Best Social Media Tools for Small Businesses

The picks that stand out

Best when you post for clients and have to report on it

Metricool

Metricool prices by brand rather than by network, which is the same unit a freelancer bills in: one client, all their accounts, one line. Client-ready PDF and PPT reports are included from the entry paid plan instead of being held back for an agency tier, and the free plan schedules 20 posts a month for one brand with no card. The catch sits at the free end: LinkedIn and X cannot be connected there, and X stays a paid add-on afterwards.

Best if you publish to a few channels and want the bill to move with you

Buffer

Buffer charges per channel, so three accounts cost three channels and a departing client removes a line rather than triggering a tier change. Its free plan covers three channels with ten scheduled posts each: a real product, not a countdown. It is also the least ambitious tool here, deliberately: the analytics stop well short of what reporting-heavy client work needs, and the entry paid plan is single-user.

Best when the work is visual and someone has to approve it

Later

Later's planner shows the grid as followers will see it before anything publishes, with approvals and commenting built into that flow rather than added beside it. It groups accounts into social sets, one profile per network, which fits a brand rather than a channel count. It is the only tool here with no free plan at all, and its entry tier allows one user, so the review loop that justifies the product starts at the second tier.

Only once social is somebody's full-time job

Hootsuite

Hootsuite puts listening, a unified inbox, publishing and approval routing in one product, and gives unlimited social accounts from its second tier: something per-channel pricing never reaches. It is priced per user, and the advertised figure assumes annual billing, which puts it several times above everything else here. For a one-person business it is more product than the work requires; for a team of four running social as a function, the consolidation argument starts to hold.

At a glance

Criterion	Metricool	Buffer	Later	Hootsuite	Vista Social	SocialBee
Used mainly for	Scheduling posts across networks, client reporting	Scheduling posts, queueing a content calendar	Visual content planning, scheduling posts	Scheduling across many accounts, social listening	Scheduling posts across networks, shared social inbox	Scheduling posts across networks, recycling evergreen content
Entry price	€20.00/mo · Starter	$6.00/mo · Essentials	$25.00/mo · Starter	€99.00/mo equivalent · Standard	$99.00/mo · Professional	$29.00/mo · Bootstrap
Free plan	✓Yes	✓Yes	✕No	✕No	✕No	✕No
Free trial	✕No	✓Yes	✓Yes	✓Yes	✓Yes	✓Yes
Works on	Web, iOS, Android	Web, iOS, Android, Browser extension	Web, iOS, Android	Web, iOS, Android	Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Chrome	Web
Documented integrations	Google Drive, Canva, MCP, API	Zapier, Canva, Shopify, API	Canva, Shopify, Google Analytics, API	Canva, Salesforce, Zendesk, Slack, API	Zapier, Make, MCP	Canva, Unsplash, GIPHY
Setup	Easy: 30-60 min	Easy: 30 min	Easy: 30-60 min	Moderate: 1-2 hr	Moderate: 1-2 h	Easy: 30-60 min
Main limitation	The free plan cannot connect LinkedIn or X	Cost climbs quickly once you publish to six or more channels	No free plan at all, only a 14-day trial	No free plan, and the entry price is several times that of every alternative here	No free plan, only a 14-day trial	No free plan, only a 14-day trial
Our evidence level	Vendor documented	Vendor documented	Vendor documented	Vendor documented	Vendor documented	Vendor documented
Try it	Try Metricool ↗	Try Buffer ↗	Try Later ↗Partner link	Try Hootsuite ↗	Try Vista Social ↗Partner link	Try SocialBee ↗Partner link

Every cell comes from the tool's record, built from its official documentation and pricing page. The integrations listed are the ones the vendor documents, not tested by us.

The pricing unit decides the bill, not the sticker price

Compare the headline numbers and the four look close together at the bottom of the range. Compare the units and they separate immediately. Metricool counts brands, Buffer counts channels, Later counts social sets and seats, Hootsuite counts people. A freelancer with three clients on four networks each pays one Metricool tier, twelve Buffer channels, or three Later social sets: the same work, three very different invoices. Before comparing features, write down how many clients, how many networks and how many people need to log in. That short table decides more than any feature list will.

Where the free plans actually stop

Two of the four publish something free forever. Metricool's runs one brand and 20 scheduled posts a month but cannot connect LinkedIn or X, which for a B2B consultant removes the only network that mattered. Buffer's takes three channels with ten scheduled posts each, refillable, which is enough to run a small business indefinitely if you post a few times a week. Later and Hootsuite offer 14-day trials and nothing permanent. If free is a hard constraint, the category is down to two before anything else is considered.

Annual billing is doing more work here than usual

Every vendor in this category leads with the annual figure, and the gap is wider than in most software: Metricool advertises up to 24% off, Later 25%, Buffer two months free, and Hootsuite's plans page shows the annual number only. That is fine when the account is stable and expensive when it is not: a client leaving in month three of a twelve-month commitment is a paid-for brand slot you cannot hand back. Pay monthly until the client list stops moving, then switch and take the discount.

If you run social for many clients at once: Vista Social

Past a handful of clients, the unit that matters becomes the number of profiles one plan holds. Vista Social's entry plan covers 15 social profiles and 2 users, with publishing, a shared inbox, reports and review management in the same tool, which is the consolidation Hootsuite sells, on a plan priced for a small agency. It has no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and X (Twitter) is a paid add-on on every plan. For one person feeding two accounts it is the wrong size; for a freelancer with a dozen client profiles it is worth the trial.

If most of your posts are evergreen: SocialBee

Some businesses publish the same kinds of posts again and again: tips, testimonials, product reminders. SocialBee is built around that. Posts go into content categories, each profile gets a posting cadence, and posts can be recycled or set to expire, so a library of evergreen content keeps publishing without rescheduling it by hand. Bootstrap is $29 a month month to month for 5 profiles and one user, or $290 a year billed yearly. The single user is the catch: a second person costs $10 a month more, and only Pro ($99) includes three. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial.

What none of them fix

Scheduling is not the hard part of social media, and no tool here pretends otherwise. Every one of them will publish an empty calendar's worth of filler exactly on time. What they remove is the switching cost of five apps and the risk of forgetting a client entirely; what they do not remove is deciding what to say. Analytics help less than they appear to at small volumes, where one post outperforming another is usually noise rather than a signal about the format.

Pricing side by side

Frequently asked questions