Metricool vs Hootsuite (2026): Price per Brand vs Price per Seat

Metricool is the cheaper tool for almost every small team in 2026, because it charges per brand and Hootsuite charges per person. Metricool Starter is $20 a month on annual billing for up to 5 brands, with no seat fee. Hootsuite Standard is $99 per user a month on annual billing for 10 social accounts. A three-person team pays Metricool $240 a year and Hootsuite $3,564 by our arithmetic. Hootsuite earns its price when you need a shared inbox with assignments, deeper listening and a 90-day trend forecast, which Metricool does not sell.

Prices come from Metricool's pricing page, which prints both USD and EUR, and Hootsuite's plans page, read on October 26, 2026. Hootsuite says its prices are in USD on annual billing and exclude taxes.

Toolradar data: Hootsuite ranks third among the 161 social media management tools Toolradar, the software directory we run, tracked as of October 25, 2026 (Toolradar social media management ranking). Metricool sits in the group ranked 11 through 30, where the ranking calls it the best multi-channel analytics pick for agencies. The median cheapest paid plan across the 48 tools in that category that publish one is $20.26 a month, so Metricool Starter is priced at the category median and Hootsuite Standard at almost five times it. Directory profiles: Metricool on Toolradar and Hootsuite on Toolradar.

At a glance

A Metricool brand is one business or client with one profile per network or ad platform under it. A Hootsuite social account is one profile, so Hootsuite Standard's 10 accounts might be two brands with five networks each, while Metricool Starter's 5 brands could carry 50 or more profiles. Hootsuite's FAQ says monthly billing exists for Standard, Professional and Advanced at a higher per-user rate, but the page does not print that rate, while Metricool prints both.

What a three-person team pays in a year

Three people managing one brand pay Metricool $240 a year on Starter and Hootsuite $3,564 on Standard, by our arithmetic of $20 and $99 by 12 months and, for Hootsuite, by three seats. On monthly billing Metricool Starter is $300 a year; Hootsuite's monthly rate is not printed, so budget from the annual figure. The gap comes from the billing unit, not the feature list: Metricool's Starter price does not move when you add a colleague, and Hootsuite's does.

Add an approval step and the gap widens. Metricool's post approval system sits on Advanced, so three people with up to 15 brands pay $636 a year on annual billing. Hootsuite's content approvals arrive on Advanced at $399 per user, which is $14,364 a year for three seats. Even a solo manager pays Hootsuite Standard $1,188 a year against Metricool Starter's $240, so the one scenario where Hootsuite's bill is comparable is a single user who needs Professional's automation and listening, at $2,388 a year.

Two Metricool add-ons can narrow the picture. X (Twitter) is an add-on at $10 a month per connected account on paid plans, and the Advanced Analytics add-on starts at $12 a month on Starter and $36 a month on Advanced for unlimited campaign dashboards and Metricool Studio access. A team with three X accounts on Starter therefore pays $50 a month, still half of one Hootsuite seat. The full plan ladder is in our Metricool pricing breakdown and the Hootsuite pricing guide.

Publishing and scheduling

Both schedule without a post cap on paid plans; the limits sit on Metricool's free tier and Hootsuite's trial. Metricool Free allows 20 scheduled posts a month on one brand and excludes LinkedIn and X. Starter unlocks unlimited publishing under a fair use policy, the LinkedIn connection, a hashtag search engine, scheduled polls and multiple link-in-bio pages. The free tier is compared with the other no-cost schedulers in our best free social media schedulers ranking. Hootsuite schedules unlimited posts on every paid plan, generates posts and images with its Wisdom AI on every plan, and caps trial accounts at 10 to 20 posts a day with no bulk scheduling.

Hootsuite Standard connects 10 social accounts, and Professional removes the cap. Metricool counts brands rather than profiles, so a small business with one brand on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Google Business Profile and a blog fits the Free plan, minus X and LinkedIn. Metricool also connects Facebook Ads and Google Ads accounts under each brand, which Hootsuite's plans page does not list, so an agency reporting paid and organic together gets that in the $20 plan.

Inbox and customer care

Hootsuite is the stronger inbox, and the price reflects it. Standard answers messages from one inbox, and Professional automates replies and DM workflows with AI smart replies and contact profiles. Advanced assigns messages to teammates, routes conversations by skill, sends customer satisfaction surveys and tracks team productivity. That is a support desk built into a social tool, and a brand with a real service volume on social should price it against a help desk, not against Metricool.

