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Not a lot in life is free. When you do get some kind of free offer, there’s usually a catch involved. This isn’t the case with the following social media scheduling tools.
Sure, you don’t get access to all the features and you’ll be restricted in terms of how many social platforms you may connect and posts you may schedule. However, if you’re still starting out and responsible for managing and growing only your own social media presence, the free plans offered by the following tools will usually meet your needs. After all, why pay for things that you’re probably not going to use (at least not in the early days)?
We’ve searched the internet, read reviews, and tried out a number of social media posing and scheduling tools to come up with the following list. The majority of these tools include a free plan. Those that don’t have a free plan offer a free trial and/or an affordable entry-level plan.
Loomly is an intuitive social media management platform that integrates with all the main social channels and more. Trusted by thousands of marketing teams that include global brands like L’Oréal Paris, Porsche, and BMW, it does a lot more than simply scheduling. One thing to take note of in terms of its scheduling capabilities is that while it does integrate with virtually all the social networks, it currently doesn’t support automated publishing for TikTok and Snapchat. That said, it can help with manual publishing by sending you reminders. If you have no content to schedule, you can check out the custom post ideas that Loomly shares. Alternatively, you can refer to the central library where Loomly lets users store digital assets, like links and videos, to be used later. All in all, it can be a useful tool to check out if you want to leverage social ads. In addition to automated publishing for most social networks, it also includes automated pushing for Instagram and Facebook Ads via the Loomly Ads Manager. Key features include: Pricing: Loomly offers a free 15-day trial (no credit card required). Pricing starts at $35 per month, but you can save a substantial 25% by signing up for yearly billing. IconoSquare is a comprehensive analytics and social media management tool designed to help businesses and marketers optimize their Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter strategies. With a wide array of features, it allows users to gain insights into various aspects of their social media presence, such as community, content, engagement, reach, impressions, profile activity, page performance, and much more. The platform also offers a custom dashboard feature, allowing users to build personalized dashboards that display relevant insights for their brand and campaigns. These dashboards can be exported as reports to share with team members and clients. Monitoring features help users stay informed about conversations related to their brand and products, enabling them to listen and engage with audiences while accessing valuable tags and mentions analytics. Furthermore, IconoSquare’s Albums and Albums Analytics features allow users to analyze the performance of event-related publications. IconoSquare’s Post Scheduler makes it easy for users to schedule Instagram and Facebook posts, stories, and carousels in advance, as well as add saved captions or hashtag lists, cross-post content, and leverage automatic publishing and tagging features. The platform also includes a Media Library for uploading and managing images using Dropbox or OneDrive, ensuring that previously used images are not duplicated. The platform offers a “Pro” plan suitable for small businesses and marketers at €49 per month, but offers 14 day free trails. In addition to offering a free plan, Agorapulse also offers an extremely generous free trial of 30 days (no credit card required). It’s also very generous in terms of integrations. It recently added TikTok to its list of supported networks, making it a great social media tool if you mainly target Generation Z. The only platform not currently supported which you might miss is Pinterest. Notable features include its unified publishing calendar and rescheduling. Via its shared calendar, you can get a comprehensive overview of where you stand in terms of content. Here, you’ll be able to see which posts have been scheduled, published, rejected, or still waiting to be approved. These features make it useful if you need to collaborate with clients or other team members. Then, to help you make the most of your content, you can publish content multiple times. This way, you can reach new users at new times to generate more views. Key features include: Pricing: Agorapulse offers a free plan. With its free plan, you can add one user and three social profiles and schedule up to 10 posts. You’ll also get access to a basic social inbox and reporting. If you’ll be posting mainly to Instagram, Later is one of the best free social media management tools to try out and is great for visual content. In addition to Instagram, you can also use it to schedule posts to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Together, these six platforms are viewed by Later as a Social Set and with its free plan you’ll be able to add one social set (one profile per social media channel) and one user. So, this is quite a huge plus that it has over other free plans. Though, it includes only 10 posts per month per social profile. Similarly to Hootsuite, this number