Buffer is one of the most popular social media management and automation tools. It has great publishing features, a neat interface, and direct Instagram scheduling. But the tool seems to have some downsides compared to Buffer alternatives in the market.
But it has some notable downsides too.
Buffer is divided into three applications: Buffer Publish, Reply, and Analyze. These three apps cover social media publishing, monitoring, and reporting, respectively, and each has its monthly fee.
But, if you are a startup or a small business looking for a social media tool that handles everything without consuming away your profit margins, you should look out for options other than Buffer.
So, before you sign up for a Buffer subscription, check these five best Buffer alternatives as well.
Top 7 Buffer Alternatives Agencies and Small Teams Must Try
Table of Contents
1. SocialPilot: Best Buffer Alternative
Price: $35/month
SocialPilot is one of the most cost-effective Buffer alternatives for small teams and industries. It delivers tremendous growth on social media and lowers spending on devices. With SocialPilot, you don’t have to stress about your updates and about running out of limits. You can also make data-driven decisions to improve engagement and regulate your social media strategy.
SocialPilot aids in scheduling and replying to all the comments, messages, and posts in real-time. Besides scheduling social media, you can also request clients to connect accounts and share reports through white-label emails on SocialPilot.
Why Choose SocialPilot as Your Go-to Buffer Alternative?
- With a friendly user interface, you can plan/create personalized posts for all your social media platforms, all in one place.
- The Social Inbox feature allows users to answer all messages and comments. It also filters conversations and centers on the appropriate ones – so that you don’t miss responding to any customer.
- SocialPilot aids in scheduling 500 social media posts with the bulk schedule feature.
- Workflows let you collaborate with groups while reviewing and approving all content before posting.
- You can streamline and optimize your social media strategy on autopilot by scheduling posts when your followers and subscribers are most active.
- SocialPilot’s curated content list aids in creating compelling content based on categories, recency, keywords, and influencers.
- SocialPilot’s extension enables scheduling social media posts anytime and anywhere without changing windows and tabs.
- It enables you to add videos and images with SocialPilot.
- It has an in-built Giphy support.
- Easily trim URLs in your posts with Rebrandly, Bitly, or Sniply.
- It has built-in Dropbox and Box.com support to share media from your cloud storage seamlessly.
- It allows setting approval rights and privileges to change or delete posts.
What Do People Think About SocialPilot?
Jeniffer W.
I love being able to schedule multiple posts for multiple accounts and batch content. The analytics are good too. We can have way more accounts vs. some of the other sites out there. I also love that I can set groups and select multiple accounts with one click. There is an option to export reports with your company logo on them to look very professional.
Jenna D.
It took me a solid 3 weeks to compare and contrast every single social media scheduling tool on the market, but I’m glad HuI did it! SocialPilot was BY FAR the best service for the best price. I get more from SocialPilot than I do from HootSuite or Buffer at a fraction of the cost. And their customer support is unbeatable! Thanks for all you guys do!
Alexandra K.
The scheduler function allows me to organize and post content for an entire month in advance. I can be sure that the content will post on time and in all different media formats. I can also edit posts after they have been scheduled to go out, posts can be re-shared, and times changed/edits made. The functions work quickly across all of our business’s social platforms. The social analytics component is very beneficial and serves as a great guide to understanding how your content is doing and who exactly your audience is.
Interesting Read: Top 7 Hootsuite Alternatives for Budding Marketing Agencies
2. Loomly: Buffer Alternative for Teams
Price: $79/month for 6 users
Loomly is a robust cloud-based social media management tool and a Buffer alternative that delivers end-to-end social media management solutions.
It serves as a central dashboard that organizes your social media posts and ads. This social media tool is best suited for small businesses, digital marketers, and social media influencers.
It enables content curation, interaction with audiences, workflow management, analysis of metrics, and various other social media actions from a single dashboard. It also gives users suggestions and comments for optimizing their content to maximize its impact.
Pros
- Loomly eliminates the inefficient and traditional use of spreadsheet applications to manage their social media post scheduling.
- The platform delivers social media managers with real-time information about their posts.
- Loomly does not only help users with drafting and creating scheduled posts for social media updates, but it also analyzes and monitors them.
Shannon L
We love that Loomly allows us to schedule out content on the typical profiles like FB, IG, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even better on Pinterest, TikTok, and Google My Business. The scheduling tool is super easy to use, and our clients love the ease of reviewing their planned content on the calendar. Our team loves the collaboration area, where we can comment on what needs to be updated or changed. When we price compared to other similar tools, it was a no-brainer that Loomly was the right fit for value and price.
Cons
- Recently, Loomly removed Instagram publishing.
- It’s not simple to switch to a calendar function.
