The good news: Instagram has transparently shared a ton about the magical, majestic Instagram algorithm. (At Buffer, we’re big believers in transparency, so hat tip to Instagram for that!)

The not-so-good news: Instagram has different algorithms for all parts of the app — namely feed, stories, explore, and reels.

“Does this mean I have to optimize my Instagram content four different ways to please the algo?”  

Not really. 

The overarching signals — such as watch time, likes, and sends — are the same everywhere. And the principles behind them are evergreen enough to survive the small updates. Follow these, and you’re (mostly) golden.

But still, knowing the specifics of how each subset of the algorithm works helps reach your goals faster. Reaching new people on Instagram works a tad differently from deepening relationships with the audience you already have, for instance.

Here’s how each algorithm works, the evergreen principles behind all of them, and what to do about it.

Key takeaways

• Instagram has a different algorithm for each part of the app: Instagram ranks feed, stories, explore, and reels separately, using one system for accounts you follow and another for recommendations from accounts you don't.
• Three signals matter most: Watch time, likes per reach, and sends per reach are the signals Instagram Head Adam Mosseri says carry the most weight in ranking.
• Likes matter for followers, sends matter more for reaching new people: Likes matter slightly more for reaching your followers, while sends via DM matter slightly more for reaching non-followers.
• Original content wins: Instagram gives more distribution to the original creator than to reposters, and accounts that mostly repost others' content aren't recommended to non-followers.
• Viewers can shape what they see: Your Algorithm (in reels and explore), Favorites, and "Not interested" let people tell Instagram what they want more or less of.
• Reels for reach, carousels for engagement: Reels get 36% more reach than carousels, while carousels get 12% more engagement than reels (based on our analysis of 4M+ Instagram posts).

How does the Instagram algorithm work? The short version

If you didn’t already know, Instagram’s feeds are not in chronological order. The algorithm decides how to rank content. Why not chronological?

Adam Mosseri explains ranking has two goals: 

• help people find what interests them most
• grow the overall pie of reach so there's more to go around

Without ranking, feeds would be overrun by the accounts that post most often, which tends to mean businesses and brands, and the average creator's reach would shrink.

And Instagram doesn’t have one algorithm. It runs a separate ranking system for each part of the app (feed, stories, explore, and reels), because people use each one differently. Mosseri groups them into two general types: 

• One ranks content from accounts people follow
• The other ranks content from accounts they don't follow (Instagram calls these recommendations)

Underneath, they all work the same way. They predict how likely someone is to like, comment on, send or watch a post, turn those predictions into a relevancy score, and order posts by it. Recency matters too, which is why your feed is roughly, but not strictly, chronological.

For creators, the split between the two types is the one to remember. The first decides whether your followers see you, and likes count slightly more there. The second decides whether anyone else does, and sends count slightly more. That's how new people find you.

Here's how each part of the app fits in. 

In short: Feed and stories are where you keep the people you already have, and reels and explore are where you reach new ones. We break down each one below.

What the Instagram algorithm rewards across the app: Content principles and key signals

Instagram runs separate algorithms for feed, stories, explore, and reels, but they reward the same four content principles and lean on the same core engagement signals.

4 key Instagram content principles: Originality, recency, breaking content and model size

In part two of his ranking series, Adam Mosseri named four principles Instagram values when ranking content. Here’s what they are in a jiffy:

If you need to understand these principles more deeply and how to apply them, continue reading:

1. Originality

“We want to create a platform that gives more distribution to the original content creator than to those who repost it,” Mosseri says. 

Instagram estimates how likely a post is to be original by looking at what the account has posted in the past, along with other signals, and Mosseri says the percentage of impressions going to original content has gone way up over time.

This has been a long time coming: Mosseri announced Instagram will has been reducing reach for aggregator accounts since April 2026. So Instagram’s been doubling down on pushing original content for a while now.

2. Recency

Instagram wants to keep up with the world as it happens. "It used to be that something might happen and you would see it on Instagram three, four, five days later, and that just doesn't work," Mosseri says.

To fix that, Instagram shortened how long it takes to understand a new post and get it into ranking, especially for people who don't follow the account. The measure it tracks is the share of each day's impressions that go to posts less than 24 hours old, and Mosseri says that number has gone way up as well.

3. Breaking content

This one is good news for smaller accounts. "We want to be a place where a new creator with a great idea can actually reach a massive audience," Mosseri says.

Instagram does this by “auditioning” content. Auditioning just means showing posts from public accounts to some people who don't follow them, and if a post does well, the platform continues pushing that post to other people. 

That's how a post from a small public creator can reach hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people.

As someone who scrolls on Instagram way too much, I can confirm this is true: I see posts from new creators all the time in my feed now — it’s mixed with content from people I follow and other content Instagram thinks I might like.

4. Model size

The last principle is about the system rather than your content. Instagram has made its AI models "larger and larger over the last few years in order just to get better at ranking overall," according to Mosseri.

The 3 Instagram engagement signals that matter the most

Instagram tracks thousands of signals, from comments and saves to profile taps and story replies. Mosseri has named three as the most important: watch time, likes and sends. 

Likes count slightly more for reaching followers, and sends count slightly more for reaching non-followers.

How the Instagram Feed algorithm works

The Instagram Feed algorithm ranks three kinds of content:

• Posts from accounts that you follow
• Recommended posts that Instagram thinks you might like
• Ads

You can find all content formats ranked on your Feed — videos, photos, and carousels. 

Instagram uses thousands of ranking factors (called 'signals') to organize your feed, prioritizing content that's most relevant to each person based on their interests and past interactions.

Here are the most important signals, ranked by importance:

• What a user engages with: Posts a specific user likes, shares, saves, or comments on tell Instagram what content resonates with that person.
• Info about the content and its performance: This includes how many people like a post, how quickly people engage with it, plus more information about the post itself, like when it was posted and any location tags.
• Information about the person who posted: Instagram looks at how many people have interacted with the creator in the past few weeks. "This helps us get a sense for how interesting the person might be to you," says Instagram on their blog.
• Relationship history: Consistent interactions between accounts — like commenting on each other's posts — tell Instagram who might want to see more of your content.

With all that information, Instagram makes a series of calculated guesses about how likely a user is to interact with a post, as Instagram says:

"In Feed, the five interactions we look at most closely are how likely you are to spend a few seconds on a post, comment on it, like it, share it, and tap on the profile photo. The more likely you are to take an action, and the more heavily we weigh that action, the higher up in feed you'll see the post."

How to improve your reach in the Instagram Feed

All of these signals come down to whether people interact with your posts, so here's how to give them more reasons to.

1. Share carousel posts

If you have multiple photos (or videos) that work well together, try sharing them as one carousel or even a few mini carousels.

You can include up to 20 photos or videos in a single carousel. When a follower doesn't swipe through to the end, Instagram treats those unseen slides as "new content."

The platform will show your carousel to that same person again later, picking up with the first slide that they didn't swipe to. This gives your carousel multiple chances to get engagement.

This matches what we found in our analysis of more than 4 million Instagram posts: carousels earn around 109% more engagement per person reached than reels, and single images earn about 34% more than reels.

2. Add audio to posts

Audio isn't limited to videos — you can add a soundtrack to single photo posts and carousels as well.

It's not a requirement, but as Mosseri points out, it can grab the attention of people who browse with sound on — and that can mean more engagement.

Plus, adding audio to a post or carousel means it can also show up for users in the Instagram Reels feed.

3. Use recommended post dimensions

The image size and dimensions of your posts can make a big difference in how they perform.

When you follow Instagram's ideal image sizes, your feed posts will appear exactly as intended with no awkward cropping or pixelation issues. This keeps your content looking polished and gives it a better chance of getting engagement.

How the Instagram Stories algorithm works

The Instagram Stories algorithm ranks stories from accounts you already follow, putting the ones you're most likely to tap, reply to, and watch at the front of your tray. Stories (photos and videos that disappear 24 hours after posting) offer creators and businesses a way to appear at the top of followers' screens as soon as they open the app.

Keep in mind that it can be tougher for brands or creators to show up here — Instagram sees stories as a place where people look for their closest friends.

Here's what Instagram's Stories algorithm looks at:

• Viewing history: Instagram tracks how often someone views an account's stories to determine how high to place them in the stories tray. The more often someone watches your stories, the more likely they are to appear first.
• Engagement history: A user's interactions — such as sending a DM or liking stories — signal to Instagram that they're interested in seeing an account's stories.
• Relationship connections: Instagram considers how close someone is offline to a creator — such as friends or family — when considering where to place a story.

Again, these signals will be used to "make a series of predictions about stories you'll find more relevant and valuable," Instagram says, "including how likely you are to tap into a story, reply to a story in DMs or move on to the next story — to determine which stories will be shown higher in your stories tray."

Instagram Stories aren't typically the best way to reach new people — Mosseri has confirmed this too. Instead, think of stories as a way to build deeper connections with people who already follow you.

They're perfect for building a community that keeps coming back. You can show up when followers open Instagram, learn more about them, and point them to your other platforms.

How to improve your views in Instagram Stories

Here are some ways to engage your existing audience with your stories to move to the front of their tray.

1. Post interactive stories

Add polls, questions, and other interactive elements to get people tapping, liking, and sharing. The more someone engages with your stories, the more likely Instagram is to bump your stories to the top of their tray.

A question sticker can turn into an entire AMA event, where you create a series of follow-up stories with your responses. It's a popular approach — even Mosseri uses it.

These interactive features also work as research tools. Polls, questions, and 'add yours' stickers can help you learn more about who's in your audience and what they actually want to see from you. Win-win.

2. Share timely, authentic, or behind-the-scenes content 

As a serial stories watcher, I love when creators share some timely, behind-the-scenes, human stuff that makes me feel connected to them. Think…

• A food creator teasing a new recipe they will share soon by showing me the ingredients (yum)
• A productivity creator randomly talking about what they do when something derails their day (I feel seen)
• A beauty creator showing me a quick hack she uses to look put together when she’s already late (it’s all about the right lipstick and mascara)

If you're only sharing your posts to stories with a quick tap, you're not giving people much of a reason to view them. Instead, mix in genuine off-the-cuff content that's relatively easy to create and shows your human side.

3. Share user-generated content

When someone tags you in their post or story — maybe they love those shoes they bought from you, or your productivity tips helped them — reshare it to your stories with a quick thank you.

This kind of user-generated content shows followers who aren't customers yet that real people love what you offer, and it builds stronger connections with your existing community. It also encourages others to tag you, since they know you might feature them.

How the Instagram Explore page algorithm works

The Explore algorithm surfaces posts from accounts you don't follow, ranked mostly by how popular a post is and how much you've engaged with similar content.

Here's where things get interesting for creators and brands looking to reach new audiences. The explore page was designed to help users find new accounts. In other words, it helps new audiences find you.

This grid-style feed shows photos and videos you're likely to be interested in based on your past activity: posts you've liked, saved, shared, and commented on.

Here are the signals that influence the Instagram Explore page algorithm.

• Information about the post: Like with feed, Instagram looks at how popular a post seems to be. How many people like, comment on, share, or save a post? And how quickly are they doing so? Post popularity signals matter more in the explore page than in feed or stories.
• A user's activity in explore: Instagram pays attention to what content a user has engaged with before, and how they've interacted with posts in the explore page in the past. The more someone engages with a certain type of post, the more likely they are to see similar content show up.
• A user's interaction history with the poster: Most content in the explore page comes from accounts people don't follow or haven't seen before. But if someone has interacted with an account before, Instagram sees that as a sign that they might be interested in more content from this account.
• Information about the person who posted: Here, Instagram looks at how often users have interacted with posts from an account in the past few weeks, to help users find "compelling content from a wide array of people," says Instagram.

Here's an example from Instagram that I found really helpful in making sense of the explore page algorithm.

"Let's say you've recently liked a number of photos from San Francisco's dumpling chef Cathay Bi (@dumplingclubsf). We then look at who else likes Cathay's photos, and then what other accounts those people are interested in.

Maybe people who like Cathay are also into the SF dim sum spot @dragonbeaux. In that case, the next time you open explore, we might show you a photo or video from @dragonbeaux."

How to get your posts in front of more people using the explore page

Here are some tips to optimize your content for Instagram’s Explore page:

1. Use trending audio tracks

Instagram pays attention to which audio tracks are taking off. When you add these popular sounds to your reels, photo posts, or carousels, your content has a better chance of reaching new people.

You don't need to awkwardly force trending audio into everything you post, but it's worth picking a trending track when it naturally complements what you're creating.

2. Give people a reason to engage right away

The explore page leans on how popular a post looks, including how quickly people like, comment, share or save it. A post that gets reactions fast has a better chance of being picked up.

A few ways to make that easier:

• Put something save-worthy in the post. A checklist, a template or a how-to that people will want to come back to.
• Tell people what to do with it. A line like “save this for later” or “send this to someone who needs it” is enough.
• Reply to comments as they come in. In Buffer’s 2026 engagement report, Instagram posts where the account replied to comments earned 21% more engagement. That’s an association, and the data can’t show that replying caused it.

3. Track post shares

Shares — especially DMs from people who don't follow you — count for more when Instagram is deciding whether to show a post to non-followers, Adam Mosseri explained in his podcast with Colin and Samir. When someone likes your content enough to send it to a friend, Instagram sees that as a strong signal of quality.

Tap View insights below a post to see which posts are being shared the most. When you spot patterns in your most-shared content, you can focus on creating more of what people want to pass along to their friends.

How the Instagram Reels algorithm works

The reels feed is almost entirely recommended content, so it's where watch time and sends do the most work. 

That makes the reels feed a particularly important area if you're looking to grow your audience. It also means the clearer your content is about what it's about (topics, niches, keywords), the easier it is for Instagram to match it with the right people.

Instagram looks at:

• A user's activity: Instagram looks at what reels people have liked, saved, reshared, commented on, and engaged with recently. When someone engages with content similar to yours, they're more likely to see your reels.
• A user's interaction history with the poster: When someone engages with an account — whether through likes, shares, or comments — Instagram takes that as a sign that they want to see more content from that account, even if they aren't a follower.
• Information about the reel: Everything from the visuals to the use of trending or original audio, overall watch time (short, punchy clips tend to win), and early engagement signals influence how widely a reel is distributed across Instagram.
• Information about the person who posted the reel: Instagram looks at signals like a creator's follower count and engagement levels to share content from a mix of creators.

Short-form video is also a big part of how Instagram connects people with their friends. Here’s what Adam Mosseri shared in his conversation with YouTube podcasters Colin and Samir:

"Short-form video is so symbiotic with connecting people with their friends," Adam told Colin and Samir. "Part of our [Instagram's] reason to be is to connect people with friends."

In other words: optimize your Instagram content to start conversations. Think about what makes your followers want to share your reel with someone they care about. Maybe it's relatable, helpful, funny, or thought-provoking.

Every audience is different, so you'll need to experiment to find what works for yours.

How to work with the reels algorithm:

A majority of the work in creating better-performing reels boils down to creating quality content your audience actually wants to see consistently. Here are more practical tips:

1. Build on momentum

If a reel takes off, you don't need to post immediately — but following up within a day or two is a smart move.

Remember, the Instagram Reels algorithm looks at how recently people have engaged with your videos, so timing your follow-up while interest is high can help you stay in their feeds. A viral reel shows Instagram that people are interested in your content, which increases the chances your next post gets seen too.

2. Think about different user types

Mosseri told Colin and Samir that about half of Instagram videos are watched without sound, so your reels need a strong visual hook to grab the attention of people who watch on mute (like me).

Add text to the first frame so it's clear what your reel's about right from the start. Creator @thepotatosauraus does this well in his music reaction videos — they work even when you're watching on mute. Each reel has the title or theme written at the top throughout, so you can see from the very first frame what he — and we — will be listening to.

3. Avoid logos or large watermarks

Instagram has said it repeatedly: Reels with logos from other apps will get pushed down in the algorithm. This doesn't apply to your own branding — only to TikTok logos or watermarks from other video editing apps.

If you're sharing videos across multiple platforms, save a version before adding any platform-specific elements. That way, when you're ready to share it on Instagram, you can upload a version that doesn't have any third-party app logos that will limit your reach.

4. Test new ideas with trial reels

Trial reels are shown to people who don't follow you first, so you can test a new format or hook without it landing in your followers' feeds. It's a do-it-yourself version of the auditioning Instagram already does for small creators. 

P.S. Did you know you can schedule trial reels with Buffer, too? 👀

How Instagram allows users to control their algorithm (and how it impacts your reach)

Instagram launched Your Algorithm to allow users more control over what they see on their app. It shows an AI-generated summary of the topics Instagram thinks a viewer is interested in, and lets them ask for more or less of a topic, remove it, or add one Instagram has missed.

It's live on reels, explore, and feed per Instagram's announcement. 

In part three of his ranking series, Mosseri said: "You can add topics you want to make sure that you never see anything from, and we're going to do our best to live up to those requests."

What it means for your reach: When a post is recommended because of a viewer's chosen topic, Instagram labels it with that topic (for example, "From Running"). To get matched, name your topic in captions and on-screen text, and stick to one niche so Instagram knows who your content is for. Instagram hasn't said how much weight declared topics carry compared with what people actually watch, so treat them as one more signal, not a shortcut.

Viewers also have three smaller tools to steer their feed.

Favorites

Viewers can add an account to Favorites from its profile. That account's posts then show at the top of their feed whenever it posts. 

What it means for your reach: A follower who favorites you sees everything you post, so it's the strongest vote a viewer can give you. It's worth asking your most engaged followers to add you.

Following feed

The following feed shows posts from accounts a viewer follows in chronological order, with no recommendations mixed in.

What it means for your reach: only your followers can see you there, and because it's chronological, your reach in that feed depends on who follows you and when you post, not on ranking.

Not interested

Viewers can tap the three-dot menu on a post or reel and choose Not interested, and Instagram will show them less content like it. For a full fresh start, they can reset their recommendations entirely (here's how), which clears what Instagram has learned about them.

What it means for your reach: a post that doesn't fit your niche is the one most likely to get tapped away, and it can teach Instagram to show that viewer less of your content. Staying on topic keeps your audience's signals working for you.

When Instagram stops recommending content

Instagram wants to keep potentially offensive content from appearing in users' feeds. To that end, it has published detailed recommendation guidelines for creators.

Posts that go against these guidelines might not violate Instagram's Community Guidelines and are still allowed on Instagram, but they won't appear on the explore page or reels tab.

Some examples of things that go against the recommendation guidelines are:

The same goes for accounts that mostly repost other people's work: since April 2026, they aren't recommended to non-followers, even if each post follows the guidelines.

8 evergreen best practices for your Instagram strategy

Instagram uses a different algorithm for each part of the app, but they do have something in common — content that people find engaging and relevant.

Here are some practical ways to work with Instagram's algorithms to get your content in front of more people.

1. Stay consistent

Posting regularly might seem like obvious advice, but the numbers back it up.

Buffer's analysis of more than 100,000 users across social media platforms shows that people who post consistently receive nearly five times more engagement per post than those who post only occasionally. And Instagram sees this recent and regular engagement as a sign that your content should be shown to more people.

Find a posting schedule you can stick with long-term, whether that's daily content or three high-quality posts a week, to avoid burning out.

2. Create original content

Originality is one of Instagram's four content principles, and it now has real teeth. Mosseri has repeatedly confirmed that accounts mostly posting content they didn't create or meaningfully transform aren't recommended to non-followers.

Creating original content could be as simple as snapshots from your morning walk, or as in-depth as a Canva design tutorial. The key is that it's yours, and not aggregated from others' accounts.

If you do want to share someone else's post, use Instagram's repost button or a collab post — both credit the original creator, which is what Mosseri has said Instagram wants to reward.

3. Look at your engagement rate, not just your reach

A post seen by 50,000 people isn't automatically better than one seen by 5,000. In part four of his ranking series, Adam Mosseri's first piece of advice to creators was to look at rates instead of raw numbers. “Too often creators look at how many views a post got or how many likes a reel got, but not at the [engagement] rate,” he says.

Engagement rate is the share of people who saw your post and engaged with it. The rates Mosseri points to are the percent of viewers who liked a reel, the percent who sent it to a friend, and average watch time. Compare them across your last 30 days of posts to see which ones actually landed.

With Buffer Insights, you don’t have to do this calculation (for each post!) manually. You can see the engagement for every post along with a platform-wide engagement rate.

4. Vary your post types

Sharing your content in different formats — single images, carousel posts, reels, stories, and lives — helps you reach a wider range of people.

It's one of the simplest ways to show up across more than one of Instagram's algorithms, and it's a great way to repurpose your content. Not everyone watches a video, so you can turn your reels into a carousel post. Or you can appeal to Instagram Story lovers by re-sharing feed posts in your stories (along with the fresh content we talked about earlier).

Below you can see how we've been making an effort to diversify the post types we use on Buffer's Instagram account:

At Buffer, we're really leaning into content repurposing not just within Instagram, but across social platforms as well.

For example, most of our reels can be used on TikTok and YouTube Shorts, too. Here's how we repurpose content across platforms — without using the other app's logos and watermarks, of course.

5. Post at the best times for you

Buffer's analysis of 9.6 million Instagram posts found the best times to post are Thursday at 9 a.m., Wednesday at 12 p.m., and Wednesday at 6 p.m. Wednesday is the best day overall, while Friday and Saturday are the weakest. Test out these best times to post on Instagram if you're new to the platform.

If you've been posting regularly to Instagram for some time, Instagram Insights will have data on the best times for you. To see your followers' most active times:

1. Go to your profile and tap Professional dashboard.
2. Tap New followers.
3. Scroll to Follower active times.

6. Develop a keyword and hashtag strategy

It's official: hashtags don't help reach, as per the man, the myth, the legend, Mosseri himself.

Instagram has also capped how many hashtags you can use in your posts and reels — and the magical number is five. So fewer, targeted tags work better than lots of generic ones.

So what works instead? Focus on adding relevant keywords to your post captions and your profile. These help people find you through Instagram's search feature and tell the algorithm what your content is about.

And don’t worry, hashtags aren't completely dead — people can still find your posts through hashtag searches. Just make your five count: pick tags that describe the post rather than generic ones like #reels or #explore. Here's how to choose your Instagram hashtags. 

If you use hashtags, Buffer’s (free!) hashtag generator can be a really helpful time-saver. With it, you just have to share what your post is about and get instant recommendations on what hashtags you should use. 

7. Focus on authentic engagement

Instagram's algorithms reward engagement, so focus on the connections you build with your audience.

Interactive stickers on your Instagram Stories — polls, questions, sliding scale rankings — are a simple way to get your followers to engage with you.

Also make sure you reply to direct messages and comments on your posts.

New comments are easy to miss among the likes, follows, and mention notifications on Instagram. To help, Buffer has engagement features that surface unanswered comments on your Instagram posts and help you reply to as many as possible, quickly. You can even create a new post from your replies using Buffer.

8. Use analytics to see what's working

One of the best ways to understand what your audience enjoys seeing is to dig into your Instagram analytics data.

Using Instagram Insights, you can check out which of your posts have had the most interactions. You can also sort posts by most comments, likes, and saves if you'd like to dig into more specific engagement metrics.

Buffer's Insights will also help you uncover your best posts (those with the highest engagement) in just a few clicks:

Once you have a list of your most engaging Instagram posts, you can start to identify what commonalities they might have. For example:

• What types of posts are they?
• What's the style of the creative?
• How is the caption structured?

With this data, you can begin to reverse-engineer what your audience is most likely to engage with and build a strategy to help get the most out of Instagram's algorithm.

How to make the Instagram algorithm work for you

The Instagram algorithm isn't one thing, and it keeps changing. But what it rewards hasn't: original content that people watch to the end, like, and send to a friend.

So you don't need to chase every update. Make something worth watching, stick to a clear niche so Instagram knows who it's for, and check your engagement rate, watch time, and likes and sends per reach to see what's working. Do that consistently and the rest gets a lot easier.

FAQs about the Instagram algorithm

What is the Instagram algorithm?

The Instagram algorithm is a set of AI systems that decide what each person sees. There are separate systems for the home feed, stories, reels, and explore, split into two broad types: one ranks content from accounts you follow, and one ranks recommendations from accounts you don't. Each predicts how likely you are to like, comment on, send, or watch a post, then orders posts by those predictions.

What are the most important Instagram ranking signals?

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri has named three: watch time, likes, and sends, which creators can track as average watch time, likes per reach, and sends per reach. Likes count slightly more for reaching your followers, and sends count slightly more for reaching people who don't follow you.

What is Your Algorithm on Instagram?

Your Algorithm is an Instagram tool that shows an AI-generated summary of the topics shaping your recommendations and lets you add topics, remove them, or see more or less of them. It launched on reels in December 2025 and is now live on explore and feed too. To open it, go to Settings and activity, then Content preferences, then Your algorithm.

How can I improve my reach with the Instagram algorithm?

Create original posts people want to watch to the end and send to a friend, since watch time and sends are two of the three signals Instagram weighs most. Then post consistently, mix reels, carousels, and stories, reply to comments and DMs, and use your Insights to see which posts get the most shares.

Do the Instagram algorithms prefer videos?

No. Instagram ranks every post by how each user usually engages — not by format. If someone often watches and shares videos, they'll see more videos. If they tap on photos, they'll see more photos. Videos sometimes reach farther overall because people tend to watch and share them, not because Instagram gives them extra weight. In our analysis of more than 4 million Instagram posts, reels got 36% more reach than carousels, but carousels got 12% more engagement than reels.

Does posting too frequently impact ranking?

It might. Dumping several posts in a row can cause Instagram to hide some of them to keep feeds balanced. Give each post room to breathe — schedule them a few hours apart or on different days — so every update can earn its own likes, comments, and shares. You can schedule Instagram posts to appear at different times and days throughout the week to avoid spamming users' feeds. Instagram suggests spreading out your posts rather than publishing several back-to-back.

Are business, creator, and personal accounts ranked differently by the algorithm?

Your content's reach depends on engagement and relevance, not account type. As reported by TechCrunch: "Instagram doesn't give extra feed presence to personal accounts or business accounts, so switching won't help your reach."

Will posting Instagram Stories or live videos affect ranking?

Creating Instagram Stories or live broadcasting on Instagram won't affect how your content ranks within the feed, but experimenting with a wide variety of content means it's far more likely that your content will appear in more places on the app.

How do I reset my Instagram algorithm?

Go to Settings and activity, then Content preferences, then Reset suggested content. For lighter tweaks, edit your topics in Your algorithm or tap Not interested. Learn more in our guide to resetting your Instagram algorithm.

What is the 5-3-1 rule on Instagram?

The 5-3-1 rule on Instagram is a way to make your Instagram activity feel more human and more connected. For every post you share, you interact with others by liking 5 posts, commenting on 3 posts, and following 1 new account.

It's a small routine that encourages thoughtful engagement and helps more people discover your brand.

What is the 4-1-1 rule on Instagram?

The 4-1-1 rule is a content-mix rule of thumb, not an Instagram rule. For every six posts, share four that educate or entertain, one soft promotion, and one direct promotion. It keeps your feed from turning into a stream of sales pitches. 

What is the 3-second rule on Instagram?

The 3-second rule on Instagram is about keeping users 'hooked' to your reel. Those first three seconds decide whether someone keeps watching or scrolls away. A clear hook helps people understand what they're about to get. This could be a quick headline, a striking visual, or a question or statement that sets the tone. When that opening lands, your video has a better chance of holding someone's attention.

I don’t know about you, but my earworms are pretty much exclusively trending songs from TikTok at this point. (Even the non-music sounds from TikTok tend to get stuck in my head, but I digress…)

The catchiness of these tunes is incredibly powerful for creators and brands on the social media platform to tap into, because not only do users remember the song; chances are, videos that featured the track will probably stick in their minds, too.

Beyond memorability, of course, is the algorithmic effect of being right on the cusp of a trending TikTok song. And who would say no to a little boost for the content they worked so hard on?

In this post, I’ll share the most viral songs and sounds on TikTok in October 2026 — and how to use them to boost your content.

Why trending TikTok sounds matter

Since you’re here, I probably don’t need to tell you that using a hot sound on TikTok can increase your chances of landing on the For You page, especially if you’re early to the trend.

TikTok’s algorithm often prioritizes familiarity and repeatability, so when a song is on the rise, jumping on it can give your post more visibility.

For example, if I’m scrolling through my FYP and watch a video with a particular audio, the TikTok algorithm will likely test the waters with another video that uses the same sound a couple of videos later. The algorithm wants to understand exactly why I lingered on the first video. Was it the music?

If yes, boy, does the FYP have more where that came from.

The right TikTok sounds or songs can instantly set the tone, spark emotion, or cue a punchline for your audience, particularly if the sound, like many of the ones below, has been used in a specific way.

The songs or sounds that become so viral they turn into a moment in internet culture are the really special ones.

All that said: you don't need to spend hours scrolling to find the best audio for your next post. Here are the most popular TikTok songs and audio right now, updated in 2026. We’ll keep this list regularly updated, so do be sure to bookmark this page and come back if you need more inspiration!

How to find trending songs on TikTok

• Browse TikTok’s Creative Center: Visit the Creative Center to see top trending songs by region and time period (above). It’s TikTok’s built-in trend tracker for sounds, creators, and hashtags. Note: TikTok Creative Center trends lists are currently undergoing some changes, and no trending audio is available for now. Watch this space for updates.
• Use TikTok’s search bar: Search phrases like “viral sound” in the TikTok app, tap the Sounds tab, and scroll through the most-used tracks labeled popular.
• Get personalized recommendations from TikTok: When you upload a video, TikTok will suggest music that matches your content, a great shortcut for finding relevant sounds.
• Discover playlists curated by TikTok: Tap Add Music > Discover more sounds to browse playlists by genre, category, or what’s hot in your region.
• Check out Tokchart: Tokchart shows the fastest-rising TikTok sounds from the past 24 hours, updated in real time. You'll need a paid account to get all the details.
• Look for trending audio on Instagram: Instagram Reels often feature songs that cross over to TikTok. Tap the music icon in the reels editor and check the Trending tab for current hits.

💡 Bonus tip: Always preview how a sound is being used. Tap the sound name on TikTok to watch example videos — this gives you the context you need to ride (or remix) the trend.

13 trending TikTok songs and sounds

Updated October 2026

1. Ramalama (Bang Bang)

The ‘Ramalama costume walk’ trend is back for spooky season, and it's fairly simple to swagger to. Strut to Ramalama by Róisín Murphy as the camera pans up from your feet to reveal your full Halloween get-up.

🎧 Get the song

2. original sound by Nileyna Garcia

Let your face do the talking: Pick a topic from your niche, rank your options using facial expressions and hand gestures, and let viewers see what you really think.

🎧 Get the sound

3. original sound by Harvey Guillén

Apologize for being a little dramatic, only for friends or family to reply, “It’s OK, I’m used to it.” The music switches to Poker Face by Lady Gaga for a perfectly timed punchline: looking personally offended by this response.

🎧 Get the sound

4. alkuperäinen ääni

If you're feeling some main character energy this month, this trending TikTok sound uses Drake’s “October is all about me” line with simple videos and on-screen text to celebrate numero uno.

🎧 Get the song

5. sonido original

Upside Down by Diana Ross is soundtracking a quick and easy transition trend on TikTok. Creators sync their hand gestures to the lyrics, then reveal their finished look.

🎧 Get the song

6. pll purposes only ty

This trend borrows the ominous text messages of Pretty Little Liars, where a mysterious villain known as “A” sends threatening messages to the main characters. Creators are using the show’s sound and on-screen text that ends with “-A” as a (somewhat creepy) narration of their everyday moments.

🎧 Get the sound

7. Wyw my sweetie #JerseyClub - Slowed

The “Find the Beat” challenge uses a slowed Jersey Club track to test someone's dance-floor instincts. One person knows the moves, while their partner has to find the beat on the spot. Try it with a partner, coworker, friend, gym buddy, or anyone who’s a good sport.

🎧 Get the song

8. Spooky, Scary Skeletons (House VIP Remix)

'Tis the season of the skeleton. This fun song is an added bone-us (sorry) for any Halloween content. A lot of creators are using it for recipes of themed treats.

🎧 Get the song

9. original sound by 𑣲sydney

Set to The Reason by Hoobastank (I may or may not have been played this song after a break-up in high school), creators share a confession, then act out the lyric “I’m not a perfect person”.

🎧 Get the song

10. son original - 𝙞𝙩'𝙨 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙖 𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢

This creepy TikTok trend pairs this eerie clip with a strange "fact" on screen. Museums, history accounts, and true-crime creators can use it to share spooky stories from their own niche.

🎧 Get the sound

11. original sound by EDCapCut

The Step Brothers "Wipe Me Down" dance trend has creators using a CapCut template to put their own faces into a synchronized dance clip. Use the CapCut template to cast yourself, your friends, or your favourite characters in the ridiculous dance.

