Per seat, per channel or per ecosystem? How social media tools charge — and what it costs you

Two tools with the same headline price can cost you very different amounts. What matters is the unit they charge for. Here are the four common models, with real list prices for one setup: 20 brands with 9 networks each (180 channels) and a team of 10.

1. Per seat

You pay for every person who logs in. Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Agorapulse work this way. It suits one person running a few accounts and gets expensive quickly as a team grows: for our example, Sprout Social and Hootsuite cost at least $2,990 and $1,990 a month, even billed annually.

2. Per account or channel

You pay for every connected profile — each Facebook Page, each Instagram account. Zernio, Buffer and Publer work this way, often with graduated rates that fall as you add more. Adding a network to every brand adds to the bill: our example costs $398 on Zernio and $515 on Buffer.

3. Flat plans and bundles

You buy a plan sized for a number of channels or brands. Postiz, Blotato, SocialPilot, Sendible and Metricool work this way. Bundles can be very good value inside their limits — Postiz is $99 for 10 ecosystems (90 channels, 5 people) — but plans can stop at a ceiling (100 channels for Postiz and Blotato), so our 180-channel example isn't available on either without a sales conversation.

4. Per ecosystem

You pay per brand or centre, however many networks it uses. That's how Publishing Studio works: our example is $244 a month on Pro. Metricool's per-brand bundles follow a similar idea.

How graduated pricing works

Graduated prices work like tax brackets: each rate applies only to the units inside its band. With our Pro tiers, 21 ecosystems cost 1 × $19 + 4 × $15 + 15 × $11 + 1 × $7 = $251 a month. Adding one more never changes what the others cost, so there's no cliff where the bill suddenly jumps.