Metricool alternatives in 2026: one list for marketers, another for developers

Metricool is the incumbent in Spain for a reason. It has been at this since 2015, its analytics are deeper than almost everything on this list, and it manages Meta, Google and TikTok Ads from the same screen, which barely anyone else does.

Which alternative fits depends on which of these two problems you have, because they have different answers:

1. The bill grows with the number of brands and you have a lot of them.
2. You are building a product and hit the wall where the API needs the Advanced plan.

Prices read on Metricool's pricing page and on each vendor's own on 15 September 2026.

How much does Metricool cost?

From €0, with the API only on Advanced (from €54/month) or Custom:

Plan	Price	Brands	API
Free	€0	1	No
Starter	from €20/month	up to 10	No
Advanced	from €54/month	up to 50	Yes
Custom	contact	custom	Yes

Prices vary: Starter runs €16-€29 and Advanced €43-€172 depending on how many brands you carry, and annual billing saves up to 24%. X/Twitter needs a paid add-on on every plan except Custom.

The MCP server works on any plan, including Free; the API needs Advanced. It is the most common confusion: they are two different doors onto the same product.

Which alternative fits if the per-brand bill hurts?

You are a marketer or an agency. You want the same job done for less, and you are not writing code.

PlanVortex has a full dashboard, so there is no code involved. Free for 2 connected accounts with unlimited posts; €15/month for 6 accounts and €30 for 10, with unlimited users on every plan. The AI writes the week and generates the images (Metricool's assistant writes the text), or writes it from your own photos or your WooCommerce catalogue. Comments and messages land in one inbox, and X is paid per post instead of through the monthly add-on Metricool charges. It bills per connected account, not per brand: one brand on five or six networks costs less than Starter.

Buffer charges $5 per channel per month on Essentials, $10 on Team with unlimited team members, and channels above 10 cost less each. The free plan gives 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts per channel. Its queue model is still the best thing anyone has built for posting consistently. Weaker analytics than Metricool, and no ads.

Postiz charges $29/month for 5 channels, $39 for 10 with unlimited team members, $49 for 30, $99 for 100. Open source, so you can also self-host it for free and pay in maintenance instead. Includes an API and an MCP on all paid plans.

Blotato charges $29/month for 20 social accounts, $97 for 40, $499 for Agency, with AI credits at every tier. Built around producing content with AI rather than around reporting on it.

Hootsuite is worth naming so you can rule it out, because it bills per user: $99/user/month on Standard (10 accounts) and $249/user/month on Advanced, annually. If you are leaving Metricool over cost, this is not the direction.

None of these manages ads. If that is why you are on Metricool, stay.

Which alternative fits if you are building a product?

You are a software company. Your customers connect their own Instagram from inside your product, and you need that flow over an API.

What filters here is whether you can build the account connection over the API at all, and Metricool's own documentation puts managing social network connections under what the MCP does, not the API.

	Multi-tenant publishing	Connect flow over API	Floor
PlanVortex	Yes	create_connect_link, all plans	€0
Zernio	Yes	Yes	$0 (2 accounts)
Upload-Post	Yes	Yes	$0 (10 uploads/mo)
Ayrshare	Yes, user profiles	Yes	$149/mo
Buffer	No	No, closed since 2019	—

PlanVortex separates clients, organizations and accounts in the data model, and create_connect_link returns a link your customer opens to authorize their own account on your screens, under your brand. The API and your apps are on all four plans, the free one included (2 connected accounts, unlimited posts, no card). Paid: €15 (6 accounts), €30 (10), custom from €45 (15), then graduated tiers of €3, €2 and €0.90.

Zernio gives 2 free accounts with full API, then charges $6 per account (3-10), $3 (11-100), $1 (101+). No AI of any kind, English-only, and billing in USD. The full comparison is in Zernio alternatives.

Upload-Post also starts free with API access.

What does each one bill for: brands or connections?

Metricool bills per brand and most of the developer list bills per connection, and that decides the entire cost curve:

• A customer with one brand on six networks is one Metricool brand and six PlanVortex accounts.
• Two hundred customers with two networks each is 200 brands and 400 accounts.

So per-brand billing wins when each customer connects many networks, and per-connection billing wins when you have many customers connecting few. Work out how many networks each customer connects before choosing on price.

For an agency the arithmetic is the same: how many brands you carry and how many networks each one is on. PlanVortex's accounts drop by tier (€3 from the 11th to the 25th, €2 up to the 100th and €0.90 after that), and above 50 brands Metricool moves to Custom, with no published price.

When is Metricool the better choice?

• For ads: Meta, Google and TikTok campaigns from the same place.
• For analytics depth: ten years of product, and their reporting is better than ours.
• If you need Twitch, a network we do not cover.
• For the name: nearly every marketing team in Spain already knows it.

And its white label is good, whatever circulates in this market: the partner administers and assigns the brands, the end customer does not have to create an account, and it all runs under the partner's domain. The difference from PlanVortex is narrower and it is in their own documentation: the social-account connection workflow cannot be built through API calls.

Which one fits you?

• If you are a marketer and the per-brand bill hurts, PlanVortex, which also writes the week for you, images included, or Buffer and Postiz if you only want to schedule. Stay on Metricool if you use the ads.
• If you are building a product, what decides it is the connect flow over the API. PlanVortex, Zernio and Upload-Post all start free; Ayrshare works and starts at $149.
• To save money, not Hootsuite: it bills per user.

PlanVortex's plans are at /en/pricing (two accounts free, no card), the API at /en/developers, and there is a head-to-head at PlanVortex vs Metricool.