The short answer, from Buffer's own pricing page reviewed August 26, 2026: Buffer Essentials costs $6 per connected channel per month billed monthly, or $5 per channel per month billed annually. Three channels cost $18 a month, five cost $30, and ten cost $60 on monthly billing. Buffer Free connects up to 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts per channel at no cost.
Per-channel pricing is neither good nor bad. It is cheap when your channel list is short and expensive when it grows. This post does the multiplication so you can find your own row, then shows where flat-price alternatives overtake it.
The Buffer Essentials bill at each channel count
Two footnotes from Buffer's own page. First, annual billing is described as saving two months, which is where the $5 figure comes from. Second, Buffer's FAQ states that channels above 10 cost less per channel, so the table's linear math applies to the first ten channels and flattens after that.
A channel in Buffer's model is one connected account, so two X accounts count as two channels. Count accounts, not networks, when you find your row, and count the accounts you will run this quarter rather than the ones you aspire to.
| Channels | Monthly billing ($6/channel) | Annual billing ($5/channel) | Annual total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $6/mo | $5/mo | $60/yr |
| 3 | $18/mo | $15/mo | $180/yr |
| 5 | $30/mo | $25/mo | $300/yr |
| 7 | $42/mo | $35/mo | $420/yr |
| 10 | $60/mo | $50/mo | $600/yr |
What paying actually adds over Buffer Free
Buffer Free is not a crippled trial. It connects up to 3 channels and holds 10 scheduled posts per channel, refillable any time, which comfortably covers a founder posting three or four times a week per channel. What Essentials adds, per Buffer's own plan documentation, is the removal of that queue cap along with the deeper publishing toolset, and Team adds collaboration features on top at $12 per channel monthly or $10 with annual billing.
So the honest first question is not which paid plan to buy. It is whether the 10-post queue cap has ever actually blocked you. If it has not, the correct Buffer price for you today is $0, and you should revisit this table only when the cap or a fourth channel starts costing you time.
Worked example: a founder at five channels
Say you publish to LinkedIn, X, Threads, Bluesky, and a Facebook page: five connected channels. Buffer Essentials costs $30 a month billed monthly, or $25 a month billed annually, which is $300 a year. Hypefury Full at $19 a month is $228 a year if Hypefury supports every channel on your list, which you must check first. Cadencz Founder at $39 a month is $468 a year, and the extra money is buying drafting allowances and an approval step rather than scheduling capacity: 300 Compose drafts and 600 shared AI generations a month alongside the queue.
The decision at this channel count is therefore not really about the scheduler price, where the gap is a few hundred dollars a year at most. It is about whether you are also paying, in cash or in evenings, for the drafting and review work the cheaper line items leave with you.
Where flat-price alternatives overtake the per-channel bill
Billing period moves the crossover. On annual billing, Buffer at 7 channels is $35 a month, which stays under Cadencz Founder's $39; the crossover then arrives at 8 channels. The honest reading is that Buffer wins on price up to roughly 3 channels, the middle is close, and at 10 channels the per-channel model costs $50 to $60 against flat plans at $19 to $39.
| Option | Price | What it covers | Overtakes Buffer Essentials when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buffer Free | $0 | Up to 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel | You have 3 or fewer channels and a 10-post queue per channel is enough |
| Hypefury Full | $19/mo | All Hypefury channels, creator automations, 7-day trial without a card | You publish to 4 or more channels Hypefury supports (4 channels on Buffer monthly billing already cost $24) |
| Cadencz Founder | $39/mo | 7 channels with two accounts on each, 300 Compose drafts, 600 AI generations, approval workflow | You connect 7 or more accounts (7 channels on Buffer monthly billing cost $42) or you are separately paying for AI drafting |
When Buffer stays the right answer
- You run 3 or fewer channels: Buffer Free costs nothing and Essentials costs less than any flat plan here.
- You already write your own posts and need a dependable queue more than AI drafting; Buffer's plans include its prompt-based AI Assistant for the moments you want help.
- You want per-channel granularity: paying $6 for exactly one channel beats paying $19 for capacity you do not use.
- You need Team's collaboration features and still want per-channel scaling; at small channel counts Team remains cheaper than most flat team plans.
- You need Buffer's breadth of channel integrations or its published API, which Cadencz does not offer at all.
- You post to channels a flat-price alternative does not support; a cheaper plan that misses one required channel is not cheaper, it is incomplete.
Compare the workflow bill, not the scheduler bill
The scheduler is rarely the whole stack. A founder who drafts in a paid AI tool, pastes into Buffer, and tracks approvals in a spreadsheet is running a three-tool workflow where Buffer is only one line. Cadencz Founder at $39 bundles the drafting allowance (300 Compose drafts, 600 total AI generations a month), the approval step, and the scheduling; Buffer plus a separate AI subscription can cost about the same and still leave the approval trail in your inbox.
Price the stack you would actually run at your channel count, then compare totals. The full stack math, including the free options, is worked through in the founder cost guide linked below.
One last verification habit, because per-channel prices move: before acting on any number in this post, open buffer.com/pricing and multiply for yourself. The whole calculation takes ninety seconds, the review date on the tables above tells you how stale this page might be, and a founder who does that multiplication once will never again be surprised by a scheduler invoice that quietly doubled when two channels became five.