Buffer
buffer.com
Straightforward social scheduling
from $5/moFree plan
Hootsuite
Enterprise social management
Free trialSocial MediaSince 2008
from $99/moVisit hootsuite.com
What Hootsuite is
Publishing, monitoring streams, social listening, approvals and reporting for larger teams managing many accounts.
What Hootsuite has cost
We have read this pricing page 6 times since Jan 2023, including archived copies of it. Each figure below was pulled from the page itself, not from a summary of it.
- $49/mo*Jan 2023 · Professional · 1 reading · archived page
The entry plan changed name here, from Professional to Standard. That is a different plan, so the two prices are not a rise or a cut.
$99†Jan 2025 – Sept 2026 · Standard · 5 readings · archived page
* That reading is the effective monthly cost when paying for a year up front, which is what the page published at the time.
† The page showed this figure beside a monthly/annual switch and did not say which one it belonged to, so we publish the number without claiming a billing period. Readings like this are shown but never compared, which is why they never produce a price change.
Gaps are ours, not the vendor's: where a capture was unreadable, or the price could not be tied to a plan at all, no reading was recorded rather than a guess. See every price change we can stand behind.
People use it to
Current offers
Free trial
Free trial available
Trial length and card requirement are set by the vendor.
Hootsuite alternatives
Other tools in social media that cover similar ground. Full comparison.
Sprout Social
sproutsocial.com
Social management with serious reporting
from $79/moFree trial
Later
later.com
Influencer marketing with social scheduling attached
from $18.75/moFree plan
Where Hootsuite sits on price
Entry prices across Social Media, cheapest first.
- Publer$4.28
- Buffer$5
- Hypefury$6
- Contents Pilot$9.90
- Typefully$12.50*
- Later$18.75
- Metricool$25
- SocialBee$29
- Sprout Social$79
- Hootsuite$99
9 of these 10 prices were read from the vendor's own pricing page; the rest are marked * and are indicative. The median is taken across the 9 verified prices in Social Media.
Hootsuite pricing questions
- How much does Hootsuite cost?
- Hootsuite starts at $99 a month on its Standard plan. That figure was read from hootsuite.com's own pricing page on 21 September 2026.
- Does Hootsuite have a free plan?
- No ongoing free plan. Hootsuite offers a free trial, after which a paid plan is required.
- What is Hootsuite used for?
- Publishing, monitoring streams, social listening, approvals and reporting for larger teams managing many accounts. People mainly use it to schedule social posts, monitor mentions, report on social.
- What are the best alternatives to Hootsuite?
- The closest alternatives in the same category are Buffer, Sprout Social, Later, Metricool. Buffer starts lower at $5 a month; Sprout Social starts lower at $79 a month; Later starts lower at $18.75 a month; Metricool starts lower at $25 a month. Buffer, Later and Metricool publish a free plan.