Agorapulse alternatives: cheaper per user, and the API way

Agorapulse bills per user and freezes every self-serve plan at 10 social profiles, so a third teammate and an eleventh account each cost extra. Prices read on November 12, 2026: $79 to $149 per user per month on annual billing. The eight tools below are sorted by what each one counts instead.

That counter, not the feature list, is what decides your invoice. Agorapulse is the only tool in this list that meters people and profiles at the same time.

What Agorapulse costs today, and where it breaks

From the Agorapulse pricing page, read on November 12, 2026. Every price is per user, per month.

Extra profiles are $10 a month on annual billing, $15 on monthly. The trial is 30 days with no card.

Read the profile column again. Standard, Professional and Advanced all stop at 10. Paying three times more per seat buys you features, never capacity. So there are two separate ways to outgrow the plan, and both are billed:

• A second and third person who need to log in multiply the whole subscription.
• An eleventh connected account costs $10 to $15 a month on top, forever.

A three-person agency with 15 client profiles pays $237 in seats plus $50 in profiles on annual Standard, so $287 a month. The same shop on monthly billing pays $372. The full tier-by-tier breakdown is in Agorapulse pricing; this page is about leaving.

Agorapulse vs Hootsuite, the swap most people look at first

Hootsuite is the like-for-like move, and it is not obviously cheaper. Its FAQ gives Standard from $99 per user a month with 10 social accounts, Professional from $199 with unlimited accounts, and Advanced up to $399. The plan cards print no figure at all, which is worth knowing before you build a budget on them. Trial is 14 days, card up front.

The gain is real: Hootsuite lifts the account cap at Professional, where Agorapulse keeps 10 profiles all the way to Custom. So is the loss: you still pay per head, so three people still means three invoices. If seat billing pushed you out of Agorapulse, Hootsuite solves nothing. If the 10-profile ceiling is the problem and you have one or two users, it solves it.

The eight alternatives, by what they count

Every price below was read on the vendor's own pricing page on November 12, 2026.

Per seat, the premium end: Sprout Social

Sprout Social runs $79 per seat a month on annual Essentials up to $399 on Advanced, with 5 profiles until Professional at $299 lifts the cap. It is the wrong direction for anyone leaving Agorapulse over seat cost, and the right one if you need listening and review management that Agorapulse does not match. Detail in Sprout Social pricing, and the wider per-seat comparison in Sprout Social alternatives.

Per social set, built for agencies: Pallyy

Pallyy counts clients, not people. Agency is $99 a month for 10 social sets and 3 users, where a set is one client with however many networks it posts to. Extra sets are $10 a month, extra seats $10. Scale is $199 for 30 sets and 10 users. Pro is $25 a month for a single set and a single user, and there is a no-cost tier capped at 15 scheduled posts a month with image posts only.

That $99 is the exact figure Agorapulse charges for one monthly Standard seat with 10 profiles. Pallyy gives you 10 clients and 3 people for it.

Per social set, built for creators: Planoly and Later

Planoly is $14 a month for 1 social set and 1 user, $24 for 2 and 2, $47 for 6 sets and 6 users. Extra sets are $8 to $10, extra users $3 to $5. Six people for $47 a month is the cheapest multi-user line here. Grid in Planoly pricing.

Later bills the same way with bigger sets: one set is 8 profiles, one per platform. Starter is $18.75 a month annual for 1 set and 1 user, Growth $37.50 for 2 and 2, Scale $82.50 for 6 and 4. Extra sets $11.25, extra users $3.75. Cheap when your accounts come one per platform, awkward when you run six Instagram accounts and nothing else. See Later pricing.

Per brand: Metricool

Metricool counts brands and publishes no seat limit at all. Starter is $25 a month billed monthly, $20 annually, for up to 5 brands, and $45 monthly for 10. Advanced starts at $67 monthly, $53 annually, for 15 brands and runs to $210 for 50. X needs a paid add-on. Confirm the seat count with them before an agency commits. Detail in Metricool pricing.

Per channel: Buffer

Buffer is $5 a month per channel on Essentials and $10 per channel on Team, and Team is the plan with unlimited team members and approval workflows. Fifteen channels on Team is $150 a month for any number of people. There is a no-cost option capped at 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts per channel. Buffer has no unified inbox worth the name, which is precisely what Agorapulse users came for. Grid in Buffer pricing.

