Alternatives to Hootsuite Free: How Buffer and Hootsuite Compare

TL;DR Hootsuite is discontinuing its free plan on March 31st, 2023. This blog documents how Buffer’s free plan compares 👇

Hootsuite recently announced that they are discontinuing their free plan. From March 31st, 2023, Hootsuite users will be encouraged to upgrade to a paid Hootsuite plan (starting at $99 per month) or look for another free tool. This change might impact a lot of you who have been relying on Hootsuite’s free plan to manage your social media presence.

At Buffer, we’ve always offered a free (yet powerful) plan. We’re all about making social media management simple, affordable, and accessible for everyone. The free plan is perfect for growing your social media presence. Over 100,000 people use it to boost their engagement and expand their following. With this free plan, you have access to powerful features that allow you to manage your social media accounts efficiently.

One of the key benefits of the free plan is that it allows you to schedule your posts in advance. This means you can take the time to craft thoughtful and engaging posts and then have them go live at the best possible times for your audience. This saves you time and helps you be more consistent with your posting, which is essential for building a strong and engaged following.

Another great feature of the free plan is that you can manage multiple social media accounts from one simple to use platform. This means you can quickly repurpose posts across different accounts, post to multiple platforms at once, and keep track of your engagement on each network.

That’s why Buffer’s free plan lets you connect up to three social channels to manage all your important channels. For existing Hootsuite free users, that’s a little more than what you might be used too. For comparison, Hootsuite’s free plan only let free users connect two social channels.

• Buffer free plan: connected 3 social channels
• Hootsuite free plan: connect 2 social channels

Buffer’s free plan lets you schedule up to 30 posts (10 per channel), which is significantly more than Hootsuite’s free plan, which only lets you schedule 5. This means, with Buffer’s free plan, you can plan out your social media content in advance and make sure that you always have something fresh and engaging to share with your audience.

• Buffer free plan: schedule up to 30 posts
• Hootsuite free plan: schedule up to 5 posts

Buffer’s free plan lets you to connect from a broad range of different channels including, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google Business, Pinterest and Mastodon (with YouTube on the way too). Meaning all existing Hootsuite free users can migrate over to Buffer without losing any functionality. Plus, Hootsuite’s free plan does not offer access to Mastodon or TikTok, while Buffer’s free plan does.

In fact, free users moving from Hootsuite to Buffer should gain lots of additional functionality. Although it’s tricky to compare apples to apples as information on Hootsuite’s free plan is limited, we believe Buffer offers a number of unique additional features for free users including:

• Start Page: a free, mobile-friendly, customizable website to use in your link-in-bio
• Twitter hashtag suggestions: which pre-populate as you type
• Twitter Threads: schedule threads to your audience
• TikTok: connect with Buffer to draft, publish and schedule TikTok posts
• Mastodon: connect with Buffer to draft, publish and schedule Mastodon posts
• Ideas: a free content library for you to plan out your content calendar
• Buffer AI Assistant (coming soon): to help you come up with posts and captions

All of these features are available on Buffer’s free plan.

If you’re looking for a paid plan, it’s worth comparing Buffer to Hootsuite side-by-side. Hootsuite’s paid plans start at $99 per month for 10 social channels. Buffer’s paid plans start at just $5. And if you need 10 social channels, it only cost $50 with Buffer. Again, we should stress, we can’t ever be 100% certain what Hootsuite’s plans offer, but comparing both of our pricing pages, it appears that the Buffer paid plans offer the same functionality for almost half the price.

• Hootsuite’s starting paid plan: $99 per month for 10 social channels
• Buffer’s comparative paid plan: $50 per month for 10 social channels

It’s also worth noting that Buffer has some unique features that sets it apart from Hootsuite. For starters, the Team plan offers unlimited users, while Hootsuite’s plans are capped at five users (with more available at a cost). What’s more, Buffer comes with Start Page, a free website for you to use as your link-in-bio.

That’s not all. Buffer is well-regarded as an easy-to-use platform that makes social media management a breeze. The drag-and-drop calendar, collaboration tools, and in-depth analytics make it easy for you to manage your social media presence. And if you ever need help, our 24/7 customer support team is always there for you.

Here’s a quick recap 👇

So, if you’re a Hootsuite free user, we encourage you to give Buffer a try. We offer an intuitive, powerful, yet affordable tool that helps over 140,000 people grow their online presence and reach their marketing goals.

We know you have a lot of options when it comes to social media management, but we truly believe that Buffer is a choice worth trying

So, what are you waiting for? Give Buffer a try today!

P.S. Got any feedback? Send us a tweet and let us know.