Hootsuite alternative: the comparison with the numbers in it
Short answer. Hootsuite starts at $99 per user per month with no free plan. PostWire publishes and schedules from $9 — what you give up, honestly. Verified 26 Aug 2026.
Every price on this page was read off hootsuite.com and postwire.io on 26 August 2026. If they have changed theirs since, trust their page over ours.
What each plan costs, in each company's own units
Hootsuite prices per user seat (Standard covers 10 accounts). PostWire prices per brand: one business with as many networks as it has — TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn for the same business is still one brand. Compare the row that matches your own setup, not the tier names.
Hootsuite plan
Price / month
User seats (standard covers 10 accounts) included
Notes
Standard
$99
10
per user/mo, billed annually
Professional
$199
custom
per user/mo, unlimited accounts
Advanced
$399
custom
per user/mo, unlimited accounts
Enterprise
custom
custom
custom
PostWire plan
Price / month
Brands (networks unlimited)
Notes
Free
$0
1
30 posts/mo
Starter
$9
3
300 posts/mo
Pro
$29
10
2,000 posts/mo
Agency
$99
50
15,000 posts/mo
Scale
$299
200
unlimited posts
No free plan — a 14-day trial capped at 10-20 posts a day.
The same two setups, priced on both
Tier names hide the thing that decides your bill: what counts as one unit. PostWire counts a brand — one business with every network it uses. Hootsuite counts a user seat (Standard covers 10 accounts). Here is what that does to two setups people actually have.
Your setup
PostWire
Hootsuite
One business on 4 networks
$9 (Starter, 1 of 3 brands)
$99 (Standard, 1 seat)
An agency: 10 clients, 5 networks each
$29 (Pro, 10 brands)
$99+ (1 seat, 10 accounts; more seats or Professional beyond that)
Which one should you actually pick
Choose Hootsuite if…
You are a team that needs an engagement inbox, social listening, approval workflows, analytics and reporting for clients. That whole layer is what the seat price buys, and PostWire has none of it.
Choose PostWire if…
You only need the publishing half: write once, post natively everywhere, schedule it. That is $9 here against $99 a seat there, and there is a free tier to check it first.
A fourth pricing unit
Hootsuite charges per <b>user seat</b>. Buffer charges per channel, Blotato per account, Ayrshare per profile, PostWire per brand. A solo operator on Hootsuite Standard pays $99/month for one seat covering ten accounts; the same person on PostWire pays $9 for three brands with every network inside them. The gap is not a discount — it is that you are buying a different product.
Where Hootsuite is genuinely ahead
Social listening, an engagement inbox, approval flows, client reporting, a team permission model and two decades of enterprise trust. If someone in your organisation has to approve posts before they go out, Hootsuite does that and we do not.
What PostWire does that most of these do not
A native post per network from one idea. Smart Distribute writes the caption each platform rewards — length, hashtags, SEO and format — instead of pasting identical text everywhere.
It refuses posts that are going to fail. TikTok and YouTube reject anything without a video; Instagram rejects text-only. PostWire blocks that combination while you are writing, rather than reporting four errors after you hit publish.
A real MCP server, not just an API. One tool call from Claude, Cursor or any agent — plus n8n templates if you prefer no code.
Platform approvals already granted. TikTok Direct Post and Meta advanced access were approved for PostWire, so connecting is an OAuth click instead of a review queue.
It depends on your setup, and the two tools do not count in the same unit. Hootsuite prices per user seat (Standard covers 10 accounts); PostWire prices per brand — one business with as many networks as it has — from free (1 brand) to $299 (200). The tables on this page list both so you can check your own number rather than trust a headline.
When should I choose Hootsuite instead of PostWire?
You are a team that needs an engagement inbox, social listening, approval workflows, analytics and reporting for clients. That whole layer is what the seat price buys, and PostWire has none of it.
When is PostWire the better choice?
You only need the publishing half: write once, post natively everywhere, schedule it. That is $9 here against $99 a seat there, and there is a free tier to check it first.
Does PostWire have a free plan?
Yes: one brand with all of its networks and 30 posts a month, no card required, TikTok included.
Does Hootsuite have a free plan?
No free plan — a 14-day trial capped at 10-20 posts a day.
Can an AI agent post through PostWire?
Yes. PostWire ships a REST API and a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, so Claude, Cursor or any agent can publish with one tool call, and there are n8n templates that do it without code.