Buffer pricing is per connected social channel, not per seat. Free is $0 with three channels at a time and 10 scheduled posts per channel. Essentials starts at $6 per channel on monthly billing ($5 as the yearly monthly-equivalent). Team starts at $12 monthly ($10 yearly). Volume bands cut the rate after 10, 25, and 50 channels. Buffer's pricing FAQ still calls annual billing a 20% discount; the cards and example table save two months, which is 16.67%. Buffer wins the queue, approvals, and a hosted publish MCP. Trends MCP is the live multi-source trend board and REST feed, not a replacement for that publisher.
What do Buffer's Free, Essentials, and Team plans cost?
Buffer bills USD per connected social account. One Instagram profile plus one TikTok account is two channels. A Start Page also counts as a channel, so a link-in-bio page is not a free extra on a paid plan.
Public cards on buffer.com/pricing and the markdown mirror at buffer.com/pricing.md, both accessed 24 Sep 2026, list three SKUs. Help article 595 repeats the same monthly bands. Buffer's FAQ on that pricing page says those prices last changed in November 2025.
| Plan | Monthly (channels 1-10) | Yearly as $/mo | Users | Scheduled posts per channel | 30-day API cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 (3 channels) | $0 | 1 | 10 (slot refills after publish) | 3,000 |
| Essentials | $6 / channel | $5 / channel | 1 | Unlimited, fair-use cap 5,000 | 7,500 |
| Team | $12 / channel | $10 / channel | Unlimited | Unlimited, fair-use cap 5,000 | 15,000 |
Volume pricing on monthly billing, from the same markdown table:
| Channels | Essentials | Team |
|---|---|---|
| 1-10 | $6 | $12 |
| 11-25 | $4 | $4 |
| 26-50 | $3 | $3 |
| 51+ | $1 | $2 |
Worked examples from that page: 10 Essentials channels cost $60 monthly or $50 as a yearly monthly-equivalent. 25 Essentials channels cost $120 monthly or $100 yearly. 50 Essentials channels cost $195 monthly or $163 yearly. Team at 50 channels is $255 monthly or $213 yearly. Those 50-channel yearly figures match two months free on the monthly total (195 × 10/12 = 162.50, rounded to $163).
Free is stricter than "three profiles." Help article 595 states a lifetime cap of eight unique channel connections. Disconnecting a profile does not reset the count. That lifetime cap does not apply on paid plans.
Paid plans also drop the "three free channels" idea. The pricing FAQ is explicit: upgrading means paying for every connected channel, including ones that sat on Free.
Nonprofit and charity orgs can request 50% off paid plans (help article 536; marketing page buffer.com/nonprofits, accessed 24 Sep 2026). The same marketing FAQ extends that 50% cut to open-source projects with 1,000 or more GitHub stars, via [email protected]. Help 536 only describes a 48-hour document review after the request form. Taxes are extra. Help article 544 lists sales tax in named United States jurisdictions, including Chicago from 1 May 2026, plus UK VAT for B2C addresses, and states all list prices are tax-exclusive.
Does yearly billing actually save 20 percent?
No. The cards save two months. The FAQ still says 20%.
On the live pricing page the Essentials yearly card for one channel is $5/month, "$60 billed yearly (save 2 months)." Team is $10/month, "$120 billed yearly (save 2 months)." $6 monthly versus $5 yearly is 16.67% off. $12 versus $10 is the same fraction. Two months of twelve is 16.67%, not 20%.
The FAQ on that same page, and on pricing.md, still says: select annual billing and "you'll receive a 20% discount." That sentence sat next to the two-month cards on 24 Sep 2026.
Help article 595's yearly-per-channel table is worse at the top volume band. Team channels 51+ at $2 monthly and $20 yearly matches two months free ($2 × 10 = $20). Essentials channels 51+ are $1 monthly in both the help table and pricing.md, yet help 595 lists $20 yearly for that band. $20 a year is more than $1 × 12. Treat the 51+ Essentials yearly cell as unverified until Buffer's calculator shows it; the 1-50 examples on pricing.md follow the two-month math.
