and the two jobs Metricool still does best said plainly.

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Ours is entry one, and only on the one job it wins: it writes and designs the posts rather than only scheduling them, and its free plan never expires. Publer is cheaper, and Metricool and Hootsuite keep the analytics, and both are said before the first row.

SpeedRun Social is the best Metricool alternative here on the measure this list ranks first, because it is the only entry that writes and designs the posts rather than only scheduling them, and its free plan never expires (speedrunsocial.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026).

We build SpeedRun Social, so this is our own product ranked first, and it is not the cheapest and it is not the analytics tool. Publer wins on price alone, and Metricool and Hootsuite win on analytics, and this page says both before any tool is ranked. Why people leave Metricool is the next section, in Metricool's own words, and every price below carries the vendor's URL and the date it was read.

Why people leave Metricool

Each claim below is read off the pricing page Metricool itself uses to describe its own plan, and links back to it with the date it was read.

  • The free plan reads manage all your brands' social networks except LinkedIn and Twitter, so the two networks a local business usually wants most are fenced off before any money moves. X is an add-on priced at $10 a month billed monthly per connected account on every tier, and LinkedIn appears only from the paid Starter plan up. metricool.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
  • The free plan caps scheduling at 20 posts a month and keeps 30 days of analytics history, which reads as a working demo more than a plan a business lives on. The paid Starter tier removes both caps and opens at $25 a month billed monthly, or $20 a month billed annually, for up to 5 brands. metricool.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
  • Metricool's AI is an assistant, not a producer. The same page meters the AI Social Media Assistant at 5 credits per brand a month on the free plan, 20 on Starter and 35 on Advanced, and lists an Image and Video Bank and Editor rather than any generation of the image or video itself. An empty calendar stays empty however good the scheduling is. metricool.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026

Six tools, and what each one costs

Every priced claim below links to the vendor page it was read from and the date it was read. Where a vendor publishes a monthly price and an annual one, both are quoted, because four of these five pages that have a toggle open on the yearly setting.

  1. SpeedRun Social

    our product

    Priced flat, whatever the roster

    The only one that writes and designs the posts

    This is our product, on our own list, and it holds first place only on the one job it actually wins: it is the only entry that writes the captions, renders the images and cuts the video, instead of scheduling content you still have to make, and its free plan never expires. It is not the cheapest, and it is not the analytics tool, and the page says both before this row.

    What it costs
    Free plan: 300 credits a month refilled forever, one free campaign a week (3 posts, 1 video, 1 cross-post), no card, watermarked media on free. 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. Nothing in that ladder moves with the number of connected accounts, so one account and five cost the same, and image and video generation are included rather than a separate add-on. speedrunsocial.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
    Best for
    An owner of a one to three person shop whose problem was never the calendar, and who wants a week of finished posts to approve rather than a queue to fill from somewhere else.

    Honest limitation

    Free-plan media carries a watermark. We publish to eleven platforms and Mastodon is not among them, there is no shared inbox and no competitor analytics, so the two jobs Metricool does best stay on Metricool. We are also the newest name here with very few customers, which is a real reason a cautious buyer starts somewhere with more road behind it. speedrunsocial.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026

  2. Publer

    Priced per social account

    Wins on price alone: the cheapest paid entry here

    It schedules the same way Metricool schedules, for less. The free plan is permanent, the paid plan opens at $5.00 a month billed monthly for unlimited scheduling, and the bill scales with accounts rather than brands, with the tenth account free for every nine connected. If price is the whole question this is the answer, and it sits second because it still does not make the posts.

    What it costs
    The page opens on Yearly, badged 2 months free. Professional read $5.00 a month billed monthly or $4.00 a month billed yearly, and Business $10.00 a month billed monthly or $8.00 a month billed yearly. The free plan is listed as free forever with 1 user, 1 workspace, 3 social accounts except X, 10 scheduled posts per account, 25 saved drafts and 24 hours of post history, and the page notes that for every nine social accounts the tenth account is free. publer.com/plans, read 18 September 2026
    Best for
    A business that already has its photos and captions in hand and wants the cheapest possible scheduler, or one pricing an exit purely on the monthly bill.

    Honest limitation

    The free plan cannot connect an X account at all and keeps published posts for only 24 hours, and the AI that generates text and images is listed under the $10 a month billed monthly Business plan rather than on the $5 entry tier, so the cheapest scheduler is not the cheapest content maker. The bill still tracks the number of accounts. publer.com/plans, read 18 September 2026

  3. Buffer

    Priced per social account

    Free forever for three channels, but it only schedules

    The closest thing to Metricool for a shop that already makes its own content: a free plan that does not expire, a per-channel bill, and a long list of supported networks. It does not generate the posts, and its page is explicit about it, so it ranks third because it fixes the bill without touching the empty week.

