SocialBee vs Metricool: Evergreen Queues or a Brand Report

The short answer: if you suspect you are paying a scheduler to do a reporting tool's job, the plan tables bear it out: SocialBee's Bootstrap plan at $29 a month on monthly billing keeps 3 months of analytics and lists no ad accounts, while Metricool's Starter at $25 a month keeps unlimited history and reads Meta, Google and TikTok Ads for up to 5 brands (checked on 26 October 2026 on the SocialBee and Metricool pricing pages). The reverse holds as well. If the job is keeping a library of evergreen posts in rotation by theme, with expiry dates, SocialBee's categories are built for it: Accelerate holds 50 of them with up to 5,000 posts each, where a Metricool autolist repeats up to 200.

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Metricool swaps the question SocialBee asks. SocialBee's schedule asks which kind of post fills Tuesday's ten o'clock slot, and pulls the next one from that category. Metricool asks how each brand did this month, paid and organic, and answers with one report per brand.

Red flags before you buy:

1. A second person on the account. SocialBee's Bootstrap and Accelerate plans include one user; another costs $10 a month, so Accelerate for two is $49 + $10 = $59. Metricool's team members arrive with Advanced at $67 a month for 15 brands. Both figures are monthly billing on the SocialBee and Metricool pricing pages.
2. X accounts you already run. SocialBee lists X among its direct-posting networks in the plan price. Metricool charges $10 a month per connected X account, so three X profiles add $30 a month there (Metricool pricing).
3. A comparison you will have to make next year. SocialBee's Bootstrap keeps 3 months of data and Accelerate 2 years; Metricool's paid plans keep it without a limit. If a board asks how this October compares with last October, the cheapest SocialBee plan cannot answer.

The jobs, row by row

Sources: SocialBee's pricing page, help search for MCP, evergreen guide and Copilot guide; Metricool's pricing page, autolist guide and MCP limits.

The two questions behind the choice

What happens to a post after it goes out?

In SocialBee, a post belongs to a category and comes back when its turn does, for as long as the category re-queues, unless you set it to stop after a number of shares or on a date, per the evergreen guide. In Metricool, a post in an autolist is deleted once published unless the list is set to repeat, in which case it moves to the back of the line; each post can be paused, for seasonal content, per the autolist guide. One is a library with shelves. The other is a single circular list per need. If your evergreen stock runs to hundreds of posts across several themes, the shelves win.

Who reads the numbers, and how far back?

A founder checking whether recycled posts still earn clicks needs post analytics, which both have. A marketing lead presenting paid and organic social to a manager needs the ad accounts in the same report, and only Metricool connects them. SocialBee's plans list audience growth, top posts and UTM parameters, and its Pro card adds exporting analytics reports; none of them names an ad account.

Both price lists

Checked on 26 October 2026, in USD, excluding tax.

• SocialBee. Bootstrap $29 a month or $290 a year for 5 profiles; Accelerate $49 or $490 for 10 profiles; Pro $99 or $990 for 25 profiles, 3 users per workspace and 5 workspaces. Extra users and workspaces are $10 a month each, and a set of 5 more profiles is $15 a month (SocialBee pricing).
• Metricool. One brand costs nothing. Five brands run $25 monthly or $20 a month on annual billing, ten run $45 or $36, and the Advanced bands go from $67 or $53 for fifteen brands to $210 or $159 for fifty (Metricool pricing).

SocialBee's yearly price is 16% below monthly, per its pricing FAQ; Metricool's annual toggle says it saves up to 24% (Metricool pricing).

An AI step: let the numbers pick the evergreen posts

Metricool's MCP works on its free plan and lets Claude, ChatGPT or another client query a brand's analytics, per its limits page. Ask it for the posts of the last 30 days ranked by clicks and engagement, with the link each one carried. The assistant returns a shortlist; a person decides which of those are still true in six months, removes anything with a price, a date or a person's name, and only then loads the rest into a SocialBee evergreen category with an expiry count. The machine ranks. The human decides what may repeat.

SocialBee's own AI starts from the other end: its Copilot reads your website, proposes up to 5 categories and 10 draft posts (AI limits), and sends them to a Content Approval Dashboard, where each one waits for a person.

Sort the library before any trial

The free step is a spreadsheet. Export last quarter's posts, mark each evergreen or one-off, and note each evergreen post's first-run clicks. If few of them would make sense again in six months, a recycling engine has little to work with, and Metricool's free plan is the place to start.

Then mind the trial. SocialBee's 14-day trial opens the full Pro plan without a card, so the setup a team builds in its first fortnight is sized for $99 a month, and stepping down to Bootstrap afterwards means cutting back to 10 categories and one user (SocialBee pricing). Build the trial on the plan you mean to buy. When it ends, posting stops until you pay, though the settings and content are kept.

Choose SocialBee if

• Your job is keeping a large evergreen library in rotation by theme, with posts that retire themselves.
• X is part of every week and you want it in the plan price.
• You want AI to propose categories and drafts that a person approves.

Choose Metricool if

• Your job is a monthly report per brand, with the ad accounts in it and history going back years.
• Several people need access, and a flat Advanced fee beats paying per seat.

The Hootsuite angle on SocialBee's queues is in SocialBee vs Hootsuite, and How to Use SocialBee builds the category queue step by step.

FAQ

Can Metricool recycle posts?

Yes, through autolists: with repeat on, a published post moves to the end of the list instead of being deleted, and a list holds up to 200 posts.

Does SocialBee charge extra for X?

Its pricing page lists X profiles among the networks it posts to directly, with no X add-on. Metricool charges $10 a month for each connected X account, per its pricing page.

What happens when the SocialBee trial ends?

Posting stops. The pricing FAQ says your settings, schedule and content are kept as they were and return when you choose a paid plan.