We sell a social writing tool, so weigh this accordingly. VoiceMoat is not a Hootsuite replacement and this page says so where it matters. ‼️ Every figure below was read off the vendor's own pricing page on 27 August 2026, in both billing positions, and Buffer and Later were driven in a browser because their prices do not appear in the page source. Where a vendor served us a currency other than US dollars, its price is left out rather than converted.
What does Hootsuite actually cost?
Quick answer
Hootsuite's own page states that paid plans start at $99 for Standard, $199 for Professional, and range up to $399 for Advanced, priced per user and billed annually. Standard manages up to 10 social accounts. Four separate pages that rank for this question say the entry price is $199 or $249.
| Plan | Price | What it manages |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $99 per user/mo | "Manage up to 10 social media accounts from one calendar" |
| Professional | $199 per user/mo | "Manage unlimited social accounts and automate repetitive work" |
| Advanced | Up to $399 per user/mo | Unlimited |
| Enterprise | Custom | Unlimited |
- The trial is 14 days, and the plans page states "No credit card required" alongside "Cancel anytime" and "No commitment".
- There is no free tier listed on the plans page. If a free plan is what you are looking for, Buffer is the only tool priced below that has one.
- ‼️ The per-user unit is what makes Hootsuite expensive, not the headline. $99 is one person. Three people on Standard is $297 a month before anyone connects an eleventh social account.
- ⚠️ Hootsuite serves prices in local currency. Reading its plans page from this machine returned ₹1,999 for Standard and ₹3,999 for Professional. The dollar figures above come from Hootsuite's own written text on the same page, which does not change by region. We have not converted anything.
The plan-by-plan breakdown is at Hootsuite pricing, and the wider question of the six different units these tools bill by is answered in our social media tools answers.
Sources: Hootsuite plans.
The clause on Hootsuite's other page
Quick answer
Hootsuite's pricing page says "Cancel anytime" and "No commitment". Its terms of service say that if you cancel or downgrade, you "must continue to pay for the rest of your plan term" and are "not entitled to a refund". Both sentences are on Hootsuite's own site.
| Where | What it says |
|---|---|
| The plans page | "Cancel anytime", "No commitment", "No credit card required" |
| The terms of service | ‼️ "If you cancel (or downgrade) paid Self-Serve Services, you must continue to pay for the rest of your plan term and you are not entitled to a refund." |
- ‼️ These are reconcilable, and the reconciliation is the point. "Cancel anytime" can mean you may stop the renewal at any time rather than that you stop paying at any time. That is a normal software term. What is not normal is putting "No commitment" next to it on the page where people decide.
- On an annual plan this is the difference between leaving and leaving cheaply. Cancelling in month two of a twelve-month term still costs the remaining ten months, on Hootsuite's own reading of its terms.
- The practical step takes one minute: before you buy an annual plan from any vendor on this page, open its terms and search for the word "refund". We did it for Hootsuite because it is the most expensive option here, and the sentence above is what we found.
- ⚠️ We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. The clause is quoted in full so you can read it yourself rather than take our summary of it.
Sources: Hootsuite plans, Hootsuite terms of service.
Buffer
Quick answer
Buffer is $5 per channel a month billed yearly and $6 billed monthly, and it has a genuinely free tier for up to three channels. ‼️ The catch is not the price, it is the seat: Essentials includes "1 user account". A team needs Team at $10 per channel.
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Users |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free forever, up to 3 channels | Free forever | "1 user account" |
| Essentials | $5/channel/mo ($60 billed yearly) | $6/channel/mo | ‼️ "1 user account" |
| Team | $10/channel/mo ($120 billed yearly) | $12/channel/mo | "Unlimited team members" |
- ‼️ This is the single most misreported price in the category. Buffer's page opens on yearly and shows $5. Switch the toggle and the same plan is $6. Articles copy the $5 and write "/month" beside it.
- The free plan is real, not a trial. Up to three channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel, one user account, and Buffer's own page says "Free forever".
- Where Buffer beats Hootsuite outright is a one-person setup. One person, five channels, is $25 a month billed yearly against Hootsuite's $99.
- Where it stops beating it is the team. Three people sharing eight channels need Team, which is 8 x $10 = $80 a month, and at that point the gap to Hootsuite's $99 for one user is narrower than the headline suggests.
- The paid trial is 14 days, the same as Hootsuite's.
The plan-by-plan breakdown is at Buffer pricing.
Sources: Buffer pricing.