    What it costs
    The page opens on the Yearly toggle. At 1 channel, Essentials read $5 a month per channel billed yearly, printed as $60 a year, and Team $10 a month per channel billed yearly, printed as $120 a year. Clicking Monthly changed the same two to $6 and $12 a month per channel billed monthly. The free plan is free forever for up to 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts per channel, 100 ideas and 1 user account. buffer.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
    Best for
    A one or two person business with three channels and a folder of photos and captions that already exists.

    Honest limitation

    The pricing page lists no image or video generation on any plan. Its AI Assistant is described there as refining and repurposing content you supply, with unlimited credits, and the one video feature listed picks a cover frame out of a video you already have. The bill tracks the roster, and the free plan holds 10 scheduled posts per channel and a single user account. buffer.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026

  4. SocialPilot

    Priced in brand or account tiers

    Five accounts at the entry tier, cut for teams and agencies

    Its cheapest plan lands on exactly five social accounts, with a user seat and 500 AI credits included, and the team and client tools arrive lower down the ladder than anywhere else here. It ranks fourth because there is no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and its AI is metered in credits rather than doing the week.

    What it costs
    The page opens on Yearly, badged Save 15%. Billed annually, Essentials read $17 a month, Standard $34, Premium $85 and Ultimate $170. Clicking Monthly changed the same four to $20, $40, $100 and $200 a month billed monthly. Essentials covers 5 social accounts, 1 user and 500 AI credits; Standard covers 10 accounts, 3 users, 1,000 credits and the social inbox. Extra accounts are listed at $4 a month and an additional user at $5 a month. socialpilot.co/pricing, read 18 September 2026
    Best for
    A small team or an agency posting on a client's behalf that needs approvals and reports without signing an enterprise contract.

    Honest limitation

    The page lists no free plan, only a 14-day trial its cards mark as needing no credit card. The AI is metered in credits rather than unlimited, and the social inbox is not on the entry tier: it starts one step up, at the plan the same page prices at $40 a month billed monthly or $34 a month billed annually. socialpilot.co/pricing, read 18 September 2026

  5. Later

    Priced in brand or account tiers

    Sells profiles in sets of eight, meters the writing

    Built for a visual grid rather than a posting queue, with a social set covering eight profiles at once and best-time-to-post tools for Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. It ranks fifth because there is no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and the AI is metered at 5 credits a month on the entry plan.

    What it costs
    The page opens on Bill Yearly, badged 3 months free and 25% off. Billed yearly, Starter read $18.75 USD a month, Growth $37.50 and Scale $82.50. The page's own 25% off badge makes the month-to-month prices $25.00, $50.00 and $110.00 a month billed monthly, which is the math stated rather than a figure read. Starter covers 1 social set of 8 profiles, 1 user, up to 30 posts per profile a month and 5 AI credits a month, and sells no add-ons at all. later.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
    Best for
    An Instagram, TikTok or Pinterest-led business planning a grid rather than a queue, and comfortable starting on a trial.

    Honest limitation

    There is no free plan on that page, only a 14-day trial. The AI is metered at 5 credits a month on the entry plan and the page does not say what one credit buys, so how far that goes is not something a reader can work out before signing up. The same plan caps analytics history at 3 months and posting at 30 per profile a month. later.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026

  6. Hootsuite

    Priced per user seat

    The analytics and inbox pick, with the highest entry price

    Its cheapest plan already lists publishing, one inbox for messages, brand and competitor monitoring, and generating posts and images with AI, which is the widest list on this page. It ranks sixth because the number is per seat and the plans page prints only the prepaid rate, so the cheapest honest way in is a year at a time.

    What it costs
    The plans page listed Standard at $99, Professional at $199 and Advanced at $399 per user a month, footnoted as based on annual billing, with Enterprise quoted on request. It carries no billing toggle and publishes no month-to-month price, and its own billing question confirms month-to-month exists while naming no figure for it. Standard covers up to 10 social accounts and comes with a free 14-day trial needing no credit card. hootsuite.com/plans, read 18 September 2026
    Best for
    A firm with staff who live in a shared inbox all day and a budget that treats social media as a department rather than an evening job.

    Honest limitation

    There is no free plan, and the rate is per user, so adding one colleague doubles the bill before anything else changes. The trial blocks bulk scheduling and caps posting at 10 to 20 posts a day per organisation, which makes it hard to put one busy real week through the tool before committing to a year of it. hootsuite.com/plans, read 18 September 2026

When to stay on Metricool

Switching is not always the move. This is where the incumbent beats every entry on this page, read off its own pricing page.

