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Roundup

Best free social media tools

Most "free social media tool" lists quietly include products that only offer a trial. This one doesn't. These are tools with a free tier you can use indefinitely — and it's a short list, because several of the best-known products have no free plan at all.

Who wrote this

Optimate publishes this page, so treat it as a vendor's list rather than an independent review. We've tried to earn the read by ranking on fit rather than on who's paying for the page — Optimate isn't first on every list here, and where a competitor is the better answer we say so and link you to them.

How this list is ordered

Only tools with a genuinely free, non-expiring tier are ranked, and each entry states what that tier actually includes. Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Later and SocialPilot are excluded because they have no free plan — that exclusion is the most useful thing on the page.

Pricing checked 25 August 2026. Tools without a figure are ones we haven’t verified directly — check their site rather than trust a number we didn’t read ourselves.

  1. Number 1: Buffer

    Free plan · from $5/channel/mo

    Best for: The most generous free tier for plain scheduling

    Three channels, one user, and an AI Assistant with 5 reply suggestions a week — free indefinitely. If you want a queue and nothing more, this is the one to start with.

    Optimate vs BufferVisit Buffer

  2. Number 2: Optimate

    Free plan · Pro £29/mo · Studio £59/mo · Agency £135/mo

    Best for: A free tier that includes AI content generation

    Three social profiles and 5 AI generations, free with no card. The generations are limited on purpose — enough to judge whether on-brand AI content is worth paying for, not enough to run a business on.

    Visit Optimate

  3. Number 3: Metricool

    Free plan · from €20/mo

    Best for: The most analytics you can get for nothing

    One brand, 20 posts a month, 30 days of analytics history and 5 competitor profiles. The strongest free tier here if measurement is what you're after.

    Optimate vs MetricoolVisit Metricool

  4. Number 4: Canva

    Best for: Designing the visuals, with light scheduling attached

    Primarily a design tool with a Content Planner bolted on. Most teams use it alongside a scheduler rather than instead of one.

    Visit Canva

  5. Number 5: Publer

    Best for: Cheap bulk scheduling and recycling

    Inexpensive, with strong bulk-scheduling and evergreen recycling features. Interface is dense but capable.

    Visit Publer

Common questions

Is Hootsuite free?

No. Hootsuite has no free plan — pricing starts at $99 per user per month billed annually. Later, SocialPilot and Sprout Social also have no free tier. Only Buffer, Optimate and Metricool on this list do.

What's the catch with free social media tools?

Usually profile count and history. Free tiers cap you at one to three accounts and keep analytics for a short window, which is fine for one small business and falls apart the moment you add a second brand or want to look back a quarter.

Which free tier includes AI?

Buffer's includes an AI Assistant with 5 reply suggestions a week, Optimate's includes 5 AI generations, and Metricool's includes 5 assistant credits per brand per month. All are deliberately small — free AI at any real volume isn't something anyone offers, because it costs the vendor money per use.

Try Optimate against your own accounts

Free plan, 3 social profiles, no card required — enough to judge the content quality for yourself rather than take our word for it.

Start free