🎧 Get the song

12. Be OK

Cheerfully dance through whatever life is throwing at you with Ingrid Michaelson’s Be OK. Add an on-screen confession about work stress, money worries, personal drama, or a very specific industry headache, then let the upbeat chorus deliver the punchline.

🎧 Get the song

13. original sound by Navy (Taylor's Version)

This sound clip uses Taylor Swift’s Cleveland! as the perfect song for romantic wedding-day reflections: "Now I'm wearing white, so hate all you'd like. This is the love of my life".

🎧 Get the sound

⚡Pro tip: For business use on TikTok, only use songs from TikTok’s Commercial Music Library or tracks you have a royalty-free/commercial license for. Using personal-use music in ads or branded content can get your videos muted or removed, so always double-check the license before posting.

Found a track for your next TikTok?

When you're creating content for your business or personal brand, staying on top of TikTok's audio trends can help you reach new audiences and keep your content fresh.

Start with one or two of the methods we discussed to find popular sounds, and don't forget to save your favorites for later.

If you've created a TikTok post with audio from this list, we'd love to see it. Tag @bufferapp on TikTok so we can find you!

Later is a strong tool for visual-first creators and social media managers. It supports a whole bunch of social channels, but where it really shines is with Instagram.

You get a polished grid preview and plenty of Instagram-specific features (think: tag products and scheduling collab posts), plus a creator marketplace to monetize your social media presence. If your content is heavily Instagram-driven, Later could be a great choice for you.

Brands also get an influencer platform for finding creators and running campaigns.

But it comes with some constraints that start to matter as you grow:

• Post volume: monthly caps per social media channel that bite for high-output creators or anyone managing several active channels
• AI access: capped credits per month on every plan, with paid top-ups available once you hit the ceiling
• Analytics history: limited data going back on lower tiers, and no analytics for LinkedIn company pages
• Add-on costs: extra social sets come at a notable premium per month
• Bulk upload: no CSV bulk upload, which makes scheduling large campaigns a manual affair
• No X/Twitter support: if X is part of your social strategy, you need a way to schedule tweets outside Later
• Limited free plan: limited to 12 posts per channel, the link in bio page, plus access to the media library and creator marketplace with no unified inbox or analytics and reporting (you may not realize the free plan exists because it's not listed on the pricing page, but it does.)

If any of those feel familiar, the seven Later alternatives below may help.

Key takeaways

• Best overall swap: Buffer removes the posting caps, AI credit limits for publishing, and bulk upload restrictions that push most Later users to upgrade — and it has a real free plan.
• Best free option: Meta Business Suite covers Instagram, Facebook, and Threads scheduling at no cost, and it's strong for users already managing paid ads there.
• Best for influencer-driven brands: Sprout Social's influencer marketing platform is the closest match to Later's for creator partnerships.
• Best for enterprise teams: Hootsuite brings social listening, industry benchmarking, and 100+ integrations to large marketing teams.
• Best for social and paid ads teams: Agorapulse pulls ad comments into the same inbox as organic posts, making it the standout for teams running both channels side by side.
• Best for creator monetization: Planoly's Creator Store lets creators sell products, digital downloads, and services directly through a link in bio tool.
• Best for video content: RecurPost provides an Instagram feature set that rivals Later's and goes deep on publishing controls for TikTok and YouTube.

Later alternatives at a glance

Paid plan prices reflect each tool's entry-level plan, billed monthly. See each tool's section for detail. Last reviewed and pricing verified: October 2026

1. Buffer

Best for creators and teams who want a flexible, affordable social media management tool.

I'll be upfront: I've tested a lot of scheduling tools both as a creator and someone who works in marketing. There are some solid social media tools out there that handle everything from publishing posts to analyzing your social presence. And I always find myself using Buffer.

Why? It's an easy to use, affordable tool that helps me manage and grow my social media presence across many platforms, Instagram included.

Buffer offers creators two options — the Free and Essentials plans — for social media management, and a solid set of tools for creators and teams that focus on Instagram:

• Add music to your Instagram Reels: Search and preview music from Instagram and attach it directly to your reel while scheduling in Buffer.
• Tag collaborators on your posts: You can add up to three Instagram accounts to share a collab post, reel, or carousel.
• Schedule Trial Reels: Test your content — and reach new Instagram accounts — by posting a reel to accounts that don't follow you before it reaches your followers.
• Post several stories in one go: Add multiple photos or videos (or both) to one Instagram Story post, and Buffer will schedule it as a sequence.
• Use your Instagram bio link to sell things: Shop Grid turns your Instagram bio into a shoppable landing page where every scheduled post links out to a custom URL, with UTM tracking. Grid Preview shows you how your feed will look before anything goes live.

That's just Instagram. Here's everything you can do with the Free plan across multiple channels:

• Choose from 12 social media platforms: You can post on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, and Threads, plus Bluesky, Substack, Google Business Profile, Twitter/X, and Mastodon, all of which Later doesn't support.
• Schedule across three platforms with no monthly posting cap: There's no ceiling on how many posts you can publish. You keep up to 10 posts queued per channel at a time, and slots open up again when posts are published. If you're posting the same content to multiple platforms, you can write once and adapt the copy for each from the same composer, rather than building each post separately.
• Use Buffer's AI Assistant as much as you want: There's no credit limit on any plan, including free. You can draft posts, repurpose old content, generate ideas, write alt text, or test hooks without watching a counter or being nudged to upgrade.
• See everything in one calendar: All your scheduled posts and drafts across every connected channel show up in one view. You can drag things around to reschedule without having to open each post individually.
• Get data that comes with recommendations: Insights tracks your metrics, and the AI-powered takeaways tell you what to do with them, so you're not staring at a graph trying to figure out what it means.
• Engage with your audience without switching apps: The Community inbox brings comments and mentions into one place. You don't have to check Instagram, then LinkedIn, then Facebook... it's all here, with AI-suggested replies if you want them (five per week on free, unlimited on paid).
• Save ideas before they get lost: Create Space holds up to 100 ideas that you can tag, organize in Kanban view, and develop into drafted posts without leaving Buffer. There's also a template library, pre-made and custom, for when you need a starting point.
• Connect Buffer to other tools, or build on top of it: You get a read-write API on every plan, including free, plus an MCP that connects to Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Cursor, and Raycast, among other tools.

If you need more than three channels or want features like analytics exports, advanced analytics, unlimited post scheduling, and CSV upload, the Essentials plan starts at $6/channel per month for one user.

If you’re not ready to commit, Buffer offers a 14-day free trial on all paid plans. You can test every part of the publishing workflow and see for yourself how it feels to use.

Buffer's team collaboration features are designed to help small to medium marketing teams and growing agencies work smoothly together.

The Team plan starts at $12/channel per month. Here's what it adds:

• Unlimited users at no extra cost: There's no extra charge whether you have three team members or 30. You can add as many clients or new teammates as you like without boosting your monthly bill.
• Set permission levels by channel: Each team member can have full publishing access, a needs-approval status, or no access at all — set independently for every connected channel.
• Run an approval workflow: Team members who need sign-off submit posts before they publish. Nothing goes out without the right person seeing it first.
• Collaborate on content ideas: Create Space is shared across the whole team, so you can develop, tag, and refine up to 5,000 ideas together before anything hits the schedule. That can comfortably cover as many social accounts, campaigns, and clients as you need.
• Leave notes directly on posts: Add comments to drafts and pending posts — anyone with publishing access can read and reply, keeping feedback in Buffer rather than a separate thread or DM.

2. Meta Business Suite

Best for businesses and creators who work entirely within Facebook and Instagram.

Meta Business Suite is the most direct option if you're looking for a free Later alternative. It covers Instagram, Facebook, and Threads (to a limited extent), and it's built specifically around that scope.

You'll get publishing workflows of course, and perks like being able to add a story directly to Instagram Highlights without opening the Instagram app — a small thing, but one of those details that adds up over time.

Meta Business Suite also connects directly to Ads Manager, so you can create and boost posts, run AI-optimized ad campaigns, and see organic vs. paid performance in the same dashboard. If you're running Meta ads alongside your organic calendar, having them both in one native interface saves meaningful context-switching every week.

It sounds like a no-brainer because it's a Meta-owned platform — like Instagram, Facebook, and Threads — and it's free. And if your focus is on just these platforms, it's a solid option for creators and teams alike.

If you're active on LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, or anywhere that isn't a Meta platform, you'd either need another social media management tool to complement or have to post on those platforms directly.

3. Sprout Social

Best for brands that run influencer campaigns alongside their organic social content.

If influencer marketing is a big part of your social strategy, Sprout Social is the most natural Later alternative from this list.

With Sprout Social's influencer marketing features, you get discovery, campaign management, and performance tracking in one place, not as a third-party plugin or integration.

Like Later, Sprout Social offers influencer marketing tools at a cost that's separate from its social media management tools. And at $249/user per month for teams, or $99/month for solopreneurs, Sprout is already a meaningful investment.

It's also one of the best-known social media management tools on this list. It earns its place for brands where influencer campaigns, advanced social listening, unified social inbox, and advanced analytics and reporting are core to the strategy — not peripheral features being explored for the first time.

4. Hootsuite

Best for enterprise teams that need advanced features like social listening and industry benchmarking.

Hootsuite shares some ground with Later on social listening — both tools offer brand monitoring and trend tracking — so it's a logical move for teams that want to keep that capability while gaining a more enterprise-grade platform underneath.

Beyond listening, Hootsuite brings bulk scheduling, industry benchmarking, customizable reports, employee advocacy, and a library of over 100 app integrations.

At $149/user per month, it's a significant jump in price compared to many tools here and closest to Sprout Social. That cost makes sense for teams with enterprise needs, and it's worth the steep learning curve for all the power it brings.

5. Agorapulse

Best for teams that want social inbox management for organic and paid post comments.

Agorapulse is a good option for teams that want to manage comments, DMs, mentions, and ad comments in a unified inbox.

Where Later's Social Inbox supports Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, Agorapulse supports eight social channels — plus comments on boosted posts as well. If you're running paid social alongside organic, Agorapulse closes a gap that tools like Later leave open.

It also includes comment assignment, inbox moderation, message sentiment, collision detection (so two team members don't accidentally respond to the same message), and CRM integrations with HubSpot and Salesforce. That's a really solid toolkit for teams where audience engagement takes place across a wide range of platforms and ways to interact.

Agorapulse also goes deep on bulk scheduling via a CSV file — something Later doesn't offer — and offers advanced analytics and reporting, including for your Meta and LinkedIn ad campaigns.

6. Planoly

Best for creators who want to sell products or services directly through their social profiles.

Planoly is a Later alternative that takes a different approach to creator monetization: it gives creators the tools to sell directly to their audience.

The Creator Store is Planoly's standout feature, and it goes further than a standard link-in-bio tool. You get a URL to add to any platform's bio, which functions as a full storefront: physical products like merch (which you can also design through the store) and digital products like courses, ebooks, memberships, and consultations.

Hook up your Stripe or PayPal account, and you're ready to make money on Instagram, TikTok, or wherever you live on socials. There's a dashboard to track your products, orders, customers, and earnings.

For creators just getting started, Planoly offers free Canva-integrated templates you fully customize instead of starting from scratch. You can also set up automated DMs to send the right products to your followers when they comment on your posts.

One caveat to know before you sign up: although Planoly covers Instagram, Facebook, X/Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, and TikTok for scheduling, it doesn't have a social inbox for replying to comments or DMs across your channels.

If actively responding to your audience is a regular part of how you work, you'd want to pair Planoly with another tool for that. Buffer covers it if you're on multiple platforms; Meta Business Suite works if you're primarily Facebook and Instagram.

7. RecurPost

Best for video creators who want deep per-platform publishing controls.

If you post heavily to Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok, RecurPost's per-platform publishing controls are worth exploring.

The Instagram feature set here is more complete than you'd expect for $9/month. From the composer, you can post trial reels, add licensed audio, tag products and collaborators, boost posts, and set up automated DMs that trigger the moment a specific post goes live.

On YouTube, RecurPost lets you add custom thumbnails, set the video's privacy, add it to a playlist, and tag it as made for kids. For TikTok, you can set privacy per post, turn off comments, and enable duets and stitches right from the scheduling flow.

These video platforms aren't the only ones RecurPost supports. Like most of the tools on this list, it also supports Facebook, Pinterest, X/Twitter, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profile.

Which is the best Later alternative?

There's no single "best" alternative to Later. Which one is best — and right for you — depends on how you work, what you're managing, and what you actually need from a tool.

Most tools on this list have a free tier or trial. Narrow it down to a few that piqued your interest, then sign up and use them for yourself to see which one suits you best.

Here are a few questions worth thinking through to help you make a shortlist:

• What's your budget? Buffer's affordable, flexible pricing (plans from $6/channel/month, with a free plan to start) and Meta Business Suite (free, Facebook and Instagram only) are the two lowest-cost entry points.
• How many channels are you managing, and which ones? If you're entirely on Instagram and Facebook, Meta Business Suite covers that natively. If you have multiple social media accounts on platforms that aren't Meta-owned, you'll need one of the other options.
• Are you managing a team? Buffer's Team plan includes unlimited users, approval workflows, and per-channel permissions. Agorapulse adds collision detection and CRM sync for teams where inbox management is the priority.
• Do you run paid ads alongside organic? Agorapulse pulls ad comments into the same inbox as your organic social posts, and lets you track LinkedIn ad performance. Meta Business Suite connects directly to Ads Manager.
• Is influencer marketing central to your strategy? Sprout Social's influencer platform handles discovery, campaign management, and performance tracking in one place.
• Do you want to sell directly through your social profiles? Planoly's Creator Store lets you sell products, digital downloads, and services through a link-in-bio storefront.
• Do you post heavily to Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok? RecurPost's per-platform publishing controls — trial reels, licensed audio, TikTok privacy settings, full YouTube uploads — are worth a look.

If Buffer ends up being the right fit, we'd love to have you. And if it's not, I hope this helped you find the one that is.

FAQs about Later alternatives

Is there a free version of Later Social?

Yes, Later does have a free plan, although it isn't listed on the pricing page or promoted anywhere on the website. The most reliable way to end up on it is for your trial to expire and your account to downgrade automatically. The free tier gives you 12 posts per channel and the link-in-bio page, plus access to the creator marketplace and media library, but there's no social inbox or basic analytics available.

What is the best alternative to Later?

The best Later alternative depends on your goals, budget, and which platforms you're active on. There's no single right answer. The tools in this list cover a range of use cases, from flexible, multi-platform publishing to creator monetization to enterprise-level inbox management, so the right pick will come down to how you work and what you need from a switch.

Is there a free alternative to Later?

Yes. Buffer's free tier includes three channels, 10 social posts per channel queued at a time (refillable as they publish), unlimited AI Assistant, Create Space, and a Community inbox. It's a genuine free plan with no strings attached. Meta Business Suite is entirely free with no paid tier, though it covers Instagram, Facebook, and Threads only.

Which is better, Later or Buffer?

It depends on how you work. Later is a strong tool for visual-first creators — particularly those whose content is heavily Instagram-driven — with a polished grid preview, Instagram-specific publishing features, an influencer marketing platform, and a creator marketplace. Buffer is a better fit if you're managing multiple channels (including X/Twitter, Bluesky, or Mastodon, which Later doesn't support), want unlimited AI on every plan, or need to scale a team without per-seat fees. Our full Buffer vs. Later comparison goes deeper if you want to see how the two tools stack up across pricing, features, and use cases.

Can I switch from Later without losing my content?

Your published posts and social accounts live on the platforms themselves, so you won't lose them. What you'll need to rebuild are any scheduled posts queued inside Later. Most tools here let you reconnect your social accounts in a few minutes and start scheduling right away. If historical analytics matter to you, some tools (including Buffer) can pull in past post data on connection, though how far back they sync depends on what each platform's API makes available.

More Instagram marketing resources

• How to Get More Followers on Instagram in 2026 (13 Tried & Tested Tactics)
• Best Time to Post on Instagram in 2026: Data from 9.6 Million Posts
• Instagram Marketing in 2026: The Complete Guide to Form Your Strategy (+ Best Practices)
• Instagram Image Size Guide 2026: Post, Story, and Reels Dimensions
• 6 Instagram Analytics Tools That Will Help You Grow Your Audience in 2026

Every few years, someone declares that Facebook is dead. And then 3 billion people log in anyway.

When it comes to social media platforms, Facebook is as crowded as they come. The social network currently has 3 billion active users — so almost a third of the world's population has a Facebook account they use regularly.

Crowded as it may be, it's still a powerful social media marketing platform for businesses and creators — it’s why I’ve recently added Facebook into my social media crossposting strategy.

I already have some Instagram content that I think will resonate on Facebook, and I’m experimenting with crossposting it there. With all that solid content locked and loaded, one of the first things I defined in my shiny new Facebook social media strategy was when to post for maximum engagement.

When it comes to the Facebook algorithm, engagement — reactions, comments, shares, and likes — is a strong signal that your content is valuable and that more people will enjoy having it in their Facebook news feeds.

The higher your engagement, the higher your reach tends to be — and the greater your chance of achieving your social media goals, whether that means driving traffic to your website, making a sale, or simply growing your Facebook following.

So, how do you pinpoint the best time to post on Facebook for your audience, especially if you're just starting out (or you’ve dusted off an old Facebook account, like me)?

The first place I looked was our data.

The Buffer data team has analyzed the performance of more than 14 million Facebook posts sent via Buffer by businesses, creators, and influencers to pinpoint the best time to post on Facebook, the best day to post on Facebook, and which days and times are best avoided.

Ready to jump in?

Key takeaways

• Peak posting time: The single best time to post is Thursday at 9 a.m., with Wednesday and Sunday mornings also delivering strong engagement.
• Best day: Wednesday is the top-performing day for Facebook engagement overall, with Thursday and Tuesday following close behind.
• Morning advantage: Engagement peaks between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. on most weekdays — Monday is the exception, with its best slots between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Afternoons (12 p.m. – 5 p.m.) consistently show the lowest engagement.
• Avoid the weekend: Saturday is the worst day to post on Facebook, with engagement dropping significantly compared to mid-week — Sunday performs slightly better but still trails weekdays.

Is there a best time to post on Facebook?

There's no magic, universal best time to post on Facebook, during which your content is guaranteed to go viral (if only it were that easy).

The best time to post on Facebook — or any social media platform — always depends on your audience and how they engage with your content. (It's the same story on every platform — our best times to post on social media roundup shows how much the windows shift from one network to the next.)

That said, our data analysis has picked up some definitive links between posting times and high engagement rates, which could be a great starting point if you're new to Facebook.

My advice is to use these times as a springboard for experimentation — that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks. Luckily, we have plenty of high-engagement times on Facebook, so there are plenty of options for your posting schedule.

The best times to post on Facebook

According to Buffer data from analyzing 14 million posts, the best time to post on Facebook is 9 a.m. on Thursday. Our analysis showed that mid-morning on Thursday consistently delivers the highest engagement of the week.

The data reveals that morning posting times tend to perform best — we pinpointed other hotspot times on Thursday at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., which round out the top three posting times.

🌅 Overall, posting in the morning hours between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. on weekdays gets solid engagement, as you'll see from our analysis.

The data shows that engagement remains strong through mid-morning, with a slight peak around the 8-10 a.m. window. Performance tends to drop off during the afternoon hours (12 p.m. - 5 p.m.), making these generally the worst times to post.

It's helpful to consider these posting times in the context of general audience behavior as part of your overall posting strategy — which is why I always tend to turn to demographics.

The largest demographic of Facebook users is aged 25-34 (closely followed by ages 35-44). This suggests that users are more likely to check their Facebook News Feeds during their morning routine or early work hours, making it an ideal time to post.

A fascinating report by the Pew Research Center found that an overwhelming majority (93%) say keeping up with friends and family is a reason why they use Facebook. By comparison, the primary use case for other social media platforms like Instagram (86%) and TikTok (95%) is entertainment.

With this in mind, it makes sense that morning hours see strong engagement on Facebook, where users check in to catch up with loved ones — a higher priority than a mindless scroll through, say, some Instagram Reels.

Weekend behavior shows lower performance overall, with Saturday and Sunday seeing notably less engagement than weekdays (more on this below).

The best time to post on Facebook at a glance

Here are the top three posting times for each day, based on Buffer's analysis of more than 14 million Facebook posts:

The best time to post on Facebook on Monday

The best time to post on Facebook on Monday is 9 p.m., followed by 10 p.m., and then 7 p.m. Monday evening sees strong engagement, though Monday overall ranks among the lower-performing days of the week.

The best time to post on Facebook on Tuesday

The best time to post on Facebook on Tuesday is 8 a.m., followed by 7 p.m., then 7 a.m. Tuesday shows a strong morning performance, with early hours delivering solid engagement rates.

The best time to post on Facebook on Wednesday

The best time to post on Facebook on Wednesday is 8 a.m., followed by 9 a.m., then 6 p.m. Wednesday is the best day of the week overall for Facebook engagement, and its 8 a.m. slot is the second-best posting time of the entire week.

The best time to post on Facebook on Thursday

The best time to post on Facebook on Thursday is 9 a.m. — the single best posting time across the entire week. Other peak times on Thursday include 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., making Thursday morning the golden window for Facebook engagement.

The best time to post on Facebook on Friday

The best time to post on Facebook on Friday is 8 a.m., with other strong posting times at 7 a.m. and 6 a.m. Friday maintains solid morning engagement, though performance begins to taper as the weekend approaches.

The best time to post on Facebook on Saturday

The best time to post on Facebook on Saturday is 10 p.m., with other peak times at 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. However, Saturday overall shows significantly lower engagement compared to weekdays, making it one of the least optimal days to post.

The best time to post on Facebook on Sunday

The best time to post on Facebook on Sunday is 10 a.m., followed by 9 a.m. and 8 a.m. Sunday's 10 a.m. slot is the third-best posting time of the week, but Sunday as a whole trails the weekdays.

The best day to post on Facebook

The best day of the week to post on Facebook is Wednesday — posts shared on the platform mid-week tend to see the highest engagement overall.

Thursday comes in a very close second, with Tuesday rounding out the top three. The data shows that mid-week posting (Tuesday through Thursday) consistently outperforms both the beginning and end of the week.

There is a noticeable dip in content posted on the weekend. Saturday is the worst day of the week to post on Facebook, with engagement dropping significantly compared to weekday performance. Sunday shows slightly better engagement than Saturday, but still falls well below the mid-week sweet spot.

So if you're building a schedule from scratch, start in the middle of the week, particularly Wednesday and Thursday mornings.

Get the best times to post on Facebook right in Buffer

You could add these times to a spreadsheet or set reminders on your phone, whatever works for you. But if you really want to work smarter, not harder, you can create an automatic optimal posting schedule right in Buffer. It's really easy to set up, too.

You can automatically set these recommended times for Facebook and your other social media platforms. They'll appear as posting slots in your queue and calendar, making it super easy for you to schedule posts at the best times.

It'll take you less than a minute to set up:

1. Select Facebook on your channels list on the left.
2. Click on the settings (gear) icon above the calendar.
3. Scroll to Posting Schedule and under Posting Times, click the Generate New Posting Times button.
4. Then Use Recommended Posting Times.

The schedule will automatically update to include the best posting times for the week, based on our latest analysis of millions of Facebook posts.

The next time you schedule a post, you can easily choose one of these high engagement slots. No more guessing!

Your checklist for high-performing Facebook posts

Figuring out the best time to post on Facebook can be helpful, but it's not the ultimate secret to Facebook success (again, if only it were that simple!).

As we unpack in our guide to the Facebook algorithm, there are several other things you can do to give your content the best possible chance of reaching more people (and our tips for increasing Facebook page engagement go deeper). Here's a high-level overview:

1. Share content that prompts conversations: Producing high-quality content should always be your priority on social media. Tap into your Facebook Insights or Buffer Insights to stay on top of the content that resonates most with your audience. Remember: Facebook likes authentic accounts that contribute to their community and create meaningful interactions.
2. Cultivate authentic relationships with your fans: Reacting and replying to comments and always responding promptly to DMs is only half the battle — be sure to be thoughtful and authentic in your replies to really connect with your audience.
3. Experiment with different content types: While photos generally perform best, your target audience might respond better to something else. Text, photos, GIFs, Reels — be sure to try them all more than once.
4. Tap into user-generated (UGC) content and mentions: When people tag you in posts, take notice. This is a perfect opportunity to share their content as user-generated content — with their permission, of course.
5. Aim to be on users' 'Favorite' lists: Facebook users can take more control of their feeds with the Favorite list feature. Encourage your fans to add you to that list so they never miss your content.
6. Don't resort to clickbait or engagement bait: Clickbait is exaggerated, over-sensationalized content that doesn't deliver on its promise. Engagement bait uses captions or photos that contain phrases like, "Like this if you like dogs better, share this if you like cats better." Facebook regularly updates its algorithm to downrank content like this, making it a terrible way to attempt to get maximum engagement.
7. Verify all the news you share: Another thing the Facebook algorithm doesn't like: fake news. Facebook is vigilant in identifying misinformation and takes strict action against violators, potentially leading to removal from the platform.
8. Stick to Facebook's Community Standards: Facebook takes its Community Standards seriously. The algorithm is pretty good at weeding out posts that violate these rules, but even if a post manages to skirt under the radar, Facebook users can report it and have it taken down anyway. Getting strikes against your account like this could impact future content performance.

When in doubt, always remember: Facebook's algorithm values what users value.

"Facebook's goal is to make sure that you see posts from the people, interests, and ideas that you find valuable," the company says. "Whether that content comes from people you're already connected to or from those you may not yet know."

Thursday at 9 a.m. is the strongest slot in our data, but timing only gets your post in front of people — what they do next depends on the post. Use these times as your starting schedule, then check your own analytics after a few weeks and move the slots that underperform. Buffer can hold the schedule for you, so the time you'd spend remembering to post goes into the posts themselves.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best time to post on Facebook?

Thursday at 9 a.m. is the best time to post on Facebook, based on Buffer's analysis of more than 14 million posts. Thursday at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. are the next-strongest slots.

What is the best day to post on Facebook?

Wednesday is the best day to post on Facebook, followed closely by Thursday and then Tuesday. Mid-week posts consistently outperform those shared at the start or end of the week.

What is the worst time to post on Facebook?

Saturday is the worst day to post on Facebook, and afternoons (12 p.m. – 5 p.m.) are the weakest hours on most days.

Do these times apply to my time zone?

Yes. Buffer's data team normalized the results to local time, so 9 a.m. means 9 a.m. wherever your audience is. There's no conversion needed whether you're in EST, PST, or IST.

What is the best time to post reels on Facebook?

Our analysis looks at Facebook posts as a whole rather than breaking out Reels separately, so the times above are the best starting point for Reels too. Schedule a few Reels in the top slots, then compare their reach against your other posts in your analytics. For format tips, see our guide to Facebook Reels.

More Facebook resources

• What Is a Good Facebook Engagement Rate? Data From 52 Million+ Posts
• How to Schedule Facebook Posts in 3 Easy Ways (+ Save Hours Every Week)
• The Ideal Facebook Cover Photo Size and How To Make Yours Stand Out (+ 11 Ideas and Examples)

Your cover photo is the biggest image on your Facebook Page, and it's usually the first thing people see when they land there. It's also super easy to get wrong. A design can look great on your laptop, and then you open the Facebook app on your phone, and the edges of your headline are gone (or your profile picture is sitting right on top of an important detail).

That happens because Facebook shows the same cover photo in a different frame on desktop and mobile. So it's worth spending a few minutes on the dimensions before you upload, rather than a lot of time repositioning after.

If you want to jump right to changing your picture: The recommended Facebook cover photo size is 851 × 315 pixels, according to Meta's Help Center. Upload it as an sRGB JPG under 100 KB, and keep text and logos near the middle so nothing important gets cropped on mobile or desktop.

Below, I'll walk through how cropping works on each screen, how to design a cover that fits the rest of your Facebook marketing, and 11 brand examples to borrow ideas from.

Key takeaways

1. Upload your Facebook cover photo as an sRGB JPG under 100 KB, or as a PNG if it includes a logo or text. Meta says PNG files can give you a better result.
2. Facebook won't accept a cover photo smaller than 400 × 150 pixels.
3. Facebook fits your cover photo to a 16:9 frame on computers and a 2.4:1 frame on mobile, aligned to the left, so the same image shows differently on each screen.
4. Keep text and logos in the middle of your Facebook cover photo. Your profile picture covers part of the left side, and Facebook may crop the edges to fit different screens.
5. Facebook group covers use 1640 × 856 pixels, and event covers use 1920 × 1005 pixels.
6. The strongest Facebook cover photos do one clear job, like explaining what you do, promoting an event, or announcing a launch. The 11 brand examples below show how.

Jump to a section

What’s the ideal Facebook cover photo size?

The recommended Facebook cover photo size is 851 × 315 pixels, according to Meta's Help Center. Upload it as an sRGB JPG under 100 KB, and it'll load fastest. (sRGB is the standard color profile for screens, so it's worth checking your export settings aren't set to Adobe RGB.) Anything smaller than 400 × 150 pixels won't meet Meta's minimum requirement.

Once it's uploaded, Facebook fits your cover to each screen. On computers, it shows in a 16:9 frame, and on phones it's 2.4:1. Both are aligned to the left, and your profile picture covers part of the left-hand side (it overlaps the cover by about 40 pixels on mobile). So the middle of your cover is the safest spot for text and logos.

⚡ Sizing ads instead? Our Facebook ad specs guide covers those, and our social media image sizes guide has every other network.

Pro tip: Facebook's reposition tool opens automatically when you upload a new cover, so you can drag the image into place before you save. It's the quickest way to nudge anything important away from the left edge.

💡 Posting to Facebook regularly? With Buffer, you can schedule posts to Facebook Pages and Groups, see how they perform, and keep on top of comments from one dashboard. Learn more →

How Facebook crops your cover photo on mobile and desktop

Facebook doesn't show your cover photo the same way on every screen. According to Meta's Help Center, covers display at a 16:9 aspect ratio on computers and 2.4:1 on mobile. In both cases, the image is aligned to the left and fills the frame edge to edge, so parts of it may be cropped or resized to fit.

Your profile picture sits on top of the cover too. It covers part of the left-hand side, and on mobile it overlaps the cover by about 40 pixels.

Here's how one cover looks on desktop:

And here's the same Page in the Facebook app:

How to make your Facebook cover photo fit

1. Design at 851 × 315 pixels, and keep text, logos, and faces in the middle, away from the left edge where your profile picture sits.
2. Upload your cover and drag it into place with the reposition tool before you save.
3. Check your Page on a computer and in the Facebook app on your phone.
4. If anything important is cropped or hidden behind your profile picture, move it in your design file and upload it again.

People see your profile picture and cover photo together, so it's worth designing them as a pair. Our guide to choosing a profile picture covers what makes one work.

How to design a Facebook cover photo that stands out

A Facebook cover photo works best when it has one clear focal point, feels like your brand, and keeps any text short enough to read on a phone. Since Facebook crops the cover and puts your profile picture over it differently on each screen, simple designs tend to hold up better than busy ones.

Start with one clear focal point

The images that get shared most on social media tend to make people feel something, and they feel relevant to whoever's scrolling. Both apply to your cover photo.

So pick one thing for people to look at: your product, your team, or a scene your audience will recognize. Burger King's cover, for example, shows a group of friends sharing a meal, which says more about the brand than a burger on a plain background would.

Color does a lot of the work too. For more on how colors shape what people feel about a brand, our piece on the science of colors in marketing is a good place to start.

If you add text, keep it to a few words in a clear, readable font. It has to work at phone size, where a short headline will do more than a full sentence.

Use visual cues to point people where you want them

People tend to look where other people in an image are looking, and arrows pull the eye in a similar way. Researchers call this the gaze-cueing effect.

So if you want people to notice a particular spot on your cover, like a call to action, you could add an arrow, a circle, or a person looking toward it.

Pick a tool to make it

• Canva is the quickest route if you don't design. It recommends 851 × 315 pixels for Facebook covers (the same as Meta), and its Facebook cover templates give you a starting point to swap your own photo, colors, and text into.
• Photoshop, or any design tool you already use, gives you pixel-level control. Set your canvas to 851 × 315 pixels and export as an sRGB JPG, or a PNG if your cover has text.
• Your own photos often work best, especially of your team or space. If you don't have any, try a free stock photo site and check that the license allows editing.
• AI image generators like Midjourney or Canva's AI image generator can fill the gap when you need something specific. AI images can come out with odd details, so look closely before you use one. Our guide to AI image generators has more options.

11 Facebook cover photo ideas and examples

So what should yours actually look like? Here are 11 ideas, each with a real brand's cover photo, so you can see how they work in practice.

11 examples and ideas for your Facebook cover photo

So what should your cover photo actually look like? Here are 11 ideas, each with a real brand's cover photo, so you can see how they work in practice.

