Later vs Metricool
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Both sides assessedLater compared with Metricool
Both are affordable, both cover the visual networks, and Metricool adds X, Bluesky, Twitch, Google Business Profile, unified ads reporting across Meta, Google, and TikTok, and no post caps, for roughly $25 a month across five brands. Later's advantages are the grid preview, Snapchat, the Link in Bio implementation, and the influencer side of the business. For pure value per dollar Metricool wins clearly; for a brand whose feed aesthetics and creator programs are the strategy, Later is worth the tradeoff.
Metricool compared with Later
Later's visual planner, grid preview, Snapchat support, and Link in Bio are better for a brand whose feed aesthetics are the product, and its influencer marketing side is a genuine strategic asset. Metricool supports X, Bluesky, Twitch, and Google Business Profile that Later does not, imposes no post caps, and reports on paid alongside organic. For pure value and breadth Metricool wins; for visual curation and creator programs, Later.
Choose Later if
Consumer and ecommerce brands, creators, and small agencies whose social strategy runs on photography and short-form video across Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, particularly those who also work with influencers and want the scheduling and creator sides under one vendor.
Choose Metricool if
Freelancers, small agencies, and small in-house teams managing several brands across many networks who need dependable scheduling, genuinely good cross-network analytics including paid, and client-ready reports, without paying per seat for a suite they will not use.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Later | Metricool |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Social | Social |
| Starting price | $18.75 per month billed annually (Starter), or $25 billed monthly (14 days trial) | €0 free for one brand, then from about €20 or $25 per month for five brands (Starter) (free plan available) |
| Pricing model | Tiered subscription priced by social set, where one social set is up to eight profiles across the eight supported networks, with user counts, post volume caps, AI credits, and analytics history all scaling by tier. | Tiered subscription priced by the number of connected brands, with unlimited profiles inside each brand, a free plan for one brand, and team features, approvals, API, and Looker Studio gated to the Advanced tier. |
| Free plan | No | One brand, up to 20 scheduled posts per month, 5 competitor profiles, 30 days of analytics history, and the AI assistant. |
| Free trial | 14 days | Available on paid plans; the free tier also functions as an indefinite evaluation path |
| Best for | Consumer and ecommerce brands, creators, and small agencies whose social strategy runs on photography and short-form video across Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, particularly those who also work with influencers and want the scheduling and creator sides under one vendor. | Freelancers, small agencies, and small in-house teams managing several brands across many networks who need dependable scheduling, genuinely good cross-network analytics including paid, and client-ready reports, without paying per seat for a suite they will not use. |
| Setup time | Under an hour. Connect profiles, group them into a social set, upload a batch of assets to the media library, and the calendar is usable immediately. Later is one of the fastest tools in this category to get productive with. | Under an hour per brand. Connect the profiles, connect the ad accounts if you have them, and the analytics start populating immediately with whatever historical window each network API will backfill. |
| Learning curve | Low. The visual metaphor makes the calendar and planner intuitive to anyone who has used Instagram, and the main confusion is structural rather than operational: understanding what a social set is and how post caps count against your plan. | Low. The interface is dense but logically organized, and the brand-based structure is easy to reason about once you understand that profiles inside a brand are free. Reports and autolists reward a couple of hours of deliberate setup. |
| Platforms | Web app, iOS, Android, Chrome extension, Hosted Link in Bio pages | Web app, iOS, Android, Looker Studio connector, Smartlinks hosted pages |
| Compliance | SOC 2, GDPR, CCPA | GDPR, EU-based operations under a European corporate parent |
| Founded | 2014 | 2015 |
| Headquarters | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with offices in Boston and Chicago | Madrid, Spain |
| Ownership | Privately held, growth-equity backed with a strategic investment from Summit Partners | Acquired by team.blue, a European digital services and hosting group, in July 2024 |
Strengths and limitations
Later
Strengths
- The visual planner and Instagram grid preview remain the best implementation in the category for brands whose feed aesthetics are part of the product.
- Link in Bio is mature, well integrated with the scheduler, and tracks clicks, which closes a loop most schedulers leave open.
- Snapchat support is genuinely rare and matters to a specific set of consumer brands who cannot find it elsewhere.
- Additional users at $3.75 per month is the cheapest incremental seat in the category, which makes small collaborative teams affordable.
Limitations
- No X and no Bluesky support at all, which disqualifies Later outright for a meaningful share of buyers.
- Post volume caps on Starter and Growth are hard limits, and 30 posts per profile per month is unrealistic for anyone posting Stories daily.
- Analytics history is tier-gated at three months, one year, and two years, so the data you can see shrinks the moment you downgrade and cannot be recovered afterwards.