Zac G
The lack of analytics is a big issue. I understand that you can pay more to receive post analytics, but competitors offer this at their base account. Unfortunately, this was a big enough issue to cause me to migrate to one of those competitors.
3. Sprout Social: Buffer Alternative for Big Brands
Price: $99/month
Sprout Social is one of the excellent Buffer alternatives that provides robust social management solutions for leading companies and brands like Hyatt, Microsoft, Leo Burnett, Ogilvy, and Evernote. It allows brands to streamline social management, publishing, engagement, reporting, customer service, and much more.
Sprout Social is notable because it has a CRM function and listening add-on to improve your marketing strategy through conversations and insights about your brand. Sprout Social is a comprehensive social media software covering everything from publishing to reporting to social listening. It delivers collaboration tools, and they also have a 30-day free trial.
Pros
- It is compatible with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
- It has a smart inbox that serves as an inbox for all of your social media channels.
- It has an amazing help desk with additional CRM features.
Cassie S
I manage 13 different social media accounts, so I need scheduling software to keep up with everything! The majority of the reports on sprout are the same as you can find on your social media channel, but having everything in one place makes reports easier.
Cons
- The advanced features are only available with costly subscriptions.
- It integrates with only a few social networks.
Ellie G
No Snapchat or TikTok integration. Also, it’s really expensive if you have multiple social channels. Reasonable price for 10 channels, but since each FB, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc., counts as 1 channel, 10 goes fast.
4. Later: Visual-Focused Buffer Alternative
Price: $12.50/month
Later began as an Instagram marketing tool in 2014 and has developed its platform for famous social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Their expertise is based in media management, visual scheduling, marketing, and analytics.
It is an all-in-one social marketing platform which makes it one of the popular Buffer alternatives. It allows you to plan, analyze and post your content with just a few clicks. It assists in saving time while improving the growth of your business.
It allows content map creation and post schedule with Later’s visual planning tool. It’s a calendar tool where you can drag and drop content onto a timeline.
Pros
- The analytics feature is impressive, especially in response to hashtag performance.
- Story scheduling is a remarkable feature that lets you schedule Instagram stories in advance. It also allows multiple users in one sign-on account.
- It helps to schedule posts on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Rachel D
I love the month layout. It allows me to preview our posts for the month in a visual way that’s clear and helpful. I also like that you can preview your grid from the platform, so you can see how all your posts will look lined up on your profile. The media library section is also useful as you can tag photos with certain labels (used or unused) and even add notes to the photos.
Cons
- Later doesn’t let you tweet just a link (no photo attached), which can sometimes be challenging when scheduling content.
- It presently doesn’t post videos to Pinterest via the mobile app, only through the desktop version.
Meredith Walter
I wish there was a direct integration with things like Canva and Lightroom to make uploading and editing my images seamless.
5. Agorapulse: Robust Buffer Alternative
Price: $99/month
Agorapulse is one of the better Buffer alternatives for businesses of all sizes. It has features like analytics, social media scheduling, automation, and monitoring features to aid you in utilizing digital marketing opportunities and increasing traffic.
It has a social inbox for operating all incoming communications in one place by offering intuitive publishing, social listening, insights, and reporting inside its robust stack.
Team collaboration allows you to entrust tasks to different members and ensure a frictionless workflow within the organization. Agorapulse has remarkable customer support, and you can contact them 24X7 through email, phone, or live chat.
Pros
- Intuitive publishing enables you to organize, collaborate, and schedule content for all your social media platforms.
- A robust social inbox enables you to manage all your incoming social media direct messages, shares, and comments in one place.
- There is a 30-day free trial available.
Sam C
Agorapulse is an incredible tool that can definitely ease the burden of social media. I appreciate that Agorapulse easily links with most social media platforms. Its best feature is its competitor tracking analytics tool.
Cons
- Agorapulse is costly for small business owners.
- Sometimes the application lags and faces glitches.
- The application is not mobile-friendly.
Alex F
Unfortunately, the reporting is pretty weak. We actually use another third-party app to pull .csv files for loading into Google Sheets and Google Data Studio. AgoraPulse will allow you to export mostly PowerPoints (which aren’t that pretty) and some .csv files for very basic social metrics.
Interesting Read: 5 Amazing Agorapulse Alternatives for Upscaling on Social Media
6. Zoho Social: Buffer Alternative for Enterprise
Price: $15/month
Zoho Social is one of those excellent social media marketing management tools which is an all-rounder in every aspect. It proves to be a perfect Buffer alternative as it has comparative features, but they are more efficient in many ways.
The tool will give you powerful functions, including bulk scheduler, content calendar, repeat post, etc., which empower your content to boost your brand’s relevancy.
Its best feature would be its highly developed social media listening. Zoho Social’s robust language analysis ability enables users to know the common public opinion about your brand readily.
