What changed, and why it stings
Hootsuite no longer offers a free plan, and its paid tiers start at roughly $99 per user per month, running up to about $399. For teams that use the seats, approvals and social listening, that's a defensible price. For a solo creator who mainly scheduled posts and answered comments, it turned a free habit into a four-figure annual bill for features they never touch.
The good news: the solo slice of what Hootsuite does is the easy part to replace, and in some cases the replacement is better at it.
Option 1: Actually free
- Buffer's free tier covers light scheduling on a few channels indefinitely. Engagement stays manual and the AI is generic, but for a queue and a calendar at $0, it's the honest first stop.
- Meta Business Suite is free and covers Facebook and Instagram completely, including scheduled Stories, if those two networks are your whole presence.
- PersonaXpand (ours, disclosed): the first 14 days run at full limits, then the account continues on a free plan with lower monthly limits rather than stopping. Paid plans and add-on packs are there if you outgrow it.
Option 2: Cheap and built for one person
Full disclosure: PersonaXpand is our product. PersonaXpand is an AI social media manager for personal brands: it writes posts in your own trained voice for all seven networks and auto-replies to comments, DMs and mentions, on one flat plan. It starts free, as above; from $12 a month it covers the solo slice of Hootsuite and adds what Hootsuite reserves for higher tiers or doesn't do at all: one-tap reply approval, analytics explained in plain words, reputation monitoring and trending topics. No seats, because you don't need seats.
The full side-by-side, including where Hootsuite genuinely remains better, is at PersonaXpand vs Hootsuite, and the wider field is in Hootsuite alternatives for personal brands.
Option 3: Stay, if you're actually a team
If colleagues share the account, approvals matter, or you rely on enterprise listening, Hootsuite's price buys real things and the alternatives above will frustrate you. The test is one question: does anyone else log in? If yes, you're the customer Hootsuite now focuses on. If no, you're paying for their customer's features.