By Lucy Bloomfield, Founder, Magic Marketer® · Updated 12 October 2026

6 Hootsuite alternatives in 2026, with prices checked

If the posts are the problem, Magic Marketer®. If you already have them and want a cheap queue, Buffer. If you want Hootsuite's inbox without paying per seat, Vista Social. If reporting is the job, Metricool. If you need enterprise listening, Sprout Social. If you have a library to recycle, Publer.

How we compared them

We read each vendor's own pricing page on 12 October 2026 and copied the list prices as published. Where a page did not show a price we could read, we wrote "Check current pricing" rather than guess. Each tool gets one best-for label, so no two are pitched at the same reader. Magic Marketer® is our product. The choose-them-if lines are written so you can leave this page for someone else.

Why people leave Hootsuite

The search for a Hootsuite alternative usually starts at the invoice. Standard starts at $99 per user per month, there is no free plan, and most small businesses are paying for a monitoring suite they open once. (The dashboard has a tab for everything, including several things you will never need.)

A three-person team on Standard pays $297 a month. Professional is $199 a seat. Advanced is $399.

The other reason is the same one that sends people away from every scheduler. Hootsuite publishes posts. It does not make them.

Plan	Price	What you get
Standard	$99 per user/mo	10 social accounts
Professional	$199 per user/mo	Unlimited social accounts
Advanced	$399 per user/mo	Unlimited social accounts
Enterprise	Custom	Quoted by sales

USD list prices from hootsuite.com/plans, checked 12 October 2026. Monthly and annual billing both offered. No free plan. 14-day trial with daily posting limits.

Stay on Hootsuite if

You run social for a large team and need brand monitoring, message routing and multi-step approvals with a paper trail. None of the cheaper tools on this page fully replace that.

Hootsuite alternatives at a glance

Tool	Best for	Starting price	Watch out for
Hootsuite	Enterprise inbox, monitoring and approvals	$99 per user/mo	Per seat. No free plan. Assumes the posts exist.
Buffer	A cheap queue when the posts already exist	Free, then $5 per channel/mo	Does not make posts.
Metricool	Analytics across several brands on a budget	Free, then from $20/mo	Does not make posts.
Vista Social	The Hootsuite inbox without per-seat pricing	$99/mo or $950/yr, 2 users	No free plan. X is a $29/mo add-on.
Magic Marketer®	Making the posts, then publishing them	A$99/mo for up to 2 brands	No listening or competitor monitoring.
Publer	Recycling a library of posts you already have	Free, then from $5/mo per account	Free plan has no X.
Sprout Social	Reporting and listening at enterprise scale	$79 per seat/mo, billed annually	Per seat. Five profiles on the cheaper tiers.

Prices from each vendor's own pricing page, checked 12 October 2026: hootsuite.com/plans, buffer.com/pricing, metricool.com/pricing, vistasocial.com/pricing, publer.com/plans and sproutsocial.com/pricing. Competitor prices in USD. Magic Marketer® prices are in AUD.

Best for: A cheap queue when the posts already exist

Buffer

Buffer is the clean step down. Free for three channels and ten scheduled posts each, then $5 per channel a month. No per-seat charge. If you have a writer or a designer, this is the queue.

Plan	Price	What you get
Free	$0	3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel, 1 user
Essentials	$5/mo per channel	Or $60 a year per channel. Unlimited scheduled posts, 1 user
Team	$10/mo per channel	Or $120 a year per channel. Unlimited team members

USD list prices from buffer.com/pricing, checked 12 October 2026.

Choose Buffer if

You already have a marketing team or writer producing content, and you just need a reliable place to schedule and queue posts across platforms.

Pros

Usable free plan
Priced per channel, not per person
Quick to learn

Cons

Does not make posts
No inbox
AI only rewrites text you paste in

Best for: Analytics across several brands on a budget

Metricool

Metricool is the closest like-for-like on reporting, at a fraction of the price. A free plan for one brand, then Starter from $20 a month for five brands. The charts are the point. The posts still have to come from somewhere else.

Plan	Price	What you get
Free	$0	1 brand, 20 scheduled posts a month
Starter	From $20/mo	5 brands. $36/mo for 10 brands
Advanced	From $53/mo	15 brands, up to 50

USD list prices from metricool.com/pricing, checked 12 October 2026. Annual billing saves up to 24%.