Later
Quick answer
Later is $18.75 a month billed yearly and $25 billed monthly for Starter, which is one social set and one user. ‼️ Starter is capped at 30 posts per profile per month, which is roughly one a day, and it cannot buy extra users at any price.
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Social sets | Users | Posts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $18.75/mo | $25.00/mo | 1 (8 profiles) | 1 | 30 per profile/mo |
| Growth | $37.50/mo | $50.00/mo | 2 (16 profiles) | 2 | 180 per profile/mo |
| Scale | $82.50/mo | $110.00/mo | 6 (48 profiles) | 4 | Unlimited |
- ‼️ The user count is the trap on Later, exactly as the seat is on Buffer. Growth includes two users. Three people need Scale at $82.50 a month billed yearly, not Growth at $37.50.
- Starter's own card says "Extra Social Sets, users and AI credits not available". You cannot buy your way out of the cap; you upgrade.
- Annual is a clean 25%, and Later states it as "3 months free", which is what 25% of twelve months is. The extras discount at the same rate: an extra user is $5 a month billed monthly and $3.75 billed yearly.
- The trial is 14 days.
- ⚠️ The 30-posts-per-profile cap on Starter is the thing to check before buying. If you post twice a day on one profile you will hit it in the middle of the month.
Sources: Later pricing.
What one person and one team actually pay
Quick answer
For one person on five channels, Buffer is $25 a month and Hootsuite is $99. For three people, the gap narrows sharply, because Buffer moves to a $10 per channel tier and Later moves to a $82.50 tier while Hootsuite is already priced per user.
| Setup | Buffer | Later | Hootsuite |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 person, 5 channels | $25 (5 x $5, Essentials) | $18.75 (Starter, 1 social set) | $99 (Standard, 1 user) |
| 3 people, 8 channels | $80 (8 x $10, Team) | $82.50 (Scale, 4 users) | $297 (3 x $99, Standard) |
- ‼️ At three people, Buffer at $80 and Later at $82.50 land within three dollars of each other by two completely different routes, one billing per channel and the other by social set. Hootsuite is roughly three and a half times either.
- The comparison is not like for like and we are not pretending it is. Later's Scale tier includes analytics and listening features that Buffer's Team tier does not, and Hootsuite's price buys an inbox and monitoring that neither includes at these tiers.
- What the arithmetic does show is that the per-user unit is what drives the gap. Hootsuite is the only one of the three that charges again for every person you add.
- ⚠️ Both rows assume annual billing. On monthly billing every figure rises: Buffer to $30 and $96, Later to $25 and $110.
Where we fit, and where we do not
Quick answer
We make VoiceMoat, and it is not a Hootsuite replacement. It writes for Twitter and LinkedIn in your own voice. It does not manage Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or Pinterest, it has no social inbox, and if that is why you use Hootsuite then nothing here replaces it.
- ‼️ Said plainly, because this is the section where a page like this normally stops being honest: if you are leaving Hootsuite because you need cheaper multi-platform scheduling, the answer on this page is Buffer or Later, not us.
- Where we are the right answer is narrower. If the reason you opened Hootsuite every day was to write the posts, and the scheduling was incidental, a writing tool is a different purchase from a scheduler.
- Our prices, on the same basis as every other table here: Free at $0, Creator $35 a month, Pro $69, Enterprise $150, with annual billed at ten times the monthly price so two months are free.
- Our free tier is not a Buffer-free-plan equivalent and we are not going to imply it is. It runs at 10 credits a day and exists to keep an account alive after a trial.
Sources: VoiceMoat pricing.
What this page could not answer
Several tools that belong in an honest Hootsuite comparison are not priced here, because we could not read their prices in US dollars on the day. They are named rather than quietly dropped.
- ‼️ Metricool served this machine euros, at €16 a month for up to 5 brands and €29 for up to 10. We do not convert prices, because a converted price is not the price the vendor charges, so Metricool is not in the tables above.
- Publer's pricing page renders no prices that we could read, so it is not priced either.
- ⚠️ Hootsuite itself served us rupees. Its dollar figures are quoted from its own written text on the same page, which does not vary by region. If you are outside the US, the number you see will not be the number above.
- Whether any of these tools is better than the others. We have not run them side by side and no claim about quality appears anywhere on this page.
- Any engagement or growth figure. None is published by these vendors in a form anyone outside them can check.
- ⚠️ Prices change. Everything here was read on 27 August 2026 in both billing positions. Open the pricing page before you buy.
- We sell a competing writing tool, which is why this page gives you each vendor's own numbers and the arithmetic rather than a verdict.