used to be higher previously. That said, not all change is negative. Recently, they’ve also added video scheduling to its free plan that lets you schedule a video post to Instagram. Key features include: Pricing: With its free plan, you can add one social set and schedule 10 posts per social media channel included in the set. For more advanced features, pricing starts at $18 per month. If you’re new to social media scheduling tools, Buffer is a good place to start. Not only does it offer a free plan (which is always welcoming if you’re not sure if you’ll actually use the tool), but it’s also very easy to understand and use. In fact, this is probably our favorite feature of Buffer. It’s dashboard is clean and their own branding that they’ve applied consistently spurs you on to do the same for your own business. In addition to scheduling social media posts, you can also use it to plan and publish your content on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram (while it doesn’t include TikTok, it does offer TikTok reminders for when it’s time to post to the platform). On top of its social media management features, its free plan also offers a useful landing page builder. With this feature, you can create a landing page for your brand that you can then use to share important info like a special promo or upcoming sale. Though, like with all of the free plans, there are certain features that are excluded. In Buffer’s case, arguably the biggest downside to its free plan is that it doesn’t include any analytics, insights, or reporting whatsoever. Also, while post scheduling for Instagram is included in its free plan, it doesn’t include preparing and scheduling Instagram Stories. Key services include: Pricing: With its free plan, you can manage up to three channels. You can add additional channels starting from $5 per month. If you’re specifically searching for a free social media scheduler to help you with Twitter or LinkedIn, be sure to check out CoSchedule. While it also includes scheduled social messages for Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, it’s one of the best tools for LinkedIn and Twitter specifically. All in all, it’s a great tool if your goal is to save time without spending a dime. If you take a look at some of the case studies, the results speak for themselves with customers reporting that they’ve managed to increase their marketing workload by between five and 12 times. And, it’s not just about posting more content. Customers have also shared that CoSchedule has helped them to streamline their workflow, increase their visibility, and drive more organic traffic. One of the features included in the free plan that deserves special mention is the single calendar. Even if it will be only you on your marketing team, this unified content calendar is still extremely useful as it will let you see all your projects at a quick glance. If a project needs to be changed, rescheduling it is easy. All you need to do is drag and drop the project to the new date. Also, unlike Buffer, it does offer some reporting in its free plan. Though, this is only available for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Instagram. Key features include: Pricing: With its free plan, you’ll get two social profiles. For more social profiles and access to its other features like real-time team member access, you’ll need to sign up for its Pro plan at $39 per user per month. If access to analytics is a must-have feature, Crowdfire’s free plan will get you fired up. While you’ll only get access to one day’s data, it includes advanced analytics as well which is rare to find with a free plan. With regards to social media scheduling (the main reason why you probably landed on this blog post), its free plan includes 10 scheduled posts per account and supports Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. It also has auto-tailored posts for the different platforms with previews before posting which comes in very handy if you’ll be posting on multiple platforms. Though, one feature that it lacks in this department is bulk scheduling. Just like Buffer and CoSchedule, it also doesn’t include team member features in the free plan. So, if you know that you’ll be working with larger teams down the line, you can still take advantage of its free trial, but know that you’ll have to sign up for its Premium or VIP plan. Key features include: Pricing: With its free plan, you’ll get three accounts. For the ability to link more accounts and access additional features like post analytics, you’ll need to sign up for one of its paid plans with pricing starting at $7.48 per use per month. For Instagram and Pinterest, you can check out Planoly’s free plan. While it’s a great tool for scheduling, it’s probably the most basic free plan of all the options listed. Not only may you add only one social profile, but you can also choose only between Pinterest or Instagram. That said, it allows you 30 uploads per month. An upload counts as anything that you add to the grid. One of the special features that deserve honorable mention is that it includes interesting international events on its calendar. What’s more, if you click on the particular event, it will give you more info as well as hashtag suggestions. This makes it a lot easier to plan relevant content. On the drawback, it doesn’t offer any analytics. For that, you’ll need to upgrade one of its paid plans. Key features include: Pricing: With its free plan, you