1. Sum up what you do

If someone lands on your Page without knowing who you are, your cover can tell them in one line. Motion, a task management app, puts a product screenshot and a short description right in its cover photo. is a task management app that automatically schedules your tasks. They describe this right in their cover photo, so there's no question about what they do.

It's a simple move, but it means nobody has to scroll to figure out what Motion does.

2. Share your mission or values

Your Facebook cover photo is an excellent opportunity to showcase your brand values and encourage people to join and support your cause. The Rainforest Alliance works to protect forests and the people who depend on them, and its cover says that plainly.

3. Show off your product

Sometimes the product is enough. Ferrari's cover is just two of its cars, without a single word of text.

This luxurious image speaks for itself!

4. Introduce your team

Putting your team in your cover photo is one of the quickest ways to make a Page feel human. It works especially well for service businesses, where customers meet your team in person. Physical therapy clinic Helix Sport and Spine uses its cover to show patients who they'll be working with.

5. Reinforce your brand identity

If your brand has a look, a tagline, or a phrase people already know, your cover is the place for it. Nike uses "Just do it," which anyone visiting its Page will recognize straight away.

6. Announce something new

Launching a product or feature? Your cover photo is prime space to tease or announce it. When we launched Buffer's API, we updated our own Facebook cover accordingly.

7. Promote an event

Your cover can work like a billboard for something coming up. UFC uses its cover to show who's fighting and when to tune in.

8. Change it with the seasons

A lot of brands swap their cover photo for holidays and seasons, which also gives returning visitors something new to see. For fall, Starbucks went with pumpkin-shaped disco balls.

9. Promote a social media campaign or hashtag

If you're running a campaign, putting the hashtag in your cover photo helps people find it. Lego did this with #SuperpowerOfPlay.

10. Make a statement

Your cover can carry a message as well as a picture. Skillshare's cover reads "The world is full of surprises. But so are you," which is a nice nudge for anyone who follows the Page to go and make something.

11. Have some fun

It doesn't always have to be serious. The Chicken & Rice Guys recreated The Beatles' Abbey Road album cover with their staff in costume, which tells you a lot about the brand before you've read a word.

Start creating

Once your cover photo is sorted, it's worth giving your posts the same attention. Our social media image sizes guide has the right sizes for Facebook posts and the other major networks, and our guide to the Facebook algorithm explains what helps those posts get seen.

And if you're posting to Facebook regularly, Buffer can help you schedule your posts, see how they perform, and keep up with comments in one place.

Frequently asked questions about Facebook cover photo sizes

Is a Facebook cover photo 16:9?

On computers, yes. According to Meta's Help Center, Facebook Page cover photos display at a 16:9 aspect ratio on computers and a 2.4:1 aspect ratio on mobile. The recommended upload size is still 851 × 315 pixels.

What size is a Facebook cover photo without cropping?

There isn't one size that avoids cropping completely, because Facebook shows covers in a 16:9 frame on computers and a 2.4:1 frame on mobile. Upload at 851 × 315 pixels, keep important content in the middle, and check your Page on both screens after you upload.

What's the minimum size for a Facebook cover photo?

A Facebook cover photo must be at least 400 pixels wide and 150 pixels tall, according to Meta.

What file type should I use for a Facebook cover photo?

Meta says Facebook cover photos load fastest as an sRGB JPG under 100 KB. If your cover includes a logo or text, a PNG file may give you a better result.

What size is a Facebook event cover photo?

Facebook event cover photos use 1920 × 1005 pixels, a 1.91:1 aspect ratio.

What size is a Facebook group cover photo?

Facebook group cover photos use 1640 × 856 pixels.

How do I make my Facebook cover photo fit?

Upload your cover at 851 × 315 pixels, then use the reposition tool that opens on upload to drag the image into place. Keep text and logos away from the left edge, where your profile picture overlaps the cover, and check the result on both a computer and your phone.

More Facebook resources

Looking to grow your audience on Facebook? Here's our latest guidance:

📚 How to Get More Followers on Facebook: 13 Tried-and-true Tactics

📚 How to Create a Facebook Group That Your Audience Loves: The Ultimate Guide

📚 Decoding the Facebook Algorithm in 2024: Everything You Need to Know

📚 The Best Time to Post on Facebook: A Complete Guide

I don't use AI image generators in my creative process. Or at least, I didn't before writing this article. Every time I tried to think of a reason to generate an image, my brain went straight to photos.

And then I'd think: why wouldn't I just pick up my phone and take a picture of the thing? But it turns out, I was only considering one slice of what these tools can do.

I'm not particularly artistic. Here's the evidence:

I can write. I can build a (pretty good, if I do say so myself) carousel in Canva or even Figma. But I can't draw, and I can't create the kind of illustrations I see other creators using across their content. That turned out to be exactly the gap where AI image generators are most useful — not replacing photography, but creating visuals I couldn't make on my own.

So I tested nine of them on three things I'd actually use for social media: an illustrated sticker sheet, a styled product shot, and a text-based graphic. If you just want the short answer, Nano Banana 2 was the most consistent across all three, and Seedream and Ideogram 3.0 were the most reliable with text. The rest of this article covers how I wrote the prompts, how each tool did, and which one fits the kind of graphics you make.

Key takeaways

• Nano Banana 2 (Google) was the most consistent performer overall. It handled illustration accuracy, came closest on the product shot, and handled typography well. If you only try one model, start there.
• Every tool struggled with the product shot in some way. None produced an image I'd confidently use as a real product photo without editing, especially when the prompt included brand names or device screens.
• Typography was the biggest divider. Seedream and Ideogram 3.0 were the most reliable at spelling and placing text. Others, like Midjourney and GPT Image, garbled words or skipped them entirely.
• For everything else, Recraft V4 Pro gave me the most control over style and color palettes, Midjourney had the most artistic, mood-driven results (as long as you don't need text), and Firefly 5 is worth trying if you already work in Photoshop or Illustrator.
• Prompt structure matters across every tool. Leading with the subject, using photography terms for product shots, and describing colors in plain words instead of hex codes improved results across much of my testing.
• Multi-model platforms where you can access several AI image generators in one place are increasingly common. I ran most of my tests inside Leonardo.ai because it integrates directly with Canva, which is where I do all my visual design work.
• Commercial-use rights vary by tool and plan. In the U.S., purely AI-generated material generally isn’t eligible for copyright protection without sufficient human authorship, though human-created elements of AI-assisted work may be protected.

What makes a good AI image prompt?

When I first sat down to test every tool in this article, I blanked completely. The generators have gotten remarkably good, especially in the past year. But I couldn't think of a single image I needed.

I think that's where most people get stuck. The tools aren't the bottleneck anymore. Knowing what to ask for is.

So I spent time researching before I started testing. I read through creator communities like r/midjourney on Reddit, studied prompt breakdowns on Instagram, and went through Envato's illustration prompt guide. Then I ran dozens of prompt variations across every tool on this list. A clear pattern emerged in what works and what doesn't.

Start with the subject, not the style

The first few words of your prompt carry the most weight. Every tool I tested responded better when I led with what's in the image before describing how it should look. "A ceramic mug on a wooden desk next to an open laptop" before "editorial lifestyle photography, warm natural light."

When I flipped the order and led with style, the results lost focus. The model seemed to treat the style as the priority and get vague about the actual content.

Use camera language for more realistic images

"Shallow depth of field." "Shot from a slight angle." "Soft golden hour lighting." "35mm film photography."

Photography terms can be especially effective because image-generation models often respond well to language commonly used to describe photographs, such as lighting, lenses, composition, and depth of field. I leaned on this most for the product shot prompt.

Vague descriptors like "beautiful" or "high quality" rarely move the needle; specificity is what actually shapes the output.

Describe colors in words, not codes

I tested the same prompt with hex codes and with plain descriptions ("light blue," "butter yellow"). The descriptive version was more accurate in the majority of tools I tested.

This one has some nuance, though. The Envato guide recommends hex codes for brand accuracy, and some tools (particularly ones built for designers, like Recraft) handle them better than others. If you're not sure, start with descriptive color names. If you're working with a specific brand palette and a design-focused tool, try the hex codes and see what you get.

Anchor your illustration style, or the tool will choose for you

This was the biggest lesson from the illustration tests. When I prompted for a product shot, the tools mostly knew what I meant. When I switched to illustration, the results fell apart until I got specific about what kind.

"Hand-drawn doodle, light blue ink, single color, simple line art with slightly wobbly quality, outlines only" gave me something usable. Without those anchors, most tools defaulted to either a photo-style image or a generic, flat illustration style that didn't reflect what I had in mind.

The Envato guide breaks illustration styles into specific technique language: "ink hatching, gouache blocks, flat vector shapes, stipple shading, gestural linework." The more precise you are about the medium and technique, the closer the output gets to what you actually pictured.

Tell the tool what you don't want

Negative prompts are underrated. Adding "no watermark" and "no text" to my illustration prompts cleaned up the outputs noticeably. But they only work when the core prompt is already solid. You can't subtract your way to a good image from a vague starting point.

Put your most important exclusions early in the negative prompt. Leading with "no watermarks, no text" performed better than burying those instructions at the end.

A prompt template worth bookmarking

Here's the structure that worked consistently across the tools I tested:

[Subject and what they're doing] + [setting or context] + [2 or more specific details] + [style]

And here are the prompts I came up with, one for each kind of graphic I make for social media.

For illustration:

A sticker sheet of hand-drawn doodle illustrations on a butter yellow background, with generous spacing between every object so each can be cropped as an individual sticker. Exactly these objects and nothing else: 1) a structured clutch bag with clasp hardware, 2) a tall oval perfume bottle with a label reading "Orpheon", 3) chunky lace-up trail running sneakers, 4) wireless square transparent over-ear headphones with absolutely no wire and no earbud attached completely standalone, 5) angular rectangular sunglasses, 6) a leather zip-up moto biker jacket with zippered pockets, 7) an anthurium plant with large waxy leaves and a spadix, 8) an open laptop computer, 9) a smartphone with a screen, 10) a single hot steaming cup of tea in a teacup on a saucer no iced drinks, no straws, no second cup, 11) an open journal with handwritten lines on the pages, 12) a flat neat stack of magazines with spines reading Kinfolk, Dazed, i-D, 13) a plain simple canvas tote bag with handles not mesh, not net. Light blue line art on butter yellow background, single color, simple wobbly hand-drawn line art, outlines only, zero shading, zero fill, zero color blocks. Flat lay arrangement.

For product shots:

A realistic image of an iPhone resting on a light marble surface, screen facing up, showing a colorful Instagram feed. A small iced coffee in a clear cup and a sprig of eucalyptus beside it. Three-quarter overhead angle, soft natural window light from the right, gentle shadows. Clean, styled, editorial product photography. No people, no hands, no text overlays, no watermarks.

For typography as design:

Square graphic. The phrase 'Brand Partnerships 101' rendered as colorful embroidery stitching on light blue linen fabric background. Letters in butter yellow thread with visible stitch texture, cross-stitch style. Small decorative floral embroidery accents in coral and white thread flanking the text. Fabric has subtle woven texture. Warm, tactile, handcrafted feel. No photographs of real objects, no watermarks.

You'll see how each model handled these prompts (and where they fell apart) in the reviews below.

The nine best AI image generators

I tested nine AI image generation models across three prompts: a hand-drawn doodle sticker sheet, a styled product flat lay, and an embroidered typography graphic.

Some of these are models (the AI that generates the image), and some are platforms (where you access the model). Think of it like this: Nano Banana 2 is a model made by Google, but you can use it inside platforms like Leonardo.ai without going to Google directly.

Rather than trying multiple tools across different websites, I used Leonardo.ai as my testing hub for the models available there, testing the most recent version of each. Then I tested Midjourney, Recraft, and Adobe Firefly as standalone tools.

Once you've made your graphics, you can schedule them with Buffer for free to Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Threads, and more from one place.

Now, the results.

Nano Banana 2 (Google)

Best for: Creators who want the most accurate rendering of specific real-world objects and styles, particularly for illustration work.

Nano Banana 2 is a Google model, and part of a family that's actively evolving. When I asked for a "Diptyque Orphéon" perfume bottle or "chunky trail running sneakers from Salomon," Nano Banana seemed to actually know what those things look like. This one got the closest to reality.

How it handled illustration: This was my top pick for the illustration prompt. The hand-drawn style landed, the proportions were correct, and nothing felt off. It got the style of the perfume bottle right and even rendered the magazine spines with fonts that felt close to the real publications.

How it handled the product shot: Nano Banana came closest to generating a realistic Instagram feed, and the phone itself felt more believable. It added elements I hadn't asked for that made the scene feel lived-in.

How it handled typography: The embroidery text came out whimsical and stylized, with visible texture on both the fabric and the stitching. The flowers and surrounding design elements had a cohesive quality.

Seedream (ByteDance)

Best for: Creators who need reliable text generation in their images and access within CapCut.

Seedream is ByteDance's image generation model. You can use it if you have CapCut Pro.

How it handled illustration: Seedream produced the most sticker-like effect. Text generation was spot-on. Every label, every spelling, every piece of text in the image was correct. It also correctly rendered an anthurium instead of defaulting to a monstera.

How it handled the product shot: The phone was the weak point: it was clearly not a real device. But the surrounding elements held up. The shadows were well-placed, and the coffee cup was good.

How it handled typography: Seedream did well here. The fabric texture behind the text looked realistic, and it got most of the prompt elements right. The font weight felt slightly cartoonish compared to the fabric realism.

Recraft V4 Pro

Best for: Creators and designers who want serious control over visual style and want access to Recraft's reference and refinement features.

Recraft has a massive library of existing designs from real designers that you can use as reference images. You can assign a color palette, select from a wide range of visual styles, and work with its agentic chat to refine your images through conversation.

It's also one of the tools that handles hex codes better than others, which helps if you're working from a brand palette.

How it handled illustration (using the Vector Pro model): The images had that hand-drawn quality I was going for. Objects like the plant and the coffee cup looked right. But inconsistencies crept in: the sneakers felt generic, and the laptop suddenly introduced a color that nothing else in the image had.

How it handled the product shot (using the V4 Pro model): At a glance, the image looked like a real product photo. The objects cast very realistic shadows and the condensation detail on the iced coffee caught my attention. But zooming in told a different story: the phone dimensions looked off, and the table was sinking into the wall.

How it handled typography: Recraft went its own direction here. It didn't deliver the embroidery realism I asked for, but what it did produce had a clear aesthetic vision and a handcrafted feel that I could actually see myself using.

Midjourney

Best for: Creators who want artistic, mood-driven visuals and don't need precise text or highly specific object rendering.

Midjourney has a reputation as the "artistic" AI image generator, and the visual richness of its outputs backs that up. The editing experience is button-based: you can vary elements to be subtle or strong, lean more creative, and even animate your results without leaving the tool.

How it handled illustration: Of the four images Midjourney generated from my sticker sheet prompt, only one was close to usable. Midjourney struggles with this level of detail and specificity. When you're listing 13 distinct objects with particular characteristics (a clutch with clasp hardware, transparent over-ear headphones, magazines with specific spine text), it can't keep up. The objects it did render looked good individually, but it missed the brief.

How it handled the product shot: The composition, lighting, and overall mood landed well. But the details fell apart: the "iced coffee" had no ice (just an ambiguous glass of something), and the Instagram feed on the phone screen was warped beyond recognition.

How it handled typography: This is where Midjourney hit a wall. It spelled "brand" correctly and got "101" right, but "partnerships" was garbled. The embroidery stitching itself looked genuinely handcrafted, maybe even the best texture of the bunch.

Adobe Firefly 5

Best for: Creators already in the Adobe ecosystem who want clean commercial licensing and don't mind working around brand-name restrictions.

Adobe Firefly 5 is the latest image-generation model from Adobe, and its biggest selling point is its workflow integration. If you're already in Photoshop or Illustrator, you can generate an image and move it straight into your editing workspace.

I don't use Photoshop or Illustrator in my day-to-day workflow, but if they're part of your workflow, the direct handoff alone might make Firefly worth trying.

How it handled illustration: The hand-drawn illustrations had a whimsical quality to them and felt truly hand-drawn. There were some attempts at making things feel "human-generated," like scribbles on the page, which was a nice touch. But the accuracy wasn't there: the leather jacket had zipper placements at the collar and bottom that were visibly wrong.

How it handled the product shot: This is where Firefly's copyright-conscious training showed up in a way I wasn't expecting. It declined the words "iPhone" and "Instagram" in the prompt, which aligns with how Adobe avoids potential trademark issues.

How it handled typography: The embroidery prompt was one of Firefly's better results. The fabric behind the text looked realistically aged and worn, the text itself was legible and well-generated, and there was genuine depth to the stitching.

FLUX.2 Pro

Best for: Creators who want a model that takes creative liberties with prompts and produces outputs with a distinct point of view.

FLUX.2 Pro is another model available inside Leonardo.ai. It's been gaining attention in the AI image generation space for its balance of quality and speed.

How it handled illustration: FLUX created what looked like printed-out stickers that had been physically laid on a surface. The model found its own middle ground between illustration and photography. The hand-drawn feel was there, but I wished the stickers sat flatter against the background.

How it handled the product shot: FLUX handled shadows well and even added branding to the coffee cup. The phone was much closer to reality than the images from other models.

How it handled typography: The stitching texture is genuinely impressive. It looks like real thread. But the text itself looked slightly glued on rather than stitched into the fabric.

Ideogram 3.0

Best for: Creators who want accurate text in their generated images and are willing to trade visual personality for spelling precision.

Ideogram 3.0 is positioned as being great at generating images with text, but I found that it only got 75% of the way there in some of my requests.

How it handled illustration: The colors were off: the yellow was deeper than requested and there was no blue. The illustrations themselves were generic. It gave me something closer to a monstera when I asked for an anthurium.

How it handled the product shot: The image had that slightly-off quality that's hard to name but easy to spot — close to real, but not quite there. The coffee looked slightly fake in a way that's easy to pinpoint as AI. The shadows and lighting were actually good.

How it handled typography: Ideogram went for a cartoonish take on the embroidery. The effect didn't land for me. It felt tool-generated rather than handcrafted.

GPT Image 1.5 (OpenAI)

Best for: People already using ChatGPT who want quick image generation without switching tools.

I tested GPT Image 1.5 inside Leonardo.ai. You can dig deeper into style selection, adjust quality settings, and control image dimensions.

How it handled illustration: This was not GPT Image's strongest showing. The sticker images looked almost compressed, probably because the spacing I requested resulted in a lot of empty space that the model didn't know how to handle. The whole image also had that yellowish tinge.

How it handled the product shot: It came closer than the illustration prompt, but the Instagram feed on the phone screen was missing the visible branding and layout cues.

How it handled typography: GPT Image leaned hard into the cross-stitch texture, which was technically what I asked for. It followed the prompt more faithfully than several other tools.

Lucid Origin

Best for: Creators who want quick generation with a distinctive dimensional quality and don't need pixel-perfect prompt adherence.

Lucid Origin offers both fast and ultra generation modes, plus a more limited set of style options compared to some other models on the platform. The ultra mode adds more detail but takes longer.

How it handled illustration: On closer inspection, the text generation was poor, and several requested objects didn't quite match the prompt. On the positive side, the stickers had an almost 3D quality that was visually interesting.

How it handled the product shot: This was one of the few tools that actually interpreted "flat lay" literally, going full top-down. But the ice in the cup and phone content looked deeply unrealistic.

How it handled typography: I liked what Lucid Origin generated here. The colors were nice and the embroidery had a slightly raised quality. It didn't get every element right, but the overall aesthetic was appealing.

Ready to put your AI-generated visuals to work? Get started with Buffer for free and start scheduling your content today.

FAQs about AI image generators

What is the best AI image generator overall?

Nano Banana 2 (Google's model) was the most consistent performer across all three of my test prompts. It handled illustration, the product shot, and typography well.

I tested it inside Leonardo.ai, which I'd recommend as a starting point since it gives you access to multiple models in one platform. If you're already in the Adobe ecosystem, Firefly 5 is worth trying for the workflow integration and cleaner copyright positioning. And if you want the most artistic, visually rich outputs, Midjourney still has a distinct quality that other tools can't match, as long as you don't need accurate text.

What's the best AI image generator for social media graphics?

It depends on what kind of graphics you're making:

• For illustrated elements: Nano Banana 2 and Recraft were the strongest.
• For product shots: Nano Banana 2 and FLUX.2 Pro produced the most convincing results.
• For text-heavy graphics: Seedream and Ideogram 3.0 had the most reliable text generation.

Once you've generated your visuals, tools like Buffer can help you schedule and publish them across all your social channels so you can go from creation to posting without switching tabs.

Can AI image generators put text on images?

Some can, some can't. Seedream and Ideogram 3.0 were the most reliable at spelling and placing text in my tests. Adobe Firefly 5 handled it well. Midjourney struggled badly with anything beyond short, simple words.

How much do AI image generators cost?

Most have a free tier, but it comes with limits. You'll usually get a daily or weekly credit allowance rather than unlimited access, and on most free plans, everything you generate is public.

From the tools in this article: Leonardo.ai, Recraft, and Ideogram all have free plans, with credits that refresh daily (Leonardo.ai and Recraft) or weekly (Ideogram). Midjourney is the exception. It doesn't have a free plan, and its cheapest plan is $10 a month.

If you're making graphics for a business, I'd check the plan details before you start. Free plans often make your images public, and some (like Recraft's) don't allow commercial use at all, so a paid plan is usually the safer bet for brand work.

Can I use AI-generated images for my brand or business?

Yes, many AI image generators allow commercial use under certain plans or terms, but the rules vary by platform. Check the tool’s current terms before using generated images commercially.

But there's an important distinction: commercial use rights aren't the same as copyright ownership. The U.S. Copyright Office has ruled that typing a prompt doesn't make you the legal author of the output, which means someone else could theoretically use the same (or very similar) image without infringing on your work.

If your brand relies on original, distinctive visuals, that's worth factoring in. AI-generated images work great as supporting graphics, social media content, and inspiration, but for your core brand assets, you may still want human-created originals you can fully protect.

Can ChatGPT generate images?

Yes. ChatGPT can generate images using OpenAI's image generation model. You can type a description directly into ChatGPT, and it will produce an image for you.

In this article, that same model is tested as GPT Image 1.5 inside Leonardo.ai, which gives you more control over style settings and image dimensions. It's a solid option if you're already using ChatGPT and don't want to switch tools. Just know that complex, detail-heavy prompts (like a sticker sheet with 13 specific objects) can trip it up.

Do AI-generated images look obviously AI?

It depends on the type of image. For illustration and stylized graphics, most AI outputs are convincing enough to use as-is. For product shots, the cracks usually show on closer inspection — phone screens, text within the image, and small product details are the biggest giveaways.

Resolution matters, too. Some tools now generate at native 2K or even 4K, which helps images hold up in larger formats. If you're generating at lower resolutions and then scaling up, the AI-ness becomes much more visible.

How do AI image generators work?

Every AI image generator on this list works by turning text into pixels, but they don't all do it the same way. They use different model architectures to turn prompts into images. Some use diffusion-based techniques, while newer multimodal models integrate language understanding and image generation more closely. The technical approaches vary by model, and companies don’t always publish every architectural detail.

Diffusion models start with visual noise and gradually remove it until an image forms.

Autoregressive models work more like writing a sentence, generating the image piece by piece.

Some newer image models use more advanced reasoning capabilities to interpret complex prompts before generating an image, which can improve instruction-following, text rendering, and object accuracy.

One more thing worth knowing: these models learn from images and their descriptions. That's why photography terms work so well in prompts (the training data is full of photo captions) and why specific illustration vocabulary like "ink hatching" or "gouache blocks" gets better results than "make it look drawn." You're speaking the language the model was trained on.

How do I make social media graphics with an AI image generator?

Choose a tool from this list, then type a description (called a prompt) of the image you want. Most tools are free to start and don't require design experience.

The key is being specific. Lead with your subject ("a ceramic mug on a café table"), then add style and lighting details ("hand-drawn illustration, single color, line art only"). Vague prompts produce generic results. The prompting section above has a template you can follow for illustrations, product shots, and text-based graphics.

Once you have an image you like, I'd bring it into Canva (or whatever design tool you use) to add your branding, then schedule it in Buffer with the rest of your posts.

More AI resources

• 14 AI tools for social media content creation: my workflow guide
• The 11 best AI video editors for creators and marketers
• The top 10 AI writing tools I recommend as a professional writer
• 8 of the best AI productivity tools

Until 2026, the answer to "can you schedule Substack Notes?" was a flat “nope.” But now, folks looking to schedule their Notes on Substack are spoilt for choice.

Substack has its own built-in scheduler, and a handful of third-party tools can do it, too.

Why would you want to schedule anywhere other than Substack, though? Good question! If you’re a Substack- only creator, that option probably does make the most sense for you.

But plenty of Substack writers don't post exclusively on Substack. A Note that lands well is often just as good on Threads, LinkedIn, or Bluesky — and manually copy-pasting it can become a bit of a nuisance.

That's where third-party tools (particularly feature-rich social media schedulers) earn their keep. Most of them let you line up a week or two of Notes and social posts in one sitting instead of scheduling them one by one. Bonus: Several tools will even show you detailed analytics on how each Note performed — and which brought in new subscribers.

Sounds great, but with so many options, how do you know which Substack scheduler is the best fit for you? I explored six of the most popular options, including Substack's own, to see how they compare.

Key takeaways

• Substack now schedules Notes natively and for free, up to about three months ahead. The catch is that you schedule one Note at a time, with no queue, calendar, or bulk scheduling.
• The biggest difference between third-party schedulers is how they publish. Some post from your open browser, some from a stored copy of your Substack login, some hand Notes to Substack's own scheduler, and some use a direct integration.
• If you post a few Notes a week and nowhere else, you probably don't need a paid tool.
• If Notes is one channel among several, a multi-platform scheduler (Buffer, Typefully) saves the most time. If Substack is your whole world, a Substack-only tool like WriteStack goes deeper.

The best Substack Notes schedulers at a glance

Can you schedule Substack Notes natively?

Yes, you can schedule Substack Notes. Substack rolled out native Notes scheduling in spring 2026, on both web and mobile.

Here’s how to do schedule on Substack:

• On web: open the Notes composer, click the calendar icon, choose a date and time, hit Save, then Schedule.
• On mobile: tap the three-dot menu in the composer, choose Schedule, and pick your slot.

You can schedule up to about three months out. Scheduled Notes sit in your drafts until they go live, so you can still edit them. (If you're newer to the platform, our guide to how Substack works covers Notes versus posts.)

The catch is that you schedule one Note at a time. There's no queue, no bulk scheduling, and no way to crosspost your content elsewhere (say, Threads, X, or LinkedIn, which are all natural fits for Notes-type content.)

Those are the gaps all the third-party tools are trying to fill.

How a scheduler publishes might matter more than its features

Before we dig in, a quick note on something that tripped me up a little in testing. Not every scheduler publishes the same way, and the method might affect whether your Note goes out at all. Here are the most common ways:

1. Browser extension. The tool posts from your own browser at the scheduled time. WriteStack works like this, and it’s only available in Chromium-based browsers (basically, not Safari or Firefox).
2. Stored session. The tool keeps a copy of your logged-in Substack session on its servers and posts from there. This works with your laptop closed. The trade-offs: sessions expire, so you'll reconnect every so often, and you're trusting a third party with access to your account.
3. Handoff to Substack's scheduler. The tool pushes your Notes into Substack's native scheduler ahead of time, and Substack publishes them. Nothing on your end needs to stay switched on.
4. Direct integration. You connect your Substack account the same way you'd connect Instagram or LinkedIn: sign in to Substack, approve access, and you’re done! The scheduler then posts through Substack's own API. Nothing needs to stay open on your end, and the tool doesn't store a copy of your login. Buffer and Typefully both work this way.

That doesn’t necessarily mean any of the above is a ‘bad’ choice. But it's still worth knowing how these things work before you sign up (and pay!) for them.

The 6 best Substack Notes schedulers

1. Buffer — best Substack Notes scheduler for crossposting to other platforms

Buffer added Substack Notes in September 2026, after the integration request passed 1,100 upvotes. You connect Substack alongside X, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, Instagram, and more, and schedule Notes from the same calendar. You can schedule Substack Notes on Buffer’s forever-free plan (which includes up to three channels), too!

Quick disclosure: I work at Buffer, so my view here is certainly not biased. But, as a long-time creator, social media manager, and newsletter writer who used Buffer for many years before I was hired, I genuinely find the tool tough to beat for ease-of-use and flexibility. Plus (this really matters to me as a serial tool tester) the app is just beautiful. It’s a pleasant, smooth place to work — which takes so much of the friction out of staying consistent.

What stands out:

• Write once, adapt per channel. You can tweak the LinkedIn or Threads version of a Note without copy-pasting between tabs.
• Subscriber analytics. Buffer shows which Notes bring in free and paid subscribers, plus impressions and engagement.
• Resharing old posts. You can connect your Substack as a feed so your published posts are ready to share on your other channels.
• Teams and multiple publications. You can collaborate on drafts and schedule across more than one Substack account.

Pricing: Substack Notes scheduling is available on the Free plan (you can have up to three channels). Paid plans start at $6 per channel per month, or $5 per channel when billed annually.

2. Substack's native scheduler — best free option for a few Notes a week

If you post two or three Notes a week, and aren't creating on any other social platforms, I'd recommend you start with this option.

What stands out:

• Free and built in. There's no extra login, extension, or account connection.
• Substack publishes it, so it goes out whether your laptop is open or not.
• Three months of runway. That's enough for a quarter's worth of launch Notes, if you're that organized (I am not).

Pricing: Free.

3. WriteStack — best for Substack-only writers who want research and analytics

WriteStack is a well-loved Substack-only tool, built by solo founder Orel Zilberman. (Fun fact: WriteStack is partly built on Buffer's API, and we've written about how Orel built cross-platform scheduling for Substack creators!)

What stands out:

• A queue built around your followers, with default posting times set by when your followers are most active.
• Research: a searchable feed of top-performing Notes across Substack.
• Subscriber analytics: every Note in one sortable view, including which ones converted to free and paid subscribers.
• AI Notes in your voice, trained on your past posts, plus an MCP connection for Claude.

Worth knowing: WriteStack only works in Chromium browsers (not Safari or Firefox).

Pricing: No free plan (7-day trial). $23.99, $32.99, or $99.99 a month

4. Typefully — best Substack Notes scheduler for writers whose main platform is X

Typefully added Substack Notes in July 2026, on every plan including free. Notes sit next to X, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon in a writing-first composer.

What stands out:

• Notes on the free plan. This is one of the cheapest ways to schedule Notes alongside other platforms (Buffer also offers this).
• A composer built for writers. Typefully has a really clean, focused composer, with an AI writing assistant built in.
• Images and GIFs are supported in Notes.

It’s worth noting that Typefully doesn't support video in Notes yet, so now that Substack Notes supports video (woohoo!), you might want to look elsewhere, like Buffer, if you plan to post video.

Pricing: Free plan includes Notes; paid from $99 per year.

5. Narrareach — best for turning articles into Notes with AI

Narrareach's pitch: paste in an article, and its AI cuts it into Notes and short posts, then batch-schedules them.

What stands out:

• Article-to-Notes repurposing. A helpful way to go from zero to one in converting long-form content into posts.
• CSV import and batch scheduling, for planning several weeks at once.
• Crossposting to LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, Threads, and Medium. It's the only tool on this list that covers Medium.

Setup runs through a Chrome extension, and Narrareach hands your Notes to Substack's own scheduler to publish. It only does this for "eligible" Notes, and doesn't say which ones qualify, so double-check before relying on it for anything with media.

Pricing: Free plan (5 Notes a month, Substack only). Paid plans: $19, $39, or $89 a month.

6. StackSweller — best simple Notes queue at a flat price

StackSweller does one thing: a Substack Notes queue that publishes from the cloud, so your laptop can be closed when your Note goes out. There's no crossposting and no research feed — it's a scheduler and nothing else, which is exactly what some writers want.

What stands out:

• Unlimited Notes: As many Notes as you can post for one monthly or annual fee.
• Slot-based scheduling: set your posting times once, then fill them.
• Paste-in bulk scheduling, plus AI that turns a post into a stack of Notes.

However, StackSweller is still in beta, so you may encounter a few bugs here and there. Also, it stores your Substack session on its servers. Setup has involved pasting a session cookie by hand, which isn't for everyone, and sessions can expire, so you may need to reconnect from time to time.

Pricing: $25 per month or $250 per year.

How to choose a Substack Notes scheduler

Start with two questions: where else do you post, and how many Notes a week?

