Podmotion is a small agency, but busy enough to need a social media management tool.

We’ve been getting along just fine with Buffer, until we won a client with quite a few social media channels. That, along with our own channels, pushed us over the limit of eight channels for their pro plan which, at the time of writing, has been costing us $15 US per month.

The next stage up is to a whopping $65 US a month, still only eight channels though. After that, we’re looking at the $99 a month for 25 channels. But this is actually $123 at the time of writing; we’re in Canada, you see, so the currency conversion rate always factors in.

I emailed Buffer and their response said no plans are on the cards for any kind of plan that would meet our need. Disappointing. Moving felt as though it would be a hassle.

These pricing structures seem to be the case across the board with most social media platforms. A free or low-cost option is available, but then it’s a whopping increase in cost if you add a few more channels or a bit more content.

After looking around, I found two exceptions: Loomly and Socialpilot.co, which offer a lot more for not such a huge hike in cost.

It’s not all about cost

Of course, with something like this, it’s not all about cost. Users need to look at the limits on number posts you can share per day, number of team members, layout and ease-of-use, scheduling features, and more.

I logged into Loomly and decided it wasn’t as user-friendly as I’d hoped. Next up, Socialpilot.co. It offered a demo, so I booked one in for that same day, and had all my questions answered, as well as a tour of the product.

Their pro plan starts at $30 US when paid monthly. This level includes a content discovery service and the ability to input RSS feeds – so that you can pull from and share content from a favourite publication.

What’s not to like? Socialpilot.co is a company that sees value and profit in offering a subscription at a price other platforms ignore. And by ignoring businesses like us, it’s their loss. We’ll be signing up with Social Pilot, and I’ll let you know how it goes!