Whether you have social media accounts for one brand or many, the process of posting regularly can quickly get overwhelming. Most social media managers must also create content and oversee the strategy, making the management of social networks difficult and time-consuming. If your brand has a profile on many social media sites, problems can quickly pile up.
Luckily, you don’t have to manage social media profiles alone. There are many social media scheduling tools that can help you take much of the repetitive work out of social media management. Many of them help with content curation and evergreen content management for social networks, as well. Let’s look at what these tools do, and then review several of the best.
Key Takeaways
✅ Scheduling tools exist to batch the work. Sit down once a week, queue everything, and stop opening five apps a day just to publish.
✅ A pause button matters more than most feature lists suggest. When news breaks, you need to stop the whole queue in seconds rather than unpick posts one at a time.
✅ Check network coverage before you check price. A cheaper tool that cannot reach the two platforms you actually care about ends up costing you more.
✅ Most of the tools here are full dashboards with scheduling attached, not pure schedulers. Decide whether you want a publishing queue or an all-in-one before you start comparing plans.
✅ Do not queue so far ahead that you cannot react. A rolling few weeks keeps you consistent without locking you into content that ages badly.
What is a social media scheduling tool?
Social media scheduling tools are automated applications that let you plan and execute future social media posts. While each tool is different, most have you upload the entire post to their app, where it sits until the time you have chosen. Then, they post each piece of content under the designated profile or username across your social networks. Some scheduling tools also help you curate content from around the web or manage evergreen posts.
Why social media scheduling tools are important
Social media scheduling tools are important for most social media managers and small business owners. They help with efficiency by batch scheduling content. By definition, social scheduling tools are set and forget, unless you need to intervene at the last minute or your plans on social networks change. If you want the wider context behind how often and where to publish in the first place, my roundup of social media marketing statistics covers how usage and ad spend are shifting across the major platforms.
Due to the automated nature of social media scheduling platforms, they drive efficiency by publishing social media posts regardless of workflow. Most people that use social media marketing tools will have a designated time each week (or whatever their scheduling interval is) where they’ll sit down and set all of the posts for that period. Schedulers relieve some of the pressure and precious time associated with social accounts by providing unlimited sc
How far in advance should you schedule social media posts?
No matter how large business owners’ operations are, you always want to keep a “queue” of content scheduled, whether your social media calendar posts daily, weekly, or monthly. This interval can be determined based on several factors delivered by an analytics tool, such as how far out you plan social media campaigns, staff schedules, and other company needs across social accounts. A scheduler is only as good as the plan feeding it, so if you do not have one yet, start with my walkthrough on how to create a social media calendar and fill it for a year.
There is some danger involved in pre-planning things out too far in advance if circumstances change or trends arise; if something unexpected happens, you’d have to un-schedule or rearrange posts in the tool, which reduces batch efficiency. You’ll also want to find a social media scheduling tool that includes a “pause” button in case you have to intervene. Otherwise, you risk sending out irrelevant or offensive posts, thereby risking your social media profiles.
What should you look for in social media scheduling tools?
Social media scheduling tools have a wide variety of features and functions for different social accounts. Some schedulers do things differently from others; Sprout Social will not have the exact same tools as Hootsuite, for instance. Here’s a list of “must-haves” in scheduling tools:
- Scheduling features: It almost goes without saying, but this kind of tool needs great scheduling features that are easy to use to be a successful social media management platform.
- Platforms support: You need to ensure that your social media scheduling tool is compatible with the social accounts that you want to use. While support for some platforms is harder to find, ideally, you’ll be able to use all of your profiles from one or two tools.
- Ease of use: Do you really want to “fight” with your scheduling tool? Hardly anyone does, and that’s the way it should be! Choose a social media calendar that you can easily master, and that lets you quickly make changes when needed.
- The “pause” button: Things happen that we don’t expect, whether it’s major world events, a local tragedy, or even changes in key corporate personnel. Your social media scheduler needs to offer a “pause” button that lets you pivot when time is of the essence.
- Pricing: Finally, make sure that the price is right. As you’ll see below, many social media scheduling tools are part of a larger software package, and therefore included in the price. However, for standalone social media scheduler tools you’ll want to ensure that you get the best value for money.
