Later's Free Plan in 2026: It's Gone, and Here's What Replaced It

Later does not have a free plan in 2026. It was retired, and what replaced it is a 14-day free trial. When the trial ends you pay or you stop. The cheapest tier is Starter at $25 a month, or about $18.75 a month billed annually. If a permanently free scheduler is your actual requirement, you need a different tool, and this page names the ones that still have one.

This page exists because the answer is surprising and most guides have not caught up. If you are after the paid tiers in detail (what a social set is, which ceiling forces an upgrade, whether the annual discount is worth it) that is covered in our full Later pricing breakdown. This one stays on the free question. If you are shopping the whole category on a zero budget, our best free AI tools guide is the wider starting point. Verified against Later's pricing page in September 2026.

Does Later still have a free plan?

No. The free tier was retired and has not returned. Today the only no-cost access is a 14-day trial, and it applies to whichever paid plan you pick rather than being a stripped-back plan of its own.

The reason this keeps surprising people is that the internet has not caught up. A large share of scheduler round-ups and "best free social media tools" lists still name Later, often with confident specifics about a monthly post allowance across a handful of profiles. Those articles were accurate once. If a page describes a Later free plan without a recent date on it, that is the tell.

We would rather say this plainly than keep you clicking: if your requirement is genuinely "free forever", Later is not on your shortlist in 2026 and no amount of reading about it will change that.

What do you actually get in the 14-day trial?

The trial is a real trial, not a crippled demo, which is the one piece of good news here. You get the tier you select with its full feature set for two weeks, which is enough to answer the questions that matter.

• Connect your real accounts. Auto-publishing either works smoothly for your platform mix or it does not, and you find that out in the first few days.
• Schedule a genuine fortnight. Not test posts. Real content on your real cadence, because that is the only way the workflow friction shows up.
• Try the analytics you would be paying for. Later's premium over cheaper tools is largely reporting, so if you do not open the analytics during the trial, that is your answer.
• Test the approvals step if you need one. It only appears from the Growth tier, so select that tier for the trial if approvals are the reason you are shopping.

What two weeks cannot tell you is whether you will hit the post cap, because the cap is monthly. Starter allows 30 posts per profile per month, which is roughly one a day. If your fortnight of trial content already feels tight, you are a Growth customer, not a Starter one.

What is the cheapest way to keep using Later?

Starter at $25 a month, or about $18.75 a month if you commit to a year, since Later discounts annual billing by roughly 25% and markets it as three months free. That gets one user, one social set (which is up to 8 profiles, not one account) and 30 posts per profile per month.

There is no cheaper legitimate route. No lifetime deal, no permanent free tier, no student or non-profit pricing that we can find published. If you see a Later lifetime deal advertised somewhere, treat it with the suspicion it deserves.

How do you make 14 days actually count?

A trial is a short window and most people waste the first week deciding whether to start. If you are going to use it, use it deliberately.

• Day one: connect everything, publish one real post. Not a test post to a dummy account. The failure modes you care about (a platform that will not authorise, a format that will not auto-publish) surface immediately or not at all.
• Day two: load a fortnight of genuine content. Bulk-upload at the cadence you actually intend to keep. This is the single most informative hour of the trial, because it exposes how much friction sits between an idea and a scheduled post.
• Pick the tier you would really buy, not the cheapest. Approvals and the social inbox only exist from Growth. Trialling Starter and then paying for Growth means you never tested the thing you are paying extra for.
• Day seven: open the analytics and write down one decision you made from them. If you cannot name one, you do not need Later's reporting and a cheaper scheduler will do.
• Day twelve: count your posts. Multiply by two for a monthly figure and compare against the 30-per-profile Starter cap. This is how you avoid subscribing to a tier you will breach in week three.
• Set a calendar reminder for day thirteen. Trials convert to paid automatically. Deciding on day fifteen is deciding by default.

Which schedulers do still have a free plan?

Within our catalogue, Planoly is the answer to "I need free". Be clear-eyed about what that means: 10 uploads a month and no desktop access is a tier for testing the water or for a very low-volume personal account, not for running a brand. Our Planoly vs Later comparison covers how the two differ once you are paying for either.

Outside our catalogue, Buffer, Metricool and Publer are the names that come up repeatedly as keeping real free plans in 2026. We have not reviewed any of them, so that is a pointer for your own research rather than a recommendation; we are not going to rank tools we have not tested.

SocialBee deserves a mention for a different reason. Its 14-day trial plus 30-day money-back guarantee means roughly six weeks of effectively risk-free use, which is a longer runway to make a decision than Later gives you, even though neither is free. Our SocialBee review covers where its category-based recycling earns that.

So what should you actually do?

• You need free, permanently. Planoly's mobile tier, or look outside our catalogue. Later cannot serve you and will not start to.
• You have a budget but want to be sure. Take the Later trial, schedule two weeks of real content, and open the analytics at least twice. If you never open them, buy something cheaper.
• You are comparing on price alone. Planoly at $16 undercuts Later at $25, and for an Instagram-first solo creator it is the better purchase regardless of the free question.
• You want the longest risk-free look. SocialBee, on the trial plus refund window, provided the category-queue model suits how you work.
• You read this because a round-up said Later was free. Check the date on whatever sent you here. The rest of that article is probably stale too.

We earn a commission if you subscribe through our links, which is exactly why the top of this page says "no" instead of burying it. The honest position on Later is that it is a good product at a fair price with no free tier. Read our full Later review for the scoring, or start the 14-day trial if you have the budget and want to judge it properly.

Frequently asked questions

Does Later still have a free plan in 2026?+

No. Later retired its free plan and now offers only a 14-day free trial, which covers any of the three paid tiers. When the trial ends you either subscribe or lose access. This catches a lot of people out because plenty of guides written before the change still describe a free tier with a small monthly post allowance, and those articles have simply not been updated.

What is the cheapest way to use Later?+

Starter, at $25 a month billed monthly or about $18.75 a month if you pay for a year upfront. Later takes roughly 25% off for annual billing, which it markets as three months free. Starter covers one social set, which is up to 8 profiles, one user, and 30 posts per profile per month. There is no cheaper legitimate route: no lifetime deal, no permanent free tier, no student pricing we can find.

Which social media schedulers still have a free plan?+

In our catalogue, Planoly is the one with a genuine free tier, though it is limited to the mobile app and 10 uploads a month. SocialBee does not have a free plan either: it runs a 14-day trial plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. Outside our catalogue, Buffer, Metricool and Publer are commonly cited as keeping real free plans; we have not reviewed them, so treat that as a pointer rather than a recommendation.

Is the 14-day Later trial long enough to decide?+

For judging the product, yes: two weeks is enough to connect your accounts, schedule a fortnight of real content and see whether auto-publishing behaves. For judging the cost, no, because the limit most likely to force an upgrade is the 30-posts-per-profile monthly cap, and you cannot observe a monthly cap in a fortnight. Schedule at your genuine intended rate during the trial and double it to estimate where you will land.

Why did Later remove its free plan?+

Later has not published a detailed rationale, so anything specific would be guesswork. What is observable is that it fits a broad pattern across social scheduling tools since the platform APIs became more expensive to support: free tiers have been narrowed or removed across much of the category. The practical implication is that a free plan is no longer something to assume in this space, so check before you build a workflow on one.