Pros
- It helps manage accounts on Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, and Facebook.
- The tool is user-friendly and very easy to learn.
- Zoho social has very well-developed social listening abilities.
Eren Y
Zoho Social is a great tool to organize all the social media from one platform. One can organize and schedule posts by just using this tool. It works with Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, Facebook. All the big social media platforms are there. Once you have multiple brands, it is easy to schedule and saves you lots of time. One other advantage is that it is very easy to learn and very user-friendly. Customer support is another thing worth mentioning since they are fast to respond and help you with your problem.
Cons
- The tool is unable to post high-resolution images.
- Scheduling Facebook and Instagram stories are not possible.
- Customer support is not up to the mark.
Thommy S
The inability to post high-resolution photos due to the size of the file is the absolute worst part of this platform. If they could get that working, this would be an incredible system. However, we ended up having to buy another social posting platform because of their inability to adapt/conform.
7. Sendible: Powerful Buffer Alternative
Price: $29/month
Sendible is a tool with expertise in providing social media strategizing and management support to agencies and small businesses. Its focus on this particular demographic makes it a powerful Buffer alternative.
Along with the content scheduling and curation tools, the distinct “Priority Inbox” feature makes it highly effective at driving the most promising interaction forward. This feature is very much why a majority of its clientele prefer them.
During the content creation process, the tool lets the user customize the post according to the platform and preview the generated post. This advanced feature is handy for smaller clients to make better social media content.
Pros
- The tool allows scheduling on Google My Business other than the leading social platforms as well.
- It easily lets the user post o all the social media channels in one go.
- The analytics features of the tool are very insightful.
Megan E
The BEST highlight is that you can schedule Google My Business (GMB) posts with sensible!!! This social media scheduler is a game-changer for me, in general, but the fact that it posts to GMB alone is a HUGE win for me. It is so useful and multifaceted. I have “ques” set up for GMB posts, so a large set of posts will just recycle themselves after they all post. It’s absolutely incredible. Plus, it’s easy to post to multiple social media channels at once
Cons
- The connectivity while using the team collaboration often fails to function correctly.
- The pricing is higher and has not been relaxed.
- There are glitches in the posting feature, so sometimes, the publishing fails.
Verified Current User
The price of Sendible hasn’t decreased as the number of competitors offering similar services has increased – all at a significantly lower cost. This has been a big disappointment and one we are looking at addressing. It’s just incredibly difficult to change platforms because we have so many posts scheduled out months in advance. At times the Service list connectivity between our team members doesn’t function as it is supposed to – there are permission issues that seem to iron themselves out after a little while. This can be frustrating when we onboard a new client and our team begins to work in earnest on future postings.
Which of the Buffer Alternatives Did You Choose?
The social media automation tool you choose to use should help your execution process from start to end to manage your social media marketing as seamlessly as possible.
Buffer is one of the most famous social media automation tools. Still, other available platforms go further than what Buffer does at a competitive price.
Like, SocialPilot, which is one of the best Buffer alternatives. Though there are a lot of resemblances between SocialPilot and Buffer, the former seals a challenging deal.
SocialPilot can connect to various social media platforms. Besides that, it can schedule up to 5,000 posts compared to Buffer’s 2,000 posts.
There are also additional features that SocialPilot delivers that Buffer doesn’t, such as providing you with the option to handle your Facebook ads within the marketing tool itself. And that is not all. Take up its free trial, and check out what more SocialPilot has to offer.
Frequently Asked Questions
🌟 Is the Buffer app available for free?
Yes, Buffer has a free version available but with minimal features. Rather, you can use a social media tool like SocialPilot and take advantage of all its functions and features on an affordable plan.
🌟 What are the best Buffer alternatives?
Some of the best alternatives to Buffer are:
- SocialPilot
- Loomly
- Sprout Social
- Later
- Agorapulse
- Zoho Social
- Sendible
🌟 What does the Buffer application do?
Buffer is a social media automation tool that allows you to schedule posts for different social media posts. You can also analyze the performance of each post, bulk schedule them, and generate reports as well.
🌟 Is the Buffer application expensive?
Buffer delivers 4 plans at the following price range:
- There’s a free plan but with several limitations.
- The essential plan is $6/month per social channel.
- The team's plan is $12/month per social channel.
- The agency plan costs $120/month.
🌟 Is SocialPilot better than Buffer application?
It depends on what your needs are. If you are a developing company looking for a social media tool that handles everything without consuming away your profit margins, SocialPilot is better than Buffer.
SocialPilot also provides technical support to its clients five days a week. In addition to post scheduling and management, SocialPilot also delivers Facebook Boost Post and Lead Ads management, a feature Buffer doesn’t have.
