Six of the ten schedulers below still have a free plan in 2026, all capped. Schedchie skips the caps: €7.99 a month flat for unlimited accounts and unlimited posts after a 14-day free trial.
Updated September 5, 2026: every free-plan cap and price on this page was read on each vendor's own pricing page on July 26, 2026 and re-read on September 5, 2026. Publer's figures come from its help centre (September 3, 2026); Zoho's paid price was read in the browser on August 14, 2026.
Social media schedulers let a small business or creator plan posts ahead and keep a steady presence without daily manual work. The best-known platforms are expensive, but several tools still offer a free plan, and every tool here at least offers a free trial. This post ranks the top 10 free (or free-to-start) social media schedulers of 2026, states what each free tier allows, and names the caps.
Not all "free" schedulers are equal. Some hold three accounts and a short queue; others cap posts per month, exclude X, or stop at a lifetime total. One tool on the list takes a different route: Schedchie has no perpetual free plan but replaces every cap with one flat price, which is why it holds the #1 spot. The full 25-vendor census of who still has a free plan lives in our August free-plan check; this page ranks the ten a buyer actually shortlists.
The honest count first: of the ten tools in this list, six still have a genuine free plan in 2026 — Later dropped theirs, SocialPilot and Hootsuite never had one, and Schedchie runs a 14-day full trial instead. The caps below are what each free tier actually allows, read off every vendor's own pricing page.
| Tool | Cheapest paid plan | What that price covers | Free plan? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schedchie | €7.99/mo flat | Unlimited connected accounts and unlimited scheduled posts on twelve platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram, Google Business Profile and X. Posting to X is a separate €4.99 add-on per 30 posts. | No. 14-day trial with every feature |
| Buffer | $6 per channel/mo ($5 billed yearly) | Essentials, billed per channel: five channels $25 a month, ten $50, on yearly billing. Paid "unlimited" posting has a 5,000-posts-per-channel fair-use cap. | Yes. 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts each, 1 user — the best-rounded free tier here |
| Later | $25/mo (Starter; $18.75 billed yearly) | 1 social set, 30 posts per profile per month. | No — the former free plan was dropped; 14-day trial |
| Zoho Social | €10/mo (Standard, billed annually) | 1 brand. Zoho's prices render only in the browser; this figure was read there on August 14, 2026. | Yes. 1 brand across six fixed channels, 1 user, no post cap |
| Pallyy | $25/mo (Pro) | 1 social set (up to 11 accounts, one per platform), unlimited posts; extra sets $10/mo. The former $15 Starter tier is gone from the page. | Yes. 1 social set, 15 posts/mo, images only |
| Planable | $33 per workspace/mo | Basic: 60 posts per workspace per month, 4 pages, unlimited users. | Yes — but the first 50 posts TOTAL, ever, not per month |
| Publer | $5/mo (Professional, 1 account) | $4 per extra account, every 10th free: $21 at five accounts, $37 at ten. | Yes. 3 accounts, 10 pending posts each, no X, 24-hour post history |
| Metricool | €20/mo (Starter; €16 billed annually) | Up to 5 brands; the 10-brand tier is €37 (€29 annual). X accounts cost $10/mo each on top. | Yes. 1 brand, 20 posts/mo — no X, no LinkedIn |
| SocialPilot | $30/mo (Essentials; $25.50 billed annually) | 7 accounts, 1 user; Standard at $50 covers 15 accounts. | No — 14-day trial |
| Hootsuite | $99 per user/mo (billed annually) | Standard, 10 accounts, per seat. Professional $199 and Advanced $399 per user. | No — 14-day trial, capped at 10–20 posts a day |
Every figure read off each vendor's own pricing page on July 26, 2026 and re-read on September 5, 2026 with no changes; each tool name links to the page it came from. SocialPilot re-read on September 25, 2026 from its plans page. Currency as each vendor displays it, unconverted. The full-market table with all 25 vendors is the social media scheduler pricing index.
