Social media scheduler alternatives
Buffer, Hootsuite, Later, Publer and Postiz do the same core job at wildly different prices, from $4 a month to $99 per seat. This compares them on what actually differs: what you can post, who owns the software, and whether anything makes the video for you.
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Which social media scheduler should you use?
Buffer
Teams that already produce their content and want a clean, inexpensive way to queue it across a handful of channels.
Per channel · Free plan
Hootsuite
Larger marketing teams and agencies that need listening, an inbox and approvals in one place and can justify the seat cost.
Per seat · No free plan
Later
Visual brands and Instagram-led accounts that plan how a feed looks and publish a mix of formats.
Per social set · No free plan
Publer
Solo operators, small teams and agencies who want the most scheduling capability per dollar and already have content to post.
Per account and user · Free plan
Postiz
Developers and privacy-minded teams who want to own their stack, publish very widely, and generate the occasional clip.
Per channel tier · Free plan
How do the schedulers compare feature by feature?
| Feature | Buffer | Hootsuite | Later | Publer | Postiz | VIDEO AI ME |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Making the video | ||||||
| Generates the video itselfProduces a finished video from a prompt or brief, not just schedules one. | No | No | No | No | 3 to 60 per month | Yes |
| AI actors and presentersA library of on-camera presenters, or custom actors built from a photo. | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Voice cloning and text to speech | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Lip-sync in 70+ languages | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Burned-in video subtitlesSubtitles rendered into the video file, not the post caption. | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Video trimming, B-roll and resizing | No | Limited | Limited | Limited | No | Yes |
| AI post caption writerWrites the text of the post. Parity row: every tool here has one. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Graphic design templates | Limited | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | No |
| What you can post | ||||||
| Video postsParity row: every tool here schedules video. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Image posts | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Carousels and multi-image posts | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Stories | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | No |
| Text-only posts | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Link in bio page | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Platform-native post optionsTikTok duet, stitch and AI-content label; YouTube and Pinterest specifics. | Limited | Limited | Limited | Limited | Limited | Yes |
| Planning and teams | ||||||
| Visual content calendarParity row: every tool here has one. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Posting queue with weekly slotsParity row: every tool here has one. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk schedulingCell labels carry the per-tool batch size. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Up to 500 per batch | Yes | Up to 25 per batch |
| Multi-step approval workflow | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | No |
| Team members and role permissions | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Client workspaces for multiple brands | Limited | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Engagement and community | ||||||
| Unified social inbox | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | No | No |
| Social listening and monitoring streams | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Reply to comments in the app | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | No |
| Measurement | ||||||
| Per-post performance metrics | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Synced daily |
| Exportable PDF or CSV reports | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Best time to post | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Competitor benchmarking | No | Yes | Limited | Yes | No | No |
| Platform and reach | ||||||
| Networks supportedCounted as published by each tool. Not scored: more is not always better. | About 10 | About 10 | About 9 | About 13 | 30+ | 15 |
| Third-party integrationsCanva, Google Drive, Zapier and similar. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Public API | Yes | Yes | Limited | Yes | Yes | No |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Open source and self-hostable | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| Pricing | ||||||
| Starting price | $5 per channel | $99 per user | $18.75 per month | $4 per month | $29 per month hosted | See pricing |
| Free plan | Yes | No | No | Yes | Self-host | No |
| What you pay perThe unit matters more than the number: per channel, per seat, or per set. | Per channel | Per seat | Per social set | Per account and user | Per channel tier | See plans |
Publishing is included in every paid plan. See pricing.
How did we compare these tools?
Every price on these pages was read from the vendor own pricing page, is dated where it appears, and links back to the source. Where a vendor lists prices only in an FAQ rather than on the plan cards, that is where the figure came from.
Feature rows reflect what each tool publicly documents. A tick means the tool does the thing outright. Limited means it does part of it, or only on higher tiers. We have marked our own gaps the same way, which is why VIDEO AI ME shows a cross on image posts, carousels, stories, the inbox, listening and approvals.
Four rows are marked as parity because every tool here does them: video posts, a content calendar, a posting queue and an AI caption writer. They are shown for completeness but excluded from any count, as are all pricing rows, since comparing a per-channel price to a per-seat price as though one wins is meaningless.
Scheduler comparison questions
Direct answers about price, formats and what each tool actually does.
Which social media scheduler is cheapest?
Publer at $4 a month billed yearly, with Buffer Essentials at $5 per channel close behind. Both have permanent free plans. Postiz is free to self-host under AGPL-3.0 if you can run your own server. Hootsuite is the most expensive at $99 per user per month.
Which scheduler has a free plan?
Buffer and Publer both offer permanent free plans covering 3 accounts with 10 scheduled posts each, though Publer free tier excludes X. Postiz can be self-hosted at no licence cost. Hootsuite dropped its free plan in 2023 and Later has never had one.
Which scheduler supports the most networks?
Postiz publishes to 30 or more networks. VIDEO AI ME reaches 15, Publer around 13, Buffer and Hootsuite about 10, and Later about 9. Raw network count is not the whole story, since the tools with fewer networks generally support more post formats on each.
Which scheduler has social listening?
Only Hootsuite among the tools compared here. Buffer, Later, Publer, Postiz and VIDEO AI ME all lack monitoring streams. That single capability is usually what justifies Hootsuite higher seat price for the teams that stay on it.
Do any of these tools make the video for you?
VIDEO AI ME generates video with AI actors, voice cloning and lip-sync in 70+ languages, then schedules it. Postiz includes a capped AI video allowance of 3 to 60 clips a month. Buffer, Hootsuite, Later and Publer schedule video but do not produce it.
What can VIDEO AI ME not do that these schedulers can?
A great deal. VIDEO AI ME publishes video only, so no image posts, carousels, stories or text-only posts. It has no unified inbox, no social listening, no link in bio page, no approval workflows and no mobile app, and its analytics sync daily rather than live.
How were these tools compared?
Every pricing figure was read from the vendor own pricing page and is dated on each comparison, with a link back to the source. Feature rows reflect what each tool publicly documents. Rows where a tool only partly supports something are marked as limited rather than as a tick.
Sources
- [1]Buffer pricing- Buffer
- [2]Buffer features- Buffer
- [3]Hootsuite plans- Hootsuite
- [4]Hootsuite social listening- Hootsuite
- [5]Later pricing- Later
- [6]Later link in bio- Later
- [7]Publer plans- Publer
- [8]Publer features- Publer
- [9]Postiz pricing- Postiz
- [10]Postiz source and licence- GitHub
Product names and logos belong to their respective owners and are used here to identify the products being compared. Figures reflect each vendor's published information on the date shown and may have changed since.
None of them make the video.
VIDEO AI ME generates it with AI actors, cloned voices and lip-sync, then publishes to 15 networks from the same screen.