11 free (or almost free) social media management tools

More likely than not, your business has a presence on more than one social media platform.

The more platforms you are on, the harder it is to manually post, monitor and engage within your native social media accounts.

Social media management involves the many moving pieces regarding content publication and online communication on such platforms as Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn and more.

Dive deeper with our seven reasons why your business should use a social media management tool.

Therefore, social media management tools are intended to consolidate into one space the ability to:

• Schedule content
• Engage with your audiences
• Analyze performance data
• Potentially create content (depending on the tool)

For even more efficiency, consider these seven opportunities for social media automation, and once you have a posting rhythm down, our eight tips for building a content calendar can help you stay organized.

The following (in no particular order) are 11 tools that were free or nearly free the last time we checked. A fair warning up front: pricing in this category moves fast. Several tools that used to anchor lists like this one, including Hootsuite and TweetDeck, have quietly pulled their free tiers entirely in the past couple of years. We have kept them here with honest, current details rather than pretending nothing changed, and added a few genuinely free alternatives near the end.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite discontinued its free plan back in March 2023. There is no longer a permanent free tier, only a 30-day trial that requires a credit card. Once the trial ends, the entry-level Standard plan runs $99 per user per month billed annually, with an Advanced plan at $249 per user per month.

This application still features “streams” in which you can set up a tab for each of your social media accounts and then a series of streams on each tab that reflect your mentions, scheduled posts and more.

It supports a range of social media platforms, including:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• X (formerly Twitter)
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• TikTok

Socialoomph

Socialoomph has been around since 2008 and is still going strong in 2026. It also offers a limited free plan in addition to different paid subscriptions with increasing features. The free plan features:

• 1 social account
• Access to personal area only
• Access to basic posting features
• Unlimited scheduled posts
• Maximum three posts per hour
• Cannot add additional social accounts
• Free support

This social media management tool includes support for bulk uploading, RSS feed automation (useful for keyword filtering and content streams) and web hooks, among other features. Socialoomph centers itself around the concept of teams. Even with the free single-user account, you automatically have one team, called “My Account.”

Socialoomph supports such social media platforms as:

• Facebook
• X (formerly Twitter)
• LinkedIn
• Bluesky
• Pinterest
• Mastodon

Paid plans still run from roughly $15 to $55 per month depending on how many accounts you need to connect. It remains one of the more budget-friendly options on this list if RSS-driven automation is what you are after.

Later

Later is a very visual-based social media management tool, and it is one of the tools whose free plan is now gone. Later retired its permanent free tier and now offers only a 14-day trial on paid plans. The entry-level Starter plan runs $25 per month billed monthly (about $18.75 per month billed annually), and it is limited to one “social set” (one profile per platform) and roughly 30 posts per profile per month.

While Later allows you to post to Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, and X, its main focus remains Instagram. Later also still features its Media Library and Instagram grid preview, which is arguably the best visual planning tool in this category if that workflow matters to you.

To do more (such as scheduling video, multiple social sets, or working with a team), higher-tier plans run $45 to $110 per month.

Buffer

Buffer is a social media management tool that still offers a genuinely usable free plan, arguably one of the most generous in this category. The free plan features:

• 1 user
• 3 connected channels
• 10 scheduled posts per channel (30 total)
• Basic analytics and AI Assistant access

The free plan supports Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Threads. Once a scheduled post publishes, that slot opens back up, so the 10-post limit is really a rolling queue rather than a hard monthly cap.

Buffer's paid tiers moved to per-channel pricing: Essentials runs $5 per channel per month billed annually ($6 monthly), and Team runs $10 per channel per month billed annually ($12 monthly), which adds unlimited team members and approval workflows.

PromoRepublic

PromoRepublic has moved well outside the “almost free” category since this list first went up. There is no longer a free plan, and the affordable Solo plan this article originally pointed to has been replaced by a Small Business plan starting at $49 per month, with a 14-day free trial to test it out.

PromoRepublic is still very design focused, which can feel like a merging of Canva with a traditional social media management tool, and it still ships with a large library of post ideas and pre-designed graphics. It is a reasonable pick if your budget has grown past this list's original scope, particularly for multi-location businesses that need review management alongside scheduling.

TweetDeck (now X Pro)

This is the single biggest change on this list. TweetDeck, the free application this list used to recommend for managing unlimited X (formerly Twitter) accounts from one dashboard, no longer exists as a free tool. It was rebranded X Pro after Twitter became X, then moved behind the $8-per-month X Premium subscription in 2023. In March 2026, X moved X Pro again, this time behind the $40-per-month Premium+ tier, a roughly 400 percent jump with no advance notice to existing subscribers.