The 13 Best Social Media Scheduling Tools
As with so many things in our industry, there’s a lot of competition among social media scheduling tools. Many of these tools are included in a larger all-in-one tool, such as a social media dashboard. Other schedulers, however, are either standalone or have only a few other features. I’ll tell you which ones are which, and for dashboards, I’ll only talk about key features, platforms supported, and pricing.
1. Buffer
Buffer is a pared-down social media dashboard with significant bulk scheduling features–powerful tools for marketers. You can easily plan and post social media content through a unified “calendar.” This lets you visualize the schedule as items are placed. If there’s a change of plans, you can “pause” posting through the settings page. Content planning is compatible with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Pricing: up to three accounts with basic scheduling is free. $5/mo per account for deluxe features or more accounts.
2. SproutSocial
Another popular dashboard, Sprout Social has robust scheduling features for content across platforms for busy professionals. It helps you plan and execute your strategy with a visual calendar, compose posts, including visuals and in-app, and choose the perfect time using real-time analytical tools for optimal engagement. Content suggestions and approval workflows help ensure your curation and approval process work smoothly. A pause button lets you respond to emergencies. Compatible with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Pricing: From $89/mo
3. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is also a general-purpose social media dashboard to support your online presence. With Hootsuite, you can compose and schedule your posts inside the app, and you can see the schedule with a calendar to show posts per month, week, or day. They also have included collaboration and post-approval functions that help manage team activity, and an “off” button to use when needed. Works with all the major networks and some less popular ones, for a total of over 20 platforms and unlimited posts.
Pricing: Free version lets you support 2 accounts. Paid plans from $49/mo
4. SocialBee
SocialBee is another tool that mostly does the scheduling for content queues. It has a longer list of features than we can list here, but it has all the basics. There’s a Canva integration, advanced content importation functions, and RSS features. SocialBee works with the usual networks, plus TikTok and Google My Business, providing a wide range of options.
Pricing: From $19/mo
5. Napoleon Cat
Napoleon Cat is a more comprehensive tool to use for your social channels, as it offers a social scheduling tool in addition to allowing you to develop a consistent social media presence. From developing content and improving team flow, Napoleon Cat can help teams manage social platforms and keep everything clear, organized, and in one place. Whether you focus primarily on Instagram and Facebook, or your social platforms run the gamut, including Google My Business, Napoleon Cat has your social accounts covered.
Pricing: Free 2-week trial, then $32/mo
6. CoSchedule
CoSchedule offers easy drag-and-drop scheduling for your social accounts. Its easy to use social media calendar helps ensure that your social profiles are kept up to date and full. Although CoSchedule does offer other components, as a social media management platform, its primary, key features involve bulk scheduling to make sure that your social media strategy is being carried out by marketing teams without any gaps or overlooked posting days and times. Effectively, CoSchedule helps teams carry out their social strategy consistently, in order to develop consistency across social media networks.
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Pricing: Limited free option, then starting from $19/mo
7. Sendible
Once again, Sendible is an all-purpose dashboard, but it works differently from some others, in that it’s geared towards small businesses and agencies and provides advanced analytics accordingly. The calendar feature works across client accounts, so you can see the big picture. It also features an automatic tailoring feature that lets you specify which hashtags or other post feature you use on which social platforms to improve content performance. Queues, RSS feeds, and content suggestions help with both content curation and evergreen content management. Easily reschedule posts as necessary. Compatible with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Pricing: From $29/mo
8. Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a comprehensive dashboard and a popular tool for scheduling. Compose and schedule your posts on a calendar, while you benefit from the in-app send time optimization (or go manual). Reschedule evergreen content to save time, collaborate with others, and require approval before posting as appropriate. Agorapulse has a mobile app that lets you publish from anywhere, and features a pause button for emergencies. You can even save drafts if you aren’t ready to publish something. It publishes on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Pricing: From $79/mo
9. MeetEdgar
MeetEdgar is one of the social media scheduling tools with basic features that don’t do much else. It’s best known for content curation and queuing that’s automated. Add your own content and schedule it to publish later, and indicate which posts are evergreen so the app will repost them. MeetEdgar primary focus creates variations for your content automatically, which helps with some network content restrictions. Finally, pause the posting when necessary. Works with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Pricing: From $19/mo
10. SocialPilot
SocialPilot is another platform, but it’s less comprehensive overall than some of the others. From a scheduling standpoint, they have the usual calendar-based scheduling to deliver content when it has the best chance of engagement. In addition, SocialPilot has great content curation functions, and an option to post curated content right when you see it, with a couple of clicks. Drafts and repeating post functions round out the scheduling aspect of SocialPilot. Compatible with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, GMB, and TikTok.
