How Much Is Metricool? Brands, Posts and AI Credits by Plan

Metricool is free for one brand and 20 scheduled posts a month. Starter costs from $20 a month billed yearly ($25 monthly) for up to 5 brands, and Advanced from $53 ($67 monthly) for up to 15 brands. Higher brand counts cost more: Starter 10 brands is $36, Advanced 50 brands $159.

Those are the figures on Metricool's pricing page in its USD view on 5 November 2026. The page serves euro prices by default in some views, so check the currency switch before comparing. The plans differ on four things: how many brands you manage, how many posts you can schedule, which networks and reports are included, and how many AI assistant credits you get per brand each month.

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The three paid and free plans side by side

The page offers an annual tab ("save up to 24%") and a monthly tab. The 24% figure is the top of the range; the entry tiers save closer to 20%.

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What the Free plan includes, and where it stops

Free manages one brand and its networks, except LinkedIn and X (Twitter), schedules up to 20 posts a month, analyses five competitor profiles, keeps 30 days of analytics, includes the AI social media assistant and lists Metricool's MCP connection. For a one-person shop posting a few times a week on Instagram and Facebook, that is a usable setup: 20 posts a month is about five a week.

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It stops being enough at three obvious points. The 20-post cap bites as soon as you post daily on two networks. The 30-day analytics window hides seasonal patterns, because you cannot compare this December with last. And LinkedIn is not connectable, which excludes B2B businesses. A weekly routine that fits the Free plan is in the Metricool free plan routine.

What Starter adds for about $20

Starter includes everything in Free plus up to 10 brands, unlimited publishing (subject to the fair use policy), up to 100 competitors, the X add-on, the Advanced Analytics add-on, a LinkedIn connection, limited access to Campaign Dashboards and Metricool Studio, PDF and PPT reports, multiple link-in-bio pages, analytics with unlimited history, the Flows add-on and Google Drive and Canva integration.

The prices step by brand count: $20 a month yearly for up to 5 brands and $36 for up to 10. The number to take from this is $4 per brand at the 5-brand tier and $3.60 at the 10-brand tier, which is cheap against the time a scheduler saves. Whether it is cheap for you depends on whether you actually use more than one brand.

What Advanced adds from $53

Advanced includes everything in Free and Starter plus up to 50 brands, team and client management, role management, a post approval system, complete X analytics, customisable report templates, a Data Studio connector and the Metricool API (usable with Zapier or Make). Its entry tier is 15 brands at $53 yearly, so the plan is priced for agencies and multi-site groups. A solo business is paying for approvals and roles it will not use.

The one feature a single business sometimes wants is the approval system, for example when an owner wants a manager to sign off posts. If that is the only reason, price a workaround (a shared draft folder and a weekly review) before paying $33 a month more than the Starter entry price. The detailed comparison is in Starter against Advanced for a small business.

AI credits, in plain terms

Metricool gives an AI social media assistant credits per brand each month: 5 on Free, 20 on Starter and 35 on Advanced. The page does not define in the plan table how many credits one draft costs, so I will not invent a rate. What the numbers tell you is the proportion: Starter gives four times as many as Free per brand, Advanced seven times.

My arithmetic for a five-brand Starter account is 100 credits a month in total across the brands (5 x 20), if credits are not pooled. Spend them where they matter: drafting captions for the brands you post for most. The page also says the AI alt text generator uses credits on Free and Starter and is included without credits on Advanced and Custom, which matters to anyone who adds alt text to every image.

A rule that avoids waste is to write your key captions yourself, use the assistant for variations and repurposing, and check each draft against your own facts. Never post AI text with a date, price or claim you have not checked.

Worked monthly cost for four kinds of business

All four are illustrative and use the USD view on the pricing page, with yearly billing first and monthly in brackets.

A bakery with one brand

The bakery posts on Instagram and Facebook, three times a week on each: about 24 posts a month, more than Free's 20. It does not need LinkedIn or X.

Option A: stay on Free and post 20 a month ........ $0
Option B: Starter 5-brand tier ................... $20 a month ($25 monthly)
Cost per post at 24 posts, Option B .............. about 83 cents

Four extra posts a month is not worth $240 a year by itself. Staying on Free and trimming to 20 posts is the right call unless the bakery wants unlimited history of analytics or a link-in-bio page. If it does, Starter earns its price.

A solar installer with a B2B angle

The installer posts on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube for one brand. LinkedIn is not available on Free, so Starter is the entry point.

Starter, 5-brand tier ............................ $20 a month ($240 a year)
Monthly billing instead .......................... $25 a month ($300 a year)
Yearly saving .................................... $60

A bicycle repair shop chain with eight locations

Each shop has its own social pages and a local manager who posts. That is eight brands, past the 5-brand Starter tier, so the 10-brand tier applies.

Starter, 10-brand tier ........................... $36 a month yearly ($432 a year)
Monthly billing .................................. $45 a month ($540 a year)
AI credits: 8 brands x 20 ........................ 160 a month, if per brand

This is where per-brand pricing shows its value. Eight separate subscriptions would be much more, but the shop must decide whether managers post directly in Metricool or whether the owner schedules for them, because Starter has no role management.