Flat, accounts and users bundled: Loomly

Loomly prints two tiers and meters neither people nor profiles inside them. Starter is $65 a month, or $49 billed yearly, for 12 social accounts and 3 users. Beyond is $332 a month, or $249 yearly, for 60 accounts and unlimited users. Nothing sits between them, so the thirteenth account is a 5x jump. Full grid in Loomly pricing.

Per connected account, no seats at all: PlugKit

PlugKit does not replace Agorapulse's calendar or its inbox views, and I will not pretend it does. No visual planner, no approval workflow, no listening, no team roles. It is a REST API and a hosted MCP server: your code or your AI agent publishes, reads comments and DMs, and pulls analytics across Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, X, WhatsApp and Telegram. $49 a month for 5 connected accounts, cancel anytime. Pro is $97 a month for 30 accounts, extra accounts from $3. Seats are not a billing unit, because there is no interface to seat anyone in.

Pick it when the publishing and the replying are automated. Pick one of the eight above when a human runs the account by hand every day.

The same job, priced on each tool

One scenario: 3 users, 15 social profiles. Monthly billing where the page prints it, annual noted. Prices read November 12, 2026.

Three honest caveats. Agorapulse and Hootsuite publish listening, review management and multi-step approval that the cheap end of this list does not, so a $99 tool is not a $372 tool with the price crossed out. Metricool publishes no seat count, which sales can move either way. And two names you will see on every comparison list are missing from this one: Vista Social and Sendible both stopped printing figures, showing "Custom" and a bare dollar sign on November 12, 2026, so any number you are quoted for them came from a sales call.

Picking by your counter, then checking before you move

• Too many people, few profiles. Planoly Pro at $47 for 6 users, or Pallyy Agency at $99 for 3. Both beat three Agorapulse seats.
• Few people, too many profiles. Buffer at $10 a channel, or Metricool by brand. Neither charges for the eleventh account at Agorapulse's rate.
• The inbox is the whole reason you pay. Stay on Agorapulse Professional, or read social media inbox for what each tool actually aggregates. Comment and DM coverage is where cheap schedulers quietly stop.
• Client sign-off is non-negotiable. Agorapulse opens simple approval at Professional and multi-step only on Custom. Buffer Team includes it at $10 a channel. The landscape is in social media approval tools.
• Nobody drags posts around a calendar. Go to an API. The trade-offs are in the social media API guide.

Then, whichever you pick: no tool imports another tool's OAuth tokens, so fifteen profiles is fifteen approval screens with the admin rights to match. Nothing backfills either, so export your Agorapulse reports and rebuild anything queued past your cancellation date. Check the new tool's automated moderation, since Agorapulse caps it at one rule per profile with one trigger on every published tier and several alternatives have none. And keep a week of overlap: two subscriptions for seven days is cheaper than a gap in the queue.

FAQ

What is the best Agorapulse alternative?

It depends which of Agorapulse's two meters hurts. If it is seats, Planoly Pro at $47 a month for 6 users or Pallyy Agency at $99 for 3 users and 10 social sets are the direct answers. If it is the 10-profile ceiling, Buffer at $10 per channel or Metricool by brand lift it without charging per head. If publishing is automated, an API is cheaper than all of them.

Is Agorapulse cheaper than Hootsuite?

At entry, yes, slightly: Agorapulse Standard is $79 per user a month on annual billing against Hootsuite Standard from $99, both with 10 accounts. Above that it flips, because Hootsuite Professional lifts the account cap and Agorapulse keeps 10 profiles on every published tier. Prices read November 12, 2026.

How many social profiles does Agorapulse include?

Ten, on Standard, Professional and Advanced alike. Only the Custom plan is unlimited. Extra profiles are $10 a month on annual billing or $15 on monthly, so an agency running 25 client accounts pays for 15 of them as add-ons.

Can I keep my Agorapulse inbox history when I leave?

No. Conversation history stays inside Agorapulse and no competitor imports it. Export what you need as a report while the subscription is live, because access ends when the plan does. If the goal is an agent or a script that handles the inbox instead, see MCP or REST API for your agent.

AB

Antoine BlancoFounder of PlugKit. Runs his own Instagram, YouTube and X accounts through the API and MCP server described here.