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Planable is the best client-facing social media tool we’ve ever used and we’ve used a lot.
Not too long ago, everyone was discussing how email marketing is a thing of the past. Then, digital marketing specialists everywhere realized, and I quote, that "Email marketing is not dead." Frankly, I agree. I've seen firsthand how emails, especially newsletters,...
Metricool alternatives help social marketers boost productivity and stay on track regardless of the number of channels, clients, and approvals involved. Marketing teams use social media automation tools like Metricool for many reasons, the core being to stay in control and creative in the whirlpool of content management with a calendar tool.
In this article, find six best Metricool substitutes that fit different budgets and cater to various needs. All tried and tested, so let’s delve!
Like any other social media management tool, Metricool allows you to schedule content, analyze social media performance across various platforms, and gather data on a single dashboard instead of hopping around tabs.
But Metricool isn’t my personal first choice. And some things might become a deal breaker for your team as well.
Here’s what I pay the most attention to when choosing a platform for social media automation:
The content calendar is the backbone of any successful content strategy. Easy to use, straightforward, and visual, a social media calendar should help you gain an overview of your efforts and stay on track.
Metricool’s calendar allows you to schedule posts for several social media channels simultaneously. The background color indicates the most active times of your audience across each platform.
However, it lacks tags to differentiate campaigns, content pillars, or USPs. It makes it harder to identify content gaps and filter posts by campaigns or purpose.
Collaboration features and approval workflows are vital for social media content, especially if you work for an agency or have several contributors within your organization.
In Metricool, collaboration and approval features are only included in the Advanced plan since the Starter plan has no team members. You can leave notes on the posts and send them for approval directly from the calendar tab where you schedule content.
The notes are sufficient for a small team: you can leave short comments on social media posts and tag your colleagues if you have the Advanced plan, but that’s it.
Pricing: Metricool has no trial period but offers a free plan with 50 monthly posts. However, this plan is quite limited: for example, it doesn’t include LinkedIn (which is a deal breaker for me).
Metricool’s three paid plans start at $18/month, paid annually. Team collaborations and approvals are only included in the Advanced plan.
If you value collaboration and swift content creation, Planable is your best Metricool alternative. Planable’s biggest green flag is active collaboration with colleagues, which is extremely important in a fast-paced social media world.
Planable helps you manage content for multiple platforms and even curate multiple brands. To do so, divide your brands into dedicated workspaces, each with its own channels, team members, and permissions.
Planable’s content calendar is simple, flexible, and intuitive. Its drag-and-drop interface lets you quickly move content around and stay flexible when something changes.
Social media calendar in Planable
What I like the most about Planable’s calendar is the labels that help you filter content and give you much more transparency regarding your current content strategy. Use them to tag specific campaigns or divide your social media posts by content pillar.
With Planable, you can plan and schedule content across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, Threads and Google My Business.
Collaboration rules in Planable. Team members can leave real-time comments and tag each other in the comment section to stay on the same page and ensure feedback is fast, straightforward, and on point.
Besides the comment section, there are also annotations and internal notes that help you make content curation easier. So instead of “turn the brand name into a hashtag in the second line of the post,” you can pinpoint the exact place you’d like to change.
Annotations in Planable
You can create different roles for your clients and team members to ease the collaboration and ensure everybody sees only what they need to see. If you use “Internal notes,” your client won’t see these suggestions.
“This meme is so on point, but I must get approval first.” Relatable, right? Planable’s approval workflows help you push content down the pipeline in a blink, even if you need to get a green light from multiple decision-makers.
You can set up a customizable multi-level approval workflow. Whether you run your social media post through only one checkpoint or multiple customers, the platform allows you to keep it simple and swift.
Customizable approval workflow in Planable
You can take automation one step further and put your content in a queue once approved.
Pricing: Planable offers 50 free posts to explore the platform. Afterward, you can upgrade for $33/month per workspace, paid annually. The price per user depends on the features included and the number of workspaces you need. This makes Planable’s billing very flexible.
Drawbacks: Planable has no social inbox feature and no direct integrations with CMS platforms for publishing content to your blog.
Takeaway: Planable is a valuable tool that takes collaboration to another level. Unlike Metricool, Planable is intuitive and flexible, so you can easily tweak it to your particular conditions.
It helps you manage the whole cycle of social media content creation, making Planable an excellent option for any team — from small businesses to agencies.
Hootsuite is a good Metricool alternative for big brands that need comprehensive analytics, historical data, and customizable reports to present to the customers.
Hootsuite is a big gun: besides classic content planning and auto-posting, it has many features, including social listening, white-label reporting, batch scheduling, OwlyAI, etc. It takes some time to get a handle on streams and dashboards, though.
Pricing: Hootsuite is pricey — its cheapest plan starts at $99/user/month, paid annually.
Drawbacks: I think Hootsuite is a little outdated in its UX. Also, the platform required credit card data for a trial period, and it’s a bit of a commitment for some.
For small to mid-sized businesses seeking a user-friendly alternative to Metricool, consider Loomly.
Loomly’s creators wanted a simple tool to manage and analyze social media content — and they succeeded. The platform helps you streamline your social media efforts and provides valuable insights based on your performance, such as engagement rate, reach, follower count, etc.
Pricing: Loomly offers four paid plans, with pricing starting at just $26 per month.
Drawbacks: Despite supporting Snapchat and some additional custom channels, Loomly can’t post directly to them.
SocialPilot is a comprehensive social media management platform that gives teams a 360-degree view on their social efforts.
If you’re an agency working with multiple customers, you might also like the white label reporting feature that allows you to customize your reports with your logo and colors instead of default ones. Looks hand-picked, even though it’s not wink.
Pricing: SocialPilot has four paid plans with a free trial, the cheapest one starts at $25.50/month, paid annually.
Drawbacks: It’s pricey if you want to benefit from all features, like social inbox, team management, and advanced analytics — those are only included in more expensive packages.
Later was created as a tool for managing Instagram content. Eventually, it grew to work with other social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube.
If you gravitate towards Instagram and other visual platforms like TikTok, Later checks many boxes for you. Besides a social media calendar and detailed Instagram analytics, Later allows you to schedule Stories, use hashtag recommendations, and leverage other content insights.
Pricing: Later has three paid plans, starting at $16.67/month, paid annually.
Drawbacks: Most fancy features like AI caption writing, analytics, and a visual grid planner are only available for Instagram. Other platforms are content with calendar and auto-publishing.
Buffer deserves a place among straightforward Metricool alternatives. In my experience, Buffer is a solid option if you need three simple and very ordinary, down-to-earth things: plan your content, collect data on social media performance, and create reports.
That’s it, that’s the tool.
Pricing: Buffer charges based on the number of channels and feature set. The cheapest plan starts at $6/month, paid annually. It also has a free plan.
Drawbacks: If you’re a big company or need in-depth data, especially on paid promos, Buffer might be insufficient — its analytics is a little unreliable and mostly organic-centered.
When evaluating your Metricool alternatives, consider the tools and features your team needs the most.
Remember: the social media management tool you choose should 100% support your team and streamline the processes. Planable does this for thousands of marketing teams.
Try Planable now and use 50 free posts to get a grip on the tool. No commitment just yet — only the taste of hassle-free social media management.
Content marketer with a background in journalism; digital nomad, and tech geek. In love with blogs, storytelling, strategies, and old-school Instagram. If it can be written, I probably wrote it.
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