An HVAC contractor group with twelve client-facing brands and approvals

A contractor group wants each division's posts reviewed by a manager before they go out, across twelve brands.

Advanced, 15-brand tier .......................... $53 a month yearly ($636 a year)
Monthly billing .................................. $67 a month ($804 a year)
AI credits: 12 brands x 35 ....................... 420 a month, if per brand

Advanced is the first plan listing a post approval system, role management and client management, so it fits when more than one person must see a post before it goes out.

Fitting a month inside the Free plan's 20 posts

If you stay on Free, plan the month before the first post. An illustrative bicycle repair shop with one brand spreads 20 posts like this.

Week 1  Mon  Instagram  Before/after of a repaired wheel
        Thu  Facebook   Opening hours for the bank holiday
        Sat  Instagram  Quick tip: check tyre pressure
Week 2  Tue  Instagram  Customer bike of the week (with permission)
        Wed  Facebook   Tip: how often to oil a chain
        Fri  Instagram  Reel: 30-second brake adjustment
Week 3  Mon  Facebook   Spring service offer
        Wed  Instagram  Mechanic introduction
        Sat  Instagram  Saturday walk-in hours
Week 4  ...  (eight more, a mix of tips, offers and behind-the-scenes)

Notice the discipline: every post earns its slot, a few tips are cross-posted to both networks as separate scheduled posts, and one slot is held back for something unplanned. If you count cross-posting as two posts against the cap (check how Metricool counts a post sent to two networks on your account), the same plan needs 40 slots, and that is when Starter becomes necessary.

Using the AI assistant on a Starter credit budget

Credits run out, so a prompt that works first time is worth more than a prompt you retry five times. Here is an illustrative prompt for a bakery, and the kind of output to expect and fix.

Write three Instagram captions, each under 40 words, for a bakery
announcing a new seeded rye loaf on Saturday. Friendly, no emojis,
one question at the end. Do not mention prices or health claims.

A typical illustrative result:

1. Seeded rye lands on Saturday: dark, chewy and lovely with butter. Who is
   getting first slice?
2. New on the counter this weekend: our seeded rye, baked fresh each
   morning. What will you put on yours?
3. Saturday means seeded rye. It is the loaf we have been testing all
   winter. Want us to save you one?

What to fix: caption 3 invents "tested all winter", which is a claim you cannot support, and "save you one" promises a service the shop may not offer. Caption 2 says "baked fresh each morning", which is true only if it is. The assistant writes plausible filler; you supply the facts. Edit before scheduling, and treat the credit as paying for a first draft, not a finished post.

What 100 credits can and cannot do

With 100 credits a month on a five-brand Starter account (if credits are per brand and not pooled), the sensible use is two or three prompts per brand per month: a batch of captions at the start, one set of replies for a campaign, and one repurposing of a long post into short ones. Do not spend credits generating ideas you could get by reading your last month's best posts. Use the analytics first, then the assistant to turn that insight into new captions.

An agency-style month for ten clients

An illustrative freelance marketer manages ten small clients: a salon, a plumber, a solar installer and seven others. Ten brands means Starter's 10-brand tier at $36 a month yearly or $45 monthly. Spread across ten clients that is $3.60 or $4.50 each. The freelancer can pass that on, absorb it or itemise it.

Tool cost ....................... $36 a month (yearly billing)
Per client ...................... $3.60
Reports: PDF and PPT ............ included on Starter
Time saved per client ........... about 30 minutes a month if the posts are batched
Value of that time at $40 an hour  $20
Net per client .................. $16.40

The sum shows why tools priced per brand work for freelancers: the fee is small next to the time. It also shows the ceiling. If clients need approval workflows, role management or a client login, the freelancer is looking at Advanced's $53, which the same ten clients can still afford at $5.30 each, but the decision should be about workflow, not the fee.

Pausing and downgrading without losing history

Seasonal businesses often ask whether they can step down in the quiet months. An illustrative garden centre posts heavily from March to July and barely at all in winter. On monthly billing it could move from Starter to Free for five months and save $125 (5 x $25), but the Free plan keeps only 30 days of analytics, so check what happens to older data and to brands beyond the first before downgrading. Ask Metricool support in writing, or export your reports as PDFs before you step down.

On yearly billing the saving disappears, since the year is paid in advance, which is the real cost of the 20% discount for a seasonal business. If your posting pauses for more than three months a year, monthly billing may cost less overall: nine months at $25 is $225 against $240 for a full year, roughly even, while leaving you free to stop.

Reports: where Starter and Advanced differ

Starter includes PDF and PPT reports; Advanced adds customisable report templates and a Data Studio connector. If you report monthly to a business partner, the standard report is enough. If you send a client a report with their logo and a custom layout every month, the templates save repeated formatting. A practical test is to produce one report on a Starter trial and ask whether you would be embarrassed to send it. If not, you have not paid for features you do not need.

