AI social media tools compared: prices and limits (2026)

This guide is for owners of a shop, a café, a salon or a small practice who want AI to take some of the work of posting off their plate. You will see seven AI tools side by side, what each one really does, what it costs once credits and billing are counted, and when a service that does the work for you makes more sense.

Seven tools come up most for small businesses: four built around AI (Predis.ai, Ocoya, Simplified, FeedHive) and three schedulers that added AI (Buffer, Later, Hootsuite). Prices below are the lowest paid plan, read on each vendor's pricing page on 26 October 2026.

"Billed yearly" means you pay 12 months up front for that monthly rate. FeedHive showed us euros because of where we opened the page.

Tool	What the AI does	Price from (Oct 2026)	AI on entry plan	Auto posting on entry plan	Free plan or trial
Buffer	Rewrites and repurposes your text	Free; $5/month per channel	Unlimited credits	Yes	Free plan, 3 channels
FeedHive	Writes posts in your tone, images, recycles old posts	€15/month	2,500 credits/month	Yes, 30 scheduled posts	7-day trial
Later	Captions and ideas	$18.75/month, billed yearly	5 credits/month	Yes	14-day trial
Predis.ai	Posts, carousels and video ads from a link or prompt	$19/month, billed yearly	1,300 credits/month	No (from Rise, $40)	3-day trial, card charged on day 3
Ocoya	Captions, translation, images and short video	$29/month	300 credits/month	Yes	7-day trial, card required
Simplified	An AI agent plans and builds whole campaigns	$79/month	5 campaigns/month	Yes, after your review	Trial, length not stated
Hootsuite	Drafts posts and images	$99/month	Included	Yes	14-day trial, no card
Klipt Studio (that's us)	Makes 30 finished pieces a month, people supervise	€300/month excl. VAT	Not a tool: done for you	Yes, after your yes	No

The sections below explain what hides behind each line.

What does each AI tool actually do?

They split into two families. AI-first tools generate the post itself (text, image, sometimes video); schedulers with AI mostly help you write or polish the caption of a post you already made.

Predis.ai

What the AI does: you paste a product link, write a prompt or upload an image, and it generates posts, carousels, posters and video ads, sized for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest (Predis.ai, 2026).
Price: Core is $19 a month billed yearly ($230 a year) or $32 billed monthly, with 1,300 credits and 1 brand. Rise is $40 a month billed yearly or $79 monthly, with 3,200 credits and up to 4 brands (Predis.ai pricing, 2026).
Watch out: Core does not auto post, so you download and publish yourself. The 3-day trial takes your card and charges it on day 3.

Ocoya

What the AI does: drafts captions from a one-line idea, translates them into 37 languages, generates images, carousels and short video, and schedules them on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, YouTube Shorts, Pinterest, Threads and Bluesky (Ocoya, 2026).
Price: Starter is $29 a month for 1 user, 5 social profiles and 300 AI credits; Team is $79 for 5 users, 20 profiles and 1,500 credits. Yearly billing gives 2 months free (Ocoya pricing, 2026).
Watch out: no free plan, and the 7-day trial needs a card.

Simplified

What the AI does: an AI agent called Riley turns one brief into a campaign that is planned, created, approved, published and reported on. Review is the default and auto publishing is opt-in (Simplified, 2026).
Price: Starter from $79 a month with 5 campaigns a month; extra campaigns cost $10 each and unused ones do not roll over (Simplified pricing, 2026).
Watch out: the pricing page showed conflicting figures for monthly and yearly billing on the day we checked, so confirm the price on the checkout screen.

FeedHive

What the AI does: generates posts in your tone of voice, suggests old posts worth recycling, creates images, writes captions and hashtags, and predicts performance. It publishes to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business and Threads (FeedHive, 2026).
Price: Creator is €15 a month for 4 accounts, 2,500 AI credits and 30 scheduled posts up to 14 days ahead; Brand is €22 for 10 accounts and 500 scheduled posts (FeedHive pricing, 2026).
Watch out: 30 scheduled posts is tight if you post daily on several networks.

Buffer, Later and Hootsuite

Buffer: the AI Assistant, with unlimited credits, is included on every plan, the free one too. Free covers 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts per channel; Essentials is $5 a month per channel (Buffer pricing, 2026).
Later: Starter is $18.75 a month billed yearly for 8 profiles, with 5 AI credits a month; Growth is $37.50 with 50 (Later pricing, 2026).
Hootsuite: plans start at $99 on Standard, which can generate posts and images with AI, for up to 10 accounts (Hootsuite plans, 2026).

For the non-AI side of these schedulers, see our guide to the best social media tools for small businesses.

The sticker price is rarely the price you pay: credits, yearly billing and plan limits move it. A café posting on three networks can spend $15 or $40 a month for what looks like the same job.

Three things to check before you pay:

Credits. Most AI tools sell a monthly bucket. Predis.ai says credit costs vary by content type and by the model you choose, so video eats credits faster than text.
Yearly billing. Predis.ai's $19 needs a yearly payment of $230; month to month, Core is $32.
Auto posting. On Predis.ai, auto posting starts on Rise, not Core.

