Ayrshare alternatives in 2026: pricing, free tiers and MCP
Most people who leave Ayrshare leave over the bill: it starts at $149/month before the first customer and grows with how many customers they have rather than how much they publish. The API works, the documentation is good, and publishing on behalf of your users (the hard part) is properly supported.
That is why the alternatives below are compared by what each one bills for, with every price read on the vendor's own pricing page on 15 September 2026.
How much does Ayrshare cost?
From $149 a month, with no permanent free tier and billing per user profile:
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Premium | $149/month | 1 profile, up to 14 accounts |
| Launch | $299/month | Up to 10 profiles, up to 140 accounts |
| Business | from $599/month | 30 profiles, up to 420 accounts |
| Enterprise | custom | From 300 profiles |
Plus two add-ons that are not in any plan: Max Pack at $300/month (the AI features) and Ads at $100/month.
The 28-day trial needs no card, and it is worth noticing where it sits: on Launch, the $299 plan, not on the entry one.
How do the seven alternatives compare?
What changes most from one to the next is what they bill for: profiles, accounts, channels or brands.
| Bills for | Free tier | Entry paid | API on free? | MCP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ayrshare | user profiles | No | $149/mo | — | Action (27 tools) + docs |
| PlanVortex | connected accounts | 2 accounts | €15/mo | Yes | 31 tools, free plan included |
| Zernio | connected accounts | 2 accounts | $6/account | Yes | Yes, hosted |
| Upload-Post | profiles | 10 uploads/mo | $24/mo | Yes | Yes |
| Postiz | channels | self-hosted | $29/mo | self-hosted | Yes |
| Blotato | accounts | 7-day trial | $29/mo | unclear by plan | Yes |
| Metricool | brands | 1 brand | from €20/mo | MCP yes, API needs Advanced | Yes, your own brands |
| Buffer | channels | 3 channels | $5/channel | personal keys only | Yes, your own channels |
Which Ayrshare alternatives have a free plan?
Three: PlanVortex, Upload-Post and Zernio.
PlanVortex has a free plan with 2 connected accounts, unlimited posts, unlimited users, 1 GB and the API and an app included, no card. Paid plans are €15 (6 accounts), €30 (10) and a custom plan from €45 with 15. Accounts are billed in graduated tiers: the first 10 sit inside a €30 base, 11 to 25 are €3 each, 26 to 100 are €2 and beyond that €0.90. It covers the major networks plus Discord, Telegram and Slack, has an MCP server with 31 tools and Node and Python libraries, keeps the data in Spain, and its AI writes the posts and generates the images.
Upload-Post has a free tier of 10 uploads a month with API access. Then $24/month for unlimited posts across 5 profiles, $50 for 25 profiles with white-label, $147 for 75. Annual billing drops the entry to about $16.
Zernio gives you the first 2 accounts free with full API access, then charges $6 per account for 3 to 10, $3 for 11 to 100, and $1 beyond. Ten accounts is $48/month. It is a bootstrapped team of eight in Girona, with an English-only site, billing in USD and no AI of any kind. How it compares with the rest is in Zernio alternatives.
What do Postiz, Blotato, Metricool and Buffer offer?
Postiz is open source, and free if you host it yourself. Hosted plans are $29 (5 channels), $39 (10), $49 (30) and $99 (100), with the API and an MCP included on all of them. What the self-hosted version cannot include is the platforms' permission: apart from a handful of networks where you paste your own credentials, you register your own developer app on each one and go through its review. Until TikTok audits that app, everything it publishes is private, and Meta's App Review stands between you and publishing on pages that are not yours. The details are in PlanVortex vs Postiz.
Blotato charges $29/month for 20 social accounts, $97 for 40, $499 for Agency, with AI credits on every tier and a 7-day trial. It is built around AI content production more than around being an API, and its pricing page does not say which plans include API access.
Metricool is the incumbent in Spain, and a better product than most of this list for managing your own brands: analytics, scheduling, and Meta, Google and TikTok Ads. Free plan with 1 brand; Starter from €20/month for up to 10 brands; Advanced from €54 for up to 50. The API is on Advanced and up, though its MCP server runs on any plan including free. It bills per brand, not per connection, which is cheaper if each customer connects many networks.