• A few Notes a week, Substack only: the native scheduler.
• Daily Notes, Substack only: WriteStack if you want research and your computer is reliably on. Try StackSweller if you just want a queue.
• Notes plus X, LinkedIn, Threads, or Bluesky: You can’t beat Buffer for cross-platform planning, scheduling, and analytics.
• Long posts you want chopped into Notes: Narrareach.

A scheduler's job is to keep you posting consistently, which does most of the work when you're trying to grow a newsletter. Posting four times a day doesn't help if you can't write four good Notes a day, so it's absolutely fine to start with one.

If you're not sure where to start, try Substack's native scheduler for a couple of weeks. You'll find out quickly whether scheduling one Note at a time works for you, or whether you'd rather have a proper queue — and by then, you'll have a better sense of which Notes are worth sharing beyond Substack, too.

Happy scheduling (and happy Noting)!

Frequently asked questions

Can you schedule Substack Notes?

Yes. Since spring 2026, Substack schedules Notes natively on web (calendar icon in the composer) and mobile (three-dot menu, then Schedule), up to about three months ahead. Third-party tools add queues, bulk scheduling, and crossposting.

What's the best free Substack Notes scheduler?

Substack's own scheduler is free and doesn't require your computer to be running in order for your posts to be published. For free scheduling alongside other platforms, Buffer is an excellent choice — the forever-free plan gives you access to planning, scheduling, analytics, and a bunch of other powerful features for up to three channels (including Substack Notes).

Is it safe to give a scheduler access to my Substack account?

It depends on how the tool publishes:

• Browser-extension tools post from your own logged-in browser.
• Stored-session tools keep a copy of your login on their servers.
• Handoff and direct-integration tools avoid both.

I always recommend you check a tool's help docs and user reviews before connecting.

Can I crosspost Substack Notes to X, LinkedIn, and Threads?

Yes. Buffer, Typefully, and Narrareach all do it from one composer. WriteStack does it through its Buffer add-on.

More Substack + newsletter resources

• Can You Schedule Substack Notes?
• How to Use Substack
• How I Built a Profitable Newsletter Business

LinkedIn is still one of the best places to build an audience from scratch, and you can increase your LinkedIn followers there organically, with no paid ads, no follower buying, and no growth hacks.

When I went through 52 million posts across 10 platforms for our State of Social Media Engagement report, LinkedIn had the highest median engagement rate of any platform we looked at, at around 6.2%.

LinkedIn has also become the most-cited website in AI search for professional questions, according to Profound's tracking, and more of what gets cited is what people post. So what you share on LinkedIn can show up when someone asks ChatGPT about your field.

It's worked for me, too. I made my account in 2017 but only started posting in 2020, when I was looking for community after losing my job. I now have over 25,000 followers, and posting has led to brand partnerships and invites onto podcasts and YouTube channels, which I never would've thought possible when I started.

You don't need millions of followers, and you don't need to be the world's foremost expert in your niche. A smaller following that cares about what you have to say will do far more for you than a huge one that doesn't.

So if you really, really want to grow on LinkedIn, whether as a creator, a founder, a business owner, or someone starting from zero, this guide is for you. It pairs what's worked for me with Buffer's data on millions of LinkedIn posts, and there's a section for company pages too.

Key takeaways

• Switch your profile's main button from Connect to Follow. Connections are capped at 30,000 and need a yes from both sides, while followers have no cap, and everyone who connects with you follows you anyway.
• Stick to three to five topics. LinkedIn's feed now matches posts to people based on what they're about, so a clear focus helps it find your audience.
• Try carousels. In Buffer's analysis of 52 million posts, LinkedIn carousels had a median engagement rate of 21.77%, about three times video and nearly seven times text-only posts.
• Don't worry about posting too often. In Buffer's study of 2 million+ LinkedIn posts, accounts posting 11 or more times a week averaged nearly 17,000 more impressions per post.
• Reply to your comments. About 83% of LinkedIn profiles in Buffer's data performed better when they replied, the highest share of any platform.
• Keep your posts sounding like you. LinkedIn added a "Seems like AI slop" report option in July 2026, and flagged posts are seeing about 40% fewer views.
• Grow a company page through your team. Personal LinkedIn profiles get 57% higher engagement than company pages, according to Buffer's analysis of 20 million LinkedIn posts.

Optimize your LinkedIn profile to get more followers

Your LinkedIn profile is where most people decide whether to follow you. You can follow someone straight from the Follow button on their posts, but if most people are like me, they click through to the profile first to see who you are and what you post about. So the four changes below are about making that visit worth it, and together they should take about half an hour.

1. Switch your profile button from Connect to Follow

This is the first, easiest thing anyone can do to objectively “get more followers.”

By default, the big button on your LinkedIn profile says Connect. When you switch it to Follow, anyone can follow you in one tap instead of sending a request and waiting for you to accept it. Here's how followers and connections compare:

• Connections are capped at 30,000 and need a yes from both sides.
• Followers have no cap, and anyone can follow you without waiting on you.

And you won't lose anything by switching, since people can still send you a connection request from the More menu on your profile.

LinkedIn used to bundle this setting into Creator Mode, which it retired in March 2024, but the setting still exists on its own. To turn it on, go to Settings & Privacy → Visibility → Visibility of your LinkedIn activity → Followers, and turn on "Make follow primary."

2. Write a LinkedIn headline that says who you are and who you help

Your LinkedIn headline shows up next to your name everywhere: on your posts, in your comments, and in search results. Most people use it for their job title, but unless you work in a role like Chief Imagination Officer or you're the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, your title alone likely isn't enough reason for someone to follow you.

Mine is "senior content creator @ buffer | content about my creator career." That's the simplest formula: your role plus what you post about. The first half is about me, and the second half tells you what you'll get if you follow.

Here are a few other formulas I see on profiles I follow, and who they tend to work for:

• Your role + your credentials. Carmen Vicente leads with "Social Strategist in tech," then follows with LinkedIn Top Voice, 40k on TikTok, and B2B Social's Rising 30. Erifili Gounari does a longer version of the same thing.
• What you do for who + your credentials. Brandon Smithwrick's starts with "I teach content playbooks for marketers & creators" and then lists his newsletter, Forbes 30U30, and the companies he's worked for. You'll see "I help…" used the same way on a lot of consultant profiles.
• Your title + your brand. Sophie Miller's is just "creator + founder @prettylittlemarketer". At 242,000 followers, people already know the brand, so she doesn’t need to do much more explaining.

Whichever formula you use, put the most important part first. You get 220 characters, but only the first 60 to 70 show up in search results and comment sections. (Mine is 65 characters, so it just about fits.)

⚡ Pro tip: What would your ideal client or follower type into LinkedIn search? Those words should be in your headline. I wrote more about this in our guide to LinkedIn SEO.

3. Use your LinkedIn About section to get people invested in you

Your About section is the one place on your profile where you have real room to chat, with 2,600 characters to play with. I've seen many people use that space to paste what amounts to a CV, but anyone reading it has already seen your headline and job title, and your Experience section covers the rest.

What visitors don't know yet is who you (really) are. By the time someone reaches your About section, they've probably seen one of your posts and your headline, and they're deciding whether they want to keep seeing more. So this is the place to share some of your story, career-wise and content-wise, and give them a reason to care.

A few things worth including:

• How you got to where you are in your career/life, especially if it wasn't a straight line.
• What you make content about, and why it matters to you.
• What you'd like people to do next, whether that's follow you, subscribe to something, or get in touch.

And like your headline, put the important part first. Only about the first 300 characters show before "…see more," and plenty of people won't click it.

Here's how four people I follow handle theirs. Two are creators, one runs an agency, and one consults for brands, and they're all quite different:

• Carmen Vicente goes all in on who she is: two paragraphs about how she thinks and what she cares about, with no credentials and no call to action. Her headline already carries the Top Voice badge and follower counts, so her About can focus on personality.
• Brandon Smithwrick tells his story in short lines. He includes where he's worked, what he teaches now, his credentials in one "TLDR" paragraph, and then two arrows at the bottom, one to subscribe and one that says "Or just hit follow. I post playbooks here daily.”
• Annie-Mai Hodge uses arrows as bullets, split into a little about her ("an accidental b2b influencer") and a little about her agency and why she started it.
• Rachel Karten writes three plain paragraphs: who she is and her newsletter, who she's worked with and where, and "Want to work with me? Shoot an email over to…".

4. Put your best work in the Featured section

The Featured section sits just below your About section, so it's often the first place people see your actual content. You can pin posts, articles (including newsletter editions), links to things like your website, and media like PDFs or slides.

This is the one place on your profile where you decide what someone sees first, so choose what you'd most want them to see before they follow you. A few things worth putting in it:

• A post that explains what you do or who you help, so a new visitor gets the idea without scrolling through your activity.
• Your best-performing post, whatever the format. It's already shown that people like it.
• Your newsletter, lead magnet, or booking link, if you have one. It's the easiest place on your profile to turn a visitor into a subscriber or a client.

I tend to pin my latest brand partnership in my Featured section, so whoever clicks into my profile sees it first. I also keep resources I want to share with my audience in there.

It's worth swapping these out every few months, or whenever you publish a post or get featured in something you want to highlight.

📚 For more ways to improve your profile, here are 30+ LinkedIn profile tips.

Create LinkedIn content people follow you for

Once your profile is sorted, your content is what actually gets people to hit Follow, because it's how most people will find you in the first place. LinkedIn only shows your posts to people it thinks will engage with them, the same way your own feed only shows you posts it thinks you'll stop for. So everything in this section comes back to two things: helping LinkedIn work out who your posts are for, and making those posts worth stopping for.

🎥 If you'd rather watch, my colleague Kirsti Lang walks through the LinkedIn playbook that got her to 12K followers and 6 million impressions.

5. Understand what the LinkedIn algorithm looks for

LinkedIn's feed tries to predict two things about every post: whether people will stay on it, and whether they'll react to it. In a paper LinkedIn's engineers published in early 2026 about how the feed ranks posts, they call the first one "long dwell" (staying on a post past a certain point). The second is whether someone likes, comments on, or shares it.

LinkedIn also announced a rebuilt feed in March 2026 that uses AI to understand what a post is about, and updates its picture of what each person is interested in within minutes. If you've ever liked a couple of posts on a topic and then seen nothing but that topic for a week, that's what's going on.

LinkedIn doesn't publish how it weights any of this, so no one can tell you the exact number of seconds someone needs to spend on your post. But in practice, it's fairly simple:

• If you post about the same few things consistently, LinkedIn can more easily work out who to show your posts to.
• If every post is about something completely different, that's harder.
• And once a post reaches the right people, it has to hold their attention and give them a reason to react.

📚 For more on how LinkedIn decides what to show, including what the LinkedIn team told us directly, read our full breakdown of how the LinkedIn algorithm works.

6. Niche down to 3 to 5 topics you could talk about for hours

If LinkedIn's feed is trying to work out who to show your posts to, the easiest thing you can do is make that obvious by picking a small number of topics and sticking with them.

Now, as someone who rages against the niche machine, I understand if you immediately want to scroll past this tip. But WAIT! Give me a second.

If you've already found the overlap between what you want to make content about and what people want to learn from you, you can skip this one. But if you're still getting to know your audience or figuring out what you want to create (or both), starting niche and then going broad might work better for you.

You can probably name three topics you could spend hours talking about, and you don't have to be an expert in any of them.

If you're job searching, that's a topic. If you're running a business, what you're figuring out along the way (pricing, hiring, landing your first big client) is a topic. Learning a new skill counts too, because you'll see it differently than someone with 10 years of experience.

Then think about who you want to reach and where they get stuck. Your topics sit where that overlaps with what you know. If you're stuck, picture a podcast you'd get invited on and ask yourself what the host would want you to talk about.

The narrower you can get, the better. "Marketing" is too broad. "B2B SaaS marketing for early-stage founders" is a niche people will see themselves in and follow you for.

If I had to pick three pillars, I'd say mine are content creation, remote work, and the business of being online. You can see all three reflected in my About section, and most of what I post lands in one of them. (I do wander off into photography and lifestyle content now and then, but the core three don't change too much.)

My colleague Hailley Griffis, who leads communications at Buffer, works the same way with three pillars of her own: her career and work at Buffer, the systems she uses in work and life, and brand marketing. She grew her LinkedIn audience by 26% in the first half of 2025 with them.

A focused following can also go further than a bigger one. As LinkedIn consultant Melanie Goodman put it this year, "An account with 8,000 focused followers can outperform one with 80,000 unfocused ones."

7. Write LinkedIn hooks that make people click "See more”

Your hook is the opening of your post, and its job is to get people to click "…see more" (and, ideally, hit Follow while they're at it). You don't get much room to do it, either. Only the first line or two shows in the feed before the cutoff, so whatever makes someone stop has to be right at the top.

In AuthoredUp's analysis of nearly 310,000 LinkedIn posts from December 2025 to May 2026, four kinds of opening lines did best. Here they are, in order:

• Start in the middle of a story. "I got fired on a Tuesday. By Friday I had three job offers."
• Say the opposite of what people expect. "The best time to post on LinkedIn isn't first thing in the morning."
• Make a bold claim, but only if you have the data to back it up. "Posting more on LinkedIn doesn't hurt your reach. We checked 2 million posts."
• Lead with a number or a result. "My impressions went up 122% in seven days. Here's what changed."

You'll notice questions aren't on that list. They're the most common hook advice out there, but they came last in AuthoredUp's study, with a median engagement rate of 2.16% against 2.60% for story openers. That matches what I've seen on my own posts, though I'd take any single study on this with a pinch of salt.

Use this test on your next post: if you saw only the first two lines from a stranger, would you click "…see more"?

📚 I've written more about the anatomy of a great hook if you want to go deeper.

8. Post like a person (and be careful with AI)

Once someone's clicked "…see more," the post has to give them a reason to stay and a reason to react. The simplest way I've found is to post the way I'd talk to a friend or colleague about whatever I have going on.

I said in the intro that you don't need to be the world's foremost expert, and this is where that matters most. Looking back at my best posts from the last few months, most fall into two groups:

• Something you tried, and what actually happened. My 30 days of posting daily and my Build Week project both got written up this way, and the Build Week post is one of my most engaged recent posts.
• Something you're figuring out as it happens. My cousin asked me what my job actually involves, I wrote it out for her, and that one post turned into a series (Career Creator Couch) that's now some of my best-performing content.

None of these needed special expertise. I just paid attention to what was going on in my life and shared it in a way other people could relate to. It works the same way if you run a business: a decision you made, a client project that went sideways, something you're testing right now.

I know a lot of people use AI to write their LinkedIn posts now, and I've been there too. In November 2023, I published nothing but AI-written posts for a week, with only a quick proofread, and nobody noticed. My impressions were up 11%, and my engagement was up 75% compared with a typical week. At the time, I wrote that if you'd built up trust with your audience, letting AI take a swing "seems like a no-brainer."

I wouldn't run that experiment the same way today. In July 2026, LinkedIn added a "Seems like AI slop" option to the report menu on every post, and more than a million people used it in the first two weeks. Flagged content is seeing about 40% fewer views. LinkedIn also retired its own "Enhance your post" AI writing feature and replaced it with a plain proofreader.

Separately, Originality.AI found that about 81% of the long-form LinkedIn posts it sampled in July 2026 read as likely AI, up from about half in late 2024. Whatever you make of AI detectors, LinkedIn has clearly decided this is a problem, and so have readers.

So my position now is somewhere in the middle. I’ll still use AI to suggest hook variations, tidy a draft, and tell me what might be useful to add. But the post has to start from something rooted in my own experience, and it has to end up sounding like me.

⚡ Pro tip: If you want help with hook variations, Buffer's AI Assistant can suggest some for any post you draft, and you decide what stays. Get it for free →

9. Keep people on LinkedIn

You need to be making zero-click content. That's a post where all the context is in the post itself, so nobody has to click away to get it.

I know a lot of us are also trying to get people somewhere else, whether that's a newsletter, a YouTube video, or a company website, and the temptation to describe it and drop a link in is real.

LinkedIn says there's no penalty for links. Rishi Jobanputra, a senior director of product management at LinkedIn, said so in September 2025. But Buffer's own data says link posts do reach fewer people. We looked at a year of LinkedIn posts from more than 58,000 accounts that post through Buffer, comparing posts with and without links from the same account in the same month. Posts with a link preview got 28% fewer impressions and 44% fewer engagements than posts without a link. Posts with a URL in the text had a smaller drop: about 16% fewer impressions and 16% fewer engagements.

Because both of those numbers dropped by the same amount, the engagement rate on posts with a URL in the text didn't change. So people engaged with those posts as much as usual when they saw them. LinkedIn just showed them to fewer people.

⚡️ Link previews did get about 87% more clicks, as LinkedIn counts them, so if a click matters more than reach for a particular post, that trade can be worth it.

I think it comes back to the LinkedIn algorithm focus of “long dwell". A link sends people off LinkedIn, and the feed prefers posts people stay on, so link posts can lose reach without LinkedIn penalizing them on purpose.

So, what to do about it:

• Put the full value in the post. If the newsletter has three points, the post can have all three, and the link is for people who want the longer version.
• Or put it in the comment. In our data, posts where the account added the link in its own comment got about 15% more impressions than similar posts with no link at all. (That's only from accounts whose comments we can see through Buffer, so it's more a promising sign than proof.) If you use Buffer, you can schedule that first comment to go out with your post on paid plans.

📚 We've got a full guide to zero-click content if you want to go deeper.

10. Try different post formats, starting with carousels

LinkedIn gives you a handful of formats to post, and they perform very differently. When I went through 52 million posts for our State of Social Media Engagement report, here's how the main ones compared on LinkedIn:

Carousels are the standout, with a median engagement rate about three times video's and nearly seven times text-only posts'. A carousel on LinkedIn is a PDF you upload as a document post, which shows up as slides people swipe through. They work for anything with steps or a list: a process, a breakdown, a set of examples. (If you use Buffer, you can schedule PDF carousels to LinkedIn from the web app.)

Video sits at number two. My colleague Kirsti Lang, who dug into these numbers in our format study, put it well: "carousels for engagement and video for reach is a solid combination." Text-only posts come last on engagement, but they're the fastest to make, which is always a win in my book. And link posts are near the bottom for the reasons in the previous tip.

So it's worth knowing what you're getting from each format and trying a few. When I looked at my last three months, seven of my eight most-engaged posts were videos, and I hadn't posted a single carousel, which is a bit awkward given the table above (do as I say and such).

📚 If you're starting from a blank page, here are 11 LinkedIn carousel examples to work from.

11. Post consistently (and more often than you might think)

Posting more often doesn't hurt your reach on LinkedIn. When we looked at more than 2 million posts from over 94,000 LinkedIn accounts, posting two to five times a week got about 1,182 more impressions per post than posting once a week. Six to 10 posts a week got about 5,001 more, and 11 or more got nearly 17,000 more per post, plus about three times the engagements. That held whether an account had 500 followers or 50,000.

That doesn't mean you need to post every day. We recommend two posts a week while you're building the habit, and more once you know you can keep the quality up. I personally post around four times a week.

As for when to post, our analysis of 4.8 million posts found that weekdays between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. (in your local time) did best, with Wednesday at 4 p.m. the strongest single slot. Mornings, the old default, did worse than they used to.

You also don't need to sit by your phone for a "golden hour" after you post. LinkedIn has never confirmed one, though replying to early comments can definitely help keep a post going.

🎥 We made videos on both: how often to post on LinkedIn and the best time to post on LinkedIn.

📚 Or read the full studies on how often to post and the best time to post on LinkedIn.

12. Check your LinkedIn analytics every week

Everything in this section so far is a starting point. Your analytics show you what your audience actually responds to, which beats any blog post's advice (this one included).

Once a week or so, look at:

• Which posts got the most reactions, comments, and reposts, and what topic and format each one was.
• Which posts got the most impressions, and what their hooks were.
• Which posts got the most saves and sends. LinkedIn added both in September 2025, and they're a good sign that a post was useful enough to keep or pass on.
• Who your posts reached. Since June 2026, LinkedIn has been rolling out a breakdown of how much of your reach came from inside your network versus outside it, which is the closest thing you'll get to "how many potential new followers saw this." It also shows the top job titles, industries, and locations of the people who saw each post, which is handy if you're trying to reach a certain kind of client.
• Which posts brought in new followers.

Then post, let the results tell you what your audience wants, and make more of that.

📊 If you use Buffer, its analytics show engagement and follower growth for LinkedIn profiles and Pages, and you can sort your posts by what did best. You can also connect your Buffer data to an AI tool like Claude or ChatGPT and ask it what's working.

Turn conversations into followers

Comments are one of the two things LinkedIn's algorithm is trying to predict (the other being whether someone stays on your post), so the conversations around your content matter almost as much as the content itself.

In my experience, this is also where a lot of growth actually happens: in your replies, in other people's comment sections, and in the people you team up with.

13. Reply to your comments

This is the tip with the clearest data behind it, so I'll start there. When we looked at nearly 2 million posts across six platforms, replying to comments lifted engagement on LinkedIn by about 30%. And about 83% of LinkedIn profiles did better when they replied, the highest share of any platform in the study. So it helps almost everyone who does it.

Every reply is another comment on the post, and comments are one of the things the feed is looking for. A post with a conversation under it also looks more alive than one with the same number of likes and no replies.

So set aside time to respond to every comment and DM that comes in on your posts. It's the single highest-leverage 20 minutes you can spend after publishing.

A few things that make the replies count for more:

• Reply with more than "Thanks!" Ask a question back, add a detail, or disagree if you do to keep the conversation going.
• Reply to the ones that clearly took effort first. If someone wrote three sentences, they've given you an opening to write three back.
• Don't automate it. In February 2026, LinkedIn started limiting automated comments, keeping them out of the default "Most relevant" view and restricting accounts that keep posting them. A scripted "Great post!" can now do more harm than no reply at all.

🗨️ Buffer's Community pulls your LinkedIn comments (and the ones from your other social media) into one place, so nothing slips through.

14. Comment where your future followers already are

Most of the people who'll follow you next haven't seen your profile yet. They're in the comments of accounts they already follow, and the easiest way to get in front of them is to be in those comments too.

This works in both directions. When you leave a comment on a bigger account's post, everyone reading that thread sees it, and a good one gets sorted toward the top under "Most relevant." At the same time, your own connections and followers may see that post in their feed with "[your name] commented on this" above it. So one thoughtful comment can put you in front of someone else's audience and remind your own that you exist, without you posting anything.

Start by finding the people whose audience overlaps with the one you want, whether that's other creators in your niche, leaders in your industry, or the kind of clients you'd love to work with. Then comment on their posts thoughtfully and often. The "thoughtfully" part matters more now, since LinkedIn's crackdown on automated comments means generic ones sink.

What tends to work:

• Add something: a related example, a number, a counterpoint. If your comment could be pasted under any post, it's not doing much.
• Ask a real question. It gives the author a reason to reply, which puts your name in the thread twice.
• Skip the pitch. Someone else's comment section isn't the place to mention your newsletter.

And when there's someone you'd like a real two-way relationship with, send them a connection request with a personal note. A message that's clearly written for them goes a long way.

15. Collaborate with other creators

Commenting gets you in front of someone else's audience for a moment. Collaborating gets you introduced to it.

Partnering with another creator on something (a post, a live, a newsletter swap, a series) puts your name in front of their followers with their endorsement attached, which is a very different thing from showing up in their comments. It's also, honestly, more fun than posting alone, and that tends to show in the content.

And in some very welcome news, LinkedIn now supports collaboration natively. In June 2026, LinkedIn added collaborative posts: you can invite another member or a company page to co-author a post, and everyone involved is listed at the top of it. The post shows up in both of your networks, and LinkedIn has been fairly open that member profiles carry more reach than pages, so this is also the cleanest way for a page to borrow some.

A few things that make a collaboration worth the effort:

• Pick people your audience would want to hear from, not people who do your job. Two content creators collaborating reach the same people twice. A content creator and, say, a founder who hires content creators reach two different rooms.
• Make it something neither of you would have posted alone. A conversation, a comparison, a "here's how we each do it." If either of you could have written it solo, the collaboration isn't adding anything.
• Keep the thread going afterward. Reply to each other's comments, tag each other when it's relevant, and do it again in a few months.

📚 Learn more about how collab posts work on LinkedIn.

16. Promote your LinkedIn profile everywhere else

Not everyone who'd follow you on LinkedIn is going to find you on LinkedIn. Some of them already follow you somewhere else, read your emails, or visit your website, and they just don't know you're posting here.

So put your LinkedIn URL in your email signature, link it from your website, and mention it on your other social channels. A few places that are easy to forget:

• Your bios on other platforms. If you're on Instagram, TikTok, or Substack, your link in bio is a natural place for LinkedIn, especially if LinkedIn is where you post most.
• Your newsletter footer, if you have one. Someone who reads you every week is exactly the kind of person who'd follow you.
• Anywhere you're introduced: podcast bios, speaker pages, guest post bylines. Give people your LinkedIn URL as well as your website.
• If you run a business, your website's About or team page, since that's where people go to see who's behind the company.

The crossover goes the other way too. One of my most-seen posts recently was about being surprised that someone had caught my TikTok video on their For You page and then found me on LinkedIn. Audiences overlap more than you'd think, and most of the time people just need to be told where else you are.

Use LinkedIn features to boost your growth

Everything up to this point runs through the feed: LinkedIn decides who sees your post, and you're working to make that decision go your way. Newsletters and LinkedIn Live are different, because they reach people through a notification or an email, which the feed doesn't control. Polls do go through the feed, but they're one of the easiest ways to get people interacting with you. So all three are worth a look, even if your regular posts are doing fine.

17. Start a LinkedIn newsletter

A LinkedIn newsletter is a series of articles people can subscribe to. When you publish a new edition, subscribers get a notification and, for many of them, an email, so it reaches people whether or not the feed shows it to them.

It's also easier to start one than it used to be. In August 2025, LinkedIn opened newsletter creation to every member, with no follower minimum (company pages still need more than 150 followers). At the time, LinkedIn said there were more than 184,000 newsletters on the platform, with 59% more people publishing them and 47% more engagement than the year before.

The follower-growth part works like this: when you publish your first edition, LinkedIn invites your connections and followers to subscribe. Everyone who does has opted in to hear from you regularly, which is a warmer relationship than a follow, and it doesn't depend on your next post landing.

Two caveats. First, not every subscriber gets the email. Goodman checked this in August 2026 and found only around 35% to 60% of subscribers received the email edition, so treat your subscriber count as an upper bound. Second, a newsletter is a commitment. If you can't see yourself publishing one at least every couple of weeks, a strong Featured section will probably do more for you than a newsletter that stops after four editions.

We have a couple of LinkedIn newsletters at Buffer:

• Buffer’s Bottom Line, a transparent look at our finances written by Kyle Allen on our Finance team, has 33.1K+ subscribers.
• Our Open blog newsletter where we cross-post already published articles with 13.7K+ subscribers

🌱 Here's how creator Jerrica Long grew her newsletter from 500 to more than 1,700 subscribers in 90 days while tripling her LinkedIn impressions with Buffer.

18. Host LinkedIn Live sessions and events

LinkedIn Live is the platform's livestreaming feature, and it's tied to events: you set up an event, people RSVP, and when you go live, they get a notification. That notification is what makes Live useful for growth. It reaches people who've already said they're interested, whether or not the feed would have shown them your post.

Since June 22, 2026, every LinkedIn Live has to be scheduled as an event first, so you can't just hit "go live" anymore. You can still go live on short notice by scheduling an event a few minutes ahead.

Creator Jayde I. Powell is a good example of this done well. She hosts a live series called "Creator Tea Talk" where she invites her audience to ask her anything, and because it's a recurring series with a name, people know when to show up.

If you're going to try it:

• Give it a name and a rhythm. A monthly "ask me anything" is easier to remember than a one-off. If you run a business, that might be a monthly customer Q&A or a product walkthrough.
• Post about it a few days before, then on the day. The event page does some of this for you, but a reminder in the feed catches people who didn't RSVP.
• Have a plan for the first two minutes. Lives fill up slowly, and early arrivals will leave if you're waiting for the room to fill.

19. Use LinkedIn polls to start conversations

A LinkedIn poll is one of the quickest posts you can make: a question and up to four answers. They're also rare. In Metricool's 2026 study of 673,658 LinkedIn posts, polls made up less than 1% of what company pages posted, but got the highest average impressions of any format on those pages.

The tradeoff is engagement. In Socialinsider's analysis of 1.3 million posts from business pages, polls averaged a 4.2% engagement rate, below the 5.2% average for LinkedIn as a whole.

So polls work best as a conversation starter. Ask something your audience actually has an opinion on, add your own answer in the comments, and turn the results into a follow-up post. A poll asking which of three topics people want you to cover next also tells you what to make.

Most of the poll data out there comes from company pages, so if you're posting from a personal profile, try a couple and check your own numbers.

How to grow LinkedIn company page followers

If you're here for your personal profile, you can skip this section (or stay).

If you also look after a company page (or you're the person who got handed the login), read on, because growing a page can be quite the journey.

Start by making sure the page itself is complete: a clear tagline, an About section that says who the company is for, and a custom button that points somewhere useful. Most of the content advice above applies to a page too. The numbers are just harder. Company page organic reach fell by 60% to 66% between 2024 and early 2026, according to Ordinal's roundup of the data, and in Metricool's 2026 study, only 7% of company pages grew enough to move up a follower tier.

So growing a page now mostly means getting it in front of people without relying on the feed.

20. Use your invite credits on the right people

LinkedIn gives company pages a monthly allowance of invite credits, which admins can use to invite their own connections to follow the page. In March 2026, LinkedIn cut that allowance from 250 credits a month to 50, while Premium Company Pages still get a higher allowance.

With only 50 a month, it's worth being picky. Each invite uses one credit, and you get the credit back if the person accepts, so the more relevant your invites, the more you can send. Start with the people most likely to say yes: customers, collaborators, and anyone who's engaged with the page's posts or with your own posts about the company.

You'll find your balance in your page's admin view, under Invite to follow in the left menu.

21. Put your team at the forefront of your page

Personal profiles get 63% higher engagement than company pages on average, according to Metricool's 2026 study. The same thing shows up in AI search: when my colleague Simon Heaton looked at how AI tools cite LinkedIn, he found they mostly cite posts written by people rather than company pages.

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So the most effective thing a page can do is let the people behind it do most of the posting, and be the place people go to find more. In practice, that looks like:

• Team members posting about their work in their own voice, and tagging the page when it's relevant.
• The page reposting or quoting team posts, so it becomes a curated feed of the people behind it.
• Team members co-authoring collaborative posts with the page, so a post carries a person's reach and the page's name at the same time. (One catch: pages added as collaborators can't see the post's engagement metrics, only their usual Page analytics.)
• Everyone listing the company in their Experience section, so they show up on the page's People tab, and mentioning the page in their About or Featured sections.

This is how we do it at Buffer. In 2025, we launched Team of Creators, which made posting part of the job for everyone at Buffer, including people outside marketing. There's a Slack channel where people share drafts and cheer each other on, a resource hub, and regular workshops for anyone who's stuck, and Buffer's own LinkedIn and Instagram reshare what teammates post. Nearly all of our team of 78 takes part, and by August 2025 that had added up to more than 4,100 posts reaching about 2.5 million people.

And if your team is just you, you're the team. Post from your own profile, tag the page when it fits, and reshare your best posts from the page. Your personal profile will usually reach more people than the page can, so that's where most of your effort should go.

If you're trying to get a team posting, what matters most is who goes first. Olga Andrienko, VP of Brand Marketing at Semrush, whose team added half a million in extra reach for the company within two months of employee posting, put it plainly in Kirsti's piece on employee personal brands: "When senior management shows it's OK to share thoughts, and it's OK to invest time in your personal brand, people start posting too."

📚 Sabreen Haziq, who runs the program, wrote up how Team of Creators works at Buffer, including the Slack channel, the workshops, and what we track. If you want to try this at your company, start there.

Increase your LinkedIn followers, starting today

Starting from zero is more doable than it sounds. When creator Sweta Sharma deleted her 7,000-follower account and started over in January 2025, she had more than 4,500 followers and 416,000 impressions within five months.

If I were starting from zero today, I'd do three things in the first week and nothing else: switch my profile button to Follow, write down the three topics I can talk about for hours, and post once about something I'm figuring out right now. Then I'd do the last one again the next week. Most of what's in this article is what happens after that, and none of it works if the posting stops.

That's the part people give up on, and I get it. I've been posting for six years, and there are still weeks where it's the last thing I want to do. What's kept me going is mostly boring: a schedule I don't have to think about, and a streak I don't want to break. Buffer's streak tracker is the feature I keep coming back to. Watching a number climb may seem a bit silly, but it works for me, and the scheduling means the posts go out whether I'm feeling it or not. It works for my colleague Sabreen Haziq too, who passed 356 days of posting in a row last year.

If you want a hand with the showing-up part, get started with Buffer for free.