Switching monthly and yearly is allowed at any time, with prorations, per that FAQ. Adding a channel mid-cycle charges a prorated amount immediately (help 544). Removing a channel slot waits until the next billing date.
What happens after the 14-day trial?
The trial lands the account on Team. A card on file changes the ending.
Pricing FAQ: paid plans include a 14-day trial. During the trial the account can move to a paid plan or to Free. If payment details were never entered, the account drops to Free when the trial ends. Channels above the Free limit of three lock. Scheduled posts on unlocked channels still publish.
Help article 549 adds two rules the pricing FAQ omits. Each account gets one trial. If a card is already stored, the account auto-upgrades when the trial ends and the first payment is taken unless the trial is canceled in Account > Billing. Article 549 also says a trial of "new plans" is blocked for accounts still on Pro, Premium, or Business, which are the old SKU names.
Current Terms of Use on buffer.com/legal, accessed 24 Sep 2026, do not describe that trial. Section 4.3 auto-renews a paid Subscription Service until cancel. Cancel is Account settings at https://publish.buffer.com/settings/billing, "Cancel Plan," or [email protected], and it has to arrive before the renewal date. Section 4.2 allows a card pre-authorization. Section 1.2 and section 4 say fees are not refundable unless the Terms specifically provide otherwise.
Help article 547 contradicts that refund line. It offers a refund window of 7 days on monthly plans and 30 days on annual plans, via a Typeform. Cite both and do not assume the form overrides the contract.
How Buffer meters the hosted MCP server
MCP is included on Free, Essentials, and Team. It is not an add-on SKU.
buffer.com/mcp, accessed 24 Sep 2026, states MCP access on every plan, including Free. The hosted endpoint is https://mcp.buffer.com/mcp. Developer docs at developers.buffer.com/guides/integrations/mcp.html list 20 named tools (get_account, list_channels, get_channel, list_posts, get_post, create_post, edit_post, delete_post, get_aggregated_post_metrics, list_ideas, list_idea_groups, create_idea, list_post_templates, get_post_template, create_post_template, update_post_template, delete_post_template, introspect_schema, execute_query, execute_mutation), plus a buffer://schema resource and a review_weekly_posts prompt. List tools page with first default 20 and max 100. Write tools include create_post, which can publish immediately. Successful responses return remaining quota; 429 returns Retry-After. MCP calls share the GraphQL API's 15-minute, 24-hour, and 30-day windows.
Those windows, from the pricing page API grid:
| Window | Free | Essentials | Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15-minute | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| 24-hour | 250 | 250 | 500 |
| 30-day | 3,000 | 7,500 | 15,000 |
| API keys / app clients | 1 / 1 | 3 / 3 | 5 / 5 |
Terms section 6.3 matches the Free row: a free account is limited to a single API client, and extra apps that reuse the same credentials do not raise the cap.
Auth is split. The Cursor guide at developers.buffer.com/guides/integrations/cursor.html uses OAuth and this JSON, with no API key and no transport field:
{
"mcpServers": {
"buffer": {
"url": "https://mcp.buffer.com/mcp"
}
}
}
The generic MCP page uses the same URL with Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY for clients that send headers. That is one host, two auth paths. Trends MCP is the opposite split: Bearer on https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp, OAuth on the www MCP host. Cursor config from Trends MCP llms.txt (last updated 24 Sep 2026) includes transport: "http":
"trends-mcp": {
"url": "https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp",
"transport": "http",
"headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
}
Paste each block into the matching product. Buffer's tools draft, queue, and schedule social posts. Trends MCP's three tools (get_growth, get_time_series, get_top_trends) read search, social, commerce, news, and developer boards. Setup for Cursor is on the Trends MCP Cursor page.
