Eight of the 25 social media schedulers we re-checked in August 2026 still have a free plan — every one of them capped. Schedchie takes the other route: a 14-day free trial with every feature included, then €7.99/month flat with no cap on accounts or posts.
The census below is the August 2026 update of a check we first ran in July. A month changed real things: Metricool doubled its X (Twitter) add-on to €10 per account per month on 13 July, Sprout Social introduced a cheaper entry tier, and Tailwind stopped publishing what its free plan actually includes. Free tiers keep shrinking; the listicles recommending them mostly haven't noticed.
How we checked
Every claim in this article comes from the official pricing page or help center of each tool, checked on 6 August 2026. Not review-site roundups, not last year's blog posts — the vendor's own pages, this week. Several current "best free scheduler" listicles contradict what those pages now say, which is exactly why we keep re-running this census. Schedchie is in the table too, on the same terms as everyone else.
The free-plan census: 25 schedulers, August 2026
Real free plans first, then the technicalities, then everyone who only offers a trial. Prices are per month; where a vendor displays only annual-billing rates, we say so.
| Tool | Free plan in August 2026? | What you actually get | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buffer | Yes | 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel, 1 user | The 10-post queue per channel refills but caps hard; paid is $6/channel billed monthly, so five channels cost $30/mo and ten cost $60 ($25/$50 billed yearly) |
| Publer | Yes | 3 social accounts, 10 pending posts per account (30 total), 25 drafts | No X (Twitter) accounts on free; published posts disappear from your Publer history after 24 hours |
| Metricool | Yes | 1 brand, 20 posts/mo, 30-day analytics | Free can't connect X at all; on paid plans the X add-on doubled to €10/account/month on 13 July 2026 |
| Zoho Social | Yes (free edition) | 1 brand across 6 fixed channels, unlimited posts, 1 user | One brand, one user, and the channel list is fixed; paid prices render only in the browser, and brand add-ons run $14.50–17/brand/month on Professional |
| Pallyy | Yes | 1 account, 15 posts/mo | Starter at $15/mo adds just one more account and is still capped at 20 posts; every paid tier tops out at 11 accounts per social set |
| Social Champ | Yes | 3 accounts, 15 scheduled posts per account, 1 user | Paid is $5 per account/month, or a $29/mo flat Standard tier |
| CoSchedule | Yes | 1 profile, 15 scheduled messages | X profiles cost an extra $8/mo each; the paid Social Calendar is $29/user monthly ($19 annual) |
| Tailwind | Yes — limits no longer published | A free tier is still advertised, but the vendor no longer states its account or post limits anywhere | Pricing restructured into per-product Pinterest plans from $14.99/mo monthly; what free includes is now anyone's guess |
| Planable | Technically | Your first 50 posts, total | Not a monthly allowance — once the 50 lifetime posts are used, it's $33/workspace for 4 pages and a 60-post cap |
| Planoly | In name only | Mobile app only, 10 uploads per month | No web scheduling on free; paid starts at $14/mo |
| Later | No — killed its free plan | Starter $25/mo, 1 social set, 30 posts per profile | The biggest free-plan removal of 2025–26; unlimited posting requires the $110/mo Scale plan |
| Agorapulse | No (30-day trial) | Standard $79/user/mo billed annually ($99 monthly), 10 profiles | Priced per user, so costs multiply with team size |
| Sendible | No (14-day trial) | Core $35/mo ($30 billed yearly), 6 profiles | The next tier, Plus, jumps to $99/mo |
| Radaar | No (14-day trial) | Basic $4.99/mo, 3 profiles, 90 posts/mo | Standard at $9.99 removes the post cap but allows only 6 profiles; 12 profiles means $29.99 |
| SocialPilot | No (14-day trial) | Essentials $20/mo, 5 accounts | Extra accounts are +$4/mo each |
| FeedHive | No (7-day trial) | Creator €15/mo, 4 accounts, 30 scheduled posts | The trial is only 7 days — the shortest we found |
| SocialBee | No (14-day trial) | Bootstrap $29/mo, 5 profiles | Works out to roughly $5.80 per profile |
| MeetEdgar | No (30-day trial) | Eddie $29.99/mo, 5 accounts | Extra accounts cost $4.99/mo each ($3.99 annual) |