Choose Metricool if

You already have content and mainly need a cheap, capable dashboard for scheduling, analytics, and competitor tracking across a lot of brands or accounts.

Pros

Generous free plan
Several brands on the entry plan
Organic, paid and competitor analytics

Cons

Does not make posts
Reporting is shallower than Sprout
AI captions are generic

Best for: The Hootsuite inbox without per-seat pricing

Vista Social

Vista Social gives you an inbox, reviews, and a listening add-on without charging per seat. Professional is $99 a month, or $950 a year, for two users and fifteen profiles. That is the Hootsuite shape, priced for a small team.

Plan	Price	What you get
Professional	$99/mo	Or $950 a year. 15 profiles, 2 users
Advanced	$199/mo	Or $1,910 a year. 30 profiles, 3 users
Scale	$449/mo	Or $4,310 a year. 70 profiles, 4 users

USD list prices from vistasocial.com/pricing, checked 12 October 2026. No free plan, 14-day trial. X is $29/mo extra. Listening across social, web and news is $75/mo.

Choose Vista Social if

You run several brands with a small team and need the management layer: inbox, reviews, listening, advocacy.

Pros

Inbox and reviews included
Two users on the entry plan
Listening as an add-on, not a new product

Cons

No free plan
X costs extra
Still assumes the posts exist

Best for: Making the posts, then publishing them

Magic Marketer®

This week · approved

MonThree things that stall week threeLinkedIn · 9:00Queued

TueReel from Tuesday's callInstagram · 18:30Best time

WedWeek three is where consistency diesLinkedIn · 8:15Queued

Thu"Consistency beats perfection."Facebook · 12:00Queued

Fri22 seconds, captions burned inTikTok · 17:45Best time

Magic Marketer® starts with the part Hootsuite leaves to you. One source - a recording, a voice note, a transcript, a link - becomes a batch of finished posts in eight formats, in your voice, then scheduled to nine channels. It has an inbox for comments and DMs. It does not do listening or competitor monitoring.

Plan	Price	What you get
Free trial	A$0 for 7 days	Card at sign-up. Publishing, scheduling and unlimited creations included. Free for 7 days. Cancel anytime before day 7 and you won't be charged.
Up to 2 brands	A$99/mo	Up to 2 brands. Unlimited team members. Publishing and scheduling included. A fresh batch on your schedule, daily, weekly, or monthly. Weekly community calls and workshops included. For 3 or more brands, book a demo and we quote agency pricing. Or A$986/yr, save 17%.
Agency	Custom	3 or more brands. No public rate, quoted on a demo.

Magic Marketer® prices are in AUD.

Choose Magic Marketer® if

You are a small business paying enterprise prices to schedule posts you still have to make, and you want the posts made first.

Pros

Makes the posts from a source you already have
Up to 2 brands on one plan, no per-seat charge
Brand guardrails and compliance presets

Cons

No social listening
No competitor monitoring
Not an enterprise approval suite

Best for: Recycling a library of posts you already have

Publer

Publer prices per social account, with a free plan for three accounts. Paid plans add unlimited scheduling and post recycling. There is no inbox to speak of. Same limit as Buffer: you supply the posts.

Plan	Price	What you get
Free	$0	1 user, 3 social accounts (not X), 10 scheduled posts per account
Professional	From $5/mo per account	Or $4/mo billed yearly. Unlimited scheduling and drafts, X included. 7-day trial
Business	From $10/mo per account	Or $8/mo billed yearly. Adds analytics, post recycling and unlimited AI. 14-day trial

USD list prices from publer.com/plans, checked 12 October 2026. Priced per social account, with extra members on top. Every tenth account is free. Ten accounts on Professional came to $36/mo.

Choose Publer if

You have a large library of finished posts and want the cheapest way to schedule and recycle them across two or three channels.

Pros

Usable free plan
Post recycling on Business
Priced per account, not per person

Cons

No inbox
Price climbs with every account
Does not make posts

Best for: Reporting and listening at enterprise scale

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is the step sideways, not down. It is better at reporting and listening than Hootsuite, at a similar per-seat price. Essentials is $79 a seat billed annually. Keep it if the board wants a deck. Leave it if the calendar is empty.

