Loomly vs Buffer (2026): A Line and a Staircase, and Exactly Where They Cross

Buffer starts at $5. Loomly starts at $65. If that settled it, this page would not need to exist.

It does not settle it, because the two prices are not measuring the same thing. Buffer's $5 is a price per channel per month. Loomly's $65 is a price for twelve accounts and three seats. One of those numbers grows with every account you add; the other does not move until you hit a cliff.

The two pricing shapes, side by side

Both sets of figures were pulled from the vendors' own pricing pages on 5 September 2026.

Buffer's page also notes that channels 1–10 are priced at the standard rate and that channels above 10 cost less per channel — so the linear line bends slightly in your favour at scale. Loomly's page lists no add-on price whatsoever: you cannot buy a thirteenth account, you can only buy the next tier.

Where they cross

Buffer is a straight line through the origin; Loomly is a staircase. Lines and staircases always cross, and knowing where is the entire decision:

The crossover sits almost exactly on Loomly's own tier boundary — twelve accounts. One account either side of that line, and the answer changes by a factor of five.

That thirteenth-account cliff is the most consequential number in this comparison and neither vendor's marketing mentions it, because it only exists in the comparison.

What you are actually buying at the higher price

If Buffer wins on price at nearly every account count, why does Loomly exist? Because the two products ration different things.

Buffer rations nothing you are likely to hit. Its cap is a fair use line of 5,000 posts per channel, which almost nobody reaches, and Team gives you unlimited team members. What it charges you for is presence: every channel you connect is a recurring line item, forever.

Loomly rations seats. Starter includes three users; Beyond removes the cap. Divide each tier by its account count and the picture is stark: $5.42 per account at Starter, $5.53 at Beyond — per-account cost actually rises. The 5.1× price jump does not buy cheaper accounts, it buys the removal of the seat cap plus the approval and workflow machinery built on top of it.

So the honest framing is: Loomly is an approval-workflow product priced by account tier; Buffer is a per-channel utility. If you do not need multi-step sign-off, you are paying Loomly's tier price for something you will not open.

A four-line decision

1. Under 12 channels, no approval flow needed → Buffer Essentials. Nothing here is close.
2. A team of 3+ that genuinely routes posts through approvals → Loomly Starter. Three seats plus the workflow is the actual product.
3. Many channels, one or two operators → Buffer Essentials, and note the discount above ten channels. Loomly's tier cliff punishes exactly this shape.
4. Many channels AND a big team → compare Buffer Team ($10/channel, unlimited members) against Loomly Beyond. At 60 channels that is $600 vs $332, and Loomly wins — the only scenario in this comparison where it does.

The limit both of them share

Both tools take content you already have and put it somewhere at a chosen time. Neither has an opinion about what goes in the box.

That is fine when you run five channels for one brand. It stops being fine at twenty accounts, because twenty accounts need twenty genuinely different things to say, and a scheduler will cheerfully push one identical post to all of them. The platforms are measuring similarity, not volume — which is why "we bought a scheduler and scaled to thirty accounts" so often ends with thirty accounts that all underperform at once. Products aimed at that problem invert the priority: NoobClaw, for example, generates each account's posts from that account's own niche and persona and runs its interactions in a per-account local fingerprint browser at randomised human intervals, because sameness rather than scheduling is what breaks at that size.

Worth reading alongside this: Planable vs Buffer covers a vendor that rations posts instead of seats, and The Cheapest Social Media Scheduler, Measured by Price ÷ Accounts runs the same division across twelve tools.

FAQ

Is Buffer's "unlimited scheduling" really unlimited?

Practically yes, formally no. The page says unlimited scheduling "caps usage to 5000 posts per channel" under fair use. At one post a day per channel that is over thirteen years, so it is not a constraint for a normal operator — but it is a real number, and it is the kind of second limit worth finding on every pricing page before you compare the first one.

What is the real cost of Loomly's thirteenth account?

$267 a month, because there is no add-on lane — you go from Starter at $65 to Beyond at $332. This is the single strongest argument for Buffer if you are anywhere near twelve channels and still growing. Check where your account count will be in six months, not where it is today.

Does either of them post to every platform I use?

Neither vendor's platform list is identical, and both change. Before pricing anything, list your platforms and check them against each vendor's current supported list — a $5/channel price is irrelevant if the channel you care about is not on it. This is a more common dealbreaker than price, and it is the one comparison articles skip most often.