Hootsuite Pricing in 2026: Plans, Hidden Costs, and Alternatives

Hootsuite used to be the default social media tool. Cheap plans, a solid free tier, and a name everyone recognized.

That's not the reality anymore. The free plan is gone. The cheapest paid plan is $99 per user a month (billed annually). And the total cost can surprise you once you add more people, move up a plan for features like approvals, or commit to an annual plan you can't get refunded.

For this update I went through Hootsuite's plans page, help center and terms on October 18, 2026, and compared what you actually get for the money. This is the full breakdown.

Quick Pricing Summary

Here's what Hootsuite costs in 2026 at a glance (prices checked October 18, 2026).

Hootsuite also offers monthly billing on Standard, Professional and Advanced at a higher per-user rate, but its plans page only shows the annual prices. Annual billing is one discounted, non-refundable payment for a one-year commitment. That's worth knowing before you commit.

What Does Hootsuite Cost?

Hootsuite pricing starts at $99 per user a month on annual billing. Professional is $199 per user, Advanced is $399 per user, and Enterprise is priced by quote. There is no free plan. Hootsuite ended it on March 31, 2023. Standard, Professional and Advanced each come with a 14-day free trial.

That quick answer covers the basics. But because every plan is priced per user, the sticker price rarely tells the full story with Hootsuite. Keep reading for the details that matter.

Hootsuite Pricing Plans Explained

A quick note on names first. Older guides, including the first version of this article, call the $99 plan "Professional" and list a "Team" plan. Those are legacy plans. Hootsuite's help center still mentions legacy Professional, Team and Business plans, and moving from a legacy plan to a current one means creating a new account. The current plans are Standard, Professional, Advanced and Enterprise.

Standard Plan: $99 per User/mo (Annual)

This is Hootsuite's entry-level plan. You pay $99 per user and get 10 social accounts.

For a solo marketer or freelancer, 10 accounts sounds generous. But remember, each platform profile counts as one account. If you manage Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and TikTok for just two clients, you're already at your limit.

What's included:

• 10 social accounts
• Publishing to Hootsuite's networks, including Threads and Bluesky (Bluesky publishing since September 2025)
• Google Business Profile through Hootsuite's Google My Business app
• Overview analytics reports you can export to PDF and PPTX
• A content calendar you can export to CSV (up to 365 days at a time)
• A 14-day free trial

What's not included:

• Unlimited social accounts (Professional and up)
• Custom reports (Professional and up)
• Approval workflows, message assignment and routing (Advanced)
• Mastodon publishing (not offered on any Hootsuite plan)

Standard works for solo operators who only manage their own brand. The moment you add a second team member, you pay for a second $99 seat. The moment you need approvals, everyone moves to Advanced.

Hootsuite's AI is called Wisdom. Check the plans page for what Wisdom does on each plan.

Professional Plan: $199 per User/mo (Annual)

Professional removes the account cap. You get unlimited social accounts and custom reports for $199 per user.

This is where freelancers and small agencies with several clients tend to land, because Standard's 10 accounts run out fast. The jump from $99 to $199 is $100 per user per month. For a 3-person team, that's $300 more a month, or $3,600 more a year.

What Professional doesn't include: approval workflows and message assignment and routing. Those are on Advanced.

Advanced Plan: $399 per User/mo (Annual)

Advanced adds approval workflows and message assignment and routing on top of unlimited social accounts. It's the first plan where a teammate's post can go through an approval step before it publishes. Advanced also lets you export custom reports to CSV and XLSX, not just PDF and PPTX.

At $399 per user, a 3-person team pays $1,197 a month, or $14,364 a year. That's what approvals cost on Hootsuite.

Enterprise Plan: Custom Pricing

Enterprise is quote-only. The plans page says "Contact for pricing" and offers a demo. Social accounts are unlimited.

Enterprise plans run on a contract, and the rules differ from the self-serve plans:

• Plan changes go through your Hootsuite customer account manager.
• Renewals are automatic, for one-year periods.
• Cancelling means emailing a written non-renewal notice to cancellation@hootsuite.com at least 60 days before the term ends.
• Invoicing is available for annual Enterprise plans.

From Hootsuite's Enterprise Terms: contracts renew for one-year periods unless you send a non-renewal notice to cancellation@hootsuite.com at least 60 days before the end of the term. Our guide on how to cancel Hootsuite covers the full process.

Earlier versions of this article included Enterprise price estimates and implementation fees. Hootsuite doesn't publish those, and we couldn't verify them, so we removed them. Get a written quote, and ask about onboarding costs and renewal terms before you sign.

For large organizations with complex compliance needs, global teams, and enterprise security requirements, Enterprise features do matter. But the price tag makes sense only if you're using most of what's included.

Hidden Costs and Add-Ons

The published plan prices don't capture the full picture. Here are the costs that tend to catch people off guard.

