People leave Buffer for three different reasons: it costs too much for what they use, it treats video as an afterthought, or they need something free. Those need different answers, so here is the honest version of each. We make one of the tools listed and say so.
5-day free trial · $0 due today
Link TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, X and more in a couple of clicks — one workspace for every audience.
Upload your video, write the caption, and tailor hashtags or settings per platform when you want to.
Post now or schedule it — the engine ships to every network on time and retries automatically.
All three run a free plan, as Buffer does. If free forever is the requirement, start here rather than with anything on this page that costs money — including ours.
Open-source and genuinely free to run, at the cost of owning the server, the API tokens and the 2am failed upload. A real answer if you enjoy that.
Approval chains, a shared inbox, social listening. Expensive, and worth it when several people must sign off before anything publishes.
Ours. Native TikTok, Reels and Shorts publishing, per-platform captions, and hook testing that measures what works on your own audience. From $12/month — not free, and the FAQ below explains why.
Yes, several. Buffer itself has a free plan (3 channels, 10 scheduled posts each), and Metricool, Publer and Later all offer free tiers. Postiz is open-source, so self-hosting it costs nothing but your time. If free forever is a hard requirement, one of those is your answer.
No, and it is worth being straight about it rather than burying it. Plans start at $12/month, and the 5-day trial needs a card ($1 verification, refunded immediately). There is no free tier. Publishing to most platforms costs us nothing, but AI generation and X’s paid API do — and a free tier funded by paying customers tends to make the paid product worse. If that rules us out, the free options above are listed in good faith.
Native short-form video publishing to TikTok, Reels and Shorts from one composer, captions written per platform rather than one text copied everywhere, unlimited posts, and AI credits for drafting. Free plans generally cap you at around 10 scheduled posts per channel and treat video as a secondary post type.
Usually one of three reasons: the price stops matching how little of it they use, short-form video feels bolted on rather than native, or they outgrow the free plan’s 10-posts-per-channel cap. Which reason is yours determines which alternative on this list actually fits.
There is nothing to import. Connect your social accounts to whichever tool you pick — a couple of clicks each — and your posting workflow moves immediately. Anything already scheduled in Buffer still publishes from Buffer, so you can overlap for a week and switch when you are ready.
Plans start at $12/month (Starter, 3 connected accounts). Creator is $29/month with 15 accounts and bulk video scheduling, and Pro is $49/month with unlimited accounts. Yearly billing gets one month free.
Connect your accounts and publish your first post in minutes.