can add only one Pinterest or Instagram profile. For the ability to add both social profiles, pricing starts at $11.25 per month If you know that you’ll be posting frequently on only one platform, SocialOomph might be the most cost-effective solution. With its free plan, you get unlimited scheduled posts, but you may not schedule more than three posts per hour (which we doubt you’ll need to do). That being said, compared to the other free post schedulers, SocialOomph is more difficult to understand and use. Connecting your social accounts via its clunky dashboard can test your patience. Though, you probably suspected that this would be the case when you were greeted by its rather dated home page. Another con is that its free plan only lets you connect one social profile. It also doesn’t offer integration with all the major social media platforms (Instagram and Pinterest aren’t supported). On the other hand, unlike most other social media tools, you can also add a Discord account and blog platforms (WordPress or Tumbler). Drawbacks aside, it offers a lot of functionality. With regards to posting and scheduling specifically, it makes it easy to tag which posts need approval or revision and which ones have been scheduled and published. Key features include: Pricing: With its free plan, you add only one social profile. For more advanced posting features, you need to sign up for one of its premium plans which start at $15 per month. Trusted and loved by more than one million members that include the likes of Shopify, Tailwind initially started as a tool for Pinterest marketing and analytics. Fast-forward more than a decade and they’ve expanded their functionality to include a number of other social networks. One of the features that set Tailwind apart from other social media management tools is that it also includes email marketing in their free plan. While it’s very basic (you can add 20 contacts and send up to 200 emails per month), it’s a good place to start. Plus, this way you don’t necessarily have to invest in another tool for your email marketing. With regards to social media marketing, the free plan lets you add one Pinterest and Instagram account as well as one Facebook page and you can schedule up to 20 posts per month. As mentioned, it started out as a Pinterest marketing tool and as an official Pinterest partner, it’s still where its strong suit is. In fact, according to their website, you can plan and schedule an entire week of pins in just 20 minutes. Not only will it help you to save time, but with its SmartSchedule feature you will know that you reach your audience at the time that they’re most engaged. On average, their users can get nearly seven times more repins and almost four times more followers. That said, take nothing away from its Instagram scheduler. One special feature regarding its Instagram functionality that deserves special mention is that its free plan also includes a bio link tool. While other tools also offer this, it’s often only available if you sign up for one of the premium plans. Key features include: Pricing: With its free plan, you can schedule as many as 20 posts per month across Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. For more scheduled posts, you need to sign up for one of its paid plans which start at $12.99 per month. NapoleonCat is an all-in-one social media management platform that’s trusted by brands like Energizer and has been featured by publications like SocialMediaToday. From individual content creators to small businesses to marketing agencies to growing teams, NapoleonCat can be used for various business needs. You can use it to publish and schedule content on several main channels – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google My Business, and LinkedIn – all via a single dashboard. It can be especially useful if Instagram plays a big role in your marketing strategy. You can also use it to publish and schedule Instagram Reels, schedule your first comment with your Instagram post, create Instagram carousels, and automate moderation of conversations on Instagram. Key features include: Pricing: NapoleonCat offers a free 14-day trial (no credit card required). Pricing starts at $31 per month for unlimited scheduling, but you can get two months free if you pay annually. SocialPilot is a popular alternative to Sendible and offers sophisticated scheduling features. With SocialPilot’s social media scheduler, you can publish your content across Pinterest, TikTok, Google My Business, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube without effort. Considering this impressive list of supported networks, it’s a great solution if you want to post on multiple channels. Then, with the help of its advanced Post Composer feature, you can customize your posts for each of these different platforms by, for example, adding hashtags, alt texts, and mentions conveniently via one place. To make sure that all your custom elements appear as you have in mind, you can use the post-preview window. It will show you what your post will look like after it has been published on the individual networks. SocialPilot not only shines in terms of integrations and customization, but also flexibility. It provides multiple scheduling options, making it a great tool if your target audience is scattered all over the world. You can schedule your posts immediately or add them to queues, helping you to reach your audience at a time that’s most convenient