Per-User Pricing on Every Plan

Every Hootsuite plan is sold per user (Hootsuite also calls it a seat). A second person doubles the bill. Two people on Standard pay $198 a month, and five pay $495. On Advanced, five people pay $1,995 a month, or $23,940 a year.

Monthly Billing Premium

Hootsuite offers monthly billing, and says annual billing gives a lower per-user monthly rate. The plans page only shows the annual prices, so check the monthly price at checkout before you choose it. Two more details: you can only switch an annual plan to monthly after the one-year commitment ends, and the displayed prices don't include applicable taxes.

Social Listening

Earlier versions of this article quoted $7,000 or more a year for Hootsuite's social listening. We couldn't confirm that figure on Hootsuite's site on October 18, 2026, so we removed it. Hootsuite does have listening tools (its help center calls them Lumen). If listening is the reason you're considering Hootsuite, ask for a written quote before you commit.

Paid Apps and Add-Ons

Hootsuite also sells paid apps. Each paid app starts with a 30-day trial, and Hootsuite doesn't prorate when you cancel one, so cancel apps you don't want two days before your billing date. Add-on features you remove mid-cycle stay active until the end of your commitment, and Hootsuite doesn't refund them.

No Refund Policy

From Hootsuite's Self-Serve Terms (section 24): "If you cancel (or downgrade) paid Self-Serve Services, you must continue to pay for the rest of your plan term and you are not entitled to a refund."

Annual plans are a single non-refundable payment. Deleting your account closes it immediately, with no proration or partial refund. Hootsuite does say it's happy to review charges if you ask through its refund form, and approved refunds usually take 5 to 10 business days.

This is worth factoring into your decision. If you commit to an annual plan and decide Hootsuite isn't right three months in, you're likely stuck paying for the remaining nine months. If you do decide to leave, our step-by-step guide on how to cancel Hootsuite covers who can cancel, when it takes effect, and what to export first.

What You Actually Pay: Real-World Scenarios

Sticker prices are one thing. Here's what common setups cost at Hootsuite's list prices, billed annually.

Scenario 1: Freelancer Managing 3 Client Accounts

• Plan needed: Professional ($199 per user/mo annual)
• Social accounts used: ~15 (5 platforms x 3 clients)
• Why not Standard: Standard ($99) only includes 10 accounts, so you'd have to limit yourself to 2 clients.
• Annual cost: $2,388

A freelancer with just 3 clients paying nearly $2,400/year for social scheduling. That's a tough sell when your clients might be paying you $500-1,000/mo each. If you're a one-person operation, there are much cheaper options. For comparison, 3 client workspaces on OmniSocials are 3 seats, or $30 a month billed yearly.

Scenario 2: Small Marketing Team (3 People, 1 Brand)

• Plan needed: Standard ($99 per user/mo annual), or Advanced ($399 per user/mo) if you need approvals
• Social accounts used: ~8 (within Standard's 10-account limit)
• Annual cost: $3,564 on Standard, $14,364 on Advanced

The math works if all three people actively use the platform daily. But if you want posts approved before they go out, approvals only come with Advanced, which quadruples the bill.

Scenario 3: Agency with 10 Clients

• Plan needed: Advanced, for approvals and unlimited accounts ($399 per user/mo annual)
• Users: 5 ($1,995/mo)
• Without approvals: Professional for 5 users is $995/mo ($11,940/year)
• Annual cost: $23,940 on Advanced, before listening or paid apps

For a mid-size agency, Hootsuite can easily cross $20,000/year. That's a serious line item. It needs to deliver serious value to justify it.

Scenario 4: Enterprise Company (20+ Users)

• Plan needed: Enterprise (custom quote)
• For reference: 20 users on Advanced at list price is $7,980/mo, or $95,760/year

Enterprise is quote-only, so a team this size would normally negotiate. Treat the Advanced list price as a reference point, not a quote. At this level, any Hootsuite contract demands careful ROI analysis.

Hootsuite Pricing History: How We Got Here

Hootsuite's pricing has moved upmarket over the years. Here's what we can confirm.

March 31, 2023: Free Plan Eliminated

• Hootsuite ended its free plan
• There is no free tier to drop down to today

September 2025: Bluesky Publishing

• Hootsuite added Bluesky publishing (it still doesn't publish to Mastodon)

Legacy Plans

• Older plans named Professional, Team and Business still appear in Hootsuite's help center as legacy plans
• Moving from a legacy plan to a current plan requires a new account

2026: Current Pricing

• Standard: $99 per user/mo (billed annually)
• Professional: $199 per user/mo (billed annually)
• Advanced: $399 per user/mo (billed annually)
• Enterprise: Custom

Earlier versions of this article had a longer timeline of past prices, a percentage increase, and a note about layoffs. We couldn't verify those against Hootsuite's own pages, so we removed them.

The pattern is clear. Hootsuite has moved upmarket. If you're not a team that needs its reporting, listening, or enterprise features, you're no longer the target audience.

