Social media schedulers compared: Postiz vs Metricool vs Publer vs SocialBee vs ContentStudio
Data as of 2026-11-11. Rechecked every quarter.
Solo founders and lean marketing teams rarely need $300/month enterprise social suites; they need reliable cross-posting to X, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts, plus either a free tier or an API they can script.
We compared five social schedulers: Postiz, Metricool, Publer, SocialBee, and ContentStudio. Metricool offers the best free plan for a single brand (50 posts/month with analytics). Postiz is open-source and exposes a full REST API for agentic workflows. Publer ($12/mo) excels at bulk CSV scheduling, while SocialBee ($29/mo) and ContentStudio ($25/mo) suit evergreen category queues and multi-client agencies.
1. The facts side by side
| Tool | Pricing | Free tier | Visits/month | Revenue (30 days) | Agent-ready | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Postiz postiz.com | open-source, from $29/mo | Self-host free; 7-day cloud trial | — | $443.7K (TrustMRR) | llms.txt, API | Self-hostable Docker setup and clean REST API for scheduling threads and carousels from scripts. (2026-11-11) |
| Metricool metricool.com | freemium, from $22/mo | Free forever for 1 brand (50 posts/mo) | 11.5M (2026-10) | — | API | Most generous free tier for one brand, combining scheduling with competitor analytics and ad reporting. (2026-11-11) |
| Publer publer.com | freemium, from $12/mo | Free plan for 3 social accounts | 1.6M (2026-10) | — | API | Fastest bulk CSV upload and automatic RSS-to-social posting at $12/mo. (2026-11-11) |
| SocialBee socialbee.com | freemium, from $29/mo | 14-day free trial | 310K (2026-10) | — | none found | Best evergreen category rotation so timeless tips automatically re-queue. (2026-11-11) |
| ContentStudio contentstudio.io | freemium, from $25/mo | 14-day free trial | 380K (2026-10) | — | API | Strongest agency client-approval workflow and combined blog + social publishing. (2026-11-11) |
“—” means we have not looked or the site does not say. Prices are as the tool’s own page states them.