1. Schedchie – Unlimited Scheduling on a Budget
Schedchie offers premium scheduling at a low flat price. It has no perpetual free plan; instead every new user gets a full-featured 14-day free trial with unlimited accounts connected and every feature switched on. After the trial, Schedchie's single plan costs €7.99 per month, and that flat fee includes unlimited social media accounts and unlimited scheduled posts. Across the full pricing census it is the only plan that leaves both accounts and posts uncapped: Radaar's $9.99 Standard caps profiles at six, Pallyy's $25 Pro caps accounts at eleven.
The flat price is what makes Schedchie fit anyone juggling several profiles or clients. There is no per-channel meter and no monthly post counter. Ten accounts on Buffer's Essentials plan cost $50 a month on yearly billing; Schedchie handles 10, 20 or 50 accounts for the same €7.99. It publishes to twelve platforms — Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram and Google Business Profile — from one calendar, with posting to X available as a €4.99 add-on per 30 posts. Video goes out natively, including YouTube videos and Shorts and Bluesky clips up to 10 minutes; the YouTube scheduler comparison prices the same cast by format support.
The feature set is built for volume. Bulk CSV import fills a month of posts in one upload and returns a fix-me file for any row it could not schedule, which is how queues rebuilt after the Bulkly shutdown came back in an afternoon. Recurring posts reshare evergreen content on a schedule you set. A live MCP server with 70 tools lets ChatGPT or Claude schedule posts, upload media and read analytics from the chat you already use. For agencies and teams, the Team plan at €24.99 adds members, approval workflows, client review links and an activity log, still flat, still without per-seat multiplication.
Schedchie bridges the gap between free and paid: after the trial, unlimited scheduling costs less than most free plans' first paid step. If you want to scale content output without watching post counters or account limits, start the trial, connect everything, and decide after two weeks. Cancel anytime — no questions asked.
2. Buffer – Easy Scheduling with a Generous Free Plan
Buffer is a long-established favourite, known for its clean interface. It offers one of the more generous free-forever plans in this space. On the free plan, a single user can connect up to 3 social channels (one Facebook Page, one Instagram and one LinkedIn, say) and can hold up to 10 scheduled posts per channel at any given time. The queue refills as posts publish, so you can keep about a week of content queued for three profiles without paying. This makes Buffer's free tier ideal for individuals or very small teams just starting out, as long as you do not need more profiles or a longer queue.
Buffer free plan for social media scheduling in 2026: what the upgrade costs
Crafting and queuing posts is straightforward. You can customise posting times for each channel, view a calendar of scheduled content, and get basic analytics. Buffer's model is pay as you grow: if you outgrow the free plan, the Essentials tier is $6 per channel a month ($5 billed yearly) and removes the 10-post queue limit, subject to a 5,000-posts-per-channel fair-use cap. That per-channel model is the double-edged sword. One channel is cheap; five channels cost $30 a month ($25 billed yearly) and ten cost $60 ($50 yearly), so the bill grows with every account you add. The crossover arrives at the second channel, not the fifth. In summary, Buffer's free plan is one of the best for low-volume needs. Beyond 3 channels or 10 queued posts per profile, price the paid step against a flat rate before you commit.
3. Later – Visual Planner That Dropped Its Free Plan (Important Update)
Update for 2026: Later no longer offers a free plan. This list used to feature Later's free tier, and many roundups on the web still (incorrectly) recommend it. Today, new users get a 14-day trial, after which the cheapest option is the Starter plan at $25/month ($18.75/month billed yearly), covering one social set with a cap of 30 posts per profile per month. Schedchie vs Later lines that cap up against €7.99 flat and no post counter. Higher tiers raise the caps; Later's pricing page lists unlimited posts only on the $110-a-month Scale plan (read September 5, 2026).
Later free plan for social media scheduling in 2026: what replaced it
Later still deserves a mention because its core strength is real: the drag-and-drop content calendar and Instagram grid preview remain among the best visual planning experiences anywhere, and the media library and hashtag tools are polished. If a cohesive Instagram aesthetic is your top priority and you have budget for it, Later is a fine paid choice. On a list of free schedulers it now only earns an honourable mention. For free visual planning, look at Pallyy (below); for the volume Later's Starter cap blocks, a flat plan costs less than the Starter tier itself.
