23 Best Planoly Alternatives for 2026

Prices last verified: April 30, 2026, against each vendor's public pricing page. Vendors change pricing often, so treat these as a starting point and confirm before you buy.

The short answer

Planoly is Instagram-first visual planning, closest in shape to Later and usually cheaper at entry. If the grid preview is what you use it for, most of this list will feel like a downgrade and only Later really replaces it. If you have outgrown the single-user, single-social-set shape, or you now post to channels beyond Instagram and Pinterest, the tools below cover more ground for similar money.

23 alternatives below, ordered by entry price, with what each one is actually good at.

Planoly alternatives compared

Tool	Entry paid price	Free plan	Best for
Planoly (the baseline)	Around $16/mo Starter (annual)	Yes, limited to 1 user and 1 social set	Instagram-first visual planning
Publer	$5/mo Professional ($4/mo billed yearly)	Yes, free forever tier	The cheapest paid tier with a real free plan
Post Bridge	Around $7.50 to $9/mo (Starter)	Yes, 5 posts/mo	Deliberately minimal publishing
Zoho Social	$10/mo (Standard, billed annually)	No	Teams already inside the Zoho suite
PostNext.io	11 EUR/mo (Premium, 15 channels)	Yes, 1,000 posts/mo fair use	AI post and blog generation on a flat price
Tailwind	$17.99/mo annual Pin Scheduling ($29.99 monthly)	Yes	Pinterest, and Pinterest SEO in particular
Later	$18.75/mo Starter (annual, 25% off)	No	Visual planning for Instagram-led brands
FeedHive	$19/mo (Creator, 4 social accounts)	No	Solo creators who want AI recycling
CoSchedule	$19/mo Social Calendar (annual)	Yes, Free Calendar with 1 user and 1 profile	A marketing calendar that happens to post
Metricool	$20/mo (Starter, 5 brands)	Yes, 1 brand and 20 posts/mo	Analytics depth at a small-team price
SocialPilot	$20/mo Essentials ($17/mo annual)	No	Agencies managing many client accounts
Buffer	$5/mo per channel (Essentials)	Yes, 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts	The cheapest way to start on one or two channels
Sprout Social	$79/seat/mo Essentials (annual), $99 monthly	No, 30-day trial	Enterprise reporting and workflow
SocialBee	$29/mo Bootstrap ($20.17/mo annual), 5 profiles	No, 14-day trial	Category-based evergreen recycling
MeetEdgar	$29.99/mo Eddie ($24.91/mo annual), 5 accounts	No, 30-day trial	Set-and-forget evergreen automation
Sendible	$29/mo Creator (1 user, 6 profiles)	No	White-label agency reporting
Planable	$33/workspace/mo Basic	Yes, 50 free posts with no time limit	The cleanest approval and review experience
HeyOrca	$35/mo per calendar (Agency Basic)	Yes, light posting on 1 calendar	Client approval workflows
Kontentino	$39/mo (Basic, billed annually)	No	Approvals with a brand-safety review step
Loomly	$49/mo Starter ($65/mo monthly)	No, trial only	Unlimited calendars and a post-ideas board
eClincher	$65/mo (Basic, 10 profiles, 1 user)	No	The closest all-in-one to Hootsuite itself
Agorapulse	$79/mo Standard (annual)	Yes, limited	A social inbox without enterprise pricing
Mixpost	$299 one-time (Pro), self-hosted	Yes, Lite is open source	Owning your data on your own server
Hootsuite	~$99/user/mo (Standard, list)	No, discontinued	Enterprise listening, ads, support inbox

Publer

Professional is $5/mo, or $4/mo billed yearly, and Business is $10/mo, which makes it one of the cheapest paid tools here. There is a genuine free-forever tier rather than a trial. Publer bills around social accounts, so check how the total scales with your account count rather than reading the headline alone. Broad channel coverage including Mastodon, Bluesky and Google Business Profile.

Post Bridge

A newer, small product with a tight scope: connect accounts, schedule, publish through official APIs. The free plan allows 5 posts per month across all platforms, enough to evaluate and not much more. No learning curve. Confirm current pricing on their site, as the published figures move.

