Hootsuite vs Metricool: They Don't Sell the Same Unit, So the Price Comparison Everyone Runs Is Wrong

Two tools, both described as social media management, prices that look an order of magnitude apart. The comparison seems easy.

It isn't, and the reason is boring and decisive: they don't sell the same unit. Dividing each price by "accounts" produces a number for one of them and a fiction for the other.

The Numbers, Checked Today

Both figures below were pulled on the day of writing, because pricing pages in this category change faster than anyone's article.

Hootsuite

The plans page doesn't render prices in its table without interaction, but its own FAQ on the same page states:

Paid plans start at $99 for a Standard plan, $199 for a Professional plan, and range up to $399 for an Advanced plan.

The page notes prices are based on annual billing. Structure from the same table:

• Standard — 10 social accounts, 1+ user seats
• Professional — Unlimited social accounts, 1+ user seats
• Advanced — Unlimited social accounts, 1+ user seats
• Enterprise — custom

Metricool

From metricool.com/pricing, the per-brand ladder (monthly):

Note the flatness of that last column: ten times the scale buys you about 19% off per unit. Metricool barely discounts volume, which makes it very predictable and means large deployments get no real break.

Why You Can't Just Divide

Hootsuite's unit is a social account — one connected profile on one network. Metricool's unit is a brand, which bundles profiles across networks.

So the same twelve profiles can be one brand or twelve brands depending entirely on how they relate to each other:

• One business, twelve networks → 1 Metricool brand. Effective per-profile cost, near zero. Hootsuite: Standard's 10-account cap is already exceeded, so you're at Professional.
• Twelve unrelated single-platform accounts → 12 Metricool brands, so the €29/10 tier doesn't fit and you're at €43/15. Hootsuite: still Professional, still $199, still unlimited.

Identical profile count, different Metricool bill, unchanged Hootsuite bill. Any table that lists "price per account" for both is comparing a measurement to a guess.

Before you divide a price by anything, confirm what the denominator counts. A "brand", a "social set", a "workspace" and an "account" are four different things, and every vendor picks the one that makes their curve look best.

The Question That Actually Decides It: Where Is the Gate?

Forget monthly price for a moment and ask two things about each vendor. Where is the gate, and is scarcity placed on people or on content?

Hootsuite: scarcity is on people

All three paid tiers list "1+ user seats". That plus sign is the whole pricing model: the headline price buys one person, and additional people are the thing you buy more of. Meanwhile accounts go unlimited from Professional upward.

The consequence is counterintuitive and almost never stated in roundups: Hootsuite assumes your content volume is fixed and that headcount is the real cost. If you run many accounts with a small team, its "expensive" tier is structurally in your favour — $199 for unlimited accounts is a very different proposition than it looks. If you're an agency with eight coordinators, that same plan is a seat bill waiting to happen. We went deeper on this in Hootsuite's per-seat pricing.

Metricool: scarcity is on grouping

Metricool's gate isn't seats or post volume on paid tiers — it's how many separate brands you need. That's a third kind of unit, and it punishes a specific shape: lots of unrelated accounts that can't be grouped. Note also that team management and approval workflow sit on the Advanced tier, so multi-person use has its own floor.

Neither gates on post volume — except on Free

Worth stating because it's the assumption people bring in. Metricool's free tier caps the planner at 20 posts per month and excludes LinkedIn and X/Twitter entirely (its own help centre wording). On paid tiers, publishing is described as unlimited subject to a fair use policy. Hootsuite's paid tiers don't publish a post cap either.

Two Things That Don't Show Up in the Table

Billing period. Hootsuite's $99/$199/$399 are annual-billing figures. Metricool's ladder above is monthly, with annual billing advertised at up to 24% off. Comparing an annual-equivalent price to a monthly price is the most common way these tables end up wrong by a quarter — and it's how a vendor can appear to have changed prices when nothing changed but the toggle.

Add-ons. Metricool lists X/Twitter connection as available on paid plans via add-on. We tried to retrieve the add-on price from a first-party page today and the linked help article returned a 404, so we're not putting a number in this table. If X is core to your workflow, get that number from Metricool directly before you decide — it applies per account and it can change the arithmetic materially.

So Which One

• Many accounts, one or two people → Hootsuite Professional. Unlimited accounts on a single seat is the best structural fit either vendor offers this shape.
• A handful of businesses, each on several networks → Metricool. Brands bundle exactly this way, and you'll land on a cheap tier.
• Many unrelated single-platform accounts → count the brands first. This is Metricool's worst case and the comparison flips.
• Analytics and competitor reporting matter most → Metricool, where that's a first-class product rather than an add-on. Compare it against the field in Metricool vs Later before committing.
• Several people need to work in the tool → price both properly. Hootsuite's seats and Metricool's Advanced-tier team management are both real costs that the headline price hides.

The Assumption Both of Them Share

One thing to notice: both tools work by holding authorised connections to your accounts on their servers. That's what a seat, a brand and a connected profile all ultimately are — permission you granted, held by someone else, priced by the unit.

It's worth knowing there's a different architecture, because it changes what you're paying for. NoobClaw runs locally: each account stays in its own browser session on your own machine, logged in by you, and publishing drives those sessions rather than going through platform APIs or a vendor's connection. Nothing to authorise, nothing held elsewhere. The honest tradeoffs are that your machine has to be running, and it isn't an analytics suite — if competitor benchmarking is the reason you're comparing these two, that's a real point for Metricool and this isn't a substitute for it.

If Neither Fits, Check What You Are Buying

If both look wrong, it is usually because neither gate matches your shape — you have many accounts and several people, which is the combination both pricing models punish. Two things worth reading before you widen the search: the wider Hootsuite alternatives field, and what self-hosting actually costs, which is the option people reach for at exactly this point and which trades a subscription for credentials work and maintenance.

FAQ

Is Metricool cheaper than Hootsuite?

Usually yes in headline price, but the comparison only means something once you've converted your profiles into Metricool brands. Do that count first. For a team running many unrelated accounts on one seat, Hootsuite Professional can come out ahead despite costing several times more per month.

Does Hootsuite still limit social accounts?

Standard lists 10 social accounts; Professional and Advanced list unlimited. The limit that persists across all three is seats — every tier shows "1+ user seats", meaning additional people are priced separately.

Can I use Metricool's free plan for a real business?

Only if LinkedIn and X aren't part of your business, since its own help centre lists both as excluded from Free — and if 20 planner posts a month covers you. For most businesses the platform exclusion decides it long before the post cap does.