More LinkedIn resources

• How Often Should You Post on LinkedIn? Data From 2 Million+ Posts
• The Best Time to Post on LinkedIn: 4.8 Million Posts Analyzed
• Replying to Your Comments on LinkedIn Boosts Engagement by 30%
• How to Schedule LinkedIn Posts (2 Easy Methods + Tips)

FAQ on how to increase LinkedIn followers

How can I increase my LinkedIn followers organically?

Start with your profile: switch your primary button from Connect to Follow, and write a headline that says who you help. Then post consistently about three to five topics, reply to every comment (about 83% of LinkedIn profiles in Buffer's data performed better when they did), and keep the full story in the post rather than linking out. Everything in this guide is organic, with no paid ads and no follower-buying.

How long does it take to grow LinkedIn followers?

Longer than most people expect, and it isn't linear. It took me about six years of consistent posting to reach 25,000 followers, and the first thousand was by far the hardest. Growth tends to pick up once you have a back catalog of posts on a clear set of topics and the feed knows who to show you to.

How many LinkedIn followers is a good number?

There's no benchmark that applies to everyone, and follower count matters less than it used to. Melanie Goodman's 2026 analysis found that an account with 8,000 focused followers can reach more people than one with 80,000 scattered ones, because the feed knows exactly who to show the smaller account to. A few thousand followers who care about your topics are enough to start getting inbound opportunities.

What's the difference between LinkedIn followers and connections?

Connections are mutual, need a yes from both sides, and are capped at 30,000. Followers are one-way, have no cap, and anyone can follow you without approval. Everyone who connects with you follows you automatically. Switching your profile's primary button to Follow (Settings & Privacy → Visibility → Followers → "Make follow primary") doesn't cost you connections — people can still connect with you via the More menu.

Is LinkedIn Creator Mode still a thing?

No. LinkedIn retired the Creator Mode toggle in early 2024. The features it bundled, like the Follow button, newsletters, and creator analytics, all still exist, they're just available to everyone without turning anything on.

Can I get LinkedIn followers without sending connection requests?

Yes, and it's the default for most creators now. Set Follow as your primary button so visitors can follow in one tap, comment thoughtfully on posts from bigger accounts in your niche so their audience sees you, and start a newsletter so people can subscribe. None of those need a connection request.

Do LinkedIn followers still affect reach?

Less than they did. LinkedIn rebuilt its feed in March 2026 to predict two things about each post: whether someone will stay on it and whether they'll react to it. Follower count isn't one of those signals directly, which is why a focused following now outperforms a large scattered one.

What's the LinkedIn algorithm looking for in 2026?

LinkedIn's engineers published a paper on the rebuilt feed in 2026, and it names two things the system tries to predict: whether someone will stay on your post past a certain point ("long dwell") and whether they'll like, comment on, or share it. It also reads what a post is about and matches it to people interested in that topic, which is why consistency on a few topics helps. LinkedIn has never confirmed a "golden hour" or any fixed time window after posting.

How often should I post on LinkedIn to gain followers?

Buffer's analysis of over 2 million LinkedIn posts found no penalty for posting more often. Two to five posts a week is a realistic sweet spot for most people, and accounts posting 11 or more times a week averaged nearly 17,000 more impressions per post. LinkedIn's own guidance is two to five posts a week. Consistency matters more than the exact number.

What type of content gets the most followers on LinkedIn?

In Buffer's analysis of 52 million posts, carousels (PDF document posts) had a median engagement rate of 21.77% on LinkedIn, roughly three times video and nearly seven times text-only posts. Beyond format, posts that share what you're learning, in your own voice, with a first line that makes people click "…see more," tend to bring in followers rather than just likes.

Why am I not getting followers on LinkedIn?

The usual causes, in the order I'd check them: your profile button says Connect instead of Follow, you're posting about too many different things for the feed to know who to show you to, your first lines aren't earning the "…see more" click, you're linking out in most posts, or you're not replying to the comments you do get. Fixing the first one takes 30 seconds.

Why did my LinkedIn followers drop?

Small drops are normal. LinkedIn removes fake and inactive accounts periodically, and people unfollow. A bigger drop usually follows a change in what you post about, since followers who came for one topic leave when it disappears. Check your analytics for the week the drop started and look at what you posted.

Do LinkedIn newsletters help grow your followers?

Yes. When you publish your first edition, LinkedIn prompts your connections and followers to subscribe, and each edition after that reaches subscribers by notification and email rather than depending on the feed. LinkedIn reported over 184,000 newsletters on the platform as of August 2025 and opened creation to all members that month. One caveat: not every subscriber receives the email, so treat the subscriber count as an upper bound.

Is buying LinkedIn followers safe?

No. It's against LinkedIn's policies, and it hurts you even if you don't get caught. Bought followers don't engage, which lowers your engagement rate, and the feed reads low engagement as a signal your posts aren't worth showing. You end up with a bigger number and less reach.

How do I grow a LinkedIn company page?

Mostly through the people who work there. Personal profiles get about 63% more engagement than company pages posting similar content (Metricool, 2026), so have team members post in their own voice and let the page repost and collaborate with them. Pages can also invite connections to follow, though LinkedIn cut the monthly limit from 250 to 50 in March 2026.

Is LinkedIn still worth it for growing a following in 2026?

Yes. LinkedIn has over 1.3 billion members and, in Buffer's analysis of 52 million posts, the highest median engagement rate of any platform we looked at, at around 6.2%. You don't need millions of followers or a big job title. Showing up consistently, sharing what you're learning, and building real connections still works, and it works better with a smaller focused audience than most people assume.

Sprout Social is a great social media tool for social media managers or creators lucky enough to have the budget.

But it's on the pricier end. Plans for solo users start at $99 per month ($79 if you pay annually), and plans for teams start at $249 per user per month ($199 if you pay annually).

It’s no doubt money well spent for large social media marketing teams at enterprise companies, but marketers at smaller companies or creators will have to work hard to justify that spend.

Thankfully, there are plenty of other great social media management tools out there that can do everything Sprout Social can do and more — often at a more affordable price point or even for free. Cost is one reason people look elsewhere, but it's rarely the only one. 

Here are a few worth weighing:

• Budget: Tools with per-user pricing can get costly quickly.
• Analytics: The need for simpler, more straightforward social media analytics.
• Interface: Wanting a tool that’s easier to use at every step from generating content ideas to creating reports.
• Platforms: Needing a social channel that’s not supported, such as Substack.
• API and MCP: The ability to quickly and easily build custom workflows and tools.

I’m a former Sprout Social user and social media consultant, and I’ve been around the block when it comes to social media management and analytics platforms. If any of the above apply to you, I’ve got a great list of Sprout Social alternatives to share. 

In this article, I’ll explore some of the best, how much they cost, and their standout features.

Key takeaways

• Best overall value: Buffer has a real free-forever plan and pricing starting at $6/channel per month, making it the top choice for creators and small teams looking for an affordable Sprout Social alternative.
• Best for enterprise teams: Hootsuite is the closest match to Sprout Social's own price point and complexity, built for large, well-resourced marketing and support teams that manage high message volume through social channels.
• Best for proving return on investment (ROI): Agorapulse is built around reporting that shows leadership social spend is working.
• Best for Instagram-driven influencer marketing: Later pairs visual planning for Instagram with a dedicated toolkit for running influencer campaigns.
• Best for agencies: Sendible is designed for managing multiple clients and social channels in one place.
• Best for content marketers: CoSchedule brings your blog, newsletter, and events into the same calendar as your social channels.
• Best for paid social: Metricool lets you manage Meta, Google, and TikTok ad campaigns alongside your organic content.
• Best for video creators: RecurPost's Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok toolkit makes it the deepest option on this list for teams built around video.
• Pricing reality: Sprout Social’s team plan starts at $249/user per month with no free plan — every alternative here costs meaningfully less.

Sprout Social alternatives at a glance

1. Buffer

Best for creators, small to mid-sized businesses, and growing agencies that want a flexible, affordable social media management tool.

I’m a long-time Buffer user, and no matter how many tools I’ve tried, I keep coming back to Buffer.

It offers most of the features creators, small teams, and agencies need without breaking the bank.

Buffer’s Free and Essentials plans are designed for one user to manage their entire social media presence at an affordable price tag.

Here’s what you get on the Free plan, which makes it one of the best free alternatives to Sprout Social available:

• Choose from a wide range of social media channels: You can connect to all the major social media platforms, including Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google Business Profile, Pinterest, YouTube, Threads, and Bluesky. Buffer also connects with newsletter platform Substack and decentralized network Mastodon, something you’re unable to do with Sprout Social.
• Schedule up to 30 posts at a time across three channels: Buffer’s Free plan lets you plan and schedule up to 10 posts per channel at a time (refillable as they’re published). That’s 30 posts ready to go at any time rather than the max you’re allowed. Crossposting makes it easy to draft a post and customize it for different platforms from the composer itself.
• Build a content bank: Use Create Space to save up to 100 content ideas until you’re ready to publish. Combine that with the template library (both pre-made and custom templates you can create for yourself) and you may never run out of ideas.
• Get analytics that are easy to understand and act on: You’ll find all your data and analytics in Insights, which shows you the numbers and tells you what you can do with them. AI-powered takeaways help you double down on what’s working, and you can export a snapshot of your data to share your progress.
• Reply to your audience: The Community inbox lets you reply to comments and mentions across all your social media channels in one place. You no longer need to hop between platforms or worry about missing a notification.
• Create custom tools and workflows with the API and MCP: You get one API key, detailed developer docs, support from the Buffer team, and encouragement from a passionate builder community in Discord.
• Use Buffer’s AI Assistant: Creating enough content for all your social media profiles all the time can be overwhelming, which is why our AI Assistant — available with unlimited usage on the Free plan — helps take the load off.
• Handy integrations: Buffer connects with Canva, Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and Photos, Zapier, and more. Connecting these tools lets you pull images into your posts without leaving Buffer and automate parts of your workflow so everything works smoothly.

All of this is available on the Free plan, which is really free — no strings attached.

If you’re a creator who needs more than three social media accounts or advanced features, Buffer’s Essentials plan starts at $6/channel per month.

If you’re not ready to take the plunge, Buffer offers a 14-day free trial on all plans so you can put every feature through its paces first.

Buffer is a great option for teams — whether that’s for a business or agency — thanks to the straightforward team collaboration features.

The Team plan starts at $12/channel per month. Here’s what you can do with it:

• Add unlimited users at no extra cost: Each user has their own login and permission levels (more on this below), which makes it easier to keep track of who is working where.
• Set permission levels for different users: Choose exactly who can post or engage with your audience on each of your social media channels.
• Set up approval workflows: With these different permissions, some team members will need to ask for approvals on their posts before they’re published. This makes sure nothing goes out that isn’t supposed to and your (or your clients’) social media content stays on point.
• Collaborate on ideas: The Create Space is shared by all team members, so you can work together to refine ideas until they’re ready to publish. You can also add custom templates to the template library for the whole team to use.
• Leave notes for team members: You can add comments to posts that are in draft or pending approval mode. Team members with access to publishing features in that channel can read the notes and reply, so all collaboration takes place in Buffer itself.

Collaboration features are unique to teams. For other publishing, analytics, and engagement features, the Team plan enjoys higher limits and more advanced features like analytics exports in human- and AI-friendly formats.

2. Hootsuite

Best for large teams that handle many messages, comments, and support requests on social media.

Hootsuite is another powerful social media management platform. It’s similar to Sprout Social in that it works well for marketing teams, but it also comes at a high price point. It’s a great option for well-resourced teams that collaborate with others, like customer support and success teams.

Hootsuite allows you to publish and schedule content for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X/Twitter, Threads, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Pinterest. It also boasts more than 100 apps and integrations — think Canva, Figma, Monday.com, HubSpot’s CRM, Zendesk, stock photo sites, and more.

The tool also has some great social listening features, approval workflows, bulk scheduling, and a unified social inbox that will combine public comments and messages for most of the channels it supports.

The inbox has some neat team collaboration features. You can assign messages to a team member, leave notes for the next person who takes over, create custom inboxes, and connect to support tools like Zendesk to create tickets straight from your social conversations.

3. Agorapulse

Best for marketing teams that need to provide ROI of social media to leadership.

Agorapulse is similar to Hootsuite in that it would be a good Sprout Social alternative for medium-to-large marketing teams.

Agorapulse connects with all the major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, and Pinterest.

It has similar features, too — an all-in-one inbox, deep analytics, robust reporting, approval workflows, and social listening tools that will allow you to keep your finger on the pulse (see what they did there?) of all the conversations that mention your brand.

Unlike some of the other options on this list, Agorapulse is really focused on proving the ROI (return on investment) of social media, so you can drill down on what content is actually driving leads, sales, or whatever is meaningful for your marketing goals. This can be particularly helpful if you’re looking to prove the success of your entire social media strategy to company leaders.

4. Sendible

Best for growing agencies managing multiple brands and social media channels that need a more affordable alternative to Sprout Social.

Sendible works for both social media marketers and agencies alike. It’s a slightly pared-down system, but I’m sure some users will prefer this to the overwhelm of platforms like Sprout Social.

Sendible allows you to schedule posts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky, and Google My Business. Its dashboard is neat and streamlined, and you can view your scheduled, draft, and undelivered posts at a glance.

For teams, Sendible also has a handy 'tasks' system, where team members or clients can assign social media tasks, which is pretty nifty if you don’t work with a separate project management software. 

It’s a particularly great marketing tool for agencies thanks to its separate workspaces, white label option, automated reports, and the Client Connect portal, where you’ll be able to give clients limited access. Since Sendible includes unlimited users on all plans, you won’t have to worry about your budget as your team grows.

5. CoSchedule

Best for creators and teams looking to manage their entire marketing strategy from one platform.

If you’re juggling a blog, newsletter, events, and other content alongside your social media efforts, CoSchedule is the only tool on this list that lets you see everything together.

It can be helpful to think of it as a project management system for a content marketing team. I can also see it being useful for full-time creators or influencers who are monetizing their content beyond social media.

It connects with a good variety of social media channels too (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Threads, X/Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Mastodon), along with WordPress and email marketing tools like Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign.

CoSchedule is laser-focused on being a marketing calendar tool, so you’ll have to look elsewhere if you’re after deep analytics or social listening tools.

6. Later

Best for brands that combine an Instagram-heavy presence with influencer marketing campaigns.

Later was created as an Instagram scheduler, so while the tool has expanded well beyond that, visual content planning is still at its core.

That said, Later allows you to publish to most major social networks, including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Threads, Pinterest, and YouTube along with some analytics for these channels.

It has some nifty features, though all of them are largely centered around Instagram — Best Time to Post on Instagram, Instagram hashtag suggestions, and of course, that helpful visual planner for an aesthetic feed, for example.

Later has recently expanded its features for creators and enterprise brands, with a strong focus on influencer marketing. It’s a separate platform and cost for enterprises and is designed to run influencer campaigns from start to finish. Creators can use Later to find and partner with brands to earn on commission on sales.

If Instagram and influencer campaigns are a big part of your strategy, Later may just be the right Sprout Social alternative for you.

7. Metricool

Best for creators and marketing teams that want to manage ad campaigns alongside their social media content.

Metricool is an easy-to-use platform largely aimed at social media managers focused on paid social.

It allows you to publish on all the major social networks like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky, Twitch, and Google Business Profile, and boasts some pretty advanced analytics. With it, you can also manage Meta, Google, and TikTok ads, which is a handy addition.

Beyond the usual offering, there are some interesting tools, like a heatmap-style content calendar that recommends the best times for you to post, competitor analysis, and a hashtag tracker.

8. RecurPost

Best for creators and teams that have a video-heavy social media presence.

RecurPost is a social media scheduling tool built around content that keeps running — evergreen libraries and automated DMs — plus AI image generation and custom reports that are both seriously impressive.

It connects with all the major platforms — Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, X/Twitter, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky, and Google Business Profile —  but where it really stands out is with its video features.

For Instagram specifically, you can post trial reels, add licensed audio, tag collaborators and products, boost posts, and set up automated DMs the moment a post goes live, which is a deeper toolkit than most schedulers offer. On YouTube, RecurPost supports full video uploads, and for TikTok, you can set privacy per post, turn off comments, and enable duets and stitches right from the composer.

If most of what you post is video, RecurPost gives you more control over publishing than most other tools on this list.

How to find the right Sprout Social alternative for you

I’ve always found round-ups like these to be a helpful starting point in choosing the right tool for my use case. But there’s no better way to figure out which one will help you reach your social media goals until you try it.

Before you do, think about what matters to how you work.

• Do you need a tool that’s free, or can you budget for it? Buffer, CoSchedule, Later, and Metricool all have free plans if you're bootstrapping. If you have a budget, their paid plans give you more — and you've got the rest of the list as options too.
• How many people are on your team? If it's solo, this doesn't matter. If you're building a team, per user pricing adds up fast. Buffer charges per channel, and Sendible charges per workspace instead, so they scale differently.
• Which platforms are you actually on? Most of these tools cover Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn. But if Instagram is 90% of your life, Later was built for that. If you're a video creator, RecurPost gives you tools the others don't. If you post on Mastodon, Buffer offers it.
• How much analytics depth do you need? If you're reporting to leadership on ROI, Agorapulse and Hootsuite are built for that. If you want insights on what to do next, Buffer's AI-powered takeaways help you with that.
• Are you an agency, or just your own brand? Agencies need things like white-label options (Sendible has them), client portals, or separate workspaces. If it's just your own brand, this matters less.
• Do you run paid ads? If Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads are part of your workflow, Metricool lets you schedule campaigns and organic posts together.

I’d recommend finding the one on this list that feels like the best fit for you and giving yourself at least a week with the tool to understand all the nuances of the platform. You might discover some functionality I didn’t mention here that’s a game-changer for you! 

You might also find that, no matter how simple the system is, it’s just not intuitive for the way your content calendar or brain works. Trial and error is key, which is why most of the tools I’ve chosen for this list have a solid free trial option. Some — including Buffer — even have free plans.

Whether you’re on a social media marketing team, agency, or a solo creator, social media management platforms are a pretty personal choice. If you land on Buffer, that’s great! We're so happy to have you as part of our community. If not, no sweat. I hope you've found the tool that makes the most sense for your brand right now.

FAQs about Sprout Social alternatives

Is there a free version of Sprout Social?

No, there's no free plan on Sprout Social. After a 30-day free trial, users have to choose a paid plan to keep using the tool.

What are some free tools similar to Sprout Social?

There are many free Sprout Social alternatives to choose from. These social media management tools often have some limitations on the number of posts per month, analytics and exports formats you get, and AI credits. Some free tools that offer X/Twitter limit it to the paid plans or offer it as a paid add-on.

Buffer's Free plan lets you connect up to three social channels and schedule up to 30 posts (10 per channel) at any time. There are no caps on the AI Assistant for generating ideas and publishing content, or restrictions on which platforms you can connect from those supported. CoSchedule's free plan lets you publish to one social channel, Metricool's supports 20 posts per month on multiple social media accounts, Later's includes 12 posts per channel.

What is a good Sprout Social alternative?

There are many social media management tools that are good Sprout Social alternatives. Which one is good for you depends on your goals, budget, channels you're active on, and how your team works.

Can I switch from Sprout Social without losing my content?

Yes, you can still access all your social accounts and published content directly from the platforms you're active on. Connect to a new tool before you cancel your Sprout Social account. This way, you can copy and re-schedule any posts that are queued for publishing in Sprout Social.

Some tools — like Buffer — also bring published posts and data into the tool so you aren't starting from scratch. How far behind these posts and data sync depends on the tool and what the social platforms allow.

Managing multiple social media platforms — whether for yourself or for a brand — means juggling a lot at once. On any given day, you are creating posts, repurposing content, staying on top of trends, reviewing detailed analytics, and more.

If you’re a creator or a small business owner managing your social media presence yourself, all of this is in addition to running your business. Phew!

The good news: there are plenty of social media management tools that can lighten the load — and maybe even make the work feel... less like work?

The social media management tools on this list are the ones I recommend to creators, marketers, agency owners, and my mates.

But why should you care what I have to say? Well, I'm a journalist turned content marketer and creator. I've managed social media platforms for tabloids, lifestyle magazines, SaaS tech brands, and, of course, myself. I have 30K+ followers across TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, YouTube, and X.

Plus, I am obsessed with tools (seriously, it's my weird ADHD hyperfixation). So when I tell you I have been around the block with social media management tools, I'm not kidding! 🤓

So if you're on the hunt for a social media management tool to make your work online just a little smoother (and more fun!), you're in the right place!

If you're just here for a quick recommendation, here's a summary:

Key takeaways

• Best overall for creators and small-medium businesses: Buffer — per-channel pricing from $6/mo and a free plan for up to 3 channels.
• Best for enterprise teams: Sprinklr and Sprout Social handle the heavy social listening and influencer work, but both are on the pricier end, so they only make sense at real scale.
• Best for Pinterest: Tailwind — a purpose-built, official Pinterest partner from $29.99/mo.
• Best for B2B: Oktopost — campaign-tagged posts and buyer-journey tracking (pricing on request).
• Best if you have a Substack: Buffer. Buffer is one of the few platforms that supports Substack Notes.
• Best for DM and comment automation: Manychat — 24/7 chat automation across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok (beta), and WhatsApp from $14/mo.
• Watch the scaling cost: pricing is usually per user or per channel, so check what it'll cost you 12 months from now, not just right now. Entry plans run $6–$30/mo; enterprise tools reach $199/mo per seat or custom quotes.

What are social media management tools?

Social media management tools are apps that let you plan, schedule, publish, engage with, and analyze content across multiple social networks from a single dashboard — instead of logging in and out of each platform separately.

Most combine scheduling, a handy unified inbox for comments and DMs, and analytics, and they range from free creator plans to enterprise suites with social listening and CRM built in. A good social media management tool is so much more than just a hefty set of features. It's software that you actually want to use every single day.

Comparison table of the 11 best social media management tools

These are 11 top social media management tools. They vary from beginner-friendly tools to enterprise-level platforms requiring deep analytics and CRM integration. Whatever your needs, I can pretty much guarantee this list has got you covered.

Here's a quick summary:

1. Buffer

Best social media management tool for creators and small businesses

Buffer is a plug-and-play social media management tool built for creators and small teams who want to schedule, engage, and report without a massive learning curve — with per-channel pricing that starts at $6/mo.

Best for: Creators and small businesses who value simplicity
Standout features: Flexible drag and drop content calendar, smart scheduling, direct AI agent connectors, generous free plan
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube Shorts, Twitter/X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Substack Notes, and Google Business
Free plan: Yes — free forever for up to 3 channels (14-day trial on paid plans) Pricing: Free / $6/mo per channel

Favorite features:

• Smart scheduling in a clean, beautiful calendar or queue: Plan and schedule your content across channels in the view that works best for you. Drag and drop to rearrange, and get optimal posting time recommendations based on our latest Best Time to Post data.
• Manage and respond to all of your comments in Community: a single, calming hub for managing and replying to all of your comments and mentions.
• Save and organize all your social media post ideas in the Create Space. Inspiration could strike while you're at your desk or walking the dog — no worries. Use Buffer in your browser or the slick mobile app when you're on the go.
• Get analytics that can help you figure out your next move, in Insights: Analyze your performance across all your platforms in one place, or zoom in on specific metrics. Plus, our smart Takeaways feature can make recommendations on what's actually working based on your data. No more questioning, “When do I get the most engagement? Which social media posts give me the most bang for my buck?”
• Plug Buffer into your AI tool of choice. Buffer's MCP and API let you connect your social media to virtually any agentic system (including your own apps and tools). Buffer is an approved connector in Claude, too.
• Smooth integrations with a host of other tools: Including Canva, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Zapier, and more.

Of course, Buffer's first on this list — but not just because you're reading the Buffer blog. I used Buffer as a customer first, for many years. The thing I loved most about it then is still true today: it's just so darn easy to use.

You can add your social media accounts and start scheduling within a few minutes. There's a beautiful social media calendar to help you visualize your posts across platforms, and a queue view if that's your preference.

It's simple on the surface, but powerful when you dig a little deeper.

There's taggable idea storage, the calming single-inbox Community space for all your comments, powerful cross-channel reporting, and a growing list of collaboration features for teams.

Buffer's also pretty quick to adapt when new platforms pop up (Threads and Bluesky were added shortly after they launched). And it’s continually coming up with handy features — like a template library to spark content ideas (especially when you’re short on time).

If you've worked in social for a while, I don't need to tell you you want a social media management tool that’s flexible and fast.

Who might not be best served by Buffer? I'll put my objective journalist hat on for a second. If you need deep enterprise social listening or multi-layer approval workflows, Buffer's probably not for you.

If you're a solo creator or a growing team choosing one social media management tool to run every channel, it absolutely is.

You can try it for free before paying for anything! And there's a powerful forever-free plan, too.

2. Hootsuite

Best social media management tool for larger businesses practicing social listening

Hootsuite is a long-established social media management platform aimed at bigger teams that need powerful social listening and granular access controls — priced for organizations, not solo creators.

Best for: Larger teams doing social listening
Standout features: Talkwalker-powered social listening dashboard
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, X, Pinterest
Free plan: No — 14-day trial
Pricing: $99/mo per user

Favorite features:

• An extensive social listening dashboard to help you monitor trending keywords, competitors, and brand mentions
• Granular control over the access you can provide to various team members — perfect for complex teams
• You can stack your social media reports against competitors and your industry in general to examine how you’re performing against these benchmarks

Hootsuite is well-known in the social media management world, and for good reason: its social listening features are powerful — and it's gotten even stronger since Hootsuite acquired Talkwalker, which means deeper insights into what people are saying about topics that matter to you.

You can choose your location and a topic to analyze, and the platform will give you an in-depth report about what people have been saying about that topic for the past week.

Hootsuite also has a great team management feature. You can create multiple sub-teams and minutely decide what level of access to give to your team members.

The AI assistant offers features like copywriting formulas and content repurposing. In my testing, though, the outputs usually needed a fair bit of editing before they were ready to publish.

The home dashboard is packed with features, which is great, but that also means it's not the easiest tool to navigate — especially when you're just getting started.

Still, it's a strong option for large, technical teams with a hefty tools budget behind them.

Free plan/trial available: No free plans. Paid plans have a free trial of 30 days.

Price: Pricing starts at $99 per user per month.

3. Tailwind

Best social media management tool for managing your Pinterest presence

Tailwind is a social media management tool built specifically for Pinterest — an official Pinterest partner focused on pin design, scheduling, and growth rather than all-channel management.

Best for: Pinterest-first strategies
Standout features: One-click pin design and preset-interval scheduling
Platforms: Pinterest (primary), plus Instagram and Facebook
Free plan: Yes — 1 account, 5 posts/mo
Pricing: $29.99/mo

Favorite features:

• Schedule your pins at preset intervals
• A browser extension to create new pins from anywhere and save them to relevant boards
• SmartGuide monitors your Pinterest activity and alerts you to the recommended best practices to inform your Pinterest strategy

Sure, plenty of social media management software can help you schedule pins on Pinterest and manage your Pinterest account — but Tailwind was purpose-built for this job.

Tailwind was built specifically for Pinterest from the ground up — and it shows.

Its sole focus is on Pinterest, and it's an official Pinterest partner. So if you’re someone who’s looking to burrow down on this platform or grow your following on Pinterest exclusively, you’ll want to check out Tailwind.

The thing I find most useful? You can transform your photos into fantastic pin designs in one click. It’s like having your own, personalized Canva for Pinterest within your social media management tool.

Apart from this, you can schedule pins, add them to preset boards, and even spread them out at various intervals for maximum engagement. On testing, Tailwind was quite easy to use. The browser extension didn't work as smoothly for me, though your experience might vary depending on which browser you use.

The free plan is pretty limited, though — just five posts per month. If you're serious about Pinterest (where consistency and volume really matter), you'll likely need a professional plan from the start.

Free plan/trial available: Free plan available for one account and five social media posts per month.

Price: Paid plans begin at $29.99 per month.

4. SocialPilot

Best social media management tool for social media agencies managing multiple accounts

SocialPilot is an agency-first social media management tool built around white-labeling, client dashboards, and no-signup approvals — a cheaper, simpler alternative to enterprise suites for teams juggling many accounts.

Best for: Agencies managing multiple clients
Standout features: White-label client dashboards and shareable approval links
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, X, Pinterest, Google Business
Free plan: No — 14-day trial
Pricing: $30/mo (1 user)

Favorite features:

• Separate your dashboards for various clients and white-label them with customized colors, logos, etc., to give your customers a premium experience
• Simple approval process with easy, shareable, personalized links — requiring no sign-ups from your clients
• Auto-send various clients personalized and branded social media performance reports

SocialPilot was clearly built with agencies in mind. Take the approval process: you can share direct personalized links (no sign-ups required) that compile everything your client needs to review on a single screen. The whole workflow is designed to be agency-first.

The dashboard is also user-friendly if you manage multiple clients. You can have different sub-dashboards for various clients to keep their management separated from the rest. You can also white-label the platform to provide a customized experience to your clients.

Like Hootsuite, SocialPilot offers granular control over which team members can do what tasks, but it’s much more affordable and simpler to use.

I didn’t mention the basic features like scheduling, reporting features, and AI features, but SocialPilot has all the fundamentals, too. 

Free plan/trial available: No free plans. Free trial for all paid plans available for 14 days.

Price: Prices start at $30 per month. Only one user is included in this pricing. You need to upgrade your plan to add your team members.

5. Zoho Social

Best social media management tool for Zoho users

Zoho Social is a straightforward social media management tool that earns its place mainly through deep integration with the wider Zoho ecosystem — CRM, Desk, and the rest.

Best for: Teams already using Zoho
Standout features: Native Zoho CRM and Desk integration
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, TikTok, YouTube, Google Business
Free plan: Yes — 1 team member
Pricing: $15/mo

Favorite features:

• Integration with other Zoho products, like CRM and Desk, for smooth management
• Build your own customized social media listening dashboard to track brand mentions, stay on top of trends, and more
• Automate your social media posts to repeat at a certain cadence to repost your content without any intervention

Zoho is a well-known name in the tech industry. It offers CRM solutions, email services, payroll processing, customer service software, and a whole lot of other products that knowledge workers use. 

If you work in a company that already uses Zoho for other things, Zoho Social is a great social media management tool you should consider.

Zoho Social doesn't have a standout feature that makes it unique in the market. But that isn’t to say it can’t get the job done. If you need something simple to schedule your posts, analyze their performance, and create the occasional report, Zoho can do the job just fine.

Zoho Social is especially great because it integrates with Zoho Desk (its customer service software). Some businesses just get a lot of queries from customers on social media.

If you’re one of those, Zoho Social is great because you can integrate social media for customer service and social media for marketing seamlessly.

I’d recommend signing up for Zoho Social only if you’re already in the Zoho ecosystem and your social media marketing strategy is still developing.

Once you’ve fleshed out a roadmap, you might move toward a more specialized social media management software that caters to your unique needs. Or if you have the budget, you can add a separate tool in addition to Zoho Social.

Free plan/trial available: There is a free plan for one team member. All paid plans have a 15-day free trial.

Price: Pricing starts at $15 per month.

6. Sprout Social

Best for combining social media marketing, influencer marketing, and employee advocacy

Sprout Social is an enterprise-grade social media management platform that folds influencer marketing and employee advocacy into one tool — powerful and polished, but priced well above creator budgets.

Best for: Teams combining social, influencer, and advocacy
Standout features: Employee advocacy plus Tagger-powered influencer marketing
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Threads
Free plan: No — 30-day trial
Pricing: $99/mo per seat

Favorite features:

• Super aesthetic reports
• Influencer marketing software to help you run two strategies with one tool
• Employee advocacy feature to help you curate a feed specifically for your employees

Sprout Social acquired Tagger Media in 2023. So, now, not only can it help you with social media management tasks like scheduling posts, tracking brand mentions, and monitoring analytics, but it can also help you find influencers and collaborate with them. 

This is a major headache eliminated if you’re a social media manager responsible for running your social media marketing plan and your influencer marketing strategy.

Sprout Social isn’t lacking in the social media management department either. It has an AI assistant, like all popular social media management tools, and its reports are beautiful. You can use various interactive charts and graphs to visualize information — and it’s just a treat to look at. Sprout Social is also recognized for its deep analytics and team collaboration features.

That said, Sprout Social isn't built for creators or small businesses — the pricing reflects its enterprise focus, and the influencer marketing features cost extra on top of the base plan.

If you're a larger company with budget to spare, Sprout Social could be worth the investment. For small businesses watching costs closely, you might be better off using separate tools for social media management and influencer marketing.

Free plan/trial available: No free plan available. All paid plans have a 30-day free trial.

Price: Pricing starts at $99 per seat per month for the limited Essentials plan. Most of the features above are only available on the Standard plan ($199 per month).

