Buffer vs SocialBee
Buffer Charges Per Channel, So Count Your Channels Before You Compare Prices
SocialBee Charges Per Social Profile — One Brand Is Usually Five or Six of Them
The short answer
- Entry price
- Buffer does not publish a single starting price we can rank against SocialBee's $29/month, so we do not rank them. A zero in our data means one of two opposite things — a genuine free tier, or a product that is not sold at a fixed monthly rate at all — so calling either one "cheapest" would be wrong.
- Our rating
- 4.2/5 against 4.3/5. That gap is inside our own margin, so treat these as rated level and decide on the specifics below rather than on the score.
Buffer
see siteThe free plan is 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts each, which refill. Paid is $5 per channel on Essentials and $10 per channel on Team — so the advertised $5 is the price of one account, and six accounts is $30.
What works
- ✓ Free plan connects 3 channels and is not a trial
- ✓ Free scheduled posts refill as they publish, so 10 per channel is a rolling limit not a lifetime one
- ✓ Team at $10/channel includes unlimited users — genuinely per-channel, not per-person
- ✓ Free tier still includes AI Assistant, Insights, 100 ideas and API access
What does not
- ✗ Pricing is per channel, so the $5 headline multiplies by every account you run
- ✗ Free plan allows 1 user account — no collaborators until you pay
- ✗ Essentials is single-user; team access means Team at double the per-channel rate
- ✗ The per-channel discount only starts above 10 channels, which most small businesses never reach
SocialBee
from $29/monthBootstrap is $29 for 5 social profiles, Accelerate $49 for 10, Pro $99 for 25. The unit is the profile, not the brand — and a single business posting to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, TikTok and Pinterest is already six. Count your profiles before you pick a tier.
What works
- ✓ Every tier states its profile count, user count and workspace count openly
- ✓ Annual billing is a straight ~16% saving: Bootstrap $290/year rather than $348
- ✓ All plans state unlimited AI content generation, with no credit meter
- ✓ Agency tiers scale to 150 profiles with published prices, no sales call
What does not
- ✗ Bootstrap and Accelerate both include just 1 user per workspace
- ✗ Six common networks exceed Bootstrap's 5-profile allowance on day one
- ✗ Team access starts at Pro ($99), where users go to 3
- ✗ Posting limits per plan are not stated on the pricing page
Who should pick which
Pick Buffer if this is the thing that matters most to you:
Free plan connects 3 channels and is not a trial.
What most often rules it out: Pricing is per channel, so the $5 headline multiplies by every account you run.
Pick SocialBee if this is the thing that matters most to you:
Every tier states its profile count, user count and workspace count openly.
What most often rules it out: Bootstrap and Accelerate both include just 1 user per workspace.
Figures come from our review of each product, checked against the vendor's own pricing page. We do not convert currencies or rank prices quoted on different billing periods — where that applies it is said above, not quietly resolved.
A third option, and what it is not
Bonfire Terminal is an AI agent that runs as a desktop app on your own machine — no cloud, nothing you type leaves your computer. It does not do what Buffer or SocialBee do, and we will not pretend it does. If either is doing its job for you, keep it.
What the $27 actually gets you→The way in is the AI Marketers Club — $27 one-time, including 21 days of access. Keeping it after that is a separate purchase; the vendor's FAQ states Bonfire Terminal starts at $5,000. We earn a commission at no extra cost to you, which is why both tools' drawbacks are printed in full above and the $5,000 is here rather than left for you to find later.