Free social media schedulers, read from the source
Which schedulers are free forever
Buffer, Metricool and Publer are free forever. Later, SocialPilot, Hootsuite and Sprout Social only run trials. Every figure below was read from each vendor's own pricing page on 18 September 2026.
Three free-forever tools and four trial-only ones, each read from its own pricing page, with the card question answered only where the vendor answers it.
Three schedulers publish a free plan you keep: Buffer (3 channels, 10 scheduled posts each), Metricool (1 brand, 20 posts a month) and Publer (3 social accounts except X, 10 scheduled posts each). Four publish no free plan at all: Later, SocialPilot and Hootsuite run 14-day trials, and Sprout Social runs a 30-day trial.
The difference is a clock. A free plan keeps working at its caps forever; a trial stops working when the days run out and asks you to pay. The card question is separate, and most of these vendors do not state it.
SpeedRun Social, our own product, keeps a permanent free plan and says exactly what it is and is not. This page prices the incumbents' free tiers first and ours last, so the two are never mistaken for the same thing.
Where every number came from
- The pricing page headed its free plan "Free forever" for up to 3 channels, with 10 scheduled posts per channel that "refill anytime", 100 ideas, 1 user account, the AI Assistant and Insights, and it stated no credit card requirement for it. Paid plans began with Essentials at $5 a month per channel billed yearly ($60 billed yearly) and Team at $10 a month per channel billed yearly ($120 billed yearly), each opened by a 14-day free trial. buffer.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
- The pricing page opened with "Manage your entire social media strategy. Free for 14 days" and listed no free plan. Every tier began with "Start 14-day free trial": Starter at $18.75 a month billed yearly, Growth at $37.50 a month billed yearly and Scale at $82.50 a month billed yearly, under a yearly toggle showing "3 months free | 25% off". No credit card requirement was stated. later.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
- The pricing page listed a Free plan at $0 a month managing 1 brand, scheduling up to 20 posts a month, analyzing 5 competitor profiles and keeping 30 days of analytics, and its FAQ read "Yes! You can use Metricool for free, forever." It stated no credit card requirement. Paid Starter began from $20 a month billed annually. metricool.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
- The pricing page listed a Free plan at $0 for 1 user and 1 workspace, with 3 social accounts except X, 10 scheduled posts per account, 25 saved drafts and a 24-hour post history, under "Sign up for free". The page's only no-card line covered trials on paid features, so the free plan's card requirement was not stated. Paid Professional listed at $5 a month billed monthly, or $4 a month billed yearly, with X accounts paid-only. publer.io/pricing, read 18 September 2026
- The pricing page offered no free plan, only "Start Your Free 14-Day Trial Now" with "No credit card required". Essentials listed at $17 a month billed annually with "Save 15%", and Standard, Premium and Ultimate listed at $34 a month, $85 a month and $170 a month billed annually, with Enterprise custom. socialpilot.co/pricing, read 18 September 2026
- The plans page offered no free plan, only a "Free 14-day trial" with "No credit card required". Standard listed at $99 per user a month billed annually, Professional at $199 per user a month billed annually and Advanced at $399 per user a month billed annually, with Enterprise custom. hootsuite.com/plans, read 18 September 2026
- The pricing page offered no free plan, only "Try Sprout free for 30 days" with "No credit card required. Annual billing." Standard listed at $199 per seat a month, Professional at $299 per seat a month and Advanced at $399 per seat a month, with a separate Essentials tier at $79 per seat a month and Enterprise custom. sproutsocial.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
Free forever or trial, side by side
Each cell above was read on 18 September 2026 from the vendor's own pricing page: buffer.com/pricing, later.com/pricing, metricool.com/pricing, publer.io/pricing, socialpilot.co/pricing, hootsuite.com/plans and sproutsocial.com/pricing. "Not stated" means that page printed no card requirement; "No card" means it did. The full quotations with links sit in the section above.
| Tool | Free forever or trial | Free plan limits | Card required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buffer | Free forever | 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts each | Not stated |
| Later | Trial only (14 days) | No free plan | Not stated |
| Metricool | Free forever | 1 brand, 20 posts a month | Not stated |
| Publer | Free forever | 3 social accounts (not X), 10 scheduled posts each | Not stated |
| SocialPilot | Trial only (14 days) | No free plan | No card |
| Hootsuite | Trial only (14 days) | No free plan | No card |
| Sprout Social | Trial only (30 days) | No free plan | No card |
Source: buffer.com/pricing, later.com/pricing, metricool.com/pricing, publer.io/pricing, socialpilot.co/pricing, hootsuite.com/plans and sproutsocial.com/pricing, read 18 September 2026
Our free plan, stated once
300 credits a month refilled forever, one free campaign a week (3 posts, 1 video, 1 cross-post), no card, watermarked media on free
What it is not: a countdown. Nothing expires and no card is ever asked for, so the plan you test is the plan you keep. It is not the unlimited product either: free media carries a small watermark, and the allowance is one campaign a week, not an open queue.