4. Zoho Social – Full-Featured Free Plan for One Brand
Zoho Social is part of the larger Zoho suite of business tools, and it brings a surprising amount of power even in its free edition. Zoho Social's free plan suits a single brand: you connect one account for each of six fixed channels under one brand workspace, and Zoho imposes no monthly post cap on that free tier. If you have plenty of content to share for that one brand, Zoho Social does not stop you, which is rare in the free-tool landscape.
The six channels are fixed: one X profile, one Instagram profile, one Facebook Page, one LinkedIn Company Page, one LinkedIn profile and one Google Business Profile. The publishing calendar, media library, monitoring and inbox are paid features, so the free edition is a scheduler, not a full dashboard. The other limits are structural: a single brand and a single user. It fits a solo business owner or a social media manager running one company, not agencies or multi-brand operators. Zoho's paid Standard plan is €10 a month billed annually (read in the browser on August 14, 2026; the page renders no prices to a plain fetch) and allows additional brands and collaboration. In summary, if you need a free scheduler that does not skimp on features and you only have one brand's accounts to handle, Zoho Social's free plan is one of the most complete free tiers available. Just remember you cannot add a second brand without paying.
5. Pallyy – Generous Free Tier for Visual Creators (Replacing Crowdfire)
A housekeeping note: this spot used to belong to Crowdfire, but Crowdfire shut down its social media management product in May 2025, so it no longer belongs on this list. Its replacement, Pallyy, is arguably a better free pick anyway, especially if your content is visual.
On Pallyy's free plan, you get one social set (up to 11 accounts, one per platform) with 15 scheduled posts per month, image posts only, plus its drag-and-drop calendar, Instagram grid preview and a media library — the visual planning experience that made Later famous, at no cost. When you outgrow the free tier, the next step is now the Pro plan at $25/month (the $15 Starter tier no longer appears on Pallyy's pricing page, read September 5, 2026), which lifts the post cap on that one social set and adds video publishing, a unified inbox, approvals and longer analytics. For solo creators and small visual-first brands, Pallyy's free tier is one of the most pleasant ways to start scheduling in 2026.
6. Planable – Team Collaboration with a Free Post Allowance
Planable is a social media scheduling tool built with team collaboration and content approval workflows in mind. Even if you are a solo user, its visual planning interface and post mockups are useful. Planable's free plan gives you your first 50 posts free, with no time limit. That 50-post allowance is a lifetime total across everything you connect, not a monthly quota. In effect the free tier is a substantial trial: you can experience Planable's workflow and schedule a few dozen posts before paying. For a light poster, 50 posts covers a month or more of planning.
What sets Planable apart is the emphasis on workflow and collaboration. On the free plan you get one workspace where your content lives. You create posts and see how they will look on each platform, and you can invite teammates or clients to view and approve content. The interface offers multiple views, like a calendar and a feed mockup, to organise your schedule. The restriction is the 50-post total: once used, the paid Basic plan is $33 per workspace a month for 4 pages and 60 posts a month, with unlimited users. Overall, Planable's free allowance is excellent for testing a polished, collaborative scheduling process. If you manage a lot of content or accounts, you will need to upgrade sooner rather than later.
7. Publer – Feature-Rich Freemium Scheduler (Free for 3 Accounts)
Publer packs a lot of functionality into its platform and offers a free tier that goes head-to-head with Buffer's. On Publer's free plan, you can connect up to 3 social accounts and hold up to 10 pending posts per account at a time. Publer's free limits (3 accounts, 10 queued posts each) mirror Buffer's free plan. Managing Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn for a personal brand or small business costs nothing as long as you stay under 10 pending posts per account. Two catches: X accounts are not available on the free tier, and published posts leave your Publer history after 24 hours.
Publer free plan for social media scheduling in 2026: the paid step
The interface includes a calendar view for scheduling, and free users get a taste of features that usually cost money elsewhere. For a user with exactly three social profiles, Publer Free can run indefinitely, topping up the queue as posts publish. Beyond that, Publer prices per account like Buffer, at a lower rate: Professional is $5 a month for the first account and $4 for each extra one, with every tenth account free, which lands at $21 for five accounts and $37 for ten. Publer's pricing page renders its figures in the browser only; these come from Publer's own help-centre pricing article (September 3, 2026). Publer is a strong choice if you want a little more than the basics on a free plan; past three accounts, the per-account meter is the number to watch.