Plan	Price	What you get
Essentials	$79 per seat/mo	Billed annually, or $99 billed monthly. 5 profiles
Standard	$199 per seat/mo	5 profiles
Professional	$299 per seat/mo	Unlimited profiles
Advanced	$399 per seat/mo	Unlimited profiles

USD list prices from sproutsocial.com/pricing, checked 12 October 2026.

Choose Sprout Social if

You have a social team, a listening budget and stakeholders who need client-ready reports every month.

Pros

The reporting benchmark
Real listening, not a mentions feed
Inbox that doubles as case management

Cons

Per-seat pricing
Five profiles on the cheaper tiers
Does not make posts

How to choose a Hootsuite alternative

Start with the job you actually need. Most people searching for this need one of five things, not all of them.

01
You need listening, routing and a paper trail
Stay on Hootsuite, or step sideways to Sprout Social. Magic Marketer® is not that product.
02
You already have posts and want a cheaper queue
Buffer if you want it simple. Publer if you want to recycle a library. Both have free plans.
03
You want to know what is working
Metricool. Five brands and competitor analytics from $20 a month.
04
You want the inbox without paying per person
Vista Social. Two users and fifteen profiles on the entry plan.
05
The posts do not exist
Magic Marketer®. It makes them from a link, a photo or one line, then publishes. That is the only reason to pick us.

Switching from Hootsuite: your queue, drafts and accounts

Most roundups skip this bit. It is the bit that decides whether you switch this month or next year.

The short version: your posts can leave, your connections cannot, and nothing is deleted for you.

What moves

Your scheduled queue. Hootsuite exports scheduled posts to a CSV file from the Content tab in List view.
Your drafts. The Planner content calendar exports to PDF or CSV, scheduled drafts included, up to a year either way.
Recent history. Past scheduled posts export too, covering the last three months.
Your images and videos, from your own copies. Upload them again in the new tool.

What does not

Images inside the export. The CSV has the words and the details, not the files.
Connected accounts. Connections do not transfer. You reconnect each channel in the new tool, logging in to each network.
The posts themselves. Exporting does not delete anything in Hootsuite, so the old queue keeps publishing until you stop it.
Hootsuite-only setup, like streams and listening keywords. Rebuild them if your new tool has an equivalent.

In this order

Export the scheduled queue and the Planner calendar from Hootsuite.
Connect your channels in the new tool.
Rebuild the queue there. Publer can bulk upload a file. Magic Marketer® does not import a CSV - it makes new posts from a source, so use the export as your brief.
Delete the scheduled posts in Hootsuite, so nothing goes out twice.
Then cancel Hootsuite.

Export details from Hootsuite's help centre (Export scheduled or past scheduled posts, and Export your content calendar), checked 12 October 2026.

Hootsuite alternative FAQs

Is there a free Hootsuite alternative?

Buffer (3 channels, 10 scheduled posts each), Metricool (1 brand, 20 posts a month) and Publer (3 accounts, not X) all have free plans. Hootsuite has no free plan. It offers a 14-day trial. Magic Marketer® has a 7-day free trial rather than a permanent free tier.

What is the cheapest Hootsuite alternative for a small business?

If you already have posts, Buffer at $5 a month per channel, or a free plan from Buffer, Metricool or Publer. If the posts are the problem, Magic Marketer® makes them from a recording or a link and then publishes. A$99/mo for up to 2 brands. Not per user.

Does Magic Marketer® have a social inbox like Hootsuite?

Yes. Comments and DMs from your connected channels sit in one place, with batched notifications. It does not have social listening or brand monitoring across the wider web. If you need those, Hootsuite or Sprout Social still do them best.

Why is Hootsuite so expensive?

It is priced per user for teams that need monitoring, routing and approvals, and the price reflects that. A solo operator or a three-person business is paying for enterprise breadth. Most of the alternatives on this page price per channel, per brand or per plan instead.

Can I move my scheduled Hootsuite posts to another tool?

You can export scheduled posts from Hootsuite to a CSV file. Images are not in the file, so keep your own copies. Exporting does not delete the scheduled posts, so remove them in Hootsuite before the new tool starts publishing, or they go out twice.

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