How Does Metricool Compare to Other Social Media Tools?
Trying to find the perfect social media management tool? In a world where social media managers, creators, agencies, and business owners are trying to boost their socials, having a tool at hand can make your life easier. Maybe you’ve heard of Metricool, a comparable tool, or are just seeing these names for the first time. In this post, we are giving a fair analysis of Metricool vs. other leading social media tools, so you can find the platform that fits your needs best.
At the end of the day, it’s a matter of what tool best fits your goals, budget, and personal preferences.
Metricool vs. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is an extremely powerful social media management tool that has similar features to Metricool including scheduling and auto-publishing content across multiple social media platforms, benchmarking content performance, managing social media messages and comments, and a native AI-text generator tool.
With Hootsuite, you can connect your Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google Business Profile accounts. One feature that makes Hootsuite stand out is the ability to enable social listening, to see what your customers are saying about your brand. This can help create customer-driven strategies to meet your client’s needs.
It’s also important to note that you can connect over 200 apps and integrations with Hootsuite, such as Adobe Creative Suite, Asana, OneClick.bio, Canva, Upfluence, and more. With Metricool, you can integrate with Canva and your website or blog on the Free plan. On the Advanced plan, you can integrate Metricool with Google Looker Studio and Zapier.
While Hootsuite is an all-in-one social media tool, they have discontinued their free plan as of March 31, 2023, however, you can start a 30-day trial on their Professional and Team plans. They also have an Enterprise plan, which is intended for larger teams or agencies.
Metricool has a completely free plan, which users can enjoy for life. Users can schedule up to 50 pieces of content per month across eight different social media platforms, view analytics of their content and website, manage social media messages and comments, and analyze up to 5 competitors for Facebook, Instagram, X, and Twitch.
The Professional plan starts at $99/month and allows 1 user to manage up to 10 social media profiles. This plan is aimed at small business owners, freelancers, and creators who want to better manage their socials. For many, $99 a month can be unfeasible, especially those working a one-man show. With this plan, you have unlimited publishing access, recommended best times to post, hashtag suggestions, centralized inbox management, a $500 limit on ads, customizable reports, and competitive benchmarketing of two competitors.
Metricool’s first Premium plan, Starter, starts at $18/month, allowing management of 5-10 brands, plus LinkedIn connection, planning up to 2,000 pieces of content a month, downloadable reports, multiple links-in-bio with SmartLinks, and access to unlimited historical data.
Hootsuite’s Team plan starts at $249/month, allowing up to 3 users, and includes management of 20 social profiles. This includes all of the features in the Professional plan plus features that allow for team collaboration, link tracking, and user access permissions. Once again, this is a rather steep monthly price and still doesn’t include powerful tools such as an approval workflow and social listening.
Metricool’s Advanced plan starts at $45/month and includes all of the features of a Free and Starter plan plus the management of up to 25 brands, team, and client access, role management, post-approval system, and integrations with Looker Studio and Zapier.
Hootsuite’s final plan, the Enterprise plan, starts at $739/month and requires a demo request to sign up. This includes all features on Hootsuite and includes 5 users to manage up to 50 social accounts. Meanwhile, Metricool’s Custom plan allows the management of more than 50 brands and white labeling.
Metricool vs. Later
Later is a social media scheduling, link-in-bio, analytics, and content creator tool. Later prides itself on being a comprehensive Instagram management platform, however, also has integrations with Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, X, and YouTube.
| Channels Available on Metricool | Channels Available on Later |
| X | X |
| TikTok | TikTok |
| YouTube | YouTube |
| Twitch | |
| Google Business Profile | |
| Facebook Ads | |
| Google Ads | |
| TikTok Ads |
Later offers a free platform that allows one user to manage what they call, “one social set” meaning a set of social profiles including one of each social profile (Ex: 1 Instagram, 1 Facebook, 1 X, etc.). On the free plan, you can schedule 5 posts per month per social platform, create a Linkin.bio page, access 3 months of Instagram analytics, and enjoy unlimited media storage.
Their first Premium plan, Starter, starts at $16.67/month and is suggested for individuals. This allows 1 user to manage 1 social set, schedule up to 30 posts per social profile a month, 3 months of historical data, 5 credits for AI feature, and a customizable Linkin.bio page. Pricing-wise, this is slightly cheaper than Metricool’s first Premium plan.
It’s important to note that Later’s analytics only support Instagram, X, Pinterest, TikTok, and Facebook, with the most capabilities in Instagram metrics. However, the Stater plan doesn’t include Instagram Story Performance, Instagram Reels Analytics, Instagram Audience Insights, Instagram Hashtags Analytics, or Instagram Performance Analytics.
Another difference between Later and Metricool is creator and brand collaborations. With Later, you have access to a Creator Database and can search for campaigns, create media kits, and find creators in the Premium plans.
Later’s Growth plan, the next tier on their Premium plans, starts at $30/month and includes 3 users to manage 3 social sets. With the Growth plan, you can schedule up to 150 posts per social profile, and access up to 1 year of historical data across all supported platforms. This plan also unlocks team and brand management tools.
