Buffer pricing: the real cost for 5, 10 and 30 channels

Buffer plans as of October 24, 2026

Buffer, the social media scheduler, has three plans. It doesn’t charge per seat or per post, but per channel: a channel is one connected social account (your Instagram, your Facebook Page, your LinkedIn profile). Buffer says it last updated its prices in November 2025.

The AI assistant is included on every plan, and Buffer’s official MCP server lets you schedule from an assistant such as Claude.

How much Buffer costs for 5, 10 and 30 channels

The tiers are graduated: your first 10 channels stay at full price, and only the extra ones cost less. Here’s the math, billed monthly:

Billed yearly, at about $5 per channel on Essentials, 5 channels come to about $25 a month and 10 channels to about $50; on Team, about $50 and $100. For 30 channels billed yearly, the exact amount isn’t in our data: missing data (planned source: Buffer pricing page).

Over a year on monthly billing, 5 Essentials channels cost $360, and 30 channels $1,620.

What pushes your Buffer bill up

1. Every account counts. A brand on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and TikTok uses 4 channels. Three brands like that and you’re at 12 channels.
2. Moving to Team doubles the price of your first 10 channels ($12 instead of $6). That’s the price of unlimited users and approvals.
3. The Free plan fills up fast: 10 scheduled posts per channel at a time and a single user. You can’t queue a full week at two posts a day on one network (14 posts).
4. API quotas: if you automate heavily through the API, Essentials stops at 7,500 requests a month and Team at 15,000.

What doesn’t change: the number of posts (unlimited on paid plans, within fair use) and the number of people on Team.

Buffer free plan and trial

The Free plan has no time limit. Paid plans come with a 14-day trial; if you haven’t added a payment method by the end, the account simply drops back to Free. Without a card on file, there’s no surprise charge.

Buffer pricing compared with PlugKit

PlugKit doesn’t charge per channel but per tier of connected accounts: $49 a month up to 5 accounts (Creator), $97 up to 30 (Pro), then $3 per account from 31 to 100. Monthly billing only, prices read October 24, 2026. The full grid is on our PlugKit pricing page.

How to read it:

• For publishing only, Buffer Essentials is cheaper up to 19 channels ($96 at 19 channels). From 20, it goes above PlugKit Pro’s $97, then becomes cheaper again from 70 channels ($215 vs $217).
• Buffer Team costs more than PlugKit at 5 accounts ($60 vs $49) and from 9 accounts ($108 vs $97); from 6 to 8 accounts, Team stays cheaper ($72, $84 and $96 vs $97). At 30 accounts, the gap is $98 a month.
• They don’t sell the same thing. PlugKit includes Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram DMs, comment-to-DM, broadcasts and sequences, none of which Buffer’s pages mention. Buffer publishes to Pinterest, Google Business Profile, Mastodon and Substack, which PlugKit doesn’t cover.

PlugKit has two variable costs: X API calls, passed through at cost ($0.015 per post) and capped at $20 a month by default, and Reel Studio video credits, sold separately beyond the included ones (10 credits for $15). The feature-by-feature comparison is in Buffer vs PlugKit. To see PlugKit at work on a real account, read our PlugKit review.

Cheaper alternatives to Buffer?

If price is the only issue, three options read on October 24, 2026:

• Publer: $4 per account per month billed yearly on Professional, and a Free plan with 3 accounts (X excluded).
• Metricool: Free plan for 1 brand, then $25 a month for 5 brands billed monthly, comment-to-DM included for a limited time according to its pricing page.
• Zernio: 2 free accounts, then $6 per account from 3 to 10, an API built for developers.

Details, plus four more tools sorted by need, are in our Buffer alternative guide.