| Loomly | No (7-day trial) | Starter $65/mo ($49 annual), 12 accounts | The tier ladder collapsed to three: after Starter, the next step is Beyond at $332/mo |
| Swat.io | No (21-day trial) | Small €39/mo excl. VAT, 3 channels | That's €13 per channel — extra channels are €25/mo each |
| Vista Social | No (14-day trial) | Professional $79/mo, 15 profiles, 2 users | $79 is the entry tier — there is no cheaper way in |
| Hootsuite | No (14-day trial) | Standard $99/user/mo billed annually, 10 accounts | That's $1,188/year minimum before adding a second user |
| Sprout Social | No (30-day trial) | New Essentials tier: $79/seat/mo billed annually ($99 monthly) | Per-seat pricing: three seats run $237–297/mo, and the old entry tier (Standard) is $199–249/seat |
| Predis.ai | No — trial only | Core $19/mo | Some third-party sites still claim a free tier; the official pricing page lists only paid plans |
| Schedchie (that's us) | No — 14-day free trial | €7.99/mo flat: unlimited accounts, unlimited posts, unlimited client Groups, CSV bulk import | X (Twitter) publishing is a €4.99 add-on per 30 posts (X API fees); approvals and client review links come with the €24.99 Team plan |
Quick tally, as of August 2026: 8 free plans still standing (one of them with unpublished limits), 2 free-in-name-only, 15 tools with no free plan at all. A few years ago most of this list had a free tier. If you're comparing the survivors in detail, our rundown of the top free schedulers in 2026 goes deeper on each one.
Free plans that died (2025–2026)
This is the part existing "best free scheduler" articles haven't caught up with. Five significant free options disappeared or were gutted within roughly eighteen months — and the squeeze on what's left continues.
Later: free plan killed, $25 minimum
Later's free plan was one of the most popular entry points in social media scheduling — for years, "free Instagram scheduler" basically meant Later. As of August 2026, it's gone. The cheapest way into Later is now the $25/month Starter plan, which covers one social set and caps you at 30 posts per profile per month. Unlimited posting doesn't arrive until the $110 Scale plan. If you signed up for Later expecting the free tier you read about in a 2024 listicle, this is why you can't find it — our Schedchie vs Later comparison has the full plan-by-plan picture.
Agorapulse: free tier dropped
Agorapulse also removed its free plan. Entry now starts at $79 per user per month billed annually — a tool that once had a genuine freemium on-ramp is now firmly positioned for agencies and teams with budgets.
Crowdfire: exited scheduling
Crowdfire, once a staple of free-scheduler roundups, pivoted away from social media scheduling entirely. After 15 years its site now describes it as a media platform covering social media, Web3, and AI — its pricing page serves the pivot notice, not plans. Any article still recommending Crowdfire as a free Buffer alternative is running on stale data.
SocialOomph: shut down after 17 years
SocialOomph — one of the oldest scheduling tools on the internet, dating back to the early Twitter era — permanently shut down after 17 years of operation. A reminder that with any tool, free or paid, longevity is not guaranteed.
Planoly: hollowed out, not killed
Planoly technically still advertises a free option, but it's mobile-app-only and capped at 10 uploads a month. There's no web scheduling on it at all. We'd call this the quiet way to kill a free plan: keep the word "free" on the site, remove the reasons anyone wanted it.
The pattern behind all five is the same: platform API costs went up (X's enterprise API pricing being the loudest example), and free users became expensive to serve. The July 2026 doubling of Metricool's X add-on — €10 per connected account per month, up from €5 — is the newest data point. Expect the survivors to keep tightening limits rather than loosening them.
When a free plan costs more than €8
A free plan is only free while you fit inside it. The typical surviving free plan gives you 1–3 accounts and somewhere between 10 and 20 posts per month. Consistent posting blows past that fast: four posts a week on three networks is roughly 50 posts a month — past Buffer's 10-per-channel queue, Metricool's 20 posts, Pallyy's 15.