Bear in mind that the cost of social media management tools like Sprout can increase significantly as users add more profiles or team members, so it's important to calculate potential future costs when selecting a tool.

7. Oktopost

Best social media management tool for B2B companies

Oktopost is a B2B-focused social media management tool built to tie social activity to revenue. Every post rolls up to a campaign, and analytics track the buyer journey rather than vanity metrics.

Best for: B2B companies tracking the buyer journey
Standout features: Campaign-tagged posts and buyer-journey tracking
Platforms: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube
Free plan: No
Pricing: Not public

Favorite features:

• Premade dashboards by B2B social media experts to help you track important metrics
• Each post is assigned to a campaign for accurate social media reporting
• Tracks buyer journeys

Oktopost is squarely for B2B companies. Every scheduled post is assigned to a campaign for better reporting, and UTM parameters are added to every link you share on social media.

The analytics also look a bit different than your usual social media management software: Oktopost tracks the buyer journey to understand how your social media campaigns are impacting revenue. 

The B2B social media experts at Oktopost also recommend premade dashboards that you should be monitoring to analyze your social performance.

A major downside, however, is that you can’t get a feel for the product because there’s no free trial or publicly available pricing.

Free plan/trial available: Pricing not publicly available.

Price: Pricing not publicly available.

8. Later

Best social media management tool for influencer marketing and social listening

Later is an all-in-one platform designed to help brands and creators manage social media, influencer marketing, analytics, social listening, and link-in-bio tools from one place. It's recently had a rebrand to reflect its influencer marketing capabilities.

Best for: Brands and creators running influencer campaigns
Standout features: Creator discovery and campaign management
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, X
Free plan: No — 14-day trial
Pricing: $25/mo (up to 30 posts per profile)

Favorite features:

• Access creator discovery, campaign management, and performance tracking — plus AI-driven insights for smarter influencer partnerships.
• Monitor brand mentions, sentiment, and trends to refine your social media strategy and respond to audience conversations.
• Store images, videos, and post assets in a central library to streamline planning and publishing.
• Create a customizable link page that drives clicks from social channels to key web destinations.

Later combines traditional social scheduling and social media analytics with more advanced capabilities like influencer campaign tools and social listening in a single dashboard.

However, this can be a bit of a double-edged sword. I've leaned on Later mostly for scheduling in the past, and it's smooth to use. But since the rebrand went all-in on influencer marketing, good old posting isn't really the company's focus anymore.

Two more things to flag before you commit: there's no free plan (just a 14-day trial), and the entry plan caps you at 30 posts per profile. That can get quite tight if you post a lot!

Free plan/trial available: No free plan available. All paid plans have a free trial of 14 days. 

Price: Pricing starts at $25 per month for one user. You can schedule up to 30 posts per profile. 

9. Socialinsider

Best social media management tool for social media analytics

Socialinsider is an analytics tool that provides in-depth reporting on your social posts. In one dashboard, you can monitor engagement, reach, impressions, follower growth, and more across all your social platforms.

Best for: Analytics-focused users and teams
Standout features: Competitor and content-pillar KPI comparison
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, X
Free plan: No — 14-day trial
Pricing: $99/mo (up to 20 accounts)

Favorite features:

• Data-heavy tools are geared towards detailed reporting and competitor analysis
• You can compare your performance against competitors on KPIs like engagement rate and follower growth
• Discover the performance of your various content pillars to monitor which ones resonate the most with your audience
• An easy-to-use dashboard that allows you to understand your social media performance easily

This tool doesn’t have many traditional features, like the ability to schedule posts. It’s a laser-focused analytics tool. Socialinsider is the perfect choice for someone who needs more detailed insights for their social channels.

You can use it in conjunction with some other tools on this list or use it as a standalone tool if you’re fine with manual posting and social engagement.

Free plan/trial available: No free plans. All paid plans have a free trial of 14 days.

Price: Pricing starts at $99 per month for up to 20 social media accounts.

10. Manychat

Best social media management tool for chat automation

Manychat is a chat automation tool rather than a classic scheduler — an add-on that handles DMs and comment-triggered replies at volume to turn conversations into leads.

Best for: DM and comment automation
Standout features: 24/7 automated DM and comment workflows
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok (beta), WhatsApp
Free plan: Yes — limited
Pricing: $15/mo (scales with contacts)

Favorite features:

• Template gallery to create customized DM campaigns
• Reply to social DMs around the clock with chat automation
• AI assistant to help set up chat workflow

Manychat, like Socialinsider, doesn’t have the classic social management features. But it’s an excellent add-on for social marketing automation — I personally use it for Instagram to share resources with my followers!

Have you ever seen those “comment for link” posts where the creator automatically sends the link to a product or info about a topic once you comment on something? That is a heck of a lot of work to keep on top of manually (especially if your post kicks off — which is what you want!) That’s exactly what Manychat helps you automate.

You can use this tool to communicate with leads, follow up on time, and ensure you respond to every message you receive on social media.

The only con is that Manychat only works with Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and WhatsApp. If you have your primary social media accounts on other channels — like X or LinkedIn — you can’t integrate them with this tool.

That said, Manychat’s chat automation for TikTok is in beta, so it’s possible they might add different platforms in the future.

Free plan/trial available: The free plan has limited features

Price: Pricing starts at $14 per month and increases with the number of contacts.

11. Sprinklr

Best social media management tool for enterprise organizations on multiple platforms

Sprinklr is an enterprise customer-experience platform with social management built in — aimed at large teams that need governance, integrations, and a unified view across many channels.

Best for: Large enterprises with complex needs
Standout features: Persona apps and AI-powered image detection
Platforms: All major networks, plus messaging and review channels
Free plan: No
Pricing: Not public

Favorite features:

• Persona apps to simplify navigation for social media managers — they only see the granular-level metrics they need to
• Customize content creation to fit diverse audiences
• AI-powered image detection capabilities

Sprinklr is a customer experience management tool with social management features. It’s an enterprise-grade software, meeting all the governance requirements of companies of that size.

Apart from social media, Sprinklr also has social listening features, competitive benchmarking, social advertising, and conversational commerce features.

If you’re a large company, it’s also important that you use a tool like Sprinklr because it integrates with all the tools in your tech stack, providing you with a unified view of all your efforts in one dashboard.

The learning curve in such tools is long — in addition to the monetary investment — so keep that in mind before you finalize an enterprise tool.

Free plan/trial available: Not publicly available.

Price: Not publicly available.

What should you look for in social media management apps?

Choosing a social media management tool or app is a really important choice — so don't be afraid to switch over if the tool you start out with doesn't suit your needs. But how do you know which social media management tool is right for you, so you don't have to?

Start with these criteria, then work through the five questions below.

The right social media management tool depends on your budget, team size, and the depth of your analytics needs. Here are five questions to ask yourself.

1. Does the social media management platform connect with all major social networks?

Your efforts might be focused on one network right now, but that's bound to change as you grow. Your audience is spread across multiple channels, and you'll likely expand as you scale. You can start with a specialized app focused on one network, but eventually you'll want a social media management tool that connects with all the major ones.

2. Does the social management tool have strong reporting features?

Comprehensive analytics are core to a good strategy. I can't stress this enough!

Detailed reporting shows you post performance and audience engagement — and how deep it goes usually tracks with the pricing tier.

You need those insights to measure social media ROI, whether you're a manager, an agency, or a freelancer. Look past the basic numbers: can you measure engagement accurately, across every platform, for everyone who interacts with you?

3. Does the social media management software have strong collaboration tools?

If you're a solo creator, you might not need this. But managers and agencies need solid team collaboration — task management, approval workflows, and user permissions.

Almost every tool offers team plans, but they differ in the details, especially in permission levels. The more granular the controls, the more you can customize access.

4. Will the price of the social media management tool stay in budget as you scale?

Maybe you pick the tool that the world's biggest companies use. But what's the point if it prices you out the moment you grow? Don't just look at today's price — calculate the cost of connecting multiple accounts and adding teammates. The best social media management tool scales with you.

5. Does the social media tool have key features you need?

Despite all the overlap, most tools have a few features built for their specific audience.

Buffer has a DIY landing page builder for creators; Later has influencer marketing. Many also help you generate ideas, pull from a media library, or plan visually.

After that first pass, you'll have a shortlist that fits your budget and needs. Most tools offer long free trials, so use them — testing every shortlisted option is a bit tedious, but it's how you make the best long-term call.

Have you found an excellent tool that's not on this list? I'd genuinely love to know which — come tell me what's working (or what I've missed) over on Threads. I'm forever tweaking my own stack, so I'd love to know!

FAQs about social media management tools

What are social media marketing tools?

Social media marketing tools are apps that help you plan, publish, engage, and measure content across networks like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X from one dashboard — covering scheduling, analytics, engagement, and sometimes social listening or influencer outreach. The category overlaps almost entirely with social media management tools; "marketing" simply emphasizes the promotion and measurement side.

What is the most popular social media management tool?

Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social are among the most widely used. Buffer is especially popular with creators and small businesses for its simplicity and per-channel pricing (from $6/mo), Hootsuite with larger teams that need social listening, and Sprout Social with enterprises wanting deep analytics. However, don't just reach for these tools because they're the best known. The best tool for you is the one that matches your team size and budget.

What tools do social media managers use?

Most social media managers will need a couple of tools or features: a scheduler, a combined inbox, an analytics tool, an engagement or social listening tool, and often a design, content-creation, or video editing tool. Smart social media managers usually opt for tools that do most of what they need well, then bolt on the extras (usually video editing and design fall into the 'extras' category). Many all-in-one platforms fold scheduling, engagement, and analytics into one dashboard, so you don't need a separate tool for each job. Smarter, not harder!

What is the best social media management tool for small businesses?

If you’re a creator or small business owner, look for a tool that’s simple, affordable, and flexible. Buffer is a popular choice because pricing is per channel (starting at $6 per month per channel), and it’s easy to schedule social media posts, reply to comments, and track performance without feeling overwhelmed. The best tool for you is the one you’ll actually use consistently — not the one with the longest feature list.

What is the best social media management tool for enterprises?

Larger organizations often need advanced analytics, social listening, and governance features. Tools like Sprinklr and Sprout Social are built for complex teams and multi-layer approvals. They’re more expensive, but they offer deeper reporting, influencer marketing integrations, and enterprise-level controls.

Are free social media management tools worth it?

Free plans are absolutely worth trying, especially if you’re just getting started. Many tools offer limited free plans or trials so you can test scheduling, analytics, and collaboration features before committing.

What features should I look for in a social media management tool?

Start with the essentials: scheduling, analytics, and engagement management. Then think about what makes your workflow easier. Do you need a link-in-bio page? Approval workflows for clients? Advanced reporting? AI writing support? Choose a tool that supports the networks you use today — and the ones you might grow into tomorrow.

Do social media management tools support all platforms?

Most tools support major networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and X. Many are quickly adding newer platforms like Threads and Bluesky, too. Before signing up, double-check that your priority channels are included. For example, if you write a newsletter, check for Substack Notes specifically — of the 11 tools on this list, only Buffer supports it right now.

How much do social media management tools cost?

Pricing varies widely. Some tools charge per channel, others per user. Starter plans can start around $6 to $20 per month, while enterprise tools can run into hundreds (or require custom quotes).

Pro tip: Calculate what the tool will cost 12 months from now if you plan to add more profiles or team members.

Can social media management tools improve engagement?

They can’t magically make content better, but they can help you post more consistently, respond faster, and learn what resonates. Features like unified inboxes, automated reports, and habit-building reminders make it easier to show up regularly. And consistency is often the biggest driver of engagement.

How important is social media scheduling?

A common feature among social media management tools is the ability to schedule content in advance, which helps you stay consistent without needing to be online at all times. In most cases, this is definitely a key feature to look out for. Many social media management tools are designed to be user-friendly, allowing you to connect your social accounts and start scheduling posts immediately.

Do I need a separate tool for analytics?

Not always. Many social media management platforms include built-in reporting. But if you need deeper competitor analysis or advanced ROI tracking, you might pair your scheduler with a dedicated analytics tool. It depends on how detailed your reporting needs are and who you’re reporting to.

What’s the difference between social media scheduling and social media management?

Powerful scheduling tools are a key feature of social media management platforms, enabling users to batch their posts and automate their social media presence for efficiency, but scheduling is just one piece of the puzzle.

Social media management includes planning, publishing, responding to comments and DMs, tracking performance, and sometimes even influencer outreach or automation. If you’re serious about growing your presence, you’ll likely want more than just a scheduler.

How do I choose the right social media management tool?

Start with your goals. Are you focused on growth, lead generation, brand awareness, or community building? Then map your must-haves: supported networks, reporting depth, collaboration features, and pricing that scales with you. Shortlist two or three options and test them during their free trials. The right tool should feel intuitive — and make your day easier, not more complicated.

More social media management resources

• The Best Social Media Scheduling Tools (+ How to Find the Perfect Fit)
• 14 AI Tools for Social Media Content Creation: My Workflow Guide
• 28 Digital Marketing Tools for Small Businesses (+ Budget-Friendly and Free Options)
• Social Media Automation: 10 Tasks You Can Automate (+ Tools to Help)
• 8 Best Free Hashtag Generators
• 8 of the Best AI Productivity Tools to Help You Optimize How You Work
• Top 11 Social Media Engagement Tools to Build Your Community

Yes, you can schedule Substack Notes. You can do it in two ways: directly in Substack or through Buffer, which lets you plan Notes on the same calendar as your other channels, send the same Note to LinkedIn, Threads, X, and Bluesky, and see which Notes brought in subscribers. Both are free.

We’ll walk through how it works, where Substack's built-in scheduler falls short, and what I've learned from scheduling a Note every day this month for Buffer's own publication.

How to schedule a Note inside Substack

Substack added native scheduling for Notes on March 23, 2026, on web, iOS, and Android. Before that, the only options were a third-party extension or posting manually.

Here's how it works on the web:

1. Open Substack and click the plus + button, then Note (or Create → Note if you’re on your profile) to start a new Note.

2. Write the Note as you normally would. You can add images, links, video, and create polls.

1. Click the calendar icon at the bottom of the composer.
2. Pick a date and time. Substack uses your local time zone.

3. Click Save, then Schedule.

On the iOS and Android apps, tap the plus + button to start a Note, write it, then tap the three dot ⋯ menu and choose Schedule.

Every scheduled Note lands in your Drafts, with the publish time shown underneath. You can open one from there to edit it or change the time before it goes out. Substack lets you schedule up to three months ahead.

What the native scheduler doesn't do

There's no calendar view, so you're reading a list of drafts rather than seeing your week of planned content.

You can also only schedule one Note at a time. And you can't send the same Note to another platform, and there's no per-Note reporting beyond the likes, replies, and restacks you can see on the Note itself.

For a writer posting a couple of Notes a week, this is fine, great even. But once Notes become a daily habit, or one of several channels you're keeping up with, you may start to want more. And this is where Buffer comes in.

How to schedule Substack Notes with Buffer

Buffer's Substack integration is built on Substack's official API, and it treats your Substack account like any other channel: connect it once, and Notes show up on the same calendar and in the same composer as your LinkedIn, Threads, X, Instagram, and Bluesky posts.

Scheduled Notes publish directly at the time you set. There's no reminder step or "finish this in the Substack app" notification.

1. Log in to Buffer (or create a free account) and go to Channels → Connect a channel.

2. Choose Substack and sign in to authorize Buffer.

3. Click Create Post, select your Substack channel, and write your Note. You can add images, a link, or a video.

4. If you want the same Note to go out to LinkedIn, Threads, X, or Bluesky, select those channels too and tweak each version until you’re satisified.

5. Pick a time (or use one of your set posting slots) and click Schedule.

Once a Note is live, Buffer's analytics show impressions, engagement, follows, as well as how many free and paid subscribers each Note brought in.

Because your other channels sit in the same dashboard, you can put a Note next to the LinkedIn version of the same idea and compare performance as well.

Two more ways to use Substack in Buffer

1. You can add your Substack publication as a feed in Buffer, which pulls your published posts in so you can queue them out to your social channels, or turn an old post into a new Note weeks later.

2. If you work with an AI assistant, Buffer supports Substack Notes in its MCP and API, so you can draft and schedule Notes from Claude or ChatGPT or your preferred AI assistant.

Buffer's free plan covers three channels with 10 scheduled posts per channel at a time and 30 days of analytics history. Paid plans start at $5 a month per channel for unlimited scheduling and full analytics.

What I’ve learned from posting a Note a day

I run Buffer's publication on Substack, The Weekly Scroll, and for September I've been posting one Note every day. In addition to scheduling, a few things have made it easier now that Substack Notes are in Buffer.

1. Batch the planned content, leave room for spontaneous ones: I write and schedule most of the week's Notes in one sitting, but I keep a slot or two open to react to something in the feed. Replies and restacks can't be scheduled anywhere, and those are the Notes that start conversations, so scheduling handles the consistency and I handle the rest.

1. Schedule for when your readers are around, not when you're writing. Buffer's posting slots make this a set-once decision rather than a daily one.
2. Keep a running list of ideas. I keep my ideas in Buffer's Ideas, then turn the good ones into Notes on the days I plan my posts.

Substack Notes scheduling FAQ

Is there a free way to schedule Substack Notes?
Yes, two. Substack's own composer schedules Notes for free on web, iOS, and Android. Buffer's free plan also lets you connect your Substack account and schedule Notes without entering a card, with up to 10 scheduled posts per channel at a time.

Can you schedule Substack Notes from your phone?
Yes. In the Substack app, start a Note, tap ⋯, and choose Schedule. In the Buffer mobile app, create a post, select your Substack channel, and schedule it as you would for any other channel.

Can you schedule a restack or a reply?
No. Neither Substack nor Buffer schedules restacks, quote-restacks, or replies to other people's Notes.

Can you add images, links, or video to a scheduled Note?
Yes, in both. Substack's composer and Buffer's both support text, images, links, and video in a scheduled Note.

Do scheduled Notes perform worse than ones posted live?
There's no evidence they do. A scheduled Note publishes the same way a manual one does, and readers can't tell the difference. What tends to matter more is whether you're around to reply in the first hour or so after it goes out.

How far ahead can you schedule a Note?
Substack lets you schedule up to about three months out. Buffer has no time limit on how far ahead you can schedule a post.

Can you schedule Notes for more than one publication?
In Substack, you schedule from whichever account you're logged into. In Buffer, each publication connects as a separate channel, so you can schedule for two or three Substacks from one account and keep the analytics separate.

Do you need a Chrome extension to schedule Substack Notes?
Not anymore. Both Substack and Buffer schedule Notes from the web and their mobile apps.

Does scheduling Notes through Buffer break Substack's rules?
No. Buffer's integration is built on Substack's official API in partnership with Substack, so Notes scheduled through Buffer publish the same way they would from Substack's own composer.

Pick a time and post

If you've wanted to be better about posting Notes, there’s now an easy fix. Write the Notes you already know you want to post, schedule them, and use the time you get back to reply to people.

Substack's built-in scheduler is enough to start. When Notes become one of several channels you're keeping up with, and you want to know which of them actually bring readers in, connect your Substack to Buffer and put them all on one calendar. It's free, and you can schedule your first Note in a couple of minutes.

I'm not a developer, but boy, can I code.

Vibe code, that is.

Thanks to the help of several AI coding tools, I’ve built upwards of 10 personal apps and tools in the past year: a step tracking tool, a fitness dashboard, several productivity tools, and a content calendar that plugs straight into Buffer's API.

I’m currently working on an app that will help me cater to the very diverse needs of my harem of houseplants. 🤓

I built all of these things with a couple of different AI coding tools, all of which offer different levels of handholding. These days, I'm super comfortable using Claude Code, GitHub, and the terminal daily.

I will also acknowledge that I had plenty of help. At Buffer, we have dozens of very nice, very helpful engineers who have been unblocking their non-technical peers at every turn. We even had Build Week, a full week outside our regular roles to build a simple tool or workflow with AI.

And before you ask, heck yes — it did feel really, really intimidating at first, even with all the support I had.

But I'm so glad I took the plunge.

Firstly, because it turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be, and secondly, because it has opened up a world of possibilities for me and my work.

I know a lot of my creator and marketing peers are still peering down the “how-the-heck-am-I-supposed-to-do-this?” chasm, and I’d really love to help.

Enter: Vibe Coding for Newbies: The Complete Beginner’s Guide. ™️

It is not a guide to launching a SaaS company, becoming a developer, or shipping anything production-grade. The frame here is small, useful, personal tools: things that will make your work a little smoother, or even stuff you’ll use with your family.

And, be warned: it covers the unglamorous (but very necessary) scaffolding stuff, too.

Most vibe coding guides stop at "describe what you want to Claude," (it’s a bit more complicated than that — but not much!). Where non-developers actually get stuck is a little further on in the process: where to put your files, when to back things up, and what to check before you put something on the internet.

And I absolutely did ask some of the aforementioned friendly engineers to review this article. So you know you’re in safe hands (thank you, Hamish and Martín!) 👋

By the end of this, you'll have a setup that won't lose your work, and a first project small enough to finish.

Ready? You got this! Let’s build.

What vibe coding is

Vibe coding means describing what you want in plain language so that an AI can write the code. Andrej Karpathy coined the term on X in early 2025, and Collins Dictionary even made it their Word of the Year.

The possibilities for creation are almost dizzying, but my preferred use case thus far has been for me- or team-only tools and workflows. Great power, great responsibility, etc. etc.

I know folks much smarter than me who have vibe-coded customer-facing products, but I’d tread carefully there if you don’t have an engineering background. Just for now. Let’s walk together before we run.

There are also things best avoided when you vibe code, even if they’re only intended for you or a handful of people. For example, handling real money, storing other people's sensitive info, or anything that has to be legally compliant (so nothing medical, nothing financial, nothing with a pile of GDPR obligations attached).

Start small, and start safe.

Note that there will probably be a few unfamiliar words in this article. I’ve done my best to explain everything as it comes up, but I’ve also included a handy glossary at the end! Refer there if you need a deeper explainer.

Where to vibe code: The toolkit you need

You can vibe code with surprisingly little. But before you decide how (the AI tool/s you’ll be building with), you need to decide where.

Fun fact: building your own tools doesn’t actually require you to put them on the internet or ‘host’ them somewhere. They can live exclusively on your device (the catch is that you can't easily open them on your phone, and building this way might require a slightly more advanced AI tool).

So with that in mind, you’ve got two options:

Browser or laptop

Browser-based building means everything happens in a web app. You sign in, describe what you want, watch it build, and click publish. It’s the lowest barrier to entry by far, and even hosting is included, so you can deploy to (read: make your tool live on) a URL without you thinking about it. The trade-off is that your work lives on someone else's platform.

Laptop-based building means the files live on your computer (at least at first) and a tool on your laptop talks to those files. More setup, but more control. The code and your tool can live locally forever if you fancy. But if you need your tool to be accessible on other devices and to other people, you can push it to a URL by connecting the project to a hosting platform (we’ll get into all this, I promise.)

Neither is better than the other. While building on your laptop (or other computer) might feel safer, it’s definitely a bit more technical.

To understand why, we need to explore…

The 2 types of vibe coding tools

In order of the technical skill required to use them:

1. All-in-one app builders

These are browser-based AI tools built specifically for vibe coding, with hosting included. Lovable, Bolt, and Replit are probably the best-known names in this category. You tell them what you want, they build it: front end, back end, database, hosting, all in one window, and your app is live in minutes.

I started with Lovable, and I can’t recommend it enough for getting started. It’s super user-friendly and has loads of security checks and balances. The trade-off is platform lock-in — your tool will live there. Your code can come with you if you leave, since Lovable syncs to GitHub, but you'd have to wire up the database and hosting again somewhere else.

2. AI coding agents

These are laptop-based. You describe what you want, and the agent handles the files on your computer: writing them, moving them, running them, testing them. Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex, Cursor, Devin Desktop, and Gemini CLI are the main ones. This is where I spend most of my time (mostly in Claude Code at the moment).

Some live in your terminal, which is a plain-text window on your computer (I'll explain it properly in a minute, and it's much less scary than it sounds). You type in English, and the agent writes code, and you never have to open a file unless you want to. Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini CLI started out this way.

Others, like Cursor and Devin Desktop, live inside a code editor, so the files sit on screen in front of you and change as the agent works.

Most of these tools now do both, so this is less of a decision than it looks. Pick based on whether seeing the code as it's written makes you feel more in control or a bit befuddled.

Other tools you’ll need to vibe code

AKA: The supporting cast. Depending on the option you choose above, you may need to get to grips with a couple of other tools. If you plan to go with option 1 (a tool like Lovable) for your first couple of projects — I highly recommend you do! — skip this section.

GitHub

If there’s a word that might strike fear into the hearts of vibe coding marketers, it’s probably “GitHub.” I was initially quite intimidated by it until someone shared this analogy:

GitHub is really just Google Drive or Dropbox for code.

So why don’t we just use those things then? Technically, you could. But what’s special about GitHub is that it keeps the receipts.

It keeps every version of your project, so you can easily revert to a previous build if something goes a bit funky. (The system doing that work is called 'git.' GitHub is the website built on top of it.More on this in the glossary.) This is the primary reason you might want to consider storing your files in GitHub, rather than locally.

It'll also keep your files from being washed away if you ahem accidentally spill a protein shake on your laptop one day. (If you think this example is too specific to be untrue, you are correct.)

How do I use it?

Using GitHub requires a (free!) GitHub account, which will only take you a few minutes to set up.

With that done, your agent needs permission to act on your behalf. Ask it: "Walk me through installing the GitHub CLI and signing in." It's a one-time setup, and without it your agent can't create repos for you — you'll just get an error.

After that, starting a new project means prompting: "Set this up as a git repository and create a private GitHub repo for it." Let it do the work.

(If that feels like a step too far for now, create an empty private repo yourself on github.com and tell your agent to use that one instead.)

2 rules to remember for GitHub:

1. Don't commit your secrets. Secrets = API keys, passwords, anything you wouldn't want public. Make sure that none of it goes into GitHub (even if you’re working in a private repo).
2. Default to private repos. You can flip a project public later, and public is great when you want feedback or a portfolio. But that’s a Future You problem.

Hosting platform

If you want to use your app or tool on a device other than your laptop, or share it with other people, it needs to live somewhere on the internet.

Enter: a hosting platform. Vercel, Netlify, or Replit are all great free options.

How do I use them:

Again, this is just a case of setting up your account and pointing your coding agent at it. Your agent may need you to do a couple of things here and there manually (mostly just copy-pasting stuff). If you get stuck, ask your agent.

Somewhere for your data to live

The moment your tool needs to remember something between visits — saved entries, a list you add to — it needs a database. Supabase is usually the default here. If that still feels like a step too far, an Airtable base or a Google Sheet can do the same job for a small personal tool. Both need an API key, though, so the security rules further down apply here as well.

How to use it:

Create a free Supabase account, and point your agent at it.

The terminal

The little black box that you can use to run commands on your computer. It's called Terminal on a Mac and Windows Terminal on a PC.

How to use it:

You don't need to learn commands, but you may occasionally need to open it to paste things in. Just type terminal in your local search bar to open it. Again, if you get stuck, you just ask your agent to help. Don’t be afraid to share screenshots in your chat!

Node.js

At some point, a tool may ask you to install Node. It's the engine that runs JavaScript projects on your own machine, and most of what these tools build is JavaScript.

How to use it:

Install it once and never think about it again. Your agent can't click through an installer or type your admin password but it can talk you through every step. If you’re using Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex, you might want to get ahead of this before you even begin building anything. "Walk me through installing Node on my laptop, step by step" is a great first prompt.

Set yourself up properly

Imagine you’re working with a personal assistant, asking them to tackle a couple of projects that require files. It’s unlikely you’ll hand over 12 chaotic folders without a clear structure. You’ll likely make sure everything is properly named and organized logically (you’re not paying them to clean up /downloads, are you?)

Starting out with a coding agent is exactly the same. The best part - hand them something organized and logical, and they will keep it that way.

1. Make one 'projects' folder. I recommend you do this before you build anything. Somewhere obvious, like in Documents/projects, or on your desktop; it doesn't matter.
2. One project, one sub-folder, every time. Inside your primary projects folder, all of your builds, tools, or apps should have their own subfolder. Resist the urge to try something experimental inside a project that currently works. If it's a new idea, it gets a new folder.
3. Name sub-olders properly. app, test, final and final-v2 are not what you want here, my friend. If you ever add anything manually, name them logically.

Prompting when you vibe code: best practices

Prompting an AI agent to build an app is not all that different from asking it to, say, help you find cheap flights, or draft a marketing report. Here are a couple of things that I have found get me great results:

Tell it you’re not an engineer. If your agent doesn’t already have this context on you, it’s worth noting it in the chat; otherwise, you risk having some pretty confusing jargon thrown at you from the get-go. “I’m not an engineer. Explain things to me as simply as you can, without technical jargon.”

Start by asking it to help you plan. This chat will be a marathon, not a sprint. Start by specifying what you want, and specifically add: “Help me plan this before you write any code. Walk me through the structure and what files we'll need, in plain English, first.” From there, assess the plan and iterate. The agent will likely make a lot of assumptions about how you want things to work. Make sure it’s correct first.

Be specific about what you want. Not "make me a content tool." Try: "I want a small web page where I paste a paragraph, and it tells me roughly how it would land on LinkedIn — flag jargon, flag corporate-speak, flag emoji-heavy openings."

Functionality first, form later. Take it from someone who has lost hours redesigning (and redesigning) the UI and branding before checking the tool will actually work how you want it to. Make sure the tool is working how you want it to before you start trying to make it pretty.

Small bites. I know it's tempting, but try to resist the urge to ask for five different features in one go. Build one thing, test it, then move on to the next.

Share errors verbatim (preferably with screenshots). If you get errors, copy the entire error message in, including the bits that look like hieroglyphics. You can even share screenshots of whatever you’re seeing. Error messages carry more information than they appear to, and summarizing strips out exactly the part that identifies the problem.

Just ask. If you feel stuck or aren’t sure what to do next, ask for guidance. If you don’t like the way something works at the moment, say so, even if you don’t know what the fix is. The agent can present endless alternatives to you.

Ask it to review its own code. When you’re in a good spot with your build, ask your agent to review the code. “Act as a senior engineer and review this code,” is one of my favorite last-pass items.

What about coding languages?

Short answer: the tool picks. You'll see words like TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, React, and HTML scroll past. You don't need to choose between them. Web apps end up in some flavor of JavaScript — usually TypeScript and React these days — and scripts and automations end up in Python.

Still, it's worth knowing that they aren't interchangeable. If you started in Python and then decide you want a slick front end, that's a bigger ask than it sounds, because these tools work much better when a project sticks to one stack.

This is another great reason to ask the tool to plan before it builds. As the plan evolves, it becomes clearer which language to use. Don't request a language by name unless someone has given you a reason to.

Security: what non-developers need to be aware of

Be sensible about what you build, particularly if it isn’t a local-only, you-only app. Here are some security best practices to keep your data safe.

Never put API keys in your code (or your AI tool)

If your app needs to connect to another app or service to work — like how my vibe-coded content calendar connects to Buffer — you’ll need something called an API key (many tools, and even most social platforms offer one). An API key is what lets your app talk to another service, and it functions a bit like a password.

It’s referred to as a ‘secret.’ You don’t want this key:

1. In your code
2. On GitHub
3. In your AI tool

The API belongs in a file called .env. and I recommend you paste it in there manually.

Your AI agent might ask you to paste it into the chat. Instead, I recommend you drop this prompt in when the time comes to connect to the external app or service:

“I want to keep my API key secure and store it in a .env file, not in the code. Walk me through exactly how to do that. Also, be sure not to expose this key to the browser. Put the call in a server-side function.”

Lock the front door

If you deploy your app to a URL, even if you're the only person who has that URL, it's worth locking it. Be specific about how, though, because "make this password protected" isn't as foolproof as it might sound.

Left to its own devices, an agent will often write the password into the page itself. You get something that looks like a login screen, but the password is sitting in the code where anyone can read it, and it can be skipped past entirely. Not ideal!

There are two things that can help you solve this problem:

1. The simplest by a mile is to turn on password protection at your hosting platform. Vercel and Netlify both offer this at the site level, with no code involved. (If you can’t figure out how to do this, ask your agent for instructions.)
2. The other is to ask for real authentication.Here's a prompt: "Set up proper authentication using Supabase Auth. I don't want the password living in the front-end code."

Cover all the security basics

Use a password manager, because you're about to create a lot of accounts. Create strong passwords and turn on two-factor authentication on GitHub, on your hosting platform, and on your AI tool.

Vibe coding ideas: what to build first

The hardest part of starting is often choosing. I often find myself so overwhelmed by the possibilities, I do exactly… nothing.

So here's the rule I'd give someone in our line of work: build something that solves one small annoyance in your own workflow. Is there a task you’re repeating daily? Or a way you wish you could view reports?

