--- title: "Free Buffer alternative — SocialPostScheduler" canonical: https://socialpostscheduler.com/use-cases/free-buffer-alternative last_modified: 2026-11-01 publisher: Surge Software Solutions Private Limited --- # Free Buffer alternative — SocialPostScheduler > Looking for a free Buffer alternative? SocialPostScheduler plans, approves and schedules a month of posts. It is free for 3 months, then pay per use. [Use cases](https://socialpostscheduler.com/use-cases) · Small business owners # A free Buffer alternative for small businesses Last updated 2026-11-01 · by Venu Gopal Reddy Muvva, founder If Buffer's per-channel price is too much for a small business, look for a tool that does the planning work too, not just the queue. SocialPostScheduler turns one brief into a month of drafts, gives you a calendar, a queue and client approvals, and is free for your first 3 months. You schedule on demo channels today; live posting is coming soon. ## How to do it in SocialPostScheduler - 1Add your channelsOpen Channels and add the profiles you post to. Today each one is a demo channel that publishes to a simulator with sample stats. - 2Teach your brand voiceOpen Brand voice, paste 3–20 of your past posts and choose Learn my voice. Every AI draft follows that tone. - 3Plan the monthOpen AI planner, write a short brief, pick the month, posts per week and channels, then choose ✨ Plan my month. - 4Edit on the calendarOpen Calendar to read every draft. Drag a post to a new day, or open it in Compose to change the words. - 5Fill your queueOpen Queue & best time to set weekly slots per channel. In Compose, choose Add to queue and the post takes the next free slot. - 6Schedule everythingBack in AI planner, choose Schedule all drafts. Nothing is scheduled until you do this. ## What to compare when you leave Buffer Most people pick Buffer for its simple queue. Before you switch, list what you really use each week. For most small businesses it is a queue, a calendar, a way to write captions faster and a link-in-bio page. Then look at price per channel. Buffer charges per channel per month, about $6 on Essentials (est.). SocialPostScheduler is free for your first 3 months (90 days from sign-up), with every feature on and no card needed. After that you pay only for what you use, at our cost with no markup. AI writing, month plans and AI images are charged per use from a prepaid wallet. Scheduling, the calendar, approvals, links and the API are not metered. ## Where the time really goes The posting button is the easy part. The slow part is deciding what to post every day. That is why the AI planner writes a draft per day per network from one brief, with festivals included, so you start the month with a full calendar instead of a blank page. Use the composer for one-off posts. ✍ Write post drafts a post from a topic, 🔀 Tailor per network rewrites it for each network's style and limits, and # Hashtags suggests tags. A 0–100 score with the top fixes shows while you type. ## Extras Buffer does not include You also get Bulk CSV import for up to 1,000 posts, RSS automation that turns new blog posts into drafts, evergreen posts that re-queue themselves, short links with UTM tags and a link-in-bio page. Short-link clicks are real today, even before live posting. ## When SocialPostScheduler is not the right tool If you need your posts to go live on Instagram, LinkedIn or X today, stay with Buffer for now. SocialPostScheduler does not post to real networks yet: every channel is a demo channel, and the inbox and network stats show demo data. It is a good fit if you want to plan, write and approve your content now and switch on live posting when it arrives. ## Questions Is SocialPostScheduler really free? SocialPostScheduler is free for your first 3 months (90 days from sign-up), with every feature on and no card needed. After that you pay only for what you use, at our cost with no markup. The free period ends because AI calls cost us money to run, so we pass on that cost and nothing more. Can it post to Instagram today? No. You schedule on demo channels today; live posting is coming soon. Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Facebook and the other networks will use their official APIs when they go live. Can I bring my Buffer posts? Yes. Export them to a spreadsheet, match the columns date, time, channels and text, and load them with Bulk CSV. Use Check only first to find problems. Do I need a card to start? No. You need no card for the first 3 months. Later you top up a prepaid wallet in Usage & wallet only if you use AI features. Related: [How to plan social media content for a month](https://socialpostscheduler.com/use-cases/plan-a-month-of-social-media-posts) · [Bulk schedule social media posts from a CSV file](https://socialpostscheduler.com/use-cases/bulk-schedule-posts-from-csv) · [SocialPostScheduler vs Buffer](https://socialpostscheduler.com/vs/buffer) · [Pricing](https://socialpostscheduler.com/pricing) ## Plan next month in one brief Free for your first 3 months, then pay only for what you use. Live network posting is coming soon. [Start free — 3 months on us](https://socialpostscheduler.com/signup)[See pricing](https://socialpostscheduler.com/pricing)