And the moment you outgrow free, the pricing cliff is steep, because most tools price per channel or per seat:
- Buffer: $6 per channel billed monthly — five channels is $30/month, ten is $60. Our Schedchie vs Buffer breakdown runs the numbers at every footprint.
- Later: the first rung is now $25/month — and still caps you at 30 posts per profile.
- Metricool: Starter is €20/month billed monthly for up to 5 brands, and connecting X adds €10 per account on top — see Schedchie vs Metricool.
- Hootsuite and Sprout Social: per-user pricing from $79–99 before you've done anything — three seats on Sprout run $237–297/month.
Against that cliff there is exactly one flat number to remember: Schedchie is €7.99/month for unlimited accounts and unlimited posts — the only plan in this 25-tool census with no cap on either. The closest flat-price runner-up, Radaar's $9.99 Standard, removes the post cap but stops at 6 profiles. (X publishing on Schedchie is a €4.99 add-on per 30 posts, priced at what X charges for API access. Team work sits on the €24.99 Team plan: three invited members with no seat fees, post approvals, and client review links that open without an account. Our comparison table puts all these numbers side by side.)
Where free plans still fit
Free plans fit light posting: under about 15 posts a month on one or two accounts, inside a single tool's caps. The catch is that growth puts you back on the pricing page within months — and per-channel rates are waiting there. If you'd rather test a tool with everything switched on, free trials on the paid tools show you the real product, not the capped edition. Schedchie's 14-day trial includes every feature, including scheduling straight from ChatGPT or Claude over MCP.
FAQ: free social media schedulers in 2026
What is the best free social media scheduler in 2026?
The best free social media scheduler in 2026 depends on which cap you can live with: Buffer allows 3 channels with a 10-post queue each, Publer 3 accounts with 10 pending posts each, and Metricool 1 brand with 20 posts a month. All verified on official pricing pages in August 2026. If those caps are too tight, Schedchie's €7.99/month flat plan removes them entirely.
Did Later remove its free plan?
Yes. As of August 2026, Later no longer offers a free plan. Its cheapest option is the Starter plan at $25/month, limited to one social set and 30 posts per profile per month. Unlimited posting requires the $110/month Scale plan.
Does Buffer still have a free plan in 2026?
Yes. Verified on Buffer's official pricing page in August 2026: the free plan includes up to 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel (refillable), and 1 user. Paid plans are $6 per channel per month billed monthly, or $5 billed annually.
What happened to Crowdfire and SocialOomph?
Crowdfire pivoted away from social media scheduling — its site now describes a media platform, not a scheduler. SocialOomph permanently shut down after 17 years in operation. Former users of either who want a free replacement usually land on Buffer, Publer, or Metricool; those who want no caps at all move to Schedchie at €7.99/month flat.
What is the cheapest paid social media scheduler?
Sub-$10 stickers like Buffer's $5–6 and Publer's $5 are single-account rates — a real footprint of five accounts costs $21–30/month on either. Radaar's $4.99 Basic caps you at 3 profiles and 90 posts. The cheapest tool with no cap on accounts or posts is Schedchie at €7.99/month flat, with X publishing sold separately as a €4.99 add-on per 30 posts.
Is Schedchie free?
Schedchie doesn't run a capped free tier — it runs a 14-day free trial with every feature included, then €7.99/month flat for unlimited social accounts and unlimited scheduled posts across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Threads, and Bluesky. X (Twitter) is a €4.99 add-on per 30 posts due to X API fees.
The bottom line
The free-plan era of social media scheduling is winding down: 8 free plans left out of 25 tools checked in August 2026, every one capped, and the squeeze is still on — Later's free tier is gone, Tailwind's limits are unpublished, Metricool's X add-on just doubled. If a free plan's caps fit your posting, the table above tells you exactly what you're getting. If they don't, skip the per-channel cliff: start a free 14-day Schedchie trial — every feature on, €7.99/month flat after, cancel anytime — no questions asked. Every number in this article sits on our pricing page or the official vendor pages we checked, dated 6 August 2026.