If X scheduling and monitoring is what you need and $40 a month is more than you want to spend, Buffer, Socialoomph, or Metricool all support X on their free or low-cost tiers.

Canva

Largely viewed as a design tool only, many don't realize that Canva also has social media scheduling capabilities through its Content Planner.

However, the free version of Canva is still designing only. To schedule social media content (now to about 8 platforms), you need Canva Pro, which currently runs $15 per month billed monthly, or about $10 per month if billed annually ($120 per year), up from the $9.99 flat rate this article originally cited.

Canva Pro's Content Planner supports scheduling for platforms including Instagram, Facebook, X, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Check Canva's current pricing page for the full, up-to-date list since it changes as platforms add or remove API access.

Of course, the power of sophisticated design features coupled with the ability to schedule that content all in the same application might work perfectly for you and your business, especially if you would otherwise be paying separately for design software and a scheduler.

ContentCal (now Adobe Express Content Scheduler)

ContentCal no longer exists as a standalone product. Adobe acquired it in December 2021 and fully discontinued the original platform on March 31, 2023, folding its scheduling features into Adobe Express as the Content Scheduler feature.

The free tier of Adobe Express now includes a handful of scheduled posts per month, and a Premium subscription (around $9.99 per month) unlocks more. It is a meaningfully smaller feature set than ContentCal offered: the approval workflows, in-depth analytics, and some integrations (Trello, IFTTT, and others) that ContentCal was known for did not carry over.

If approval workflows and team collaboration were the reason you liked ContentCal, Planable's free plan (50 posts, unlimited users) is generally considered the closest spiritual successor.

Zoho Social

Zoho Social is one of the tools on this list that still offers a real free plan, with:

• 1 user
• 1 brand
• Publishing on up to 7 social media accounts
• Basic scheduling and a content calendar

The application features a content calendar that helps you visualize the posting timeline and allows you to organize your posts however needed. Supported social media platforms include:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• X (formerly Twitter)
• LinkedIn
• Google Business Profile

For advanced features, the lowest paid subscription plan now starts at $15 per month, up from $10 when this article was first published.

Planoly

Only concerned about Instagram? Planoly might still be for you, though its pricing has shifted. The old limited free plan has effectively been replaced by a 14-day free trial. The entry-level Starter plan now runs $16 per month ($14 per month billed annually) for one social set and up to 60 uploads per month.

Planoly still features Linkit, which allows you to link to products, resources, websites and so on using the link in your bio, and the Instagram grid preview remains one of its strongest features for visually planning a feed.

For team access or multiple social sets, the Growth plan runs $28 per month ($24 billed annually).

See our six expert tips for marketing on Pinterest.

Postfity

Postfity has been restructured as the social media component of the Simplified platform, and its pricing has changed accordingly. It now offers a free plan with essential scheduling features, alongside AI-powered paid tiers starting around $20 per month for expanded content creation, design, and analytics tools.

The tool still supports the core platforms marketers rely on most, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X, plus AI-assisted graphic design and copywriting bundled into the paid tiers. If Postfity's older, simpler scheduling-only version is what appealed to you, budget for a trial run before committing, since the product now leans much more heavily into AI content generation than it used to.

Still want something genuinely free?

Since roughly half of this original list has moved upmarket, here are a few newer tools worth a look if a real free plan is non-negotiable for you:

• Metricool: free for 1 brand, with analytics included on the free tier, which is unusual in this category. Paid plans start around $22 per month.
• Publer: free for up to 3 social accounts (X requires a paid plan), with bulk scheduling included. Paid plans start around $5 to $12 per month.
• Social Champ: free for 3 accounts, 1 user, and 15 scheduled posts. Paid plans start around $4 per month per channel.

It's possible that to find the perfect free or low-cost social media management tool, you'll have to experiment over time. That's OK. Do as much research as you can so that you know in advance whether the tool you're considering will truly serve your needs, and don't stress if you ultimately need to transition to a different tool as pricing changes, which, as this update shows, happens more often in this category than you might expect.

Still not sure which social media platform to use to promote your brand? View our guide to help determine the right platform for your business.

While you're considering your social media management options, think about the rest of your digital marketing process too. Is it everything you want it to be? DailyStory features automations, audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.