A seven-day plan for choosing before you pay

1. Day 1: Sign up for Free, connect one brand and note which networks will not connect.
2. Day 2: Schedule five real posts and see how scheduling and the calendar feel.
3. Day 3: Use the AI assistant on one prompt and note credits before and after.
4. Day 4: Open analytics and check whether 30 days of history answers your questions.
5. Day 5: Count your posts for next month and compare against 20.
6. Day 6: List the networks you need that Free cannot connect.
7. Day 7: Decide: stay, or move to Starter at the brand tier you need, monthly first.

A week is enough. If the answer is "stay", you have paid nothing. If the answer is "upgrade", you know which limit forced it, and you can tell a salesperson exactly what you want.

Which plan to pick, in order of questions

1. Do you manage one brand and post 20 times a month or fewer? Free.
2. Do you need LinkedIn, unlimited scheduling or more than 30 days of analytics? Starter.
3. Do you manage more than 10 brands, or need approvals and roles? Advanced.
4. More than 50 brands, white label or a dedicated manager? Custom, which needs a conversation.

If you answered "Free" but you are not sure the tool suits you, compare it with Meta Business Suite, which is free for Facebook and Instagram scheduling. Metricool earns its place when you want one view across networks, competitor tracking or reports for a boss or client.

Yearly against monthly: the sum for each plan

Yearly billing saves 20 to 24%, but locks you in for a year. Take monthly billing for the first three months if you have never used the tool, then switch once your routine is stable. Check that Metricool lets you change billing cycle mid-term on your account before relying on this.

A mistake that costs a month of posting

A common mistake is upgrading because the Free plan "ran out" in week three. A shop schedules 20 posts in the first two weeks, hits the cap and pays for Starter, when most of those posts were repeats. The cheaper fix is to count planned posts for the month on a calendar before you start, keep the best 20, and spread them. If you still need more than 20 after a sensible edit, upgrade, but with a number in hand.

Another is leaving the plan on a higher brand tier after a client or location is dropped. Check your brand count against the tier at each renewal. Paying for 15 brands with nine in use is $53 against the $36 you could be paying on Starter.

Which networks and features cost extra beyond the plan

Starter lists "access to" the X add-on, the Advanced Analytics add-on and the Flows add-on, which suggests some features are add-ons you enable and may price separately. The pricing page does not set a price for them in the plan table, so confirm in your account before you assume they are free. The same goes for any ad-management features: Metricool can manage ad campaigns, but the ad spend itself is paid to the network, not to Metricool.

Competitor analysis grows with the plan: 5 profiles on Free and up to 100 on Starter and Advanced. For a bakery, five local competitors is plenty; for an agency pitching a new client, 100 is more than enough.

A simple monthly review to check the plan is earning its price

Once a month, open the analytics and note three numbers: posts published, reach or impressions for the best five posts, and clicks or enquiries traced to social. If you spend $20 and publish 24 posts that bring ten enquiries, the plan is cheap. If you publish four posts and no one engages, the plan is not the problem, and a cheaper tool will not fix it.

For ideas on what to post with the AI assistant, a week of Canva AI posts with your brand kit pairs well with a scheduler. Cheaper or free schedulers are compared in free Metricool alternatives. For the wider set of jobs AI can take on in a small business, see the AI guide.

Metricool pricing questions owners ask before upgrading

Is Metricool really free?

Yes, within limits. The Free plan manages one brand, schedules up to 20 posts a month, analyses 5 competitor profiles, keeps 30 days of analytics and includes the AI assistant. It cannot connect LinkedIn or X, which is usually the first reason a business upgrades to Starter.

What is a brand in Metricool?

A brand is one business or client whose social accounts you manage together. A café with an Instagram, a Facebook page and a TikTok account is one brand. An agency running ten clients needs ten brands, which is why the plans price by brand count.

How much cheaper is yearly billing?

On the figures I saw, about 20 to 24%. Starter from $20 a month yearly against $25 monthly, Advanced from $53 against $67, and the 50-brand tier $159 against $210. Yearly is paid in advance, so check the cancellation terms before choosing it.

Does unlimited publishing really mean unlimited?

Starter and Advanced list unlimited content publishing, but the page footnote says unlimited scheduling may be limited by a Fair Use Policy. For a normal business posting daily across a few networks this is not a concern, but bulk scheduling hundreds of posts a day is.

Further reads

• Is Hootsuite Worth It for a Small Team? When Standard Beats Cheaper Tools — Whether Hootsuite's Standard plan beats cheaper tools.
• Metricool Nonprofit Pricing: What to Check Before a Charity Pays — Metricool publishes no nonprofit discount. See what the free, Starter and Advanced plans cost and what a charity should check before paying.
• Buffer vs Later for a Cafe or Bakery's Instagram: Which Plan Fits? — A cafe's Instagram week priced on Buffer and Later: post caps, AI caption limits and what each plan costs over a year.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: Metricool pricing page (metricool.com/pricing), fetched 5 November 2026 in its USD view; the live page is the final word on prices.