8. Metricool – Analytics Powerhouse with a Free Tier
Metricool is an analytics-first social media tool, and it is great for users who love data. It also provides a free plan that is useful for a single-brand scenario. With Metricool's free plan, you manage 1 brand, connecting one profile per supported network, with X and LinkedIn excluded on the free tier. The free plan schedules and auto-publishes content and includes a social inbox. It caps you at 20 posts per month: once you have published 20 pieces of content in a month, further scheduling waits for the next month or an upgrade. The free plan also provides 30 days of analytics and lets you track five competitor profiles, a nice perk at no cost.
Metricool free plan for social media scheduling in 2026: the caps and the paid step
Where Metricool shines, even on free, is its analytics dashboard: performance metrics for each post, audience growth, and best-time reports. Metricool also folds ad management and website analytics into the same platform. The trade-off is that a high-volume poster will feel the caps. The entry paid plan, Starter, is €20 a month (€16 billed annually) for up to 5 brands, and lifts the posting cap under a fair-use policy; the 10-brand tier is €37 (€29 annual), and connecting an X account costs $10 a month per account on top. So unlike Schedchie's flat unlimited approach, Metricool keeps brand tiers as you grow; the Schedchie vs Metricool comparison prices the two side by side. If deep analytics are what you need and your posting volume is moderate, Metricool's free plan is an excellent place to start and you can upgrade any time.
9. SocialPilot – Affordable Professional Tool (Free Trial Available)
SocialPilot is often described as a cost-effective alternative to the big-name enterprise tools. It has no forever-free plan, but it offers a 14-day free trial of any paid plan, which is enough to get a feel for the platform. SocialPilot's appeal lies in its balance of features and pricing for small teams and agencies. The Essentials plan is $30 a month for 1 user managing up to 7 social accounts; Standard at $50 covers 15 accounts and 3 users. While $30 a month is not free, it is well under Hootsuite's entry price, so many growing businesses consider SocialPilot once they have some budget.
In terms of features, SocialPilot covers the essentials: multi-platform scheduling (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest and more), a content calendar, client management tools, bulk scheduling, a social inbox and analytics on its higher tiers. It is a professional-grade scheduler at a mid-market price. During the trial you get to experience these features fully; if you decide not to continue after 14 days, there is no free mode to fall back on, so SocialPilot is a tool to test if you anticipate needing a paid solution. So, while SocialPilot is not free long-term, its trial and relatively low entry cost make it worth mentioning as a next step for users who outgrow truly free tools.
10. Hootsuite – Legacy Powerhouse (14-Day Free Trial, No Free Plan)
No list of social media schedulers is complete without Hootsuite, once the reigning titan of the industry. Hootsuite has changed into a very different value proposition. Hootsuite no longer offers a free-forever plan; new users get a 14-day free trial of its paid plans, and the trial itself is capped at 10–20 posts a day. After that, Hootsuite's pricing targets the higher end of the market. The Standard plan, the most basic paid option, starts at $99 per user per month (billed annually) and includes 1 user seat and up to 10 social accounts. This is a sharp contrast to the other tools on this list, which are geared toward either free usage or low-cost entry. Hootsuite has repositioned itself for businesses with bigger budgets or more advanced needs.
Why mention Hootsuite, then? It is a feature-rich, battle-tested platform. During the trial you will see an extensive range of capabilities: a unified inbox, analytics reports, team assignment workflows, content libraries and social listening. It supports a wide array of networks and integrates with other business tools. In short, Hootsuite is the enterprise scheduler: powerful, but complex and costly, and most of it is overkill if you simply need to schedule posts for a few profiles. Hootsuite's moves, eliminating the free plan and raising prices, suggest it is focusing on large organisations and agencies that use those advanced features. For smaller users, the value is not there any more, especially compared to something agile like Schedchie.
