Metricool's Free Plan Leaves Out LinkedIn and X
A social analytics tool first and a scheduler second. The free tier reflects that order, and two major networks are simply absent.
Metricool's free plan covers one brand, 20 scheduled posts a month, five tracked competitors, 30 days of analytics history and the AI assistant. It supports most networks but not LinkedIn or X, and publishing limits apply across all connected profiles within the single brand. Starter from $20 a month adds ten brands, unlimited scheduling, LinkedIn and unlimited history.1
The exclusions are the story here. LinkedIn is the network most small businesses care about for B2B reach, and it is not available free.
What remains is a competent analytics dashboard for the networks that are included, with a scheduling cap tight enough that most users will feel it within a month.
What you actually get
| Free | Starter | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | From $20/mo |
| Brands | 1 | 10 |
| Scheduled posts | 20/mo | Unlimited |
| Competitors tracked | 5 | More, by tier |
| Analytics history | 30 days | Unlimited |
| LinkedIn publishing | No | Yes |
| X publishing | No | Yes |
| Instagram and Facebook | Yes | Yes |
| AI assistant | Yes | Yes |
| Card required | No | Yes |
Advanced sits at $53 a month for 50 brands, team seats and approval workflows. Enterprise pricing is quoted separately.
Twenty posts a month across every profile
The scheduling cap applies to the brand, not to each network. Twenty posts total, however many profiles you connect.
If you post daily to Instagram and daily to Facebook, you exhaust the allowance in ten days.
This makes the free plan a reporting tool more than a publishing tool. The analytics side is much less constrained than the scheduling side.
The LinkedIn and X exclusion
LinkedIn is excluded from free entirely. For an agency tracking client performance or a founder building a professional audience, that is close to disqualifying.
X is excluded on the same basis. Metricool can still show some public data for these networks in places, but publishing and full analytics require Starter.
This is a deliberate segmentation rather than an oversight. Metricool gives away visual-network analytics because that is the crowded end of the market, and charges for the professional networks where the paying customers are.
Thirty days of history
Thirty days is enough to see a trend and not enough to prove one. Year-over-year comparison, seasonal effects and slow channel growth all require more.
For a new account, thirty days is genuinely fine. For an established one, the history feels amputated.
Unlimited history on Starter at $20 is the single strongest reason to upgrade, arguably more than the scheduling cap.
Competitor tracking on free
Five tracked competitors is generous for a free tier, and this is where Metricool is strongest.
Seeing another brand's posting cadence and engagement rate against your own is the kind of insight that would otherwise require a dedicated research tool.
It is also the feature most likely to make someone stay on the free plan rather than cancel, which is presumably the intent.
Worth noting what competitor tracking cannot do on free: it shows public performance, not their audience data, their follower growth curve beyond the window, or which of their posts came from paid promotion rather than organic reach.
How it compares
Buffer allows three channels and ten queued posts each but covers LinkedIn, and its queue refills rather than resetting monthly.
Hootsuite offers no free plan at all, so there is nothing to compare below $99 per user.
Metricool beats Buffer on analytics depth and competitor tracking. Buffer beats Metricool on publishing capacity and network coverage.
When it is enough
A brand that lives on Instagram and Facebook and needs reporting more than scheduling.
Anyone benchmarking competitors before a paid social push, since five competitor slots and thirty days of data cost nothing.
An account already scheduling elsewhere and using Metricool purely as a measurement layer.
When it stops being enough
The moment LinkedIn matters, which for most B2B and professional services is immediately.
When you need more than twenty posts a month across all profiles, which is ten days of daily posting on two networks.
When you need last quarter's numbers and the dashboard has already forgotten them.
Frequently asked questions
Does Metricool's free plan include LinkedIn?
No. LinkedIn publishing and its full analytics require Starter or above.
How many posts can I schedule for free?
20 scheduled posts a month, counted across the single brand rather than per network.
How much history does the free plan keep?
30 days of analytics history.
How many competitors can I track for free?
Five competitors on the free plan.
How much does Metricool cost?
Starter from $20 a month, Advanced at $53 a month, Enterprise quoted.
Is the free plan enough for a small business?
Only if Instagram and Facebook are the whole strategy and the schedule is light. Otherwise LinkedIn pushes you to Starter.
Plan features, scheduling caps and network exclusions verified against Metricool's pricing page on 20 October 2026. Paid tier prices also taken from that page.
Sources
- Metricool pricing: metricool.com/pricing. Used for: 1 brand, 20 scheduled posts a month and the network exclusions.
All sources are the vendor's own plan or documentation pages, checked on 20 October 2026. Plan terms change without notice, so confirm current limits before you rely on them.
