4 Affordable Social Media Scheduling Apps You Need to Try

Not sure what to automate next? Social media scheduling apps like Buffer, MeetEdgar, Zoho Social, and Sendible take posting off your to-do list.

Whether posting updates on our phones, messaging through apps, or searching for news on our web browsers, it seems like everyone is using social media all the time. Gaining views on social media can benefit your business, but you don’t want to get trapped spending all of your time posting on your Facebook page. Luckily, there are a variety of social media scheduling apps that can help you streamline your social media management.

4 Social Media Scheduling Apps We Love

Here’s a rundown on four social media scheduling apps to keep your social media posting hassle-free. 

Buffer Publish 

If you’re looking for one of the more entry-level social media scheduling apps, or if you simply prefer a no-frills approach, then Buffer Publish might be the choice for you. Buffer is an affordable scheduling software package that offers an accessible interface for posting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. For easy posting, Buffer splits the day into morning, noon, afternoon, and evening time slots, but you can customize your posting schedule as well. It also has its own app that lets you add updates and share content directly.

Buffer Publish offers a free plan good for three social media accounts and schedules up to ten posts for one user. The Pro plan is $15/month for eight social media accounts and 100 scheduled posts. Premium ($65/month) and Business ($99/month) add even more accounts, scheduling capacity, and allow for more users; Premium and Business plans also give you some extra Instagram management tools, such as Instagram Stories scheduling.

The one big downside with Buffer Publish is that it doesn’t offer comprehensive analytics. If you want to add analytics to your scheduling platform you need to Buffer Analyze for $35 or $50 a month, which is a bit pricey as a separate subscription. The real strength of Buffer Publish is its straightforward interface and no-nonsense scheduling, which has made it one of the favorite social media scheduling apps for business owners who just want to “get that content scheduled, already!”.

MeetEdgar 

MeetEdgar is another entry-level scheduling program with a focus on creating, publishing, and recycling content for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. MeetEdgar lets you schedule around simple categories like “Blog Posts,” or “Motivational Quotes,” and will only post the appropriate content on appropriate days (blog posts on Mondays, motivational quotes on Wednesdays, etc.) This makes it easy to create new content around your desired themes and schedule them with little to no hassle.

What makes MeetEdgar stand out is the emphasis on reusing content. Even if you fall behind on adding new material to the posting queue, Meet Edgar can go back and re-share previously prepared content. MeetEdgar also has the unique “Variations” feature which allows it to process the links you post and create several different posts based on the content and language. This means that automatic posts can have slight variations and won’t get tagged as spam.

There are two different plans: Edgar Lite and Edgar. Starting at $19/month you get unlimited scheduling for three social accounts, 10 automatic weekly time slots, and four content categories. Upgrading improves your account, timeslot, and category capacity, but is otherwise the same.

MeetEdgar is limited by its focus on only four social media platforms (you can’t connect it with anything other than Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn) and does not feature team management or analytics. This platform works best for those who have to manage their social media on their own without a team and don’t mind recycling some content to save time.

Zoho Social

If you’re looking for a scheduling platform with all the essentials, and some standout team features, then Zoho Social has you covered. Zoho Social is a complete management platform for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google My Business. It offers a simple publishing calendar to preview, drag, and drop your posts into selected dates and allows you to create unique time slots or allow an algorithm to post at the height of audience activity. Zoho Social also offers monitoring tools to track mentions, reviews, and keywords, as well as analytical tools to track page growth and user engagement.

What stands out, though, is Zoho Social’s team features. Zoho Social’s standard $15/month plan allows for two team members, and you can add more for $8.33/month per user. You can communicate with your team directly within the platform, as well as create specific roles and assign access to particular social media platforms. If you need software that lets you efficiently communicate and coordinate with a team from one platform, then take a look at Zoho Social. 

Sendible

As a complete social media management package, Sendible is quite comprehensive. It offers compatibility with standard platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn as well as YouTube, Google My Business, Blogger, WordPress, and more. You can schedule all of your posts for different platforms across a shared calendar, group posts together for specific campaigns, and set posts to repeat.

Sendible offers powerful lead-generating tools with analytics, in-depth custom reports, and keyword alerts. Smart Posts allow you to customize each post based on the social media network it is sent to, giving you more control over your demographic engagement. 

The Sendible Starter plan begins at $29/month, with additional Traction ($99/month), Growth ($199/month), and Large ($299/month) plans as well. Sendible is one of a few social media scheduling apps well suited to entrepreneurs who are already familiar with social media management and lead generation.

Find Out What Works for You

These are 4 of our favorite social media scheduling apps, but there are many more out there. Whether you’re looking for an entry-level platform with just the basics, or a comprehensive platform with advanced analytics and lead generation, there is a social media management service that fulfills your business’s needs.