to them. Its bulk scheduling and content calendars are two of the other time-saving features that deserve special mention. You can schedule up to 500 posts at once, helping to fill up your content calendar quickly. And, just to make sure that there aren’t any gaps, you can use the content calendar for a micro as well as macro level view. If you spot an issue, you simply use the drag-and-drop functionality to reschedule posts. Key features include: Pricing: SocialPilot offers a free 14-day trial (no credit card required). Pricing starts at $30 per month, but you can save 15% by switching to yearly billing. Here’s the thing about Hootsuite. It’s one of the best social media management apps available on the market, but its free plan is extremely limited. Also, as soon as you want to access more of its functionality, it becomes pretty expensive pretty quickly. There’s a significant price difference between its different subscription plans. For example, if you need to add multiple users, you can end up paying more than double. With its free plan, you’ll be able to manage only two social media accounts (you can choose from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Pinterest). Also, you’ll only be able to schedule a maximum of five posts at the same time. In order to start scheduling again you will need to wait until at least one of the scheduled messages is published. For what it’s worth, in the past their free plan was a bit more generous and users could add three social accounts and schedule 30 posts. That said, we still love them (and not just for their software but also for their own social media efforts). For analytics and reports, you’ll need to sign up for its Professional plan. That said, it’s quite generous with its free trial. Whereas most tools in this niche offer only a 14-day free trial, you can use Hootsuite for free for up to 30 days. Key features include: Pricing: With its free plan, you can manage two social media accounts. You can add additional channels starting from $5 per month. For more advanced features, pricing starts at about $49 per month. Sendible is trusted by thousands of marketers and has received a lot of recognition on G2 for its usability. Clients have also praised its affordability — one of the reasons why it has made it onto this list. In terms of capabilities, it offers a powerful scheduling platform that can simplify social media marketing. It supports most of the main social media networks and the only two platforms that you might miss are TikTok and Pinterest. Two standout features are its bulk scheduling and queues. You can schedule social media posts, videos, and images in bulk, making it an attractive solution for agencies. Then, to ensure that your content enjoys optimal reach, you can group posts into campaigns and schedule it for specific days and times. Adding and customizing content are also easy. Thanks to the calendar view, you can quickly get a visual overview of the content lined up. If you should spot a gap in your content calendar, it’s straightforward to rearrange posts. Then, to customize each post for different platforms, you can, for example, add emojis, hashtags, or mentions. Key features include: Pricing: Sendible offers a free 14-day trial (no credit card required). Pricing starts at $29 per month when billed monthly, but you can save 15% by choosing to be billed yearly instead. Sendible’s entry-level plan includes unlimited scheduling.
1. Loomly
2. Iconosquare
3. Agorapulse
4. Later
5. Buffer
6. CoSchedule
7. Crowdfire
8. Planoly
9. Socialoomph
10. Tailwind
11. NapoleonCat
12. SocialPilot
13. Hootsuite
14. Sendible
Wrapping Things Up
Nowadays every business needs a strong online presence and without a social strategy there’s no way to achieve that. Though, creating social media content is a time-consuming process if you’re doing it manually. Luckily, there’s an answer and it doesn’t necessarily need to cost you anything. With the help of one of these social media management platforms, you can plan, create, and schedule posts in advance.
With regards to which tool is the best, it depends on your social media strategy. If you want to increase your social media activity on all major platforms, a tool like Planoly or Tailwind won’t tick all your boxes. On the other hand, if you want to make a point of keeping track of analytics, Crowdfire might be the better option. Nevertheless, any one of these tools listed deserve your consideration.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best scheduling tool for social media?
These 15 social media scheduling tools will help boost your social media marketing workflow:
- Iconosquare
- Buffer
- CoSchedule
- Crowdfire
- Hootsuite
- Planoly
- Socialoomph
- Tailwind
- Later
- Brandwatch (Formerly Falcon.io)
Is there a free social media scheduling tool?
If you are looking for a free social media scheduling tool, consider suing CoSchedule or Later. These platforms allow you to schedule social posts for Instagram and Facebook. CoSchedule also lets you use Pinterest, LinkedIn or Twitter, too.
What is the easiest social media scheduler?
These are the best and easiest social media scheduling tools for 2023:
- Planoly
- Buffer
- CoSchedule
- Crowdfire
- Hootsuite
- Later
- Socialoomph
- Tailwind
Is Hootsuite a scheduling tool?
Hootsuite is used by marketing departments to schedule content across all social media platforms. It helps streamline social media marketing practices into manageable tasks.
