Buffer is one of the most popular social media management tools on the market. It allows you to easily schedule posts, analyze performance, and engage with your audience across multiple social networks, all from a single dashboard.
However, Buffer isn‘t perfect for everyone. It lacks some advanced features that larger teams and agencies need, like social listening and competitor benchmarking. It can also get pricey, especially if you need to manage lots of social profiles.
If you‘ve outgrown Buffer or simply want to explore what else is out there, you‘re in the right place. In this post, we‘ll introduce you to the top 5 Buffer alternatives and help you decide which one is the best fit for your business.
Here‘s a quick rundown of the tools we‘ll cover:
- SocialBee – Best overall Buffer alternative
- Sendible – Best for teams and agencies
- Pallyy – Best for visual content
- ContentStudio – Best for content curation and automation
- Metricool – Best free plan
Let‘s dive in and take a closer look at each one.
1. SocialBee
SocialBee is our top pick for the best Buffer alternative. It offers all the same core features as Buffer—publishing, analytics, engagement, etc.—but takes things to the next level with its innovative category-based scheduling system and advanced AI tools.
With SocialBee, rather than scheduling posts individually like you do with Buffer, you organize your content into categories like Promotional, Curated, Tips, etc. You can then set up your posting plan to automatically publish content from different categories on a recurring schedule.
This helps keep your social feeds fresh and engaging by mixing up the type of content you share. You can recycle your best evergreen content too, so you never run out of things to post.
Another unique feature is SocialBee‘s Social Media Copilot. Powered by GPT-3, it acts as your own personal social media assistant. It walks you through a quick questionnaire about your brand and goals, then automatically generates a fully fleshed-out social strategy with content categories, a posting plan, and even pre-written posts to get you started. No need to start from scratch.
You get other AI-powered tools as well, including a caption generator, hashtag suggester, and engagement ideas. All of this helps streamline your workflows so you can save time while maximizing your results.
Key features:
- Powerful category-based scheduling tools
- Evergreen content recycling
- Automatic posting schedules
- Social Media Copilot strategy generator
- AI writing tools and suggestions
- Post preview and media editing
- Analytics and reporting
Pricing:
Plans start at $29/month. 14-day free trial.
2. Sendible
Sendible is an all-in-one social media management tool built for teams and agencies. It offers many of the same features as Buffer, plus a few key capabilities you don‘t get with Buffer that make it ideal for larger organizations and client services.
With Sendible‘s content publishing tools, you can create, preview, customize and schedule posts for all the major social networks in an interactive calendar view. Sendible offers a wider array of post types than Buffer, including carousels, videos, and multi-image posts.
One of Sendible‘s biggest advantages over Buffer is its unified social inbox, which lets you monitor brand keywords and mentions alongside your incoming messages and comments. Having everything in one place makes it easy to stay on top of engagement and never miss an important conversation.
For agencies, Sendible‘s team and client management features are where it really shines. You can bring on team members with custom roles and permission levels, set up client profiles with their own dedicated dashboards, and even whitelabel the platform with your own branding.
Built-in approval workflows keep your team aligned and your clients in the loop. And with Sendible‘s robust reporting, you can show clients the value you‘re providing and optimize your strategies based on what‘s working.
Key features:
- Publishing and scheduling tools
- Content calendar
- Unified social inbox
- Brand monitoring
- Team and client management
- Custom roles and permissions
- Whitelabel client dashboards
- Approval workflows
- Analytics and reporting
Pricing:
Plans start at $29/month. 14-day free trial.
3. Pallyy
Pallyy is the best Buffer alternative for brands and creators focused on visual content, especially on Instagram and Pinterest. It offers an intuitive drag-and-drop content planner that lets you see exactly how your scheduled posts will look in your Instagram grid before you publish.
You can bulk upload content from your device or Canva, Google Drive and Dropbox. Pallyy will automatically pull in your Canva designs and even convert them to the right format and size for each social network. It‘s a huge time-saver if you share a lot of visuals.
One of Pallyy‘s unique features is Collections, which are like mood boards that help you brainstorm and flesh out new content themes. You can save inspiring posts from across the web to your collections and use them to guide your content creation. It‘s great for maintaining a consistent brand aesthetic.
The Pallyy mobile app is top-notch too, with most of the same capabilities as the web app. You can plan and preview your Instagram grid, create and edit posts, and track your analytics on the go. It‘s a must-have for Instagram-first businesses.