  • Metricool is still the right tool when the analytics are the job. Its page lists competitor analysis for up to 100 profiles on Starter, unlimited analytics history, PDF and PPT reports, and a Looker Studio connector, none of which a posting tool here tries to match. On analytics, Metricool and Hootsuite beat every entry on this list. metricool.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
  • Metricool counts brands rather than social accounts, and one brand carries every network a business runs, so a shop with ten profiles pays the one-brand rate. The free plan manages 1 brand at $0, and Starter opens at $25 a month billed monthly or $20 a month billed annually for up to 5 brands, so staying can be cheaper than any switch for a single business with a long profile list. metricool.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026

How this list was ranked

The stake first: we build SpeedRun Social, it is entry one on this list, and it is first only because it is the single entry that writes and designs the posts rather than only scheduling them, while keeping a free plan that never expires. On price it is beaten by Publer, and on analytics by Metricool and Hootsuite, and both of those are said here rather than buried in a footnote.

On 18 September 2026 every pricing page below was opened in a browser and read from the rendered page. Where a page has a billing toggle it was pressed and the figures were confirmed to change before both modes were quoted. Two reads are stated as such rather than dressed up: Later's Bill Monthly control did not change the rendered figure in our read, so its monthly prices are the page's own 25% off badge applied to its yearly numbers; and Publer's account counter was stepped toward five without the price moving, so its entry quotes the base rate and the page's every-10th-free rule instead of a five-account total we never saw. Nothing here comes from a review site, another list or an assistant's answer.

Four of these five pricing pages carry a billing toggle and open on the yearly setting, so the first figure a visitor sees is a prepaid year. Hootsuite has no toggle and prints only the annual rate. Every priced block below therefore names its billing mode, and Hootsuite is labelled rather than patched: it publishes no month-to-month price, and inventing one for symmetry would be worse than the gap.

The ranking rule is the order in which a one to three person shop actually asks the questions. First: does the tool write and design the posts, or only schedule them? Entry one is the single tool on the page that writes the captions, renders the images and cuts the video, and it is the only one whose free plan never expires, so it takes the top spot on exactly that criterion and nothing broader. Second: what does the cheapest paid plan cost, and how many accounts does it cover? Publer wins that one outright, and entries two through four are ordered by it. Third: where is the analytics and reporting muscle? That stays with Metricool and Hootsuite, neither of which is first here because analytics were never what a small shop left Metricool for.

There are no scores, stars, testimonials or customer counts anywhere on this page. We are new and have very few customers, so a rating from us would imply a bake-off nobody ran. Prices move, so open the linked page before any number here decides anything.

Questions people ask before switching

  • What is the best Metricool alternative?

    SpeedRun Social for the shop whose problem is that nobody is making the posts: it is the only entry that writes the captions, renders the images and cuts the video, and its free plan never expires. Publer is the answer if price is the whole question, and this page says so plainly. Both are read on 18 September 2026 from speedrunsocial.com/pricing and publer.com/plans.

  • Which Metricool alternative is cheapest?

    Publer, by a distance. Its paid plan opens at $5.00 a month billed monthly or $4.00 a month billed yearly, and its free plan is free forever for 3 social accounts. Buffer's paid plan opens at $6 a month billed monthly per channel with a free-forever 3-channel plan, and SocialPilot's entry tier covers 5 accounts at $20 a month billed monthly. All three figures are from the vendors' own pages read on 18 September 2026.

  • Is there a free Metricool alternative?

    Three on this list keep permanent free plans rather than trials: Publer's is free forever for 3 social accounts, Buffer's for 3 channels, and ours never expires. Metricool's own free plan is still there too, at no charge for 1 brand. SocialPilot, Later and Hootsuite run trials only, 14 days each.

  • Why do people leave Metricool?

    Two reasons, both read off Metricool's own pricing page. The free plan fences off LinkedIn and X, and X is a $10 a month billed monthly add-on per account even on paid plans. And Metricool schedules and measures, but its AI is a metered assistant of a few credits a month, so the making of the posts is still somebody's job. A cheaper scheduler does not fix an empty week.

  • Should I stay on Metricool?

    Often yes. When the analytics are the job, Metricool beats every entry on this list: 100 competitor profiles on Starter, unlimited history, PDF and PPT reports, and a Looker Studio connector. It also counts brands rather than accounts, so one business with many profiles pays once. Switching earns its cost when the posts themselves are not getting made, or when LinkedIn and X matter enough that the fences around them start to cost.

Keep reading

Run one week through two of them

Three tools on this page keep a permanent free plan, Metricool itself included, so a switch can be tested on real accounts before any money moves. Ours is one of the three, and every post waits for your approval until you turn that off.

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Every vendor figure on this page was read on 18 September 2026. Prices move; the links exist so you can check theirs and ours.