Zoho Social

One of the cheapest paid tiers here, and the reason to pick it is usually that your CRM, helpdesk or mail already sits in Zoho. The integration between them is the value; taken alone the scheduler is competent rather than remarkable. No free plan, so budget for the paid tier from day one.

PostNext.io

Flat 11 EUR/mo for 15 channels with no per-user or per-channel multiplier, which is the structural difference from most of this list. AI post generation and an AI WordPress blog generator are included rather than sold as add-ons, and there is a free plan with a 1,000 posts/mo fair use cap. Publishes to X, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube and Threads, so if you need Facebook, Pinterest or Reddit it is the wrong tool. No listening, no ads, no inbox.

Tailwind

Not a general scheduler. Tailwind is built around Pinterest, sold as separate products for Pin scheduling, Pinterest SEO and Pinterest engagement, with a bundle at $29.98/mo annually. If Pinterest is your channel it does things no general tool does, including keyword research and Pin generation. If Pinterest is one channel among several, you will still need something else alongside it.

Later

Built around visual planning: a drag-and-drop grid preview, a media library, and Linkin.bio as a real product with shoppable images and tracked links. Starter covers 8 social profiles in one Social Set, with a 30 posts per profile monthly limit that catches people out. Strongest for Instagram-led and TikTok-led brands where feed layout matters as much as schedule. Adds Snapchat, which most of this list does not.

FeedHive

Aimed squarely at solo creators rather than teams. The differentiator is AI-assisted recycling and conditional posting, so evergreen content re-runs without you rebuilding it each time. No free plan. If your usage is really one person keeping a consistent cadence, this fits far better than an enterprise suite.

CoSchedule

The scope is wider than social: CoSchedule is a marketing calendar that treats social posts as one item type alongside blog posts, email and campaigns. That is the reason to pick it and the reason not to, since the social feature set is thinner than a dedicated scheduler. The free Free Calendar tier covers 1 user and 1 profile.

Metricool

The reason to choose it is reporting: unlimited analytics history on paid plans, PDF and PowerPoint export, competitor benchmarking, and unified Google, Facebook and TikTok ad campaigns in one dashboard. There is a unified inbox and a SmartLinks bio page too. Note X is a paid add-on per account on some tiers, which is easy to miss when comparing sticker prices.

SocialPilot

The client-management model is what agencies come for: group accounts by client, invite clients to approve, and produce white-label reports without paying enterprise rates. No free plan. The most direct like-for-like swap on this list for an agency whose main need is multi-client publishing and approvals.

Buffer

Per-channel pricing is the whole story: $5/mo for one channel, so two channels cost $10/mo and ten cost $50/mo. Cheapest entry here for a narrow setup, middling for a wide one. The free plan is permanent, capped at 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts at a time. Publishing-first and deliberately shallow on analytics and inbox. Wide platform coverage including Bluesky, Mastodon, Pinterest and Google Business Profile.

Sprout Social

Essentials is $79 per seat per month billed annually, $99 monthly, and covers 5 social profiles. Standard is $199 and Professional $299 per seat. The per-seat model is what makes it expensive for teams, and it is aimed at organisations that need the reporting, approval workflow and support depth rather than at anyone who mainly wants to schedule. No free plan.

SocialBee

Bootstrap covers 5 social profiles and 1 user at $29/mo, or $20.17/mo billed yearly. The distinctive idea is content categories: you file posts into buckets and SocialBee cycles them on a schedule, which suits evergreen libraries rather than one-off campaigns. No free plan, 14-day trial. Agency tiers run to 150 profiles.

MeetEdgar

Eddie is $29.99/mo for 5 social accounts, or $24.91/mo billed yearly, and every plan includes up to 20 team members at no extra cost, which is unusual. Like SocialBee it is built around a recycling library rather than a calendar, so it suits evergreen content that should keep circulating. Extra accounts are $3.99 to $4.99 each. No free plan, 30-day trial.

