Buffer vs Metricool vs RecurPost (2026): Three Tools, Three Different Meters, and Only One Caps Your Output
- Buffer charges per channel with no volume discount at any size. Metricool sells brands in blocks with a real discount curve. RecurPost caps posts per account per day.
- RecurPost cost per account is not monotonic: $4.50 on Starter, $5.00 on Personal, $3.95 on Agency. Moving up a tier makes each account 11% more expensive.
- Divide by posts instead of accounts and RecurPost tiers range from $0.0150 to $0.0016 per post — a nine-fold spread hidden behind a 1.27x spread in per-account price.
- If you publish at volume, the daily post cap is the only number that can stop you dead. It is also the only one of the three that is published as a plain figure.
Every three-way comparison of these tools ends the same way: a table of monthly prices, a winner, and a conclusion that is wrong for most readers. It is wrong because the three products are not selling the same unit, so dividing their prices by anything produces a number that means three different things.
All prices below were re-checked on the vendors' own pricing pages on the day this was written, because these change often enough that a month-old figure is a liability.
What each one is actually metering
Buffer meters the channel. Essentials is $5 per month per channel; Team is $10 per month per channel with unlimited seats. Every additional channel adds the same amount forever. Free gives you 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts per channel. Team's unlimited scheduling carries a fair-use cap that Buffer words as capping usage to 5,000 posts per channel.
Metricool meters the brand, in blocks. Free is 1 brand and 20 posts a month. Starter is $20 for up to 5 brands, or $36 for 10. Advanced is $53, $85 or $159 for 15, 25 or 50 brands. Publishing is described as unlimited subject to a fair use policy, with no plain number attached.
RecurPost meters posts per account per day. Starter $9 gives 2 accounts and 10 posts per account per day. Personal $25 gives 5 accounts and 20 per account per day. Agency $79 gives 20 accounts, 3 users, and 80 per account per day. Extra accounts are $4 each; extra team members $20 each.
Buffer says scarcity is your channels. Metricool says scarcity is your clients. RecurPost says scarcity is your output. Only one of those three assumptions matches how a multi-account operator actually works.
Column one: price divided by accounts
| Tool / tier | Monthly | Accounts | $ per account |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buffer Essentials | $5 x N | N | $5.00 flat, always |
| Buffer Team | $10 x N | N | $10.00 flat, always |
| Metricool Starter | $20 | 5 brands | $4.00 |
| Metricool Starter (10) | $36 | 10 brands | $3.60 |
| Metricool Advanced | $53 / $85 / $159 | 15 / 25 / 50 | $3.53 / $3.40 / $3.18 |
| RecurPost Starter | $9 | 2 | $4.50 |
| RecurPost Personal | $25 | 5 | $5.00 |
| RecurPost Agency | $79 | 20 | $3.95 |
Two things fall out of this table that no comparison article reports.
Buffer never discounts. Not at 5 channels, not at 50. It is a straight line, which makes it the most predictable and the most expensive at scale of the three.
RecurPost gets more expensive per account in the middle. $4.50, then $5.00, then $3.95. Upgrading from Starter to Personal raises your per-account cost by 11%. Volume discounts are so assumed in this category that nobody checks, and this is now the second vendor where checking overturned the assumption.
One more detail in the same area: RecurPost's add-on account is $4 per month. That is cheaper than the per-account average on Starter and Personal, and more expensive than the average on Agency. The tidy rule that add-ons always beat tier averages does not survive contact with a single vendor's own price list, let alone the category.
Column two: price divided by posts, which is where it gets serious
RecurPost is the only one of the three publishing a plain output ceiling, so it is the only one where this can be computed honestly.
| RecurPost tier | Monthly posts allowed | $ per post |
|---|---|---|
| Starter ($9, 2 accounts, 10/day) | 600 | $0.0150 |
| Personal ($25, 5 accounts, 20/day) | 3,000 | $0.0083 |
| Agency ($79, 20 accounts, 80/day) | 48,000 | $0.0016 |
Look at what just happened. On column one, Personal was the worst value of the three tiers. On column two, Personal is nearly twice as efficient as Starter. The two columns give opposite answers, and only one of them describes what a high-volume operator is buying.
The spread is the headline: 1.27x on price-per-account, 9.4x on price-per-post. If your bottleneck is publishing volume, the column everyone publishes is the column that tells you least.
For Buffer, the equivalent figure is a fair-use ceiling of 5,000 posts per channel rather than a daily rate, which is generous enough that most people will never meet it. For Metricool there is no published number at all, which is neither good nor bad — it means the limit exists somewhere in a fair use policy and you will discover it experimentally.
So which one
Not a verdict, a decision rule:
- Few channels, want it to just work, hate surprises: Buffer. The linear price is a feature when you have six channels; it is the problem when you have sixty.
- Agency managing distinct clients, reporting matters as much as posting: Metricool. The brand block is the right unit when your work is organised by client, and it is the only one of the three with a genuine discount curve.
- Many accounts, high output, recycling evergreen content: RecurPost — but pick the tier by the per-post column, not the per-account one, and check the daily cap against your real plan before you commit.
There is a fourth situation none of the three serves well: many accounts on platforms these tools do not reach through an API at all, where the point is that each account behaves like a separate person rather than a channel in one queue. That is the gap NoobClaw works in — accounts stay logged in on your own machine in isolated browser profiles, and each generates its own content rather than receiving a copy. Different problem, different tool; if a scheduler covers your platforms, use a scheduler.
For the pairwise views, see Buffer vs Metricool, RecurPost vs Buffer and RecurPost vs Metricool. The same measure-the-right-unit logic drives where SocialPilot and Hootsuite cross over and the cheapest scheduler measured per account.
FAQ
Which of the three is cheapest?
At small scale RecurPost Starter at $9 is the lowest sticker price. Per account, Metricool Advanced at 50 brands is the lowest at $3.18. Per post, RecurPost Agency is the lowest at roughly $0.0016. Three different answers, all correct, which is why the question needs a unit attached.
Does Buffer really never give a volume discount?
On its published pricing, no. Essentials is $5 per channel and Team is $10 per channel, and each additional channel costs the same as the first. The trade is unlimited seats on Team, which is a discount on people rather than on channels.
Why does RecurPost Personal cost more per account than Starter?
Because the tier is priced around the daily post allowance rather than the account count — Personal doubles the per-account daily posts from 10 to 20. You are paying for output headroom, and the per-account figure just reflects that badly.