Buffer pricing: what $5 per channel actually costs a one-person business
The short answer
Buffer moved to per-channel pricing. Essentials is $5 per channel a month on annual billing, Team is $10 per channel. Three channels is $15 a month, five channels is $25, and the limit is channels rather than posts, so posting more costs nothing extra.
The per-channel model, in one table
Read from Buffer’s own pricing page on 19 October 2026. The $5 and $10 figures are the annual-billing rates, one channel each.
| Plan | Price | Billed |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $5per channel, per month | $60 a year, one channel |
| Team | $10per channel, per month | $120 a year, one channel |
What three channels costs
Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest is three channels. On Essentials at the annual rate that is $15 a month, or $60 per channel per year for one channel and $180 a year for three. Add LinkedIn and YouTube and you are at five channels, $25 a month.
The important number is not the monthly total. It is the marginal cost of starting a new platform, which is $5 a channel. That is the cheapest it gets to try a new channel for a month.
The catch nobody prints
Per-channel pricing is cheap for people who post a lot on few platforms and expensive for people who post a little on many. If you run six channels for a shop, one post a week each, you are paying $30 a month for six posts a week. At that volume a cheaper scheduler with a flat plan wins.
The other catch: the annual price is roughly 17% below monthly billing, but it is charged per channel, so adding platforms later means buying at the annual rate again or paying the monthly difference.
Scheduling is not the same as writing
A scheduler moves posts around. It does not write them. The hour saved on scheduling is smaller than the hour spent writing, and that is where AI actually helps: captions from a photo, three variants of a hook, a week of posts in one sitting.
If your bottleneck is moving data between tools rather than scheduling, the cheaper layer is a free automation tier. We priced that in what Zapier’s free plan includes, and the wider comparison is in Zapier vs Make vs n8n.
Questions people ask
Does Buffer charge per post?
No. On the plans we checked, the price is per connected channel. Posting more often on the same channel does not raise the bill.
Is annual billing worth it?
Only if you are sure about the channels. Annual billing is cheaper per month but locks each channel for a year.
What is the cheapest way to run three channels?
On Essentials annual pricing, three channels is about $15 a month. Compare that with the flat-rate schedulers before you commit, because the per-channel model punishes adding platforms.
Sources
Buffer pricing page (buffer.com/pricing), read 19 October 2026. Essentials and Team per-channel rates and annual equivalents are taken from that page.
Prices and plan limits read from the vendor's own pricing page on 19 October 2026. Vendors change pricing without notice, so check before you pay.