Later’s Growth plan matches Metricool’s Advanced plan, with unlimited team access. However, since Later’s Growth plan only includes 3 users to begin with, adding additional users costs $5/user. With Metricool’s Advanced plan, you can add an unlimited amount of users to your team, and assign role permissions.
The final plan available on Later, Advanced, starts at $53.33/month. This includes 6 users, and up to 6 social sets. With this plan, you have unlimited scheduling and posting across socials. This plan is extremely affordable for teams. With Later’s Growth and Advanced plans, you can add extra social sets for $15/month each, extra users for $5/user, and extra AI feature credits for $5/100 credits. Extra social sets, users, and AI credits are not available on Later’s Starter plan.
Both Metricool and Later offer AI features. While Metricool has an AI text generator, Later offers an AI-caption writer and content ideas. Later offers 5 credits on the Starter plan, 30 on the Growth, and 50 on the Advanced plan. With Metricool you can use the AI text generator for free, 3 times per month. With the Starter plan in Metricool, you have 3 uses per brand per month. For the Advanced and Custom plans, you have 50 uses per brand per month.
Metricool vs. Buffer
Similar to Metricool, Buffer offers a Free plan with management of up to 3 channels. A “channel” in Buffer would mean 1 Instagram account, for example. With Buffer’s Free plan, you can schedule up to 10 pieces of content per channel, per month. What channels does Buffer offer?
Buffer offers connection to:
- TikTok
- X
- YouTube
- Mastodon
- Start Page (Landing Page)
With Metricool you have the same connection abilities, save Mastodon. While Metricool offers analytical insights into your entire website or blog, Buffer allows you to connect a specific landing page.
Buffer’s Premium plans don’t differ too greatly from each other. When speaking of Buffer’s premium plans, it’s important to note that the monthly prices are per channel, rather than a “brand” in Metricool, or a “social set” like in Later. With all Buffer Premium plans, you can schedule up to 2,000 pieces of content per channel.
The first Premium plan, Essentials, starts at $6/month per channel. This includes all Buffer capabilities besides team management features, which are only available in the Team ($12/month), and Agency ($120/month for 10 channels). Buffer’s team management features include custom access and permissions, and approval workflow tools.
This is similar to Metricool’s Advanced and Custom plans, which include team roles and permissions, and an approval process.
Metricool vs. Loomly
Unlike Metricool, Loomly doesn’t offer a Free plan to users. However, you can try Loomly for a 15-day free trial. Loomly is integrated with the following channels:
- X
- Google Business Profile
- YouTube
- Snapchat
- TikTok
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Unsplash
- Giphy
- Zapier
- Google Drive
Loomly’s “Base” plan starts at $32/month which includes 2 users to manage up to 10 social accounts. This includes Loomly’s “Core Features”, which include a library, post ideas, hashtag suggestions, optimization tips, audience targeting, post preview, approval workflows, automated publishing, and interactions.
Metricool doesn’t offer an on-demand library, optimization tips, or audience targeting. However, similar to Loomly, you can access an image, video, and GIF bank inside Metricool’s planner for easy content planning.
The “Standard” plan starts at $64/month and includes 6 users and management of up to 20 accounts. This unlocks further features such as advanced analytics, Slack and Teams integrations, and content exporting. With the “Advanced” ($131/month) and “Premium” ($277/month) plans, you can schedule analytics reports, and create custom roles and workflows. The former includes 14 users management of up to 35 accounts, while the latter includes 30 users for the management of up to 50 accounts.
The Advanced and Custom (requires quote request) plans include custom branding, which is similar to Metricool’s white labeling option.
Metricool vs. Planoly
Planoly doesn’t offer a Free plan, however, they do have three affordable plans for users. The first is the Starter, which allows one user to schedule up to 60 posts, and manage one social set. With Planoly you can connect to LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, X, and YouTube.
What’s interesting is that Instagram and Pinterest have separate visual grid planning workspaces, which is different from Metricool, and many other platforms we have mentioned. Planoly also offers calendar events and notes, weekly trends, and an ideas manager where you can bookmark sounds, images, and videos.
Planoly’s second plan, Growth, starts at $24/month and allows three users to manage one social set, with unlimited uploads. While this plan offers more uploads and users, you are still limited to one social set. The last plan, Pro, starts at $36.50/month and allows 6 users to manage two social sets, with unlimited uploads.
It’s important to note that in Planoly, stock photos, plan reports, and analytics are only available in the Instagram planner. Also, you can manage your comment inbox with up to 30 of your latest Instagram comments. While Planoly is user-friendly and cost-effective, it may not be a comprehensive tool for those managing multiple channels and brands.
With Metricool, you can view in-depth analytics for all connected social profiles, and manage social media comments, messages, and replies for Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profiles reviews.
Conclusions
As we can see, each tool has its pros and cons that may differ depending on the brands’ goals and needs. All of these leading social media platforms can help improve your work in social media, and ease your daily management. Overall, there is no one right answer and it boils down to which tool you feel most comfortable with and aligned to.
Here at Metricool we want to help make your life easier and offer you the tools to grow your online presence in an intuitive and stress-free way. You can create a free Metricool account here (for life) and start measuring your success. No matter if you are a pro or just getting started, there’s a plan for you. Want to learn more about Metricool’s plans? Check out our plans, pricing, and features here!
