First let's give you the criteria for assessment so you can see if this assessment of the social media planners is a good fit for you.

My assessment criteria for the best social media scheduler for small business is:

1. Must be cost effective! A small business can't afford to spend a fortune on a tool unless there is a clear and direct payback to the business.
2. Must be easy to use and add value to the business. By this I mean it allows you to do more than you would otherwise or plain just save you time.
3. Incorporates the major channels. The platform includes LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google, Tiktok etc.

That's it. But just know also that the best social media scheduler also needs to fit with the social channels that you are focused on as some tools are stronger for certain platforms versus others eg those that are focused on Instagram or Pinterest!

I always have a giggle with this topic, as when you google the topic, the top entries are the actual social media platforms themselves eg. Hootsuite comes up top of the pops on this topic, but doesn't qualify itself for WHO are they best for? eg. their entry level pricing at the moment is AU$149 per month... not really small business friendly.

So the list I have is quite small. Why? Because a lot of social media planners out there are designed for larger organisations or agencies. They come with a lot of great capabilities which may not make sense to invest in just at this moment eg. those tools that bake in moderation and monitoring capabilities for community management.

The ones that did make the list either have a great free plan with all the base line capabilities you need to be able to properly manage your socials across multiple platforms OR they are good value for new breed AI assistance built in:)

The contenders as best social media scheduler for small business

Meta Business Suite Planner 

Free!

Only posts to Facebook, Instagram.

Meta Business Suite Planner is the free scheduling tool from Meta and the latest in the evolution of the platform. It does fix a lot of the issues we had with Facebook Creator Studio.

What we like:

• Easy to save draft content

• Calendar and list view (making use of the Content tab)

• In built post performance

• Allows you to schedule direct for all formats with the exception of reels which can be created and posted but not scheduled

• Good for those on a budget and are only focused on Facebook and Instagram
• Allows you to easily tailor content between the two platforms to save you time.
• Within the Content section you can set up AB test if you want to get serious about improving your content.
• It provides you with one view for moderating all comments and messages across the two platforms.

What we don’t like:

• Stickers and creativity when making stories and reels is still limited.

It makes the list of best social media scheduler tools for small business because it's free! and works!

Social Champs

• Entry plan: Free : 1 user and 3 social media accounts, with unlimited scheduling of posts

• You can add additional channels for $5 per channel

Covers:

• Facebook (Pages and Groups)
• Twitter (Accounts and Threads)
• LinkedIn (Direct schedule posts and documents (Carousels) on Profiles and Pages)
• Pinterest (Boards and Pins both Images & Videos.
• Instagram (Direct Publish Posts, Reels, Carousels & Instagram Stories (post via push notifications on personal/creator accounts).
• YouTube (Private & Public Channels)
• Google Business Profiles (Listings)
• TikTok (Personal & Business Accounts)
• Mastodon

This tool is all about value and great for the small business just getting started and needs to watch the pennies.

What we like: 

• Super easy to connect up your social accounts

• You can do drafts

• You can set up a posting schedule so you just need to add content to the queue and off it goes!

• Has started to incorporate AI capabilities, but limited on the free plan - but it does include a sentiment analysis of your content!

• There is some reporting at post level, and 2 week of reporting - again this is a limitation of the free version.

• Schedule content directly from your WordPress site (if you have one ... can be a time saver if you're creating lots of blogs/ articles)
• Has a handy chrome extension to let you share from content anywhere on the internet.
• Particularly like being able to incorporate UTM parameters for better tracking and visibility in your Google Analytics:)
• Hashtag manager to help you set up groups and then easily add to your different posts.
• Makes it easy to customise the one post for the different channels you have selected.

Buffer

• Free plan: free for 1 user and 3 social media accounts and you can add on channels for $6 per month per channel.

Covers: 

• Instagram (stories and posts plus tagging)
• TikTok (personal and business accounts)
• Facebook (Pages and Groups)
• Twitter
• LinkedIn (Profiles and company pages)
• Mastodon
• YouTube (shorts)
• Google Business Profiles
• Pinterest (boards)

What we like: 

• Buffer is super easy to use
• Has incorporated AI into it's tool but this is limited on the free plan
• Customise posts between channels
• Hashtag groups to make it easy to add to your posts
• They have a and have a really nifty service where they send you curated links and quotes via email once your buffer of posts is empty. On more than one occasion, I’ve found really interesting articles in these suggestions.
• A start page if you don't have a website!
• You can set up posting schedules and then just add to the queue and Buffer will publish the next scheduled based on the schedule. This is super terrific but they take it one step further with their optimal timing schedule which will tell you the best times to schedule and then with a click of the button it ‘makes it so’ and replaces your current schedule with the optimal version.
• Has a tool to help you repurpose previously posted content again! Again not available on the free plan but once you step up it's a great boon to productivity.

What we don’t like:

• No reporting on the free plan
• There’s no commenting functionality
• Limited AI capabilities on free plan.

It makes the list of best social media scheduler tools for small business because it has a free although limited but is a great consideration as you grow for more capabilities particularly with the new AI features they are introducing.

Feedhive

• US$29 per month for 5  social media accounts and 1 user and a 1000 posts per category.

Covers: 

• Instagram (stories, reels and posts)
• TikTok (personal and business accounts)
• Facebook (Pages and Groups)
• Twitter
• Youtube
• LinkedIn (Profiles and company pages)
• Google Business Profiles
• Pinterest (boards)

What we like: 

• AI content generation built into the dashboard
• Post variations to help you reuse your evergreen content ongoing
• Hashtag generator
• Requeue top-performing content to repost
• UTM parameters can be used to make the impact of individual posts visible in your Google Analytics

What we don't like:

• The Cost, but it's another alternative Feedhive if you're seriously looking to invest in AI to you grow your business - it just has a slightly different set of tools for AI assistance.
• No analytics.

It makes the list of best social media scheduler tools for small business for the same reasons as Feedhive. It has great AI tools that are only going to help you do more, do better and hopefully see real results for the cost. Must be seen as an investment and come with a commitment to use all the features.

SUMMARY

Almost all platforms have a free trial period, making it easy for you to determine whether the functionality will suit you.

In the meantime, my best advice on the matter of selecting a platform is that there are so many out there, with variations on features and pricing that you need to assess each one in the light of your own individual needs. Make a list, don’t follow the crowd, follow your own unique set of needs.

Note: we do not ‘earn’ any commission from affiliate arrangements from the above links. This review article is offered with no bias based on our own experience and that of working with hundreds of small businesses, where the business owner is often the one doing or directing the work on their socials.