Metricool's inbox collects Instagram, Facebook, Google Business Profile, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn messages, with X behind the add-on, and its Flows feature turns comments and story replies into DMs and answers DMs by keyword, at no extra cost for a limited time per the pricing page. It is a reply queue, not a routed care operation. For a shop answering a few dozen comments a week, that is enough; for a customer care team, it is not.

Analytics, competitors and reporting

Metricool gives more analytics per dollar; Hootsuite gives listening and forecasting Metricool does not have. Metricool Free analyzes 5 competitor profiles with 30 days of history, and Starter raises that to 100 competitors with unlimited history. Both paid plans export PDF and PPT reports with monthly automated sending. Advanced adds customizable report templates, a Data Studio connector for combined client reports, and API access through Zapier and Make. Web and blog analytics and a hashtag tracker at $25 a day for X or Instagram sit beside the social metrics.

Hootsuite Standard benchmarks against 5 competitors and includes social listening. Professional benchmarks against 20, searches 30 days of conversations, exports listening results, forecasts trends up to 90 days ahead and builds custom scheduled reports. Enterprise adds 13 months of listening history and attribution reporting. The Hootsuite review covers the listening in depth, and the Metricool review covers the analytics side.

Teams, approvals and clients

Metricool treats team access as part of the plan; Hootsuite treats it as the plan. Metricool Advanced adds team and client management, role management, collaborators who see one brand without the others, and the post approval system, all inside the per-brand price. Hootsuite sells seats on every plan, and its FAQ notes that some features only work with multiple user seats; approvals, internal comments and the ability to suspend scheduled posts arrive on Advanced, and departmental organization, SSO and compliance tools on Enterprise.

For an agency the arithmetic is decisive. Ten client brands and four staff cost Metricool Starter $36 a month, or $432 a year on annual billing, with each client able to see only their own brand on Advanced. The same four staff on Hootsuite Standard cost $396 a month, or $4,752 a year, and the 10-account cap means ten clients with several networks each need Professional at $796 a month. Our Hootsuite alternatives ranking lists the other per-brand tools, the Hootsuite vs Buffer comparison covers the other per-channel pricing model, and Sprout Social vs Hootsuite covers the enterprise end of the market. For a per-channel alternative at the low end, see the Buffer pricing breakdown.

Which should you choose?

How we compared

The yearly bills multiply each vendor's listed annual-billing price by 12 months and, for Hootsuite, by the number of seats; Hootsuite's unprinted monthly rate is excluded, and Metricool's monthly rates are quoted where the page prints them. Plan features are taken from the two pricing pages as read on October 26, 2026. Metricool's Flows pricing is marked as no extra cost for a limited time on its page, so treat it as a current offer rather than a permanent inclusion. Our editorial policy covers how comparisons are produced.

FAQ

Is Metricool cheaper than Hootsuite?

Yes, for any team of more than one person and for most solo users. Metricool Starter is $20 a month on annual billing for 5 brands with no per-seat fee, while Hootsuite Standard is $99 per user a month on annual billing. Three users pay $240 a year at Metricool and $3,564 at Hootsuite by our arithmetic, read on the vendors' pricing pages in October 2026.

Does Metricool have a free plan, and does Hootsuite?

Metricool's Free plan manages 1 brand with 20 scheduled posts a month, 5 competitor profiles and 30 days of analytics, without LinkedIn or X. Hootsuite has no free plan; it offers a 14-day trial with no credit card, daily posting limits of 10 to 20 posts and no bulk scheduling.

Which plan has post approvals?

Metricool Advanced, from $53 a month on annual billing for 15 brands, includes a post approval system, role management and team and client management. Hootsuite puts content approvals, internal comments and message assignments on Advanced at $399 per user a month on annual billing.

Does Metricool support X (Twitter)?

On paid plans, as an add-on at $10 a month per connected X account, with complete X analytics on Advanced and a 30-day metric storage limit for X data. The Free plan excludes X and LinkedIn entirely. Hootsuite connects X within its account allowance on every plan.

What does Hootsuite do that Metricool cannot?

Routed customer care, deeper listening and forecasting. Professional automates inbox replies, searches 30 days of conversations and forecasts trends up to 90 days ahead; Advanced assigns and skill-routes messages and runs satisfaction surveys; Enterprise adds SSO, 13 months of listening history and attribution reporting. Metricool's inbox and Flows cover replies, not routing.

What is the difference between a Metricool brand and a Hootsuite social account?

A Metricool brand is a business or client with one profile per network or ad platform under it, so one brand can hold ten profiles. A Hootsuite social account is a single profile, and Standard allows 10 of them, so a brand with five networks uses half the allowance.

Cite this: MarketingShot, "Metricool vs Hootsuite (2026): Price per Brand vs Price per Seat", November 2026.

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