The short version
- Buffer Free is the best all-round free scheduler: 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel, and X is included.
- Publer Free is good for Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest: 3 accounts, 10 scheduled posts each, but no X.
- Metricool Free gives you 1 brand and 20 published posts a month, with no LinkedIn or X.
- Native schedulers (Meta Business Suite, TikTok, YouTube Studio, LinkedIn) are free and uncapped, but each only covers its own platform.
- Postiz is free if you self-host it. Hootsuite and Later currently show 14-day trials, not free plans.
Three kinds of "free"
Before comparing anything, sort tools into three buckets:
- Free forever, with caps. You never pay, but you're limited on accounts, queued posts or platforms. Buffer, Publer and Metricool live here.
- Free, but you do the work. Open-source tools you host yourself, or each platform's own built-in scheduler.
- A trial with "free" in the button. Every plan is paid, you just get 14 days first. When it ends, your queue stops.
The third bucket is the one that wastes your time. You spend an afternoon loading up a month of posts, then lose access two weeks later. Quick test: if the pricing page shows a trial length and no $0 plan, it isn't free.
Create once, post everywhere
post bridge publishes and schedules your posts to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky and Google Business Profile from one dashboard.
Try it free for 7 daysHow queue caps actually work
Most free plans cap scheduled posts waiting in the queue at once, not posts per month. When a post goes out, the slot frees up. So "10 scheduled posts per channel" means about 10 days of runway if you post daily to that channel. Post a few times a week and you'll barely notice. Post twice a day and you're topping up the queue constantly.
Metricool is the exception: it counts published posts per month, which is a different shape of limit.
Buffer Free: the best all-round pick
Buffer's pricing page lists the Free plan as:
- Up to 3 channels
- 10 scheduled posts per channel (a slot reopens when a post publishes)
- 1 user
- AI Assistant included
- 30 days of insights
- API access, capped at 3,000 requests a month
X is supported on Free. Buffer's X help article notes a couple of limits there: one X thread scheduled at a time per queue, and no sent-post analytics for X on the Free plan.
The real limit is 3 channels. Connect Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn and you're full. Want YouTube or Threads too and you're choosing what to drop.
Fits: someone posting to 3 platforms or fewer who wants the simplest possible queue.
Publer Free: good for Meta and Pinterest
Publer's help article on what's included in Publer Free spells out the limits:
- 3 social accounts, and X is excluded (you need a paid plan to add it)
- 10 scheduled posts per account, 30 total
- 25 saved drafts
- Published posts disappear from your history after 24 hours
- Pinterest accounts need at least 100 followers or a claimed website to connect on Free
Each account counts on its own, so two Facebook Pages plus a Facebook Group uses all three slots. The free plan has no time limit.
Fits: small businesses that mostly live on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest and don't use X.
Metricool Free: lighter queue, more analytics
Metricool's free vs paid help page lists:
- 1 brand, one profile per network
- 20 published posts per month in the planner (the counter resets on the 1st, and scheduled posts only count once they publish)
- 30 days of analytics history, with a watermark
- 5 AI text credits a month
- No LinkedIn and no X on Free
Twenty posts a month is about one post every day and a half, across every network combined. That's fine for a light cadence and tight for anything more. Paid plans start from about $20/month billed annually on Metricool's pricing page.
Fits: someone who cares more about seeing what's working than about queue depth, and doesn't need LinkedIn or X.
The free schedulers you already have
Every major platform has its own scheduler built in, and they cost nothing:
- Meta Business Suite schedules Facebook and Instagram posts, Reels and Stories, with insights included. Reports on how far ahead you can schedule vary, so plan in batches of a few weeks to be safe.
- TikTok lets Creator and Business accounts schedule from the web, up to 10 days ahead according to TikTok's own announcement.
- YouTube Studio lets you set any upload to go public at a set time.
- LinkedIn has a clock icon next to the Post button for scheduling text, image and video posts.
The catch isn't volume, it's that you're doing the same post five times in five apps. If you only post to one or two platforms, though, native tools might be all you need. For a walkthrough of the Instagram side, see how to schedule Instagram posts.
Postiz self-hosted: free if you run it
Postiz is open source, so you can host it yourself and pay nothing for the software. The tradeoff is all operational: you run the server (Docker), set up your own developer apps on each social network, wait for those apps to be approved, and handle updates and backups yourself.
If you'd rather not, Postiz's hosted plans start at $29/month (about $23/month billed annually) with a 7-day trial, per its pricing page. There's no permanent hosted free plan.
Fits: a technical founder who's happy being their own sysadmin.
The "free" ones that are really trials
Hootsuite
Hootsuite's plans page offers a free 14-day trial and no free plan. Paid plans start at about $99 for Standard, and trial accounts are limited to 10 to 20 posts a day with no bulk scheduling. It's built for teams, which is a lot of tool for one person.
Later
Later's pricing page currently shows "Free for 14 days" and paid plans only, with no $0 tier listed. You'll still see older articles mentioning a Later free plan. Check what signup actually shows you before building a queue there.
Either way: don't build your content library inside a trial. When it ends, so does your scheduling.
Free plans compared
| Tool | Actually free? | Accounts | Cap | X on free? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buffer | Yes | 3 channels | 10 scheduled per channel | Yes |
| Publer | Yes | 3 accounts | 10 scheduled per account, 25 drafts | No |
| Metricool | Yes | 1 brand, 1 profile per network | 20 published posts a month | No |
| Native schedulers | Yes | One platform each | None to speak of | X has its own |
| Postiz (self-hosted) | Yes, plus server costs | You decide | None | Yes, with your own X app |
| Later | No, 14-day trial | Trial | Trial | No |
| Hootsuite | No, 14-day trial | Trial | 10 to 20 posts a day on trial | Paid |
When free stops being worth it
A free plan is the right call until one of these happens:
- You post to more than 3 platforms. Every hosted free plan here tops out at 3 channels or 1 brand. Running two free tools side by side to cover six platforms costs you more time than it saves.
- You want a real queue. Ten slots per channel is fine at a few posts a week. At daily posting you're babysitting it.
- You run more than one account per platform, like two Instagrams or a few TikToks. Free plans mostly give you one profile per network.
- You're copying the same post into four native apps every day. That's the job a scheduler exists to remove.
If you just need a free one-off utility rather than a scheduler, our free tools are free with no account. And if what you're after is free analytics, inbox or design tools rather than scheduling, the free social media management tools roundup covers those.
Where post bridge fits
To be upfront: post bridge has no free plan. There's a 7-day free trial, then it's paid.
It's the step up for when free caps start getting in the way. You write a post once and it goes to 10 platforms: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky and Google Business Profile. You can tweak the caption per platform, schedule or post now, see everything on a content calendar, and bulk schedule a batch at once. Posts are unlimited on every plan, so there's no queue to babysit.
Pricing is per connected account:
- Marketer: $39/month for 15 connected accounts
- Operator: $99/month for 99 connected accounts, plus $1/month per extra account
It's built for one person running their own marketing, not a team. If you want approval workflows, a shared inbox or social listening, look elsewhere. If you want to hand scheduling to an AI agent like Claude or ChatGPT, post bridge has an MCP server and API for that.
The honest bottom line
On 3 platforms or fewer, start with Buffer Free and use native schedulers for anything else. That costs nothing and covers a lot.
Once you're posting daily to 4 or more platforms, or juggling multiple accounts on the same one, the free caps start costing you more time than they save. That's when a paid scheduler earns its spot, and when it's worth trying post bridge's 7-day trial with your real content.