If you’re looking for a little inspo, here’s a full list of some of the most useful things I’ve built:

1. Buffer Content Team Calendar: A ‘master’ calendar that pulls all our blogs, newsletters, videos, and social posts into a single calendar (it can schedule stuff via Buffer’s API, too!)
2. An email app that pulls mail from all my inboxes into a single hub, classifies them, and marks the ones I need to take action on.
3. Kite Kids: An activity guide that covers children’s activities across South Africa. (My husband and I built this together, and I’m hoping this might turn into a fun side business!)
4. Burrow: A task consolidator that pulls in all my to-dos from different tools, complete with a productive potato desk pet (completing tasks ‘feeds’ him.)
5. A fitness dashboard that allows me to track my workouts and PRs.

And some ideas from the Buffer team:

• Brandon built a content engine that produces 21 posts a week
• Miguel built a MacOS app that summarizes articles he saved to read later
• Joe built an app that adds his Pokemon cards to his store and promotes them via Buffer

From our community:

• Shivani built a content library that lets her search, analyze, and repurpose her Buffer posts
• She also built her own LinkedIn content command center
• Violeta built an AEO content workflow that finds LinkedIn gaps and drafts posts in Buffer
• Fahad built an idea engine that finds trending topics and stages them in Buffer

Where to go from here

You don't need to do all of this on day one. You don’t need to try every tool on this list, learn the glossary by heart, or start chatting about the ‘repo’ at your next dinner party (in fact, I strongly recommend you don’t.)

What you do need is a willingness to be a beginner for a few hours — and the persistence to just keep asking your agent to fix, guide, or explain. That was my crash course.

If you make something, I'd love to see it. Come find me on Threads and show me!

More vibe coding resources

• How to Post on Social Media from Claude
• The Best MCP Servers for Social Media

Vibe coding glossary

API — Short for application programming interface. It's the doorway one app opens so another app can talk to it. My content calendar pulls posts from Buffer through Buffer's API. You'll need one if your build needs access to data or functionality from any other app or service.

Front end and back end — The front end is the part you see and click: buttons, text, layout, colors. The back end is everything happening behind it: storing your data, doing the calculations, talking to other services. A simple tool might be front-end only. Anything that remembers something between visits has both.

GitHub — A free website where your project files live, along with every version of them you've ever saved. Google Drive for code, essentially, but with a much better memory. It's also where hosting platforms like Vercel and Netlify expect to find your project when you want to put it online.

Git — The version tracking system GitHub is built on. Git does the actual work of recording every change you save; GitHub is the website that stores those records and shows them to you. You'll see the word in commands and in your agent's replies, and you never really need to learn it directly.

Repo — Short for repository. It's the folder your project lives in on GitHub. One project, one repo. Keep yours private unless you have a specific reason not to.

Commit — A save point. Every time you commit, git stores a snapshot of your project exactly as it is, with a short note about what changed. That snapshot is saved on your computer until you push it to GitHub, which is why the two usually happen in the same breath. If tomorrow's version breaks something, you can roll back to the last commit that worked. Commit whenever something works, not just when you think you're finished.

Secrets — The passwords of the coding world: API keys, database passwords, anything that would let a stranger into something of yours. Secrets never go in your code, never go into GitHub, and ideally never get pasted into your chat with your agent either.

.env — A small file that sits in your project folder and holds your secrets, kept separate from the rest of your code. The dot at the start tells your computer to treat it as hidden. Pair it with .gitignore — a file that tells GitHub which files to skip — and your keys stay off the internet.

The best times to post on Instagram in 2026 are Thursday at 9 a.m., Wednesday at 12 p.m., and Wednesday at 6 p.m., based on Buffer's analysis of 9.6 million Instagram posts. Wednesday is the best day overall, while Friday and Saturday are the weakest.

But the best time to post on Instagram isn't a single slot every day. It shifts by day, and the gap between these high engagement times and lulls is more of a chasm than a crevice.

There are a lot of factors that decide how a post performs, but the one that often feels make-or-break is when you hit publish.

Totally fair. With more brands and creators investing in Instagram than ever in recent years — and audiences spending more time on the app — the competition for feed space is fierce. You don't want to pour hours into a post, only to share it into an Instagram dead zone and hear... crickets.

Sharing Instagram Stories, reels, feed posts, and carousels at the right times is one of the easier wins in your social media strategy. If your content lands on your audience's feed while they're online to engage with it, it's more likely to succeed. Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, even suggests posting 30 to 60 minutes before your audience is likely to come online.

Engagement is one of the strongest signals the Instagram algorithm uses to decide what to surface. Likes, comments, shares, and reposts tell the app your content is worth showing to more people.

Posting consistently matters, too. Audiences are generally receptive to regular content from brands and creators, so showing up on a predictable schedule, timed to when your followers are active, gives you the best shot at building momentum. Tools like Buffer can help you plan and schedule posts so you're always showing up at the right time, even on your busiest days.

We analyzed the engagement of 9.6 million Instagram posts as part of Buffer's State of Social Engagement 2026 report (which examined 52 million posts across 10 platforms from more than 200,000 accounts between January 2024 and December 2025) to pin down the best times to post on Instagram, backed by real data.

Let's dig into when to post on Instagram, plus how to figure out your own best time, whether you're a creator, a social media manager, or a small business owner trying to make every post count.

Key takeaways

• Thursday at 9 a.m., Wednesday at 12 p.m., and Wednesday at 6 p.m. are the top three time slots to post on Instagram, based on Buffer's analysis of 9.6 million posts.
• Wednesday is the single best day to post on Instagram, followed by Thursday and Tuesday. Midweek consistently outperforms the rest of the week.
• Evening hours (6 p.m. to 11 p.m.) generate the strongest engagement on every weekday except Thursday.
• Thursday is the exception. Morning posts (7 a.m. to 9 a.m.) outperform evening slots on that day alone.
• Friday and Saturday are the worst days to post on Instagram, with engagement dropping across every time slot.
• Your mileage may vary by industry. Morning posts may work better for some niches (like retail or media), while afternoon slots tend to outperform for others (like finance or hospitality). Use these benchmarks as a starting point, then lean on your own data to fine-tune.
• Reels may follow slightly different peak windows than static feed posts or carousels. If reels are a big part of your Instagram strategy, it's worth experimenting with early morning and midday slots on top of the evening windows highlighted above.

📊 About this data

• Sample Size: 9.6 million Instagram posts (part of a 52M+ post study).
• Scope: 200,000+ accounts across 10 platforms.
• Timeline: January 2024 – December 2025.
• Metric: Median engagement rate (Likes + Comments + Shares + Saves / Followers x 100).

Is there a best time to post on Instagram?

Yes. Buffer's analysis of 9.6 million Instagram posts shows that specific time slots consistently outperform others, with Wednesday and Thursday yielding the highest engagement, and evening hours (6 p.m. to 11 p.m.) winning across most days. Content quality still matters most, but timing meaningfully shifts reach.

Here's why: Instagram's algorithm rewards relevance, but recency still dictates your initial reach. When you post while your audience is actively scrolling, you build early momentum, and that momentum signals to the algorithm that your content is worth surfacing to more people.

The patterns we uncovered were the most surprising part. Evening hours consistently outperform mornings across most days of the week, with one Thursday-shaped exception (more on that in a moment).

Timing isn't as critical as it was in the chronological-feed days (R.I.P.), but it still plays a role in your social media marketing strategy.

Phew. Let's look at what the data actually shows.

🌏 No timezone troubles: To make this data easier to understand, our data scientist normalized the times so they apply to any timezone — no manual converting needed. These times already apply to your timezone. Whether you're in EST (Eastern Standard Time), PST (Pacific Standard Time), MST (Mountain Standard Time), or IST (Indian Standard Time), the times apply to you.

The best times to post on Instagram

The best times to post on Instagram in 2026 are Thursday at 9 a.m., Wednesday at 12 p.m., and Wednesday at 6 p.m.

These findings align with broader industry research, which consistently points to midweek (particularly Wednesday and Thursday) and late afternoon-to-evening windows as the highest-engagement slots on Instagram.

Our latest data shows evening hours (6 p.m. to 11 p.m.) see the strongest engagement across all timezones. Build your schedule around those hours.

This tracks, considering over a third of Instagram users are 25 to 34 years old, according to Statista's audience demographics. This age group is most likely to check the app in the evenings to unwind after work. Things pick up in the early afternoons on some weekdays. There's also a notable midday spike on Wednesdays around noon. (Who doesn't love a lunch hour scroll?)

Morning hours (6 a.m. to 11 a.m.) are the worst times to post, with one notable exception: Thursday mornings at 9 a.m. show surprisingly strong engagement.

💡 The Thursday 9 a.m. anomaly: We don't know exactly why Thursday at 9 a.m. breaks the evening pattern, but our best guess is end-of-week planning energy. People check in on creators and brands while they map out their weekend.

As you'll see from the heatmap graph above, the best Instagram posting times vary depending on the day of the week. The darkest slots represent the time slots with the highest engagement.

The light-colored to white blocks are the time slots with the lowest engagement, showing the posting times that are best avoided if you're after the best possible engagement and reach.

The end of the week and weekends look different from weekdays. Friday and Saturday are the worst days to post content, with significantly lower engagement across all time slots. If weekends are part of your posting strategy, evening hours (8 p.m. to 10 p.m.) on Sunday offer your best bet for catching weekend scrollers.

The best times to post on Instagram at a glance

Source: Buffer's State of Social Engagement 2026 report (9.6M Instagram posts analyzed, Jan 2024 to Dec 2025). Times apply to your local timezone.

If you'd rather see the why behind each day, and not just the top three slots, here's the day-by-day breakdown.

The best time to post on Instagram for every day of the week

Best time to post on Instagram today

The best time to post on Instagram today depends on the day you're reading this. Here's the quick version: find today below, post in that window, and you're working with the data instead of against it.

• Monday: 7 p.m., then 6 p.m. or 8 p.m. Evenings, once everyone's back from the workday.
• Tuesday: 7 p.m., then 3 p.m. or 5 p.m. Mid-afternoon rolling into the evening.
• Wednesday: 12 p.m., then 6 p.m. or 8 a.m. Your single best day. The lunchtime scroll is real.
• Thursday: 9 a.m., then 8 a.m. or 7 a.m. It's the one day mornings beat evenings.
• Friday: 10 p.m., then 9 p.m. A quieter day overall, so keep expectations in check.
• Saturday: 9 p.m., then 10 p.m. or 8 p.m. Another slow one, so save your big posts for midweek.
• Sunday: 9 p.m., then 10 p.m. or 8 p.m. The strongest weekend slot, as people wind down before Monday.

If today happens to be a Friday or Saturday, don't force your best content out just to fill a slot. Those are the two weakest days in our data — it's absolutely fine to hold your strongest post for Wednesday.

Best time to post on Monday in 2026

The best time to post on Instagram on Monday is 7 p.m., followed by 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Monday evenings are when audiences settle back into their Instagram feeds after the workday, making the 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. window your strongest play to start the week.

Best time to post on Tuesday in 2026

The best time to post on Instagram on Tuesday is 7 p.m., followed by 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Tuesday is the third-strongest day of the week overall, and its top slots stretch from mid-afternoon into the early evening. If you only post once on Tuesday, aim for 7 p.m.

Best time to post on Wednesday in 2026

The best time to post on Instagram on Wednesday is 12 p.m., followed by 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. Wednesday is the highest-performing day in our data, with three strong slots across the day. The midday spike is unusual (most days don't see a noon peak) and lines up with the lunchtime scroll.

Best time to post on Thursday in 2026

The best time to post on Instagram on Thursday is 9 a.m., followed by 8 a.m. and 7 a.m. Thursday is the most counterintuitive day in the dataset: it's the only weekday where mornings outperform evenings. Aim for 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. for your strongest engagement.

Best time to post on Friday in 2026

The best time to post on Instagram on Friday is 10 p.m., followed by 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. Friday is one of the two weakest days to generate enagagement overall, so treat any Friday slot as a hold-the-line day rather than your prime time.

Best time to post on Saturday in 2026

The best time to post on Instagram on Saturday is 9 p.m., followed by 10 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday and Friday share the weakest engagement of the week, so save your high-stakes posts for midweek and use Saturday evening for lighter content.

Best time to post on Sunday in 2026

The best time to post on Instagram on Sunday is 9 p.m., followed by 10 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday evenings are the strongest weekend window, with audiences scrolling as they wind down before Monday.

The best day of the week to post on Instagram

Wednesday is the best day to post on Instagram, followed closely by Thursday and Tuesday. These midweek days consistently show the highest engagement rates across multiple time slots.

Comparatively, the worst days to post on Instagram are Friday and Saturday. Weekend engagement drops significantly, making weekdays your best bet for maximum reach and engagement.

Worst times and days for Instagram engagement

The worst times to post on Instagram are between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on any day, and on Friday and Saturday in general.

A few patterns from Buffer's 9.6M-post analysis:

• Overnight (1 a.m. to 5 a.m.): Lowest engagement across every day of the week. Don't post on Instagram while your audience is asleep.
• Friday and Saturday: Lowest-performing days overall, all time slots.
• Weekday mornings (6 a.m. to 11 a.m.): Generally weak, with one exception: Thursday, 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.

If you're after maximum reach and the most engagement, save your best content for midweek.

Best time to post on Instagram by content type: reels, carousels, and stories

People treat different segments of the Instagram app a little differently, which means it's worth thinking about how reels, carousels, and stories fit into your posting schedule.

An update on the algorithm by Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri offers some useful insight on this front. "People tend to look for their closest friends in stories, use explore to discover new content and creators, and be entertained in reels," he said in a reel.

People are looking to be entertained at certain times of day, and catch up with friends, family, and their favorite creators at other times.

In our analysis, we reviewed all post types together rather than segmenting by format. The high-level takeaway is that the same peak times apply across content types, with small format-specific notes below.

Best time to post Instagram Reels

The best time to post Instagram Reels is in the evening, between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m., with Wednesday and Thursday as your strongest days. These are the same peak windows that hold across the rest of our data.

Quick caveat: we looked at all post types together rather than splitting the numbers out by format, so these aren't reels-only slots. But the evening posting makes particular sense for reels. Per Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, reels are where people go to be entertained, and that mostly happens once the workday's done, and there's time to actually sit and watch.

The signals the algorithm values most are also worth considering here. Instagram's most important signal in 2026 is sends per reach (how often people DM your reel to a friend). To me, these behaviors feel way more likely in a moment of downtime, rather than during the midday rush.

So if you only post one reel this week, aim for a Wednesday or Thursday evening. Then let your own numbers take over — check Buffer Insights or native Instagram analytics after a few weeks to see whether your audience breaks the pattern.

Best time to post Instagram carousels

The best time to post Instagram carousels follows the same midweek pattern: Wednesday at 12 p.m., Wednesday at 6 p.m., and Thursday at 9 a.m. Carousels tend to perform well when readers have the time to swipe through, which lines up with daily routines like their lunch break, mental break, and post-work windows.

Best time to post Instagram Stories

The best time to post Instagram Stories is daily, ideally one to two times per day. Stories disappear after 24 hours, so consistency matters more than picking the perfect slot. Mosseri has recommended sharing one to two stories daily as part of a healthy weekly cadence on the platform.

Set your optimal times to post on Instagram automatically with Buffer's scheduling tool

If, like me, you fancy working smarter, not harder, you can set these recommended times directly in Buffer, no manual entry required.

You can automatically set these recommended times for Instagram and your other social media platforms. Pretty handy, no? It'll take you less than a minute to set up:

1. Hover over Instagram on your channels list on the left, and click on the three dots at the top right to see more options.
2. Choose Manage Posting Times.

3. Under Posting Slot, click the Generate New Posting Slots button, then Use Recommended Times.

The schedule will automatically update to include the optimal posting times for the week, based on our latest analysis of millions of Instagram posts.

Here's a video tutorial showing you how to customize your posting schedule:

The next time you schedule a post, you can pick one of these high-engagement slots without a second thought. No more guessing! You can set your Instagram posting times in Buffer for free — it takes under a minute.

How to find your followers' most active times on Instagram

To see when your followers are on Instagram, it's worth checking Instagram Insights. The in-app analytics surface when your specific audience is most active, which often differs from the platform-wide averages.

For example, my personal Instagram audience's activity level is pretty steady on work days and on the weekends. Their most active times are between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.

For Buffer's Instagram following, things look a little different. They're most active on the platform between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Instagram Insights, the native Instagram analytics tool, can help pinpoint some good times to post on Instagram.

Note that these are times your followers are using Instagram, not necessarily when they are most likely to engage with your content. It's absolutely worth experimenting with these slots, but don't treat them as the be-all and end-all.

To get stats for your own audience via the analytics baked into the app, head over to Instagram Insights on the mobile app. You'll need a professional Instagram account, a Creator or Business Account, to access these numbers.

1. Go to your Instagram profile and click on Professional dashboard just below your bio.
2. Tap on New followers.
3. Scroll to Follower active times to pinpoint your followers' best time to post moments.

You can also access Instagram Insights via the web version of Instagram. To find yours:

1. Log in to your Instagram account in your browser via instagram.com.
2. Click on Dashboard on the left-hand side of the screen.
3. Under the Insights dropdown, select Account.
4. Scroll down to Followers to see your audience's most active times (i.e., your ideal posting times).

FAQs about the best time to post on Instagram

How did you calculate the best time to post on Instagram?

We analyzed 9.6 million Instagram posts from 200,000+ Buffer accounts (January 2024 to December 2025), measuring median engagement rates across time slots to avoid skew from outlier posts and large accounts. This is part of Buffer's State of Social Engagement 2026 report, which examined 52 million posts across 10 platforms.

Why focus on engagement? Reach is important for growth, but engagement tells us when your audience is most likely to interact with your content. The Instagram algorithm now prioritizes 'sends per reach' (how often people DM your post or reel to a friend) as a critical ranking signal.

What is the Instagram algorithm's #1 ranking signal in 2026?

Per Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri, sends per reach (how often people DM your post to a friend) is now the platform's most important algorithmic factor, especially in reels and discover feeds.

We measured median engagement rates, so results aren't skewed by outlier posts or large accounts, which makes this advice applicable whether you're just starting out or have an established following.

Does the time you post on Instagram matter?

Yes, posting time on Instagram matters. Our analysis of 9.6 million Instagram posts shows that content posted at specific times had significantly higher engagement rates.

Evening hours (6 p.m. to 11 p.m.) consistently outperformed other time slots, with Wednesday and Thursday showing the strongest overall performance.

But timing can't save a weak post. Think of it as the cherry on top of your strategy, not the cake itself.

When is it best not to post on Instagram?

The worst times to post on Instagram are between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on any day, and across Friday and Saturday in general.

Morning hours (6 a.m. to 11 a.m.) are the weakest weekday windows, with one exception: Thursday mornings show surprisingly strong engagement.

The most obvious answer is overnight: posts shared between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. tended to get the lowest engagement, no matter what day of the week it is. Rule of thumb: don't post on Instagram while your audience is asleep.

What is the worst time to post on Instagram?

The worst time to post on Instagram is between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. across every day of the week, when engagement consistently bottoms out.

Friday and Saturday are the worst days overall, with significantly lower engagement than weekdays. Avoid posting on Friday lunchtime and Saturday morning if engagement is your goal. The pattern tracks with audience behavior: people are asleep overnight and tend to step away from the app during weekend mornings and commutes.

Is it better to post early or late on Instagram?

Late is better. Evening hours (6 p.m. to 11 p.m.) outperform mornings on every day except Thursday, where 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. is the strongest window.

This aligns with when most Instagram users (particularly the 18 to 34 demographic) are winding down from work and actively scrolling.

What is the best time to post on Instagram today?

The best time to post on Instagram today depends on the day of the week. Here's a quick reference:

Weekdays:

• Monday or Tuesday: 7 p.m. or 6 p.m.
• Wednesday: 12 p.m., 6 p.m., or 8 a.m.
• Thursday: 9 a.m., 8 a.m., or 7 a.m.
• Friday: 10 p.m. or 9 p.m. (though engagement is lower overall)

Weekends:

• Sunday: 9 p.m. or 10 p.m.
• Saturday: 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. (also a weaker day)

What is the best day of the week to post on Instagram?

Avoid Friday and Saturday if engagement is your goal. Weekend engagement drops significantly, making weekdays your best bet for reach. The best day of the week to post on Instagram is Wednesday, followed by Thursday and Tuesday. These midweek days consistently outperform the rest of the week across every time slot in our data.

What is the best time to post Instagram Reels to get more followers?

The best time to post Instagram Reels is during evening hours (6 p.m. to 11 p.m.) on Wednesdays and Thursdays, in line with overall peak engagement windows. Per Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, reels are where people go to be entertained, so the evening wind-down is when your audience has time to actually watch.

When is the best time to post on Instagram across different timezones?

The best times to post on Instagram are the same regardless of your timezone. Buffer's data scientist normalized the data, so 12 p.m. Wednesday means 12 p.m. local time wherever you are.

We've heard this question from readers everywhere, from the US to the UK, India, Australia, Canada, and beyond. Whatever your country or timezone, these times apply. If the best time to post on Instagram on Wednesday is 12 p.m., that's 12 p.m. in your timezone, whether you're based in California or Calcutta.

How often should I post on Instagram?

Post on Instagram 3 to 5 times per week (reels, carousels, or photos) plus 1 to 2 stories daily, per Buffer's analysis of 9.6M posts. This is the sweet spot for reach without overposting.

Social media post frequency is important. Regularly showing up on any of the major social media platforms is often the best way to grow.

Another 2025 Buffer study showed that the more often you post on Instagram, the higher the reach you get per post. We found that 3-5 posts on Instagram per week (reels, carousels, or photo posts) was the sweet spot for maximum impact for your efforts.

Instagram Stories, which disappear after 24 hours, offer a helpful, lightweight way to stay consistent on the platform. Post an Instagram Story at least daily to stay top-of-mind for your followers.

Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, has made similar recommendations. He suggests posting reels, carousels, photos, and stories every week to grow your social media presence, with one to two Instagram Stories daily and a couple of feed posts weekly. That should be enough for consistent Instagram engagement and reach.

Experiment with your posting schedule to find the cadence (along with the time to post) that works best for your target audience, specific followers, and different industries.

Your checklist for high-performing Instagram posts

Figuring out the best time to post on Instagram for maximum reach is one piece of your Instagram marketing strategy, not the whole thing.

As we unpack in our guide to the Instagram algorithm, a huge number of factors decide whether your content performs well when you post on Instagram. Here's our checklist for high-performing Instagram content:

1. Make the most of Instagram's new features: The platform loves showcasing its new features. Using them when you post on Instagram could mean getting your content in front of new audiences.
2. Experiment with content types: Regularly trying out a new type of content when you post on Instagram will help you figure out what resonates the most with your audience. Plus, it's a great way to repurpose your content.
3. Prioritize authentic engagement: Rather than wasting time on Instagram algorithm hacks, focus on meaningful engagement with your followers. Reply to comments and messages (you could boost engagement by 21%!), reshare their mentions of you, and interact with them on their own content. The algorithm now prioritizes 'sends per reach', so encourage your audience to share your posts with friends.
4. Analyze to see what's working: Use Instagram Insights to build your social media presence and see which of your posts have had maximum engagement and reach. Buffer's Insights will also help you uncover your best posts in just a few clicks.

What's actually worked for you when figuring out your best posting times? Tell us @buffer. I read every reply.

Get started with Buffer for free.

More Instagram resources

• 13 Trending Sounds on Instagram (+ How to Use Them)
• 24 Free Instagram Tools to Help Grow Your Account
• How to Make Money on Instagram: 12 Tried + Tested Ways That Work
• I'm Growing on Instagram After 10 Years — Here’s What I'm Doing Differently
• The Complete Guide to Using Instagram Stories to Boost Engagement + Stay Top of Mind
• 13 Ways to Get More Followers on Instagram (Tried & Tested)
• How the Instagram Algorithm Works

Every creator or business’s social media strategy looks different. Some lean into video, while others prefer to use words or pictures to tell the story. Some create new or repurposed content for each post, while others have a mix of new posts and those they recycle on a schedule. 

And then there are agencies that have to manage multiple accounts across it all.

Me? I’m a text-based, new content LinkedIn gal who dreams of starting her own YouTube channel (maybe someday).

Whichever kind of creator or business you are or manage, there’s a social media management tool out there for you. In this post, I’m comparing two of them, complete with hands-on testing across publishing, analytics, inbox management, and team workflows.

Buffer is built around getting content published quickly and flexibly for anyone, from a solo creator to a growing team, with no learning curve and a free plan that has no strings attached. RecurPost is built around the idea that a lot of social media content should keep running behind-the-scenes, with libraries that auto-loop and Instagram DM automations. 

Here’s what I found.

Key takeaways

• Buffer has a free-forever plan that includes three channels, 10 social posts per channel (refillable anytime), basic analytics, API access, and 24/7 email support. RecurPost has no free plan, only a 14-day free trial. On RecurPost's entry-level paid plan ($9 per month), support is knowledge base only, and there are no shareable calendars.
• Buffer’s Team plan ($12/channel per month) has unlimited users. RecurPost’s Agency plan includes 3 seats, and each additional seat costs $20.
• RecurPost’s evergreen content libraries are a mature content recycling system with looping and optional end dates. Buffer has a recurring posts feature in beta, but it’s simpler: set a single post to repeat on a schedule rather than a rotating library of multiple posts.
• Buffer's Community inbox covers comments and mentions across a wider set of platforms, but no DMs. RecurPost's inbox covers comments and DMs on fewer channels.
• RecurPost has strong Instagram DM features. It gives you lots of customization options to set which posts to automatically DM people on, and what to say. Buffer doesn’t offer DM support.
• Buffer's API and MCP come with a developer ecosystem. You’ll find beginner-friendly docs, active builder channels in the Discord community, a Developer Advocate on staff, and stories from builders for inspiration. RecurPost also has both an API and an MCP, but neither is mentioned on the marketing website, and there are no real resources to help builders. Most people would never even know they exist.
• RecurPost’s analytics reporting goes deep. Agency plan teams can create detailed, deeply customizable reports and delivery for clients. Buffer analytics include AI-powered takeaways to easily understand the data, plus Markdown export for deeper analysis in Claude or ChatGPT. 
• Buffer's AI Assistant is unlimited on all plans for content creation and idea generation. RecurPost includes 100 AI credits per month, after which you buy more as a paid add-on.

RecurPost vs. Buffer at a glance

Let’s look at these a little closer.

Plans and pricing

RecurPost and Buffer use different pricing models — one scales per channel, the other is flat-rate with add-ons for channels, users, and additional features.

Buffer pricing (billed monthly, annual saves ~20%)

• Free: 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel (refillable at any time), 1 user, AI Assistant, API and MCP access, analytics, community inbox
• Essentials: starts at $6/channel per month for unlimited posts, 1 user, analytics including exports, first comment scheduling
• Team: starts at $12/channel per month for unlimited posts, unlimited users, approval workflows, custom permissions

Buffer has a tiered pricing model within each plan and includes volume discounts for more than 10 channels. The more channels you use Buffer on, the more affordable each one gets. The Team plan includes unlimited users, so you can have two or 22 people, and it won’t impact your monthly budget.

See Buffer’s full pricing guide here →

RecurPost pricing (billed monthly, annual gets you two months free)

• Starter: $9 per month for 1 user, 2 social accounts, 10 posts per account per day, knowledge base support only
• Personal: $25 per month for 1 user, 5 social accounts, 20 posts per account per day, email and chat support
• Agency: $79/month for 3 users, 20 social accounts, 80 posts per account per day, everything in Personal plus client workspaces, password-free account onboarding, custom reports, internal and external approval workflows
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

If you post to X/Twitter, the platform isn't available during the free trial. Once on a paid plan, basic tweets are included, but posting tweets that contain a URL and X analytics require a paid credit top-up. There’s no inbox support for X.

One good thing to know about RecurPost’s pricing is that, if you need more accounts than a plan provides, you can add them à la carte instead of jumping up to the next plan. Extra accounts come at $4 per month each. For extra users on the Agency plan, it’ll cost $20 per month per additional seat.

There are also add-ons available for more daily posting slots, boosting posts with Meta Ads Manager, and additional AI credits.

See RecurPost’s full pricing guide →

What this means in practice

Let’s look at how costs compare across a few scenarios for solo creators and teams.

If budget is the sole criteria, the tools look different depending on your team size and the number of channels you manage.

RecurPost does not have an equivalent to Buffer’s Free plan, so if you’re a solo creator with three channels or fewer, then Buffer comes out on top. Add another channel and it’s almost the same. 

For teams, RecurPost works out more cost-effective for fewer channels and team members. As the number of channels and team members needed goes up, Buffer ends up being the more affordable of the two.

Bear in mind this doesn’t take into account any RecurPost add-ons beyond accounts and user seats that aren’t included in the plans. If you run out of AI credits, want to boost Instagram or Facebook posts, or need more calendars to share with clients, among other things (more on all this later), you’ll need to spend more.

Scheduling and publishing

RecurPost's entire scheduling is built around the assumption that you’ll be posting evergreen content continuously. Buffer assumes you're mostly creating something new.

Buffer's composer gets you from idea to scheduled post quickly. Write your post, customize per platform, and schedule. The queue handles timing: set your posting slots once, and new posts drop in automatically. On the Team plan, anyone who needs a post approved hits “Save and Request Approval”, and a team member with full access either edits, rejects, or approves and sends it to the queue.

Just like the posts themselves, the posting slots are also customizable per channel. You can choose your own or let Buffer suggest the best times to post for each channel based on our data. These are flexible and can be changed at any time.

One of my favorite (and most used) spaces in Buffer’s publishing tools is the Create space. It’s a board for saving your ideas before you’re ready to turn them into a ready-to-publish post. My Create space is full of ideas that include: 

• A transcribed voice note to capture an idea before I lose it, saved here from the Buffer iOS app
• A URL I wanted to write about, saved here using Buffer’s browser extension
• Topics to explore more deeply based on things I’ve already posted about, saved here using a custom app I built with the Buffer API

Each one is an idea for a new post to keep my content fresh and make sure I’m never wondering, “What should I post about next?” From here, I can develop an idea further before it’s ready to become a draft, then move it over to the composer and schedule it without leaving Buffer.

On Team plans, the whole team shares the Create space, so you can collaborate on ideas within Buffer itself. RecurPost has no equivalent — there's nowhere to hold work-in-progress or store ideas before you lose them. 

RecurPost's scheduling system works differently in other ways too. You can schedule a post once and move on to the next, but that’s not what it’s designed around. Instead, you create a library, add recurring time slots by day of week or month, and posts cycle through and loop back automatically. 

Two posts in a library alternate. Six posts rotate in order and then restart at the beginning. If you add an end date to a specific post, it drops out of the rotation from that date, and the rest continue.

It was pretty fiddly to figure out at first, and I’ll admit I spent a few hours trying to wrap my head around setting it up. If your content is unique each time, this system is more complex than you need. But for content that's meant to repeat, RecurPost's library approach is strong.

Buffer also has recurring posts (currently in beta), but it works differently — you can set one post at a time to repeat on a schedule rather than a rotating library of multiple posts cycling through automatically.

Where RecurPost goes the extra mile is in its Instagram-specific features. From within the composer itself, you can schedule a reel as a trial reel if your account supports it, add licensed audio via your Facebook connection, set up an automatic DM for a specific post, and tag people, products, and collaborators. 

An additional $5 per month allows you to boost Instagram (and Facebook) posts from within RecurPost. You’ll need to connect your Meta Ads Manager account for this, and once set up, you can manage ads while scheduling posts. For Instagram-heavy workflows, this is a much richer toolkit than many schedulers offer.

If you share the same content across different platforms, keep in mind that you can customize the post for each platform only on the Personal plan and above. On the Starter plan, you’d have to schedule the post on each platform separately.

Inbox and engagement

Buffer's Community inbox covers a wide platform footprint. You can reply to comments and mentions on Facebook Pages, LinkedIn profiles and pages, Instagram professional accounts, Threads, Bluesky, X/Twitter, Google Business Profiles, TikTok, YouTube, and Mastodon.

If you’re spread out across different channels, you can engage with your audience and build relationships from within Buffer itself instead of hopping back and forth between them. AI reply suggestions are available on all platforms and give you a starting point for each comment if you need a nudge. 

Every channel has its own Comment Score to track how quickly your team responds, and you can save responses to the most frequently asked questions. These are shared with your whole team, so everyone can drop the same answer to these questions so that commenters aren’t left waiting for too long.

RecurPost's inbox covers Instagram business profiles, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn Company Pages, and Google Business Profiles. It’s a narrower set of platforms, but it goes deeper by including Facebook and Instagram DMs.