On Buffer, the free plan gives 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel and 1 API key with 3,000 requests a month; Essentials is $5 per channel. But the API keys are personal: Buffer revoked third-party app integrations in 2019 and the current GraphQL API is a personal-key beta with no third-party OAuth, and the MCP server it launched in May 2026 sits on top of that same API. You cannot publish on behalf of your users, at any price, so if that is why you are leaving Ayrshare, Buffer is not a destination.
When does it make sense to stay on Ayrshare?
In two cases. The first is when your customers each connect many networks: per-profile billing bundles a customer's fourteen accounts into one unit. Run your own numbers before assuming per-account is cheaper; it usually is, but the crossover depends on how many networks each customer connects.
The second is when you are already live and it works. None of the differences on this page justifies a rewrite on its own: the reason to move is the bill, and it has to be big enough to pay for the migration.
Where does PlanVortex fit?
It is designed above all for a software company publishing on behalf of its customers, from inside its own product. Clients, organizations and accounts are separate in the data model rather than a client_id column, and create_connect_link returns a link your customer opens to authorize their own Instagram on your screens, under your brand. They connect through PlanVortex's own apps, so there is no developer portal to register on and no review queue on your side. All of that works on the free plan, and that is where the difference from Ayrshare lies: in the price floor more than in the API.
Two things of ours the table does not show: the AI generates images as well as captions and plans a whole week, and X is billed per post rather than as a flat monthly fee per connected account.
If the accounts are your own brands, you do not need the API at all: the same free plan gives you the dashboard, with the calendar and the comment inbox, and from Basic (€15 a month) the AI writes the week, images included.
Where it does not fit is when self-hosting is a hard requirement: Postiz is open source and we are not. If self-hosting is only a way to save money, count the app reviews above first.
Which one fits, depending on why you are leaving?
- If you are leaving over the $149 floor, PlanVortex, Zernio and Upload-Post all have a free tier with API access; PlanVortex's includes 2 connected accounts and unlimited posts.
- If you are leaving over per-profile billing, per-account billing with unmetered posts is cheaper in most cases; it only loses when each customer connects many networks.
- If you want an agent to drive it, PlanVortex's MCP server has 31 tools and runs on the free plan; Ayrshare's Action MCP needs $149/month.
- If you are thinking of self-hosting to save money, count the app reviews first: with a hosted API they are not your problem.
PlanVortex's API is documented at /en/developers, the MCP server at /en/agents, and there is a head-to-head at PlanVortex vs Ayrshare.
What is the cheapest Ayrshare alternative?
Three have a permanent free tier with API access: PlanVortex (2 connected accounts, unlimited publications, no card), Zernio (2 accounts) and Upload-Post (10 uploads a month). Postiz is free if you self-host the open-source version and register your own developer app on every network. Ayrshare's own floor is $149/month with no free plan; its 28-day trial sits on the $299 Launch plan, not the entry one. Verified September 15, 2026.
Why do developers leave Ayrshare?
Rarely because of the API, which is good and well documented. Almost always because of the bill: $149/month before the first customer, and pricing per user profile, so the cost tracks how many customers you have rather than how much you publish. If your product has 200 small customers, that model works against you.
Which Ayrshare alternative is cheapest at scale?
It depends on what scales. Publications: PlanVortex does not meter them, so 10 connected accounts cost €30/month whether they publish 500 posts or 50,000. Accounts: the tiers drop to €2 each from the 26th and to €0.90 past 100, so 100 accounts are €225/month, against $318 on Zernio's tiers. Per-profile billing only catches up when each of your customers connects many networks.
Do any Ayrshare alternatives have an MCP server for AI agents?
Most of them, by now: PlanVortex (31 tools, on all four plans including free), Zernio, Upload-Post, Postiz, Blotato, Metricool and Buffer, although Metricool's and Buffer's work on your own channels rather than your customers'. Ayrshare has two: an Action MCP with 27 tools that needs a plan from $149/month, and a read-only Documentation MCP that cannot publish. Connecting the wrong one is the single most common way to lose an afternoon with Ayrshare.
Should I stay on Ayrshare?
In two cases. If your customers each connect many networks, per-profile billing can beat per-account billing, so run your own numbers. And if you are already live on it and it works, the migration cost is real and none of these differences is worth a rewrite on its own. If what brought you here is the $149 floor, though, staying means paying it before your first customer.