During the trial you can get a sense of Hootsuite's dashboard and maybe run a short campaign. Realistically, if you are looking for long-term free scheduling, Hootsuite is not the solution. Consider its trial a chance to benchmark what a high-end tool offers. You may discover you do not need most of it, and that a combination of the free tools above, or a switch to a budget-friendly paid tool, will serve you better. Hootsuite is listed here because of the free trial and its past status, but most individuals and small businesses will find more value in the other nine options unless they need enterprise-grade extras. If nothing else, Hootsuite's pricing (about $99 for 10 accounts a month, per user) shows how unusual it is that a tool like Schedchie offers unlimited scheduling for a fraction of that cost. The seat-by-seat comparison makes the gap concrete: €24.99 for a team of three against $297.
Conclusion: When evaluating free social media schedulers, match the tool to your needs. If you have one or two social profiles and modest volume, the free plans from Buffer, Publer or Zoho Social may cover you completely free of charge. If you need a bit more, Planable's 50-post allowance and Pallyy's free tier provide value without immediate cost. For data enthusiasts, Metricool's free tier offers analytics insight alongside scheduling. And if you are testing a more comprehensive solution, the trials from SocialPilot and Hootsuite give you a glimpse of paid power.
However, if your goal is to grow across multiple channels without hitting artificial limits, you will quickly find that most free plans have strings attached, whether post caps, account caps or excluded platforms. That is where Schedchie rises to the top: it is built for users who need unlimited scheduling but cannot justify enterprise prices. Posting without limits for a flat, low fee after a free trial is a shape no other plan in the table above matches. Buffer's free plan allows 3 channels with 10 posts each; Publer limits you to 3 accounts and 10 queued posts; Metricool stops at 20 posts a month; Zoho Social lifts the post cap but only for a single brand. Schedchie, after its trial, offers unlimited posts and accounts for €7.99. It grows with you, whereas the others require paid upgrades as your social media needs expand. If you are hunting for a free or almost-free scheduler, choose the tool that fits your current scale, and keep an eye on how it scales with you; the cheapest social media schedulers guide runs the same comparison at 5 and 10 accounts.
FAQ: Free Social Media Schedulers in 2026
Which social media schedulers are still completely free in 2026?
Buffer (3 channels, 10 queued posts each), Zoho Social (one brand, no post cap), Publer (3 accounts, 10 pending posts each, no X), Metricool (one brand, 20 posts a month), Planable (first 50 posts) and Pallyy (one social set, 15 posts a month) all keep real free tiers. Later, Hootsuite, SocialPilot and Sprout Social have no free plans, only trials. Read on each vendor's pricing page on September 5, 2026.
What is the best free social media scheduler in 2026: Buffer, Metricool, Later or Publer?
For three accounts, Buffer and Publer, both free for 3 accounts with 10 queued posts each. For one brand with analytics, Metricool, free for 20 posts a month. Later has no free plan any more. Past three accounts or 20 posts a month, no free plan holds; Schedchie is €7.99 a month for unlimited accounts and unlimited posts on twelve platforms, after a 14-day trial.
Which free social media scheduler has no post limit in 2026?
Only Zoho Social's free edition, and only on one brand with one user. Every other free plan caps posts: 10 per channel on Buffer and Publer, 20 a month on Metricool, 15 a month on Pallyy, 50 in total on Planable. The paid plan that removes both the post cap and the account cap is Schedchie at €7.99 flat; the next-cheapest uncapped-posts plans still cap accounts, at 6 on Radaar Standard ($9.99) and 11 on Pallyy Pro ($25).
What's the catch with free scheduler plans?
Caps. Every free tier limits accounts (usually 3), posts (10 to 50, or 20 a month), or platforms (X is often excluded). They are designed to be outgrown, which is fine for testing. If you manage several accounts, a flat-rate tool like Schedchie (€7.99 a month, unlimited accounts and posts, twelve platforms) usually costs less than the time the caps waste.
Try it: free plans run out; €7.99 a month does not. Schedchie gives you unlimited accounts and unlimited posts on twelve platforms for one flat price, with every feature in the 14-day trial. Start the trial or browse the full alternatives comparison.