Is Hootsuite Worth the Price in 2026?

This depends entirely on who you are.

Worth It For:

Large enterprises with lots of social accounts, strict compliance requirements, and teams that need advanced analytics, social listening, and a dedicated account manager. If you need deep listening and enterprise-grade security in one contract, Hootsuite delivers.

Established agencies already embedded in the Hootsuite ecosystem with years of historical data, trained teams, and workflows built around the platform. The switching cost might outweigh the savings.

Before you trial it: Hootsuite's 14-day trial has daily posting limits (10 to 20 posts per organization, depending on plan) and no bulk scheduling, so test it with a realistic but small workload.

Not Worth It For:

Freelancers and solopreneurs. Paying $99 a month for a scheduling tool when you manage a handful of accounts is overkill. There are tools that do 90% of what you need for a tenth of the price.

Small businesses with tight budgets. If social media is one of many responsibilities (not your full-time job), Hootsuite's complexity and cost don't match the use case.

Small teams that don't need social listening. The core value of Hootsuite's premium pricing is its enterprise features. If you just need scheduling, publishing, and basic analytics, you can get that elsewhere for far less.

Cheaper Hootsuite Alternatives

If Hootsuite's pricing doesn't fit, here are six alternatives worth considering. Prices are per month, billed yearly where the vendor offers both.

A few standouts worth highlighting.

OmniSocials is the most direct contrast to Hootsuite on price. One brand on 13 platforms costs $10 a month billed yearly ($12 billed monthly). Each extra brand or teammate is another $10 seat. No per-channel fees. Unlimited scheduled posts. It covers Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Pinterest, YouTube, Google Business Profile, Telegram, and Discord.

For context, Hootsuite Standard at $99 a month gives one user 10 social accounts. OmniSocials gives one user one brand on 13 platforms for $10 a month, with an inbox on 7 platforms and approvals on every seat. That's about 90% less for comparable core features. Even a 3-person team on one brand pays $30 a month, versus $297 on Hootsuite Standard. See the full OmniSocials vs Hootsuite comparison for more detail.

Thinking about switching? OmniSocials offers a free 14-day trial. $10 a month for 13 platforms vs. $99 per user for 10 accounts. The math speaks for itself.

Buffer is a solid pick if you only manage a few accounts. The free plan gives you 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts per channel, which is enough if you're running a personal brand across Instagram, LinkedIn, and X. Paid plans are $5 per channel a month on Essentials and $10 per channel on Team (billed yearly), so per-channel pricing gets expensive at scale. Its Community inbox, on every plan, also lets you reply to comments.

Sendible is worth a look for agencies that need client management features. Core costs $30 a month billed yearly ($35 monthly) for 6 profiles with unlimited users, which is far cheaper than a single Hootsuite Standard seat. White label is a paid add-on on its Elite and Enterprise plans.

For a deeper comparison, check out our guide to the best Hootsuite alternatives. Both guides break down costs and features side by side.

If you're already on Hootsuite and want help moving, we wrote a step-by-step guide on how to migrate from Hootsuite without losing your data or content calendar.

And if budget is the top priority, our roundup of free social media scheduling tools covers every tool with a genuinely useful free tier.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Hootsuite cost per month?

Hootsuite costs $99 per user a month for Standard, $199 per user for Professional and $399 per user for Advanced, all billed annually. Enterprise pricing is custom. Hootsuite also offers monthly billing at a higher per-user rate, but its plans page only shows the annual prices.

Does Hootsuite still have a free plan?

No. Hootsuite ended its free plan on March 31, 2023. The cheapest option is now the Standard plan at $99 per user a month (billed annually). Standard, Professional and Advanced come with a 14-day free trial, but there is no permanently free tier anymore.

Why is Hootsuite so expensive now?

Hootsuite sells every plan per user, so the bill grows with each person on your team, and features like approval workflows and message routing sit on the Advanced plan at $399 per user. The company has shifted its focus toward teams that need reporting, listening and enterprise features, and it has added AI features (Hootsuite's AI is called Wisdom). Budget-conscious users now have many cheaper alternatives.

Is Hootsuite worth the price in 2026?

For large enterprises that need advanced social listening, compliance features, and dedicated support, Hootsuite can be worth it. For freelancers, small businesses, and most marketing teams, the price is hard to justify when tools like OmniSocials ($10 per seat a month billed yearly, 13 platforms) and Buffer (free for 3 channels, then $5 per channel a month billed yearly) offer similar core scheduling features at a fraction of the cost.

What is the cheapest Hootsuite alternative?

OmniSocials is one of the most affordable Hootsuite alternatives at $10 a month billed yearly ($12 monthly) for one brand on 13 platforms, with unlimited scheduled posts and no per-channel fees. Each extra brand or teammate is another $10 seat. Buffer offers a free plan for up to 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts per channel. Both provide core scheduling and publishing features that cover most users' needs.