- Six social sets is the published ceiling, making Later a poor fit for agencies past about five clients.
Metricool
Strengths
- Pricing by brand rather than by seat or channel is the single best-designed meter in this category for small businesses and agencies.
- Unified organic and paid reporting across Meta, Google, and TikTok Ads in one dashboard is genuinely rare and removes the most tedious recurring task in client reporting.
- Twelve supported surfaces including Bluesky, Threads, Twitch, and Google Business Profile, which is broader coverage than most tools charging five times as much.
- A real free plan for one brand, not a countdown trial, so you can evaluate properly and small operators can start at zero.
Limitations
- The inbox is a comment and message reader without assignment rules, routing, collision detection, or response-time reporting, which rules Metricool out for support-heavy brands.
- There is no query-based social listening at all, so brand monitoring beyond your own mentions and named competitors is not something the product does.
- Team management and approval workflows are Advanced-only, so a two-person team on Starter has no sign-off mechanism.
- Pricing is denominated in euros with a sliding brand count, which makes budgeting slightly fiddlier than a flat published USD tier.
Pricing compared
Later
Tiered subscription priced by social set, where one social set is up to eight profiles across the eight supported networks, with user counts, post volume caps, AI credits, and analytics history all scaling by tier.
- Starter$18.75
- Growth$37.50
- Scale$82.50
- Enterprise and influencer platformCustom
At $18.75 a month for eight profiles, Later is inexpensive for what it is, and the visual planner plus Link in Bio genuinely do something Buffer and Metricool do less well. The problem is the meters. Post caps on the two cheaper tiers, AI sold in credits, analytics history sold as an upgrade, and a ceiling of six social sets mean the price you model and the price you pay diverge for anyone doing volume. Compare like for like: Metricool's Starter covers five brands with unlimited publishing and no post cap for roughly $25, and SocialBee covers ten profiles with unlimited AI for $49. Later earns its money when your content is visual, your grid matters, your links need to convert, and you might eventually want the creator side of the house. For text-driven or multi-brand work, it is the wrong shape and the caps will find you.
Metricool
Tiered subscription priced by the number of connected brands, with unlimited profiles inside each brand, a free plan for one brand, and team features, approvals, API, and Looker Studio gated to the Advanced tier.
- Free€0
- StarterFrom €20 (about $25)
- AdvancedFrom €54 (about $67)
- CustomQuoted
Metricool is the best capability-per-dollar in this category and it is not close. Twelve networks with no per-channel meter, unlimited publishing, competitor tracking, unified organic and paid reporting, branded client exports, a link in bio, and an inbox for roughly $25 a month across five brands is a price structure the American competitors have simply not matched. Advanced at around $67 adds team roles, approvals, API access, and Looker Studio, features that cost $399 per seat at Hootsuite and $299 per seat at Sprout. What you give up is inbox depth, listening, and enterprise support, and those are real gaps rather than marketing distinctions. But for the overwhelming majority of small businesses and small agencies, Metricool covers the work and leaves several thousand dollars a year to spend on content instead of software.
Editorial verdict on each
Later
Later is the right answer for a specific and fairly common business: a consumer or ecommerce brand whose social output is photography and short-form video, whose Instagram grid is part of the brand, and who wants posts to convert through a link in bio. At $18.75 a month it is cheap for that, the visual planner is the best in the category, approvals arrive at $37.50 where competitors charge ten times as much, and the creator commerce side of the company is a genuine strategic asset if you work with influencers. Everything else is a caveat: no X, no Bluesky, hard post caps on the cheaper tiers, AI sold in credits, analytics history sold as an upgrade you cannot recover after downgrading, and a ceiling of six social sets that stops agencies cold. Buy it for the grid and the links. Do not buy it expecting a suite.
Read the full Later profileMetricool
Best ValueMetricool is the default recommendation in this category for anyone whose business is smaller than a staffed social team. Pricing by brand rather than by seat or channel means a single business posting to ten networks pays the same as one posting to two, an agency with ten clients pays $45 a month, and the analytics you get for that money, including Meta, Google, and TikTok ad spend reported next to organic performance, are better than what most competitors sell at ten times the price. Approvals, team roles, API access, and Looker Studio arrive at around $67. The gaps are real and worth naming: no listening, an inbox that is a reader rather than a helpdesk, and a thin enterprise posture. If social is a customer support channel or a compliance surface, buy Sprout. For everyone else, start free, move to Starter, and spend the four thousand dollars a year you did not give to an incumbent on content.
Read the full Metricool profileLater profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Metricool last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.