Best AI Tools to Write and Schedule Small-Business Social Posts (2026)

If you run a small business, the hard part of social media is rarely pressing "schedule". It is deciding what to say every week and finding the hour to write it. Plenty of tools now claim to do that writing with AI, and they do very different amounts of it.

This guide compares five of them: Buffer, SocialBee, Predis.ai, Ocoya and Meet Meg. A fair warning first: we make Meet Meg, so weigh what we say about ourselves accordingly. To keep it honest, every price and feature for the other four comes from that company's own pricing and features pages, checked on 30 October 2026, and we say plainly where Meet Meg is the wrong pick. Prices change, so check the vendor's page before you buy. We recheck this page every quarter.

The short answer

• You write your own posts and want the cheapest reliable scheduler: Buffer.
• You want AI help across lots of networks, with categories and evergreen posts that recycle: SocialBee.
• You sell products and want ads, carousels and short videos made for you: Predis.ai.
• You want AI posts, images and automations across nearly every network, or to drive it from an AI assistant: Ocoya.
• You want the month planned and every LinkedIn, Facebook and X post drafted in your voice, and you only want to approve: Meet Meg.

How we compared them

We looked at what a one or two person business actually needs: what the AI does without being asked, which networks it can publish to, what it costs for one business, and how the free trial works. We left out star ratings and customer counts, because we can't check them, and we left out features only an agency would use.

All four competitors list their prices in US dollars only, with VAT or local tax added where it applies, so the pound cost moves with the exchange rate. Meet Meg lists pounds and dollars. Prices below are per month unless we say otherwise.

Prices at a glance (checked 30 October 2026)

• Buffer: Free for 3 channels. Essentials $6 per channel a month ($5 on yearly billing). Team $12 per channel a month ($10 yearly). 14-day free trial.
• SocialBee: Bootstrap $29 ($290 a year), Accelerate $49 ($490 a year), Pro $99 ($990 a year). 14-day free trial, no card.
• Predis.ai: Core $32 ($230 a year), Rise $79 ($474 a year), Enterprise+ $249 ($2,540 a year). 3-day trial, card required.
• Ocoya: Starter $29 ($290 a year), Team $79 ($790 a year), Agency $199 ($1,990 a year). 7-day trial, card required.
• Meet Meg: Free plan. Basic £50 or $60 (£500 or $600 a year). Pro £200 or $225 (£2,000 or $2,250 a year). 14-day trial of Pro, no card.

Buffer: best if you write your own posts

Buffer is a scheduler first. You connect your accounts, write or paste your posts, and Buffer queues and publishes them. It publishes to a long list of networks: LinkedIn pages and profiles, Facebook pages, Instagram, TikTok, X, Threads, Pinterest, YouTube Shorts, Google Business Profile, Bluesky and Mastodon.

What the AI does: Buffer's AI Assistant, on every plan including free, helps you create, refine and repurpose a post you are working on. It is a writing aid inside the composer. It does not plan your month or draft posts on its own.

Price: Buffer charges per channel, where a channel is one account (one LinkedIn page, one Instagram profile). The free plan covers up to 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts per channel at a time. Essentials is $6 per channel a month, or $5 on yearly billing, so a business on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram pays $18 a month, or $15 yearly. Team, at $12 per channel ($10 yearly), adds unlimited team members and approval workflows.

Suits: owners who like writing their own posts, or who have someone who does, and want a clean, cheap way to schedule them everywhere. Nothing else here comes close on price.

Not for: anyone whose real problem is that the posts never get written. Buffer makes publishing easy; the thinking and writing are still yours.

SocialBee: best for AI help across many networks

SocialBee is a full social media manager built around content categories: you sort posts into groups (tips, offers, behind the scenes), give each a schedule, and evergreen posts can recycle. It publishes to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, Bluesky and Google Business Profile, and it handles comments and messages for several of them.

What the AI does: its Copilot builds a content plan from your brand and goals, with content pillars, recommended platforms and a posting schedule, then generates posts tailored to each platform, with captions and AI images. AI content generation is unlimited on every plan. You still steer it: it suggests, and you keep, tweak or skip.

Price: Bootstrap is $29 a month ($290 a year) for 5 social profiles and 1 user. Accelerate is $49 ($490 a year) for 10 profiles, with post approvals and longer analytics history. Pro is $99 ($990 a year) for 25 profiles, 5 workspaces and 3 users per workspace. There is a 14-day free trial with no card and a 30-day money-back guarantee. SocialBee also sells a done-for-you service, ConciergeBee, if you would rather hand the work to people.

Suits: a small business on four or five networks that wants AI drafting and planning, and is happy to spend some time organising categories and reviewing what the AI suggests.

Not for: someone who wants to set it up once and only approve. SocialBee gives you a lot of controls, which is its strength and also its learning curve.

Predis.ai: best for ads, carousels and short video

Predis.ai is built around making creatives: image posts, carousels, short videos, memes, ads and product videos, in your brand's colours and logo. It connects to Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix and Squarespace to turn products into posts, analyses competitors on Facebook and Instagram, and works in 18 or more languages.