Who should pick which
Captions already written, you just need a queue
Pick Buffer. Its free plan covers 3 channels forever with 10 scheduled posts per channel, and paid Essentials starts at $5 a month per channel billed yearly. If the words and images already exist and the only job is sending them on time, Buffer beats us on price and simplicity.
Watching numbers more than posting them
Pick Metricool. Its free plan measures 1 brand, 20 posts a month and 5 competitor profiles, and the dashboard is the product. If competitor tracking and 30 days of analytics matter more than who writes the caption, Metricool is the better fit.
A free plan with room for several accounts, and cheap X later
Pick Publer. Its free plan covers 3 social accounts (not X) with 10 scheduled posts each, and paid plans from $4 a month billed yearly bring X back. If you want a generous free tier now and X on a budget later, Publer is the better pick.
A team with approvals and a shared inbox on day one
Pick one of the trial vendors. Later, SocialPilot, Hootsuite and Sprout Social have no free plan, but their trials include collaboration and inbox machinery our free plan does not have. If approvals and message routing are the job, start with one of them.
The posts themselves do not exist yet
Pick SpeedRun Social. We read your website and generate the caption, image and short video for each post, then publish after you approve. We are new and have very few customers, so test our free plan against the others rather than trusting our word.
How this page was read
The stake first: we build SpeedRun Social, and this page ends by naming when ours is not the answer. A free-plan roundup written by one of the entrants is worth your time only when it says so before the table, not in a footnote.
On 18 September 2026 every figure above was read off the vendor's own pricing page, and each claim links back to it. Nothing here is restated from a review site, another roundup or an AI answer, and no figure from an earlier read was reused.
Card and trial status are stated only where the vendor states them. Where a pricing page prints no card requirement, this page says "not stated" rather than guessing, because a wrong no-card promise is the exact kind of lie this page exists to avoid.
There are no scores, stars, testimonials or customer counts on this page. We are new and have very few customers, and a rating would imply a bake-off nobody ran. Prices and limits move, so open the linked pages before any cell here decides anything.
Free plan questions, answered
Which social media schedulers are free forever?
On 18 September 2026, three were: Buffer (up to 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts each), Metricool (1 brand with 20 posts a month and 5 competitor profiles) and Publer (3 social accounts except X with 10 scheduled posts each). Later, SocialPilot, Hootsuite and Sprout Social ran trials instead, with no permanent free plan.
Which free social media schedulers need a credit card?
The vendors that state it are the trial ones: SocialPilot, Hootsuite and Sprout Social each print "No credit card required" beside their trial. Buffer, Metricool, Publer and Later do not state a card requirement on their pricing pages, so this page says "not stated" rather than guessing.
Is there a free scheduler with no card and no watermark?
We cannot answer that for the incumbents, because none of them states whether free media is watermarked, and most do not state the card either. What we can state is ours: no card, and free media carries a small watermark. A vendor that says nothing about a watermark is not the same as a vendor that promises there is not one.
What is the difference between a free plan and a 14-day trial?
A free plan keeps working forever at its caps; a trial stops when the days run out. On the pages read for this article, Later, SocialPilot and Hootsuite ran 14-day trials and Sprout Social ran a 30-day trial, while Buffer, Metricool and Publer ran free plans that did not expire.
Why do free social media schedulers cap posts and watermark media?
Because posting through each network's API costs the scheduler money and each network imposes its own limits, a free plan has to cap somewhere or it loses money on every signup. Watermarks are the honest version of that same math: the vendor shows you the output while the paid plan removes the mark. Some free plans cap posts, some cap accounts, and some do not say what they watermark.
Test the free plan against the rest
Run one real week of your own posts through our free plan beside one of the free-forever tools above, then compare what each one leaves you to write yourself. Ours is the entry with no countdown on it.
Every figure on this page was read on 18 September 2026 from the pricing pages linked above. Prices and limits move; the links exist so you can check theirs and ours.