Pricing: From $42.50/mo
11. Planable
Planable is a uniquely visual social media collaboration and approval platform on which to develop a posting schedule. You and your team can work together on social media content and have planning, feedback, and approval in the same place. You also get a calendar view to see and plan your posts across all your accounts, a grid view for your Instagram, a feed view to see pixel-perfect previews, and a list view for any bulk actions before publishing content.
Pricing: Free to start and from $11/user afterward
12. Planoly
Planoly has two scheduling features: an auto post feature and a “recycling” feature that allows posts to be placed across social platforms, with tailoring to suit each. Scheduling posts is certainly useful for social media efforts, but Planoly sets itself apart from many other social media scheduling apps by providing a means of improving engagement and social media analytics by making sure that social posts are designed to match your audience across different platforms. Planoly’s single dashboard allows you to essentially develop your content and schedule those posts in advance to make sure that content creators are spending less time working on social content and more time attending to business and marketing goals.
Pricing: Starting at $13/mo
13. Promo Republic
Another dashboard, Promo Republic is geared towards franchise and local independent businesses and is a perfect tool for these smaller audiences. It leverages AI to find the best time to post, so you only need to add your desired content to reach your target audience with your content calendar. Plus, you can set posts for multiple accounts simultaneously, making the job go faster. It is unclear if there’s a stop posting function. Works with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google My Business.
Pricing: From $9/mo
Frequently Asked Questions About Social Media Scheduling Tools
A scheduler’s core job is queuing posts and publishing them at the time you set. A dashboard adds monitoring, a unified inbox, analytics, and team approval workflow on top of that queue. Most of the tools reviewed above are dashboards that also schedule well, which is why their pricing sits higher than a standalone scheduler.
For one or two accounts and a simple weekly queue, often yes. Free tiers usually cap how many profiles you can connect and how many posts you can queue at once, and they tend to hold back analytics, approval workflows, and bulk uploads. Start on a free plan and pay only when the cap starts costing you time.
No tool covers everything. Support for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X is close to universal across the tools above, while TikTok, Pinterest, and Google Business Profile are where coverage gets patchy. Write down the networks you actually publish to before you shortlist anything.
If you are planning a week of content in one sitting, yes. A desktop makes it easier to size images, write longer captions, and see the whole calendar at once. Instagram and Meta Business Suite both handle scheduling natively now, and I compare those against third-party schedulers in my guide to how to schedule Instagram posts.
Far enough to stay consistent, not so far that a change of plan turns into an afternoon of cleanup. A rolling two to four weeks works for most small teams, with the nearest week left loose enough to swap in something timely.
Ready to Choose Your Social Media Scheduling Tool?
Start with the two constraints that actually narrow the field: the networks you publish to, and how many accounts you need connected. Nearly every tool above clears the basics of queuing a post, so the real deciding factors are coverage, seat count, and whether you want a full dashboard or just a publishing queue. Pick one, connect a single account, and schedule a week of content before you pay for anything. If that week runs without you reaching for your phone, you have your answer.
Scheduling is one piece of a bigger stack, and that weekly hour goes a lot further once curation and evergreen content are feeding the queue too. My roundup of 37 social media tools covers the analytics, listening, and design tools that sit around the scheduler, and my Digital and Social Marketing Tools Buyer’s Guide is free if you would rather work from a checklist before you start paying for subscriptions. And if you want a second opinion on the whole stack rather than another tool list, that is the kind of work I do as a Fractional CMO.
Hi Neal, thanks for the informative article. I was looking for something a bit more niche, I wondering if you know of any schedulers where it has an option to set times for Monday to Sunday, where you input the time you would like to post for each day of the week. And then the scheduler just automatically takes videos from a Google drive for example and automatically uploads to a social media account on the same times you set each day? (Without a caption in this case) – is there anything like that available that you know of?
Thanks a lot!
Sean
Hey Sean, that is a great question! Unfortunately I do not know of any scheduler that is that advanced. You might be able to use Zapier to some extent, but at the point of creating content for a social media scheduler, you would still have to manually upload something at that point.
It is a great use case scenario for which I suspect an AI tool will emerge sometime in the future, and there might be a niche tool out there that does what you are looking for, but unfortunately I do not know of it ;-(
Wishing you the best of luck on your search!