Feature grids on Buffer's own sites also disagree in places that affect what a paid SKU buys. pricing.md marks channel groups as not included on Free; help 595 checks channel groups on Free. pricing.md gives Free three tags; help 595 leaves Tags (Campaigns) blank on Free. pricing.md hides custom UTM parameters on Free; help 595 checks custom UTM on Free. pricing.md reserves branded reports for Team; help 595 checks "Exportable reports with branding" on Essentials. First-comment copy splits too: pricing.md names Instagram or LinkedIn, while the HTML comparison table adds Facebook. Treat the live HTML table as the checkout view, and re-check help 595 before buying for a single gated feature.
When Buffer is the wrong buy versus Trends MCP
Buffer is the wrong buy when the job is a live ranked board across Google, TikTok, Reddit, Amazon, Wikipedia, app stores, or GitHub. It has no public get_top_trends feed. Community inbox, calendar, and approvals do not replace a multi-source growth call.
Trends MCP monthly SKUs from the public pricing.md mirror on 24 Sep 2026: Free $0 for 100 requests; Starter $19 for 1,000; Pro $49 for 5,000; Business $199 for 25,000. The HTML pricing page's yearly toggle bills Starter at $16/month ($192/year), Pro at $39 ($468), Business at $159 ($1,910). Markdown still says annual billing saves 20%. HTML FAQ meters "one successful API or MCP call = one request"; llms.txt meters MCP get_top_trends at 1 credit per 10 requested rows (max 10 credits per call) and REST at 1 request per call. Do not flatten those lines.
Buffer remains the right buy for a creator or agency that needs a queue, first-comment scheduling, approvals, and a publish MCP inside Cursor or Claude. Seat-priced suites such as Agorapulse and Metricool charge per user with a shared profile pool. Buffer charges per channel and throws in unlimited Team seats. That math flips once a solo operator runs 15 profiles, or once a 10-person team runs three.
For brand listening rather than publishing, start on social listening tools. Buffer's inbox replies to comments. It does not score a keyword across Google Search, TikTok, and Amazon in one call.
FAQ
How much does Buffer cost per month?
Free is $0. Essentials is $6 per channel for the first 10 channels on monthly billing, then $4, $3, and $1 in the higher bands. Team is $12, then $4, $3, and $2. Yearly cards show $5 and $10 per channel for those first 10. Confirm the live calculator on buffer.com/pricing before paying, especially above 50 channels.
Does Buffer still ship a $0 plan?
Yes. Free is $0 with three channels, a lifetime cap of eight unique connections, and 10 scheduled posts per channel. Paid plans also offer a 14-day Team trial. Help 549 limits that trial to once per account and auto-charges if a card is already stored; the pricing FAQ only describes the no-card path down to Free.
Is Buffer's MCP server extra?
No. buffer.com/mcp states MCP is on every plan, including Free. The host is https://mcp.buffer.com/mcp. Cursor connects with OAuth. Other clients can send a Bearer API key. Calls share the plan's 15-minute, 24-hour, and 30-day API windows, so a busy agent will hit Free's 3,000 monthly requests faster than the UI will.
Does yearly Buffer billing save 20%?
The FAQ says yes. The cards save two months, which is 16.67%. $6 monthly versus $5 yearly, and $12 versus $10, are the 1-channel proof. Use the dollar line on the checkout toggle, not the 20% sentence.
Is Buffer or Trends MCP the right tool for trend research?
Buffer is the publisher. Trends MCP is the board. Use Buffer to draft, queue, and approve posts, including from Cursor via https://mcp.buffer.com/mcp. Use Trends MCP when the question is what is moving on Google, TikTok, Reddit, Amazon, or a live get_top_trends feed, via https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp.
Sources (accessed 24 Sep 2026): Buffer pricing, pricing.md, help articles 595, 549, 547, 544, 536, Buffer MCP, MCP docs, Cursor MCP, Buffer legal, nonprofits, Trends MCP llms.txt and pricing.md.