Here is our maths for one business on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, using the prices above:

Setup	Cost per month	What you still do
Buffer Free with AI Assistant	$0 (10 scheduled posts per channel)	Make every image and video, write the first draft
Buffer Essentials, 3 channels	$15	Same, with no post cap
FeedHive Creator	€15 (30 scheduled posts)	Pick ideas, check drafts, add your photos
Predis.ai Rise, billed yearly	$40 ($474 a year)	Check every draft, fix prices and facts
Ocoya Starter	$29 (300 credits)	Check drafts, add your photos
Klipt Studio (that's us)	€300 excl. VAT	Approve or ask for changes, one tap per post

Can an AI tool post every day for you without your input?

Technically yes, but none of these tools knows your opening hours, this week's special or the photo of today's cake unless you tell it. The AI writes from what you feed it, so the time you save on writing partly comes back as checking.

That is why the better tools keep a human in the loop. Simplified makes review the default and auto publishing an option you switch on. The rest let you schedule drafts, and the check is up to you.

Adoption is already broad. The US Chamber of Commerce found that 58% of small businesses say they use generative AI, up from 40% in 2024 (US Chamber of Commerce, 2025). Using a tool is easy; filling a calendar with posts that sound like your shop is the hard part. Our guide on whether AI social media content works for small businesses goes deeper on quality.

Do customers mind AI-made posts?

Some do, and most want to be told. In Clutch's August 2026 survey of 601 consumers, 53% said they are less likely to buy from brands they know use AI in social media content, and nearly 90% said brands should disclose it (Clutch, 2026). 64% would trust a brand less if AI content misrepresented its products.

Platforms are labelling too. Meta shows an "AI info" label when it detects industry-standard signals that an image was made with AI, or when the person posting discloses it (Meta, 2024, updated 2025). In the EU, Article 50 of the AI Act, applying from 2 August 2026, requires anyone using AI to make a deep fake image, audio or video to disclose that it was generated or manipulated (EU AI Act, Article 50). This is a summary, not legal advice.

The practical rule: never let AI invent a dish, a product or a result you do not have. Use it to write and lay out posts about real things.

When is a done-for-you service a better fit than an AI tool?

When the problem is not writing captions but having nobody to make posts at all. An AI tool gives you drafts; a done-for-you service gives you finished posts and publishes them. Our guide to what done-for-you social media costs compares several of these services.

Klipt Studio (that's us)

What it does: an AI-powered studio, supervised by people, makes 30 pieces a month, one a day (reels, carousels, posts, stories, LinkedIn documents), from your website, photos, offers and tone, with no templates. Each post waits on your phone with the reason behind it; one tap approves it, or you ask for changes in plain words. Nothing goes out without a yes. Messages from the studio are marked "AI-assisted".
Price: €300 a month excl. VAT, one plan, monthly, cancel anytime (Klipt offer). Same price on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, Threads, Pinterest and YouTube Shorts.
Limits: far more expensive than any tool above. Klipt does not reply to comments or direct messages yet. We promise a professional post every day, not new customers.

See how Klipt works step by step, or compare every option, people included, in alternatives to hiring a social media manager.

Pick by what you are missing: words, visuals, or time. If you have photos and ideas but hate writing, a cheap scheduler with AI is enough. If you have no time at all, a tool will sit empty.

You make your own photos and want help with captions: Buffer Free, then Essentials at $5 per channel.
You want AI to create visuals too: FeedHive Creator (€15) or Ocoya Starter ($29) to test, with Predis.ai Rise if you sell products online.
You plan campaigns, not single posts: Simplified, from $79.
A team manages many accounts and messages: Hootsuite, from $99.
You have no time to make or check drafts each day: a done-for-you service such as Klipt (€300 excl. VAT).

Whatever you choose, test on the trial with a real week of posts before paying for a year.

FAQ

Buffer's AI Assistant is included on its free plan, for up to 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts per channel (checked October 2026). Among AI-first tools, FeedHive starts at €15 a month and Predis.ai at $19 a month billed yearly.

Can AI tools post to Instagram automatically?

Most can, once you connect your account. Predis.ai is the exception at entry level: its Core plan does not include auto posting, which starts on Rise at $40 a month billed yearly.

Do I have to say a post was made with AI?

Meta labels content it detects as AI-made, and the EU AI Act requires disclosure of deep fakes from 2 August 2026. Nearly 90% of consumers in Clutch's 2026 survey want brands to disclose AI content, so saying it is the safe habit.

For drafting, partly. A tool does not take photos in your shop, know this week's offers or reply to customers, so someone still has to feed it and check it.

Is Klipt an AI tool?

Klipt is a done-for-you studio, not software you run: AI makes the pieces and people supervise them, and you only approve. It costs €300 a month excl. VAT and does not reply to comments or messages yet.

Sources

Every number links to its source, checked on the date shown. Corrections: hello@klipt-ai.com.