Sendible

Built for agencies: white-label dashboards and reports so clients see your branding rather than the vendor's, plus per-client workspaces. Creator starts at 1 user and 6 profiles, so the real cost scales with client count. No free plan.

Planable

Priced per workspace rather than per user, which suits agencies bringing clients in to review. The approval experience is the product: comments sit inline on the post exactly as it will appear, which removes the usual screenshot-and-email loop. The free tier allows 50 posts with no time limit, so it can be evaluated properly.

HeyOrca

Priced per calendar rather than per user, with volume discounts and unlimited users on every calendar. That inverts the usual agency maths, since bringing clients and reviewers in costs nothing extra. Built around the approval loop rather than around scheduling, so pick it when sign-off is the slow part of the week.

Kontentino

Centres on approvals, with a brand-safety and compliance review step that regulated clients tend to ask for. No free plan. Narrower by design than the all-in-one suites, and considerably cheaper if approvals and client review are the workflows you are actually paying for.

Loomly

Unlimited calendars on every tier, which matters if you run several distinct content streams such as campaigns, brands or franchises. Starter includes 3 user seats where most rivals give 1. Adds a Post Ideas inspiration board, listening monitors, and AI draft replies. The gap between tiers is wide, so check where your seat count lands before committing.

eClincher

Of everything here this is the closest to Hootsuite in shape: unified inbox, publishing, analytics and monitoring in one product. The natural choice when you genuinely use that breadth and simply object to the price, rather than when you want something smaller.

Agorapulse

The most expensive alternative here and still below Hootsuite list price. The social inbox is the reason to pick it: unified, assignable, with saved replies, which is the capability most teams say they cannot give up. There is a limited free plan.

Mixpost

A different category: self-hosted software you run on your own server, paid once per major version rather than monthly. Lite is open source and perpetual, covering Facebook, X and Mastodon. You own the data, the hosting bill and the upgrades. Worth considering when the objection is as much about data residency or recurring cost as about price.

Hootsuite

The enterprise default since the early 2010s, and priced like it. Social listening via Talkwalker, ad management, and a support inbox with auto-routing and agent collision avoidance. The free plan is gone and Standard is per-user and billed annually, which is what sends most people looking. Worth the money only if you genuinely use the listening and inbox depth.

Where Planoly still wins

• Instagram grid planner. Drag-and-drop preview of how posts appear on the IG profile grid. If brand aesthetics on Instagram are central to your strategy, PostNext doesn't compete here.
• Sellit link-in-bio with creator commerce. Bio links with shoppable images, product tagging, and lightweight ecommerce. Built for creators monetizing directly from their bio. PostNext doesn't have a link-in-bio at all.
• Cheaper entry tier than the Later equivalent. Planoly's entry paid tier comes in below Later's $18.75/mo Starter, making it the budget-friendlier choice among Instagram-first visual schedulers.
• Pinterest scheduling. Strong Pinterest integration; PostNext doesn't support Pinterest today.
• Free tier exists. Planoly retained a free tier with limited usage, useful for solo creators evaluating.

How to choose

• The grid preview matters. Later is the only real replacement.
• You post to more channels now. PostNext.io covers 15 on a flat plan; Buffer adds Pinterest, Bluesky and Mastodon.
• You want analytics. Metricool.
• You added a team. Planable or HeyOrca for review, SocialPilot for client work.
• Budget is the constraint. Buffer's free plan or PostNext.io's.

FAQ

What is the closest alternative to Planoly?

Later. Both are Instagram-first visual planners with a grid preview and a bio link product. Later is more expensive at entry and deeper on UGC and analytics.

Is there a free alternative to Planoly?

Planoly's own free tier covers 1 user and 1 social set. Buffer, Metricool, PostNext.io, Planable and Post Bridge all offer free plans with different shapes of limit.

Which alternative handles more than Instagram?

Most of them. PostNext.io covers 15 channels on one flat plan, Buffer sells per channel across a wide list, and Metricool adds Google Business Profile and Twitch.

Do I lose the bio link page if I switch?

Usually yes. Later's Linkin.bio and Metricool's SmartLinks are the built-in equivalents here; most other tools expect you to use a separate service.