Pallyy‘s link in bio tool is also one of the most customizable we‘ve seen. You can change the colors and fonts, feature different content blocks, and even gate exclusive content for email subscribers or paying fans.
Key features:
- Visual content planner
- Canva integration
- Media editing and optimization
- Collections for brainstorming
- Link in bio tool
- Hashtag manager
- Analytics and reporting
- Mobile app
Pricing:
Free plan available. Premium is $18/month.
4. ContentStudio
ContentStudio is a powerful Buffer alternative with robust publishing, collaboration, analytics and reporting tools. But where it really stands out is its content curation and automation capabilities.
With ContentStudio‘s Discover feature, you can easily find relevant articles, images, and social posts to share with your audience. Just enter a topic or keyword and filter the results by criteria like publish date, content type, language, and more to surface the best content.
You can save articles to your Favorites to read later or add them directly to your posting queue. ContentStudio will automatically extract the title, description, and featured image and create a post for you – no copying and pasting required.
You can also set up automated posting recipes to share content from RSS feeds, your blog, or pretty much any other source. For example, you could create a recipe that automatically publishes new posts from your company‘s blog across all your social channels as soon as they go live. It‘s a huge time-saver.
ContentStudio offers an AI writing assistant as well to help you generate content ideas and captions in seconds. Other AI-powered features include hashtag suggestions, sentiment analysis, and smart scheduling to post at the best times for engagement.
While Buffer is limited to social media, ContentStudio also supports publishing to other channels like your WordPress blog, email newsletters, or Shopify store. It‘s a more holistic solution for your content marketing.
Key features:
- Social media publishing and scheduling
- Content discovery and curation
- Automation recipes
- RSS feed integration
- WordPress and email publishing
- Hashtag manager
- AI content creation tools
- Analytics and reporting
Pricing:
Plans start at $25/month. 14-day free trial.
5. Metricool
Metricool is an affordable Buffer alternative with a generous free forever plan. It doesn‘t quite have the publishing power of tools like SocialBee and Sendible, but it offers solid analytics and some unique features Buffer lacks.
For example, with Metricool you can create custom, interactive dashboards using Google Data Studio to visualize your social media data alongside data from Google Ads, Search Console, and Analytics. It‘s an easy way to prove social ROI.
Metricool‘s competitor benchmarking is also very useful. You can analyze any public social profile to see how your performance stacks up in terms of audience growth, engagement rate, top posts, and more. These insights can help inform your strategy.
Other handy features include an AI content assistant, link in bio tool, and basic social ad management. While not as comprehensive as some other tools, Metricool lets you boost top-performing Facebook posts in just a few clicks.
Metricool‘s interface is very user-friendly, with an easy drag-and-drop calendar for scheduling. It offers a mobile app for both iOS and Android too.
However, one downside is that Metricool limits the number of posts you can schedule per month on most plans. Only the top-tier plan at $59/month offers unlimited publishing. This could be an issue for high-volume accounts.
Key features:
- Publishing tools
- Analytics dashboards
- Google Data Studio integration
- Competitor benchmarking
- AI content assistant
- Link in bio tool
- Ad management
- Mobile apps
Pricing:
Free plan available. Paid plans start at $11/month.
How to choose the right Buffer alternative
With so many great options out there, how do you decide which Buffer alternative is right for you? Here are a few key factors to consider:
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Supported social networks. Make sure the tool you choose supports all the networks you need to manage. While most cover the basics like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you‘ll need a more specialized tool for niche networks like Pinterest or TikTok.
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Must-have features. Think about which features are most important for your workflows, whether that‘s team collaboration tools, content curation, analytics and reporting, or something else. Prioritize tools that excel in those areas.
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Ease of use. Look for an interface that‘s intuitive for you and your team. You don‘t want to waste hours trying to figure out how to do basic tasks. Take advantage of free trials to test out different options.
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Pricing. Be realistic about your budget and expected ROI. Don‘t overpay for features you won‘t use. Remember that many tools offer discounts for annual billing.
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Integrations. Consider how each tool will fit into your existing tech stack. Native integrations with design tools like Canva, website builders, email marketing platforms, and analytics tools can make your life a lot easier.
Ultimately, the best Buffer alternative for you depends on your unique social media goals and pain points. But with the tools on this list, you‘re sure to find one that fits the bill.
The key is to establish a consistent publishing cadence, make data-driven optimizations, and focus on building authentic connections with your audience. With the right tool in your arsenal, you‘ll be well on your way to social media success.