The Instagram DM automation is one of RecurPost’s strongest features across the entire platform. You can set up lots of configurations: have it run on individual posts or reels (or across all of them), choose a specific keyword trigger or go on every comment, and decide whether to send a DM instantly or only after the person follows you first. 

I tested it, and it worked beautifully. It’s exactly the kind of thing that's useful for those campaigns where you want to automatically send a link or a download to anyone who comments on your posts. 

One thing to watch out for: comments that were auto-replied to by an automation still showed up in the inbox as pending (like the one in the screenshot below). This creates a real risk of a double response if a team member doesn't notice it was already handled.

Another gap is that RecurPost doesn’t have saved replies. On platforms that aren’t Instagram, your team has to manually write responses to repeated questions each time. This makes it slower to go through all the pending comments, and it risks miscommunication if there’s been a change in one of your policies and a teammate didn’t clock it before replying.

If your engagement work is primarily comment management across many platforms, Buffer is the right fit. If managing DMs for a smaller set of platforms matters, or you want to run automated Instagram DM campaigns, RecurPost is the stronger choice.

Analytics and reporting

Analytics on Buffer live in Insights and cover 10 platforms: Instagram, Facebook, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky, YouTube, and Mastodon. You get data for each individual channel and your entire social media presence rolled up in one. Use filters or channel groups to create a custom dashboard for two or more channels of your choosing. 

You can even create dashboards for tags assigned to posts. I use tags to categorize posts by topic, so I can see how, for example, all posts on content creation or all posts on data privacy have performed.

At the channel level, AI-powered weekly takeaways share tailored suggestions on what to do next. For creators and teams that want both the numbers and data-backed, built-in recommendations for how to grow their engagement and following, Buffer’s Insights offers it all in one place.

On paid plans, you can export your data in PDF format for reporting to clients or stakeholders, plus CSV or Markdown formats if you want to run a deeper analysis on a tool like ChatGPT or Claude.

You can build custom reports using filters: by client, by channel or channel group, by tags, or a combination of these. Set a date range — the past 7 days, the past 30 days, the past quarter, something else entirely — and compare it against the same period before it or even the same date range in the previous year.

It’s a flexible way to create reports that show exactly what each client or campaign needs. Bookmark the custom view to return to it with one click for next month’s report.

Where Buffer's Insights are designed to help you act on your data quickly, RecurPost's analytics are designed to give you everything you may ever need for a report. The dashboards are incredibly detailed: channel and post performance snapshots; audience demographics by age, gender, country and city; link click performance; and publishing cadence; to name just a few. 

The custom report builder, available on Agency and above, lets you tailor reports down to how the data is presented — line chart, raw numbers, or others — remove metrics you don't need, and add ones the templates don't include by default. White-label PDF reports with agency branding and scheduled delivery to clients are available on Agency and above. For agency billing and client reporting, this is a strong foundation.

RecurPost’s AI feature for analytics has a chat interface where you can ask plain-language questions about your performance data. Where the data exists, it analyzes and responds. Where it doesn't, it generates a response that appears to be based on general best practices, which is worth knowing before you lean on it for client meetings.

X/Twitter analytics are available only as a paid-add on that’s priced per post. It’s an incredibly low amount — $0.006 per post — but worth flagging for agencies that need to report on hundreds of posts across multiple clients.

Team collaboration

Buffer’s Team plan includes unlimited team members at no additional cost. When you invite a new team member, you can give them the exact permissions they need for posting and inbox management for each social channel.

For posting, team members can have full access to publish without approval, require approval before publishing, or no access to the channel’s publishing. For the Community inbox, they can have full access to reply to any comments or mentions, view only so they can read but not reply, or no access to the channel’s inbox.

Permissions don’t have to be the same for one channel. A team member can have full access to post on Instagram and view only access to comments, while having no access to TikTok at all.

Since the plan includes unlimited team members, you can invite clients and give them access to only their channels without compromising on your own or other clients’ privacy. Brainstorming, drafting, and approvals can all happen with your team or clients directly inside Buffer.

In RecurPost, team collaboration takes place in workspaces. Your plan's channel limit is shared across all workspaces — on Agency, you're distributing the 20 included accounts across clients, not multiplying them per workspace. 

Each workspace has its own connected social profiles, media library, team members, and reports. You can invite team members to specific workspaces only, so a contractor or teammate working on one client account can’t see what’s in any of the others. If they’re working on more than one account, invite them to all the relevant workspaces to give them access.

There’s one big limitation with team workflows: there’s no way to require approval from a team member. They can choose to send a post for approval when adding it to the library, but there's no access levels within a workspace like Buffer has. Anyone on the team can schedule a post or reply to messages without any oversight.

RecurPost’s Agency plan comes with three user seats in total, so if you need four or more, that’s a paid add-on at $20 per seat. You don’t need to add clients to your plan. The Agency plan comes with five shareable calendars — a maximum of one allowed per workspace — and you can get more via paid add-ons again. Clients can view a shareable calendar without logging in and comment on individual posts directly to share feedback.

For agencies where clean client separation matters most, RecurPost's workspace model is the right structure. For teams that need enforced approval workflows across all content, Buffer's permissions model is more reliable.

AI features

Buffer's AI Assistant is available on every plan including Free, with no cap on its use for publishing posts. You can use it in the Create space to spin up post ideas, and in the composer to draft the text, repurpose content across platforms, or just refine what you already have. 

You can also generate alt text for any images you post to make them more accessible. If you rely on AI to get the words flowing, you can use it as often as you like without running into limits on any plan.

AI-powered takeaways in Insights work the same way: always on, no credits required. In the Community inbox, AI reply suggestions are unlimited on paid plans, and Free plans get five suggestions per week.

These are just the AI features inside Buffer. You can also connect your Buffer account to AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT and work on your social media content from inside the tools you’re already using (more on this below).

RecurPost also has AI reply suggestions for the inbox and an AI chat feature to analyze reports, but it’s the AI posting features that offer plenty of options. You can use it to generate a single post, plan a full week’s worth of content, create posts based on a template, and draft for holidays and observances like Halloween or Valentine's Day. I tested these out with a mixed bag of results.

Where it fared better was with AI-generated images to accompany the posts, which Buffer doesn’t offer. I generated with both a vague prompt and detailed instructions — including brand colors, angle, and illustration style — and was pleasantly surprised that I got two equally good graphics at first shot.

These AI features come with caps: 100 credits per month across all plans for post generation, and 10 for images, with add-ons available to buy if you need more.

One thing I couldn't find during testing: a visible, persistent credit counter anywhere. The in-session counter resets every time you close the chat, so after using the AI tools across a few different sessions, I had no way of knowing how many credits I had left overall. 

For teams that want image generation, custom AI personas, weekly planning tools, and don't mind managing a monthly allowance, RecurPost's AI has more range. For daily use without credit management, Buffer's unlimited approach is simpler. 

API and MCP

Both Buffer and RecurPost have public APIs and MCPs, but the experience surrounding them is poles apart.

Buffer's API is available on all plans including Free, and the number of calls and API keys depends on your plan. 

It’s incredibly easy to use — I know, because I’ve built a bunch of tools and workflows despite being a non-technical user. Buffer users have spun up everything from a trend-based ideas engine to a workflow that turns questions in Slack into social media posts written in the author’s voice.

What makes all of this easier is the ecosystem around the API. You’ll find stories on the Buffer blog about what people have actually built so you can get inspiration, beginner-friendly guides and best practices in the developer docs, clear support documentation, active builder channels in the Discord community, and a full-time Developer Advocate on the Buffer team. If you're building something with Buffer, there's real support available for builders of all technical levels.

There’s also an MCP so you can use Buffer directly from inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Cursor, Raycast, and others. Ask what's scheduled for the week, brainstorm and save ideas, draft and schedule posts directly from inside the tools you’re already using. Buffer also has an official Claude connector so you can get it up and running quickly.

RecurPost’s API works — I tested it with a lightweight Lovable app just to confirm. But while the technical foundation exists, there’s none of the surrounding support.

There isn’t even a mention of the API on the website or knowledge base, or indication of usage limits. I found the MCP listed, so I put on my finest detective hat and did a little digging to see if there was also a public API (it’s not a given that it would be available). I found it, but I couldn’t find anything close to Buffer's developer documentation depth or builder community. You can build with RecurPost’s API, but you’re on your own.

This may work for technical users, but it’s a real stumbling block for non-technical users. For anyone who doesn’t want to build custom workflows or tools, this distinction probably doesn't matter. For technical users or anyone who wants a custom integration, Buffer's developer ecosystem is a meaningful advantage.

Customer support

Buffer offers email support on all plans including Free, plus active coverage across social channels and a dedicated support channel in our Discord community. Our global team means someone is available 24/7, no matter what timezone you’re in. There's no live chat, but 24/7 email coverage means you're not waiting until Monday if something goes wrong on a Friday evening.

RecurPost's support model varies by plan. On the Starter plan, you get a knowledge base and self-serve guides only. If you have a problem or question, there’s no human on the other side to help you out. Email and live chat become available on Personal and above, 24/5 with no weekend coverage. Agency and Enterprise plans get faster responses and personalized onboarding help.

There’s also no coverage on Indian public holidays, which I learned when I opened the live chat widget on one such day — that also happened to be a Friday. The message confirmed that support is closed on weekends and any messages that came through would be answered on Monday in the order they arrived.

That gap in support coverage can be frustrating for different reasons. It could mean a missed opportunity to run a time-bound promotion for a small business, scrambling to fix problems with influencer marketing campaigns for a creator, and problems with client accounts for agencies. Buffer's 24/7 availability on every plan is a meaningful difference here.

Supported platforms

Both Buffer and RecurPost cover similar channels, with a few differences among them.

There are two gaps that matter most for publishing: Buffer supports Substack and Mastodon, and RecurPost doesn't. RecurPost supports full YouTube video upload — title, category, thumbnail, the whole thing — while Buffer covers Shorts only. If either of these channels are part of your social media presence, you need the tool that supports it.

The other is the inbox. Buffer supports comments and mentions on a much wider range of channels, and RecurPost supports DMs for a select few.

Who should pick which tool

Creators and solopreneurs

Pick Buffer. If video is central to what you do, go with RecurPost. For everything else, Buffer is the stronger fit. Our Free plan is a real free plan — three channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel (refillable at any time), an AI Assistant, API access, analytics, and community inbox, with no credit card required. RecurPost has no free plan, and its $9 per month Starter plan limits you to knowledge base support. If you occasionally need content to repeat, Buffer’s recurring posts feature handles the basics. If evergreen libraries are central to your strategy, RecurPost Personal plan at $25 per month is the minimum to get the feature set that makes it worthwhile.

Small businesses and growing teams

It depends. If you publish fresh content consistently and need strict approval workflows that cover everything your team publishes, Buffer is the cleaner setup. Our permissions go to the channel level, with posting and inbox access configured independently for each user. And because Team includes unlimited team members, you're not paying per seat as your team grows. If you publish evergreen content on repeat, have fewer users, and don't need enforced posting approval workflows inside the tool, RecurPost's Agency plan is worth a serious look — just know that the fourth user and above are $20 per month each.

Video creators

Pick RecurPost. If you post primarily video content, RecurPost is hard to beat. Its Instagram toolkit goes further than most schedulers, it supports full YouTube video uploads as well as Shorts, and has TikTok-specific features like setting privacy levels per post, turning off comments, and enabling duets and stitches directly from the composer. 

Agencies

Pick Buffer. Buffer’s Team plan starts at $12/channel per month and includes unlimited users. You can require approval on every post before it goes live, build flexible custom reports per client, support engagement on 10 channels, and get round-the-clock support. RecurPost goes deeper on analytics — but its Agency plan starts at $79/month, the cost grows with every user you add beyond three, there’s no way to enforce approvals, and the inbox supports only four channels.

Technical (and non-technical) users and builders

Pick Buffer. The API is available on every plan including Free, and the MCP connects directly to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Raycast, and others. What makes it practical for non-technical users as much as developers is the ecosystem: builder stories, beginner-friendly guides, active builder channels in the Discord community, and a full-time Developer Advocate on staff. RecurPost has both an API and an MCP, but you'd be building without meaningful documentation, usage guidance, or community support.

To sum it up

RecurPost is the right call in specific situations: video-first creators who need all the bells and whistles for Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, and teams running evergreen content libraries for clients with white-label delivery.

For everyone else — and for most teams that don't map neatly to one of those categories — I think Buffer is the stronger fit. The free plan is real, the data is designed to help you act, the scheduling is fast, and approval workflows cover everything your team publishes.

Buffer has a real free plan, and RecurPost has a 14-day free trial — the best way to know which is right for you is to try both and see which suits how you and your team work.

Sign up here to try Buffer’s Free plan — it’s free forever, no catch.

Frequently asked questions

Does RecurPost have a free plan?

No, RecurPost offers a 14-day free trial, but there's no ongoing free plan after that. The entry-level paid plan is Starter at $9 per month for two social accounts and one user, with support limited to a knowledge base. Buffer has a free-forever plan that includes three social channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel (refillable at any time), an AI Assistant, API access, and basic analytics, with no trial period or expiry date.

Is Buffer or RecurPost better for agencies?

Buffer is better for agencies. Buffer’s Team plan starts at $12/channel per month and includes unlimited users, enforced approval workflows, flexible custom reports, inbox features for up to 10 channels, and 24/7 customer support.

RecurPost’s analytics go deeper on the Agency plan and include white-label reports and password-free client approvals. But the plan starts at $79 per month, the cost grows $20 with every user you add beyond three, the inbox only supports four channels, and there’s no way to require approvals before publishing.

Which is cheaper, Buffer or RecurPost?

It depends on two things: how many channels you connect and how many users you have.

Buffer pricing is per channel — Essentials starts at $6 per channel per month, Team at $12 — with volume discounts as you scale. Team includes unlimited team members at no extra cost. There are no surprises: you know exactly what you'll pay each month regardless of how many people are on your team.

RecurPost uses fixed plans with room to grow without upgrading. You can add channels or users without moving up a plan, but each addition is an extra cost ($4 per channel and $20 per user). Layer on top of that the add-ons like Twitter analytics and tweet links, and additional AI credits beyond what's included in your plan. The base price may look lower at a small scale, but the total can climb depending on how you use it.

Does Buffer have content recycling like RecurPost?

Yes, but it's simpler. Buffer's recurring posts feature (in beta) lets you schedule a post and set it to repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. RecurPost's library system is more elaborate: you create a library, set recurring time slots by day, add multiple posts that cycle through and loop back automatically, and can set end dates on individual posts to pull them from rotation. For basic recurring content, Buffer works. For a full evergreen library strategy with multiple rotating posts and seasonal content, RecurPost's system is more capable.

Does RecurPost have an API?

Yes, RecurPost has both an API and an MCP, although neither is mentioned on RecurPost's pricing page, and there's no information about which plans include access or what the usage limits are. Buffer's API is available on all plans including Free, clearly documented with per-plan limits and supported by a developer community, beginner-friendly guides, and a full-time Developer Advocate.

Can I switch from RecurPost to Buffer?

Yes. Setup takes a few minutes: connect your channels, set a posting schedule, and start scheduling content. Buffer will pull in older posts and historical data for each channel based on what the platforms allow. There's no automated way to import scheduled posts from RecurPost, but you can start publishing through Buffer immediately. Buffer's free plan lets you test it with no time limit or credit card required.

I currently author Buffer’s Substack, The Weekly Scroll, which has grown to 92K+ subscribers, and I’ve spent the past month publishing to Notes every day. That hands-on, day-to-day experience is why I revisited and reworked this guide.

Ever since we moved The Weekly Scroll, Buffer’s newsletter, over to Substack a few months ago, I’ve been learning the platform from the inside rather than writing about it as an outsider. A lot of the advice and learnings from my first pass at this guide held up, but some of it didn’t, especially since Substack has changed a fair bit since then.

So this reworked guide walks through everything from setting up your account to growing and monetizing your newsletter, with advice from the creators I interviewed and everything I’ve learned firsthand.

Let’s get into it.

Key takeaways

• Substack is a free newsletter platform with a social layer built in. You publish posts that go out by email, and Notes, Chat, and Live sit around them for discovery and community.
• Subscribers and followers are different groups. Subscribers get your emails; followers only see your Notes in the app. You want both, but subscribers are the ones who'll read your newsletter.
• Setting up properly takes about an hour: fill in your profile, set up the publication and its categories, rewrite the welcome email, connect Stripe, import any list you have, and publish a welcome post and a first Note before you start the regular issues.
• Pick a niche you can describe in a sentence and a schedule you can stick to. Fill in the SEO title and description on every post while you're at it, because Substack articles do rank on Google.
• Most growth happens inside Substack, through Recommendations and Notes, so switch those on before you spend time sharing links elsewhere.
• Substack is free until you turn on paid subscriptions, at which point it takes 10% plus Stripe's processing fees.

What is Substack (and how does it work)?

Substack is a publishing platform where you write posts and send them to subscribers by email, for free, with the option to charge for some or all of your work.

The platform is part social network and part newsletter tool, as every publisher gets a website, an archive, and a profile in the Substack app, where readers can find you through recommendations and the Notes feed.

The simplest way I've found to explain how it all fits together is in three parts: the content you publish, the audience that finds and follows it, and the money you can (but don't have to) make from it.

Content

There are four content surfaces you can use in Substack.

Posts

Posts are the main draw on the platform. They go to your subscribers' inboxes and live on your publication page, and they can be long-form writing, audio, video, or a mix of all three.

Substack’s audio and video capabilities have evolved a lot. You can run a podcast from Substack and it gives you an RSS feed you can submit to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the rest.

You can also publish video posts by uploading a file or recording directly in Substack's Recording Studio (which will look familiar if you’ve ever used Riverside).

Every audio or video post gets a transcript, which you can edit or switch off. And if you connect your YouTube channel under Settings → Connected accounts, Substack will upload your video posts to YouTube when you publish them, along with up to two auto-generated clips as Shorts.

Notes

Notes is Substack's short-form content feed, which works a lot like X or Threads. Anyone on Substack can post Notes, whether or not they have a publication, and they're public, so people who don't follow you can still come across them.

A Note can be plain text, text with up to six images or GIFs, or a video up to five minutes long. There's also a restack button on every post and Note, which reposts it to your own feed with or without your added commentary. Video Notes and clips from your video posts also show up in the app's media tab, which is Substack's vertical, short-form video feed (it launched in early 2025 and works roughly like the TikTok or reels feed, but only for Substack content).

Chat

Chat is a space for conversations with your subscribers, and it only exists inside the app and on your publication page, not by email. Only your subscribers can see it. By default you start the threads, but you can let subscribers start them too, and threads can hold text, photos, image replies, and emoji reactions, so it works a bit like a group chat you host. Substack's direct messages live in the same tab, so this is also where one-to-one conversations with readers and other writers happen.

Live

Live lets you stream video to your audience from the Substack app or your computer. You pick who can watch (everyone on Substack, all your subscribers, or paid subscribers only), you can invite up to two other Substack writers to stream with you, and you can schedule a live in advance. When you go live, Substack notifies your subscribers and adds the stream to their queue.

Once you finish, the recording is saved as a draft post, so you can edit it and send it to the subscribers who didn't catch it live, or cut clips from it to share as Notes. If you already stream with something like OBS or Riverside, Substack supports RTMP, so you can send that feed in rather than using the app's camera.

Audience

On Substack, subscribers and followers are not the same thing (which definitely confused me a bit at first!).

• Subscribing: When someone subscribes to your publication, they get your posts by email as well as all your other content.
• Following: When someone follows you, they only see your Notes and activity in their app feed, but they don't get any emails. Followers exist because Notes exist, so they're more like a social following than a newsletter audience.

This distinction is important because Substack shows you Notes from writers you don't follow and shows your Notes to people who don’t yet follow you. This way, your Notes can reach people who've never heard of you.

And of course, the goal with followers is to eventually turn them into subscribers, since you control and can export your subscriber list anytime and take it to another platform, but you can't export your followers.

Monetization

Substack is free for you and free for your readers unless you turn on paid subscriptions. When you do, you connect Stripe (an external payment platform), set your prices (monthly, annual, and an optional founding tier for readers who want to pay more), and choose what sits behind the paywall. That can be whole posts, part of a post with a free preview, paid-only Chat threads, or paid-only lives.

Substack takes 10% of that revenue, and Stripe takes its processing fees on top. I've broken the actual numbers down in the monetization section, along with when to start charging and what the creators I spoke to and researched put behind their paywalls.

How to use Substack: setting up your publication step by step

While you can technically publish your first Substack post within about five minutes of signing up, I'd hold off. Spending an hour on setup first means that when someone lands on your page from a Note or a recommendation, they see a real publication, not a blank profile with one post. Here's the order I'd do it in.

1. Create your account and fill in your profile

Head to substack.com, sign up, and go straight to Edit profile (click your profile picture, or go to substack.com/profile/edit) before you do anything else. Your profile is what shows up when someone taps your name in Notes, and it's the first thing a potential subscriber checks.

• Add a photo — we went with a face (mine), but a logo works too.
• This is also where you set your handle, which becomes your profile URL and what people use to tag you.
• Create a short bio, and add links to your other socials. The bio should say what you write about and who it's for, in the way you'd say it to someone. So instead of "I'm a marketing expert sharing my thoughts on digital trends," something like "Every week, I break down digital marketing trends into strategies you can actually use."

There's also a Branding section on the same page where you can add a header image and pick an accent color for your profile. It's optional, but it’ll only take a minute and makes the page look polished and personalized.

⚡Under Subscription Privacy, you can choose whether the publications you subscribe to show on your profile. I like to have this visible, along with the specific publications we love here at Buffer, because it helps amplify similar newsletters (recommendations are a big deal on Substack) and what you read says a lot about what you write.

2. Set up your publication

A profile lets you post Notes and follow people, but a publication is the actual newsletter, with its own name, URL, subscribe page, and settings.

Substack creates one for you automatically, and the first time you click the + button on your Home page or Create in your profile page and choose Article, you'll land on it.

To make modifications to the publication, you’ll want to get to your Publisher dashboard, which you can access by selecting the graph icon on the left to take you straight there, or clicking the three dots on your profile, then selecting Publisher dashboard.

At the bottom left, you’ll see Settings, where you can modify all the details about your publication, from your name to payments.

Some immediate things to do in your Settings:

• Pick a name and your URL. You can change both later, but that may confuse subscribers, and you can't set up a redirect (to my knowledge), so choose wisely. If you'd rather use your own domain, that's under Settings → Domain. It's a one-time $50 fee, and Substack needs a subdomain like www. rather than the bare domain (here's how).
• Pick a category or two from the drop-down. Substack uses them to surface your publication in search and discovery and to decide which leaderboard you show up on.
• Upload a logo and a cover image, and pick your homepage layout and colors.
• Write a one-line description. It shows up on your Welcome page (yourname.substack.com/welcome), which is what first-time visitors see before your homepage.

Substack also gives you a setup checklist in your dashboard, which is handy if you're doing this over a few sessions.

3. Write your welcome email

New subscribers get an automatic welcome email, and this is a great opportunity to give them a taste of what to expect from your content.

State who you are, what they'll get, how often, and ask them one question they can reply to. Replies boost deliverability and, more importantly, they're how you learn more about who’s opening and reading your emails.

You'll find them under Settings → Emails, and there are actually four types of you can create: one each for free, paid, imported, and founding subscribers. I recommend starting with the free one, although the imported one matters more if you're bringing a list over (more on that in step 5).

Substack has also been rolling out email automations to more publications since August 2026, so depending on when you read this, you might also be able to set up a short welcome sequence of emails rather than a single email. If you have it, definitely use it.

4. Connect Stripe (even if you're not charging yet)

You don't have to charge anything to sign up for or use Substack, but connecting Stripe is an easy step takes five minutes and means you can turn on paid subscriptions later without a scramble.

It's under Settings → Payments → Connect with Stripe.

Stripe will ask for a business address, your personal details, and a bank account, then send you back to Substack to set up your plans. If you're sure you'll never charge for your publication, feel free to skip this step.

⚡Note: Stripe isn't available everywhere. You can still set up a free publication, but Substack lists a handful of countries (India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Malaysia, and Thailand at the time of writing) where you can't turn on paid subscriptions, and Stripe's own supported countries list is the one to check for everywhere else.

5. Import an existing email list or previous content

If you have email subscribers elsewhere, import them.

Go to the Subscribers tab, choose Upload a CSV (.csv or .txt both work), and confirm those people gave you permission to email them.

This is what we did with the Weekly Scroll, and it's the biggest reason the move didn't feel like starting from scratch.

If you're also moving old posts over from Medium, Ghost, WordPress, Mailchimp, or beehiiv, that's under Settings → Import/Export.

Just know that everything imports as published, so you can't pick and choose beforehand. You delete what you don't want afterward.

If you don't have a list yet, grab your subscribe link from your publication page and add it to your social bios and website. Substack also gives you an embeddable subscribe form that you can add to your website.

6. Publish a welcome post

Before you start the regular newsletter, publish a post that introduces you and what you'll write about.

It might sound similar to a welcome email, but is more a way to keep your archive from looking empty. Keep it short, detailing who you are, why you're publishing, what to expect and how often, and an invitation to reply or share.

7. Post your first Note

Once your publication is live, write one Note. It doesn't need to be the most clever thing; it can literally be a Hello World post.

In other ideas, say what you've just launched and what it's about, and link to your welcome post. Notes is where most of your early discovery will come from, and it's much less intimidating to post there once you've done it once.

That's everything you need for the initial setup. Everything after this is about what you publish and how you get it in front of people.

What to publish on Substack

Once the publication is set up, the next question is the same one everyone has: what is this thing actually about? Along with, of course, a list of smaller questions like when should I share, or how do I promote?

I haven't found a single right answer, but the newsletters that seem to be doing really well by all publicly available metrics have a clear focus, a sustainable publishing rhythm, and a clear voice and point of view.

Here's how the creators I spoke to (and I) approached it.

Start with a niche, even a loose one

You don't need a hyper-specific niche on day one, but you do need a starting point, because a clear focus is what makes it obvious who should subscribe.

A few questions that help: What do you enjoy writing about, week after week? Who do you want reading it? And what do you know or notice that other people writing about the same thing don't?

That said, don't overthink it. Some of the best newsletters started as someone exploring an idea and figuring out the niche as they went. I'm still adjusting what the Weekly Scroll covers based on what people open and what gets responses, and I'd rather do that than wait for the perfect angle.

Pick a format you'll enjoy repeating

Once you have a topic, decide how you'll structure it. Essay-style deep dives, short weekly roundups, curated links with commentary, interviews, and practical how-tos are all common formats on Substack, and none of them is better than the others. The right one is the one you'll still want to be doing in six months.

You also don't have to pick a traditional format. Gabby Whiten, who writes Oh Eight, a lifestyle and fashion newsletter, builds an elaborate collage for every issue, and it's become the signal people know her for. If there's something only you would think to do, that's usually a good sign it’ll work on Substack.

For The Weekly Scroll, we cycle through a few formats, from essay-style newsletters to interviews to keep things fresh.

Set a schedule you can actually keep

Consistency matters on Substack, partly because readers get used to a rhythm and partly because a predictable cadence makes Notes easier (you always have something new to point to). But consistency doesn't mean constant.

Once a week is the most common starting point for posting articles on Substack. Some people publish every two weeks, and a few send several times a week. But the best schedule is the one that doesn't burn you out.

If you're unsure, start slower than you think you can manage. It's much easier to add a second post a week later than to walk back from a daily commitment you can't keep.

Optimize your publication for SEO

Most people don't think about this until later, but it can really help with early growth.

Lade Falobi, who writes Marketing for Geeks about product marketing, told me: "I wish I'd known to optimize for search earlier. It's not just about writing great content. You have to make it easy for people to find you."

MillieAmelia, who writes Life Unscripted about travel and creator income, echoes this, with some advice. Two of the five things she'd tell someone starting with no audience are to set your publication categories (so Substack knows who to recommend you to) and to fill in the SEO title and description on every post, because Substack articles can and do rank on Google. Both take a minute, and almost nobody does them.

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A post shared by Amelia Austin [Millie] | Travel | Creator Biz | Freedom (@millieameliacreates)

Choose quality over quantity, especially early on

Frequency gets people to subscribe. Quality is what keeps them from unsubscribing. If you have to choose between shipping something that’s below your standards but on schedule and skipping a week, I’d recommend skipping the week.

That said, Don’t Overthink It. One of my favorite Substackers, Kel Rakowski, shared a recent video advocating for thinking of it less like you’re a legacy publication and more like you’re a person sharing their thoughts in a longer form.

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A post shared by Kel Rakowski (@h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y)

With the what and the how-often sorted, the next question is how to get it in front of people who haven't heard of you yet.

How to grow on Substack

Growth on Substack is slower than on social media, faster than on a standalone email list, and most of it happens inside Substack itself.

So the advice here is less about driving traffic from elsewhere and more about using the things Substack already gives you.

I've written a much more detailed guide on this (it'll be linked at the end of this section), but these are the basics that make the most difference in my experience.

1. Turn on Recommendations, then give and ask for them. When you recommend another publication, it's offered to your new subscribers when they sign up, and vice versa when other writers recommend you. Several of the creators I interviewed named this as their biggest single source of new subscribers. Set yours up under Settings → Recommendations, add a handful of publications you actually read, and then ask writers in your space if they'd swap. A short, specific message has worked far better for me than a generic one.
2. Post Notes consistently. Notes is where people who've never heard of you find you, because the feed shows people content from writers they don't follow. Short observations, a single useful idea, or a quote from your latest post tend to travel further than a link to it. Restacking other writers' Notes with a comment of your own helps too. Anna Burgess Yang started "restacking quotes from other Substack writers as a way to boost visibility," and found it noticeably increased engagement.
3. Give followers a reason to subscribe. Someone who follows you from a Note sees your Notes but doesn't get your emails. So every so often, write a Note that points at the newsletter itself: a preview of this week's issue with a reminder to subscribe, a question you answered for subscribers, or a simple reintroduction to your newsletter.
4. Cross-promote with other writers. Guest issues, newsletter swaps, and interviews all work, and Substack makes them easy because you can link straight to another publication's subscribe page. Start with writers at a similar size to you as they're more likely to say yes. You can also check Substack’s new Creator Match feature to find writers with audience overlap.
5. Share where you already have an audience, and ask readers to share too. Many creators still grow partly through social media, and it works best when you share a takeaway or a story from the issue rather than just dropping a link. Also, reply to commenters; it's how casual readers turn into super fans.

📚 Related reading: I've gone much deeper on all of this, including what Substack's own founders say the feed rewards and what I learned posting a Note every day for a month, in How to Grow on Substack.

One last thing before you hit publish

If you've made it this far, you have everything you need to set up, publish, and grow a Substack. But if there’s one thing that I’d like to leave you with, it’s the part that's easiest to skip: talking to the people who subscribe.

I’ve always believed that newsletters aren't a one-way channel, and Substack reflects that sentiment.

Subscribers have invited you into their inbox, and every reply, comment, and Chat message is a chance to find out what they need or want from you. That’s why the writers who do best on Substack aren't necessarily the best writers, but make their readers feel like they’re part of something.

If you've been thinking about starting one, consider this your sign. Your first post likely won't be perfect, and your first 10 subscribers might be friends and family. But every newsletter you admire started the same way, with one post and one reader.

Frequently asked questions about using Substack

Is Substack free to use?

Yes. Creating an account, setting up a publication, and sending posts to any number of subscribers is free. Substack only makes money when you do: if you turn on paid subscriptions, it takes 10% of that revenue, and Stripe takes payment processing fees on top.

How much does Substack take from paid subscriptions?

Substack takes 10% of paid subscription revenue. Stripe, which handles payments, adds 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction and a 0.7% billing fee for subscribers who signed up after July 2024. On an $8/month subscription, that leaves you with roughly $6.62.

What's the difference between subscribers and followers on Substack?

Subscribers get your posts by email (and access to Chat and any paid content). Followers only see your Notes and activity in their Substack app feed, and don't receive emails. Followers exist because Notes exists, so they behave more like a social following. Most growth advice on Substack comes down to turning followers into subscribers.

Do you need an audience to start a Substack?

No. Substack's Recommendations, Notes feed, and app are designed to help new publications get found without an existing following, which is one of the main reasons creators choose it over a standalone email tool. Growth is slow at first either way, and having an audience elsewhere helps, but it isn't a requirement.

Can you schedule posts and Notes on Substack?

You can schedule posts natively: set a date and time in the publish flow and Substack sends the email for you. You can also schedule Notes by clicking the calendar icon in the composer and setting your preferred date and time.

How often should you publish on Substack?

Once a week is the most common cadence for newsletters, and it's a sensible default. Notes is different: because the feed rewards consistency, daily or near-daily Notes tend to do more for discovery than weekly ones. Whatever you pick, choose a schedule you can sustain.