What the AI does: it generates the whole creative, image or video plus caption and hashtags, from a short text input. Every generation uses credits, and each type of content costs a different number of them.

Price: Core is $32 a month ($230 a year) with 1,300 credits, which Predis says is about 325 images or 33 videos, 1 brand and 10 channels. Rise is $79 ($474 a year) with 3,200 credits, up to 4 brands and 20 channels. Enterprise+ is $249 ($2,540 a year). Predis lists Core as "No Auto Posting" and Rise as "Auto Posting", so check what that means for your workflow before choosing Core. The trial is 3 days, it needs a card, and payments after it are non-refundable.

Suits: ecommerce and consumer brands that live on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook and want a steady supply of visual posts, video and ads.

Not for: professional services or B2B firms whose posts are mostly written thinking on LinkedIn. Predis is visual-first, and a credit system takes some watching.

Ocoya: best for AI posts and automations across nearly every network

Ocoya describes itself as a social media copilot that writes, designs, schedules and replies. It connects to 28 places, including Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky and Google Business, plus tools like WordPress, Notion and WooCommerce.

What the AI does: you describe your brand once, then describe a post or a campaign, and Ocoya generates captions, images, short video and hashtags, and can translate captions into 37 languages. Workflows can run on a trigger, for example writing and posting when a new WooCommerce product appears. It can also be driven from AI assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT through MCP or its API.

Price: Starter is $29 a month ($290 a year) for 1 user, 5 social profiles and 300 credits. Team is $79 ($790 a year) for 5 users, 20 profiles and 1,500 credits. Agency is $199 ($1,990 a year). Credits cover AI generation, automation runs and analytics exports, and reset monthly. The trial is 7 days, needs a card, and turns into a paid plan unless you cancel.

Suits: a hands-on owner or small team that wants AI content across many networks, likes automations, or already works through an AI assistant.

Not for: anyone who wants a plan made for them without writing prompts. Ocoya is fast once you tell it what you want; deciding what you want is still your job.

Meet Meg: best if you want it done and only want to approve

Meet Meg works differently from the four above: rather than a tool you prompt, she acts as a marketing manager. You give her your website address and she learns the business: what you sell, who you sell to, your logo, colours and the way you write. She then plans the month around your industry's moments, drafts every post in your voice, and designs a matching visual from your own brand assets. You approve or edit each post, and only approved posts go out, at the times your audience engages most.

Where she posts: LinkedIn company pages, Facebook pages and X. She also drafts SEO blog articles, which you copy to your own website; she does not publish them for you.

Price: Basic is £50 or $60 a month (£500 or $600 a year) and includes 30 content generations a month, scheduling without a cap, the content calendar, branded visuals from your own photos and logo, analytics and a twice-weekly industry news briefing. Pro is £200 or $225 a month (£2,000 or $2,250 a year) and adds unlimited generations, campaigns, AI image generation and editing, a competitor watchlist and a visual designed for each post from your own photos and screens. Every new business gets 14 days of Pro free, with no card. There is also a Free plan, with 4 generations a month and no scheduling.

Suits: owners of service businesses, consultancies, trades and professional firms whose customers find them on LinkedIn and Facebook, who don't have time to write and would rather approve posts than draft them.

When Meet Meg is the wrong pick

Be honest with yourself about these before you start a trial:

• You only need scheduling. If you already write good posts, Buffer does the publishing for a fraction of the price.
• You need Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest or YouTube today. Meet Meg posts to LinkedIn, Facebook and X. Buffer, SocialBee, Predis.ai and Ocoya all cover the visual networks now.
• You want video or reels. Meet Meg doesn't make video. Predis.ai and Ocoya do.
• You want to post as yourself on LinkedIn. Meet Meg posts to your company page, not your personal profile. Buffer and Predis.ai both list personal LinkedIn profiles.
• Several people need their own logins and approval steps. Meet Meg has no team seats. Buffer Team, SocialBee Pro and Ocoya Team are built for that.
• You run an agency with many client brands. Meet Meg is built for one business at a time and has no agency plan.
• Your budget is under £50 a month. Every competitor here has a cheaper paid tier, and Buffer has a free one.

How to choose in five minutes

Answer two questions. First, where do your customers actually see you? If it is Instagram and TikTok, start with Predis.ai, Ocoya or SocialBee. If it is LinkedIn and Facebook, all five work, and the second question decides it.

Second, what is really stopping you posting? If it is the clicking and scheduling, a scheduler fixes it and Buffer is the cheapest. If it is knowing what to say each week, you need a tool that plans as well as writes. SocialBee and Ocoya will draft from your prompts; Meet Meg plans and drafts without them and leaves you the approval. For the wider picture of what to automate and what to keep human, read our guide to how to automate social media posts, and if you are moving off Hootsuite, our comparison of Hootsuite alternatives for small business.

Whichever you pick, use the free trial on your real business, not a demo account, and judge the posts it writes for you, not the feature list. If you want to see what Meg drafts for your business, the 14-day trial needs no card.