Later Social's public cards on 25 Sep 2026 price three paid plans in USD, shown yearly on later.com/pricing: Starter $18.75 per month (1 Social Set, 1 user, 30 scheduled posts per profile), Growth $37.50 (2 sets, 2 users, 180 posts), Scale $82.50 (6 sets, 4 users, unlimited posts). Annual billing is labeled 25% off, or 3 months free. Later wins a visual Instagram and TikTok calendar. It does not ship a publishing API or an MCP server. Trends MCP is the wrong product for queueing Reels. It is the right one for live multi-source trend boards plus MCP and REST, with Cursor JSON on https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp.
What Later charges on Starter, Growth, and Scale
The marketing page rendered yearly rates on 25 Sep 2026. FAQ copy on that same page says annual billing saves 25% versus monthly. Dividing the yearly cards by 0.75 produces $25, $50, and $110 per month. The Bill Monthly toggle is on the page; those monthly list prices were not in the static HTML. $25 / $50 / $110 is the stated discount inverted, not a second scrape.
| Plan | Yearly card (USD/month) | Implied monthly | Users | Social Sets (profiles) | Scheduled posts | AI credits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $18.75 | $25 | 1 | 1 (8) | 30 per profile | 5 / month |
| Growth | $37.50 | $50 | 2 | 2 (16) | 180 per profile | 50 / month |
| Scale | $82.50 | $110 | 4 | 6 (48) | Unlimited | 100 / month |
Prices are billed in USD; the page notes taxes are extra. A Social Set, per the pricing FAQ, is one profile on each of Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, and Snapchat. Post count is per social profile per month, not per set. Posts count when they are scheduled, not when they go live. One Instagram plus one TikTok on Starter is 30 + 30 = 60 scheduled posts, not 30 total.
Later help 360059362253 (updated 12 Aug 2026) still tells readers to expect 4 months free on annual billing. The live cards say 3 months free | 25% off. Treat the HTML cards as the live rate card.
Current Starter / Growth / Scale SKUs are the plans started on or after 1 Jul 2025, per help 40920284785687 (updated 11 Sep 2026). Older Basic, Advanced, and Enterprise subscriptions, plus package names such as Scale 15, Scale 30, and Scale202506, can carry different bases. The standard table does not describe those accounts.
How Social Sets and add-ons actually bill
Growth and Scale sell extra Social Sets and extra users. Yearly cards on 25 Sep 2026 list extra sets at $11.25 per month each and extra users at $3.75 per month each. Extra AI credits show as $3.75 per month for 100 credits per month. Starter's card states extra Social Sets, users, and AI credits are not available.
The FAQ on the same page says additional users cost $5 per extra user on each paid plan, then notes Starter is limited to 1 user. $3.75 is 25% off $5, so the FAQ dollar is the monthly add-on and the card dollar is the yearly-as-monthly rate. Help 15701256720407 (updated 10 Dec 2025) prices 100 extra credits at $5 USD/month or $40 USD/year. $40 per year is not $3.75 × 12 ($45) and is not 25% off $60 ($45). Do not flatten those credit add-on prices.
Help 360059362253 says extra AI credits may be available on current paid plans, including Starter. Help 40920284785687's add-on definition limits extra sets, users, or credits to Growth and Scale (desktop sign-ups only), then separately marks a 100-credit / $5 monthly add-on as available on current paid plans. The Starter marketing card says credits cannot be added. Pick one surface before buying Starter for Caption Writer headroom.
Add-ons are desktop only. iOS in-app purchases cannot buy extra sets, users, or credits (help 360055240773, updated 8 Jul 2026). Adding an add-on is prorated immediately. Removing it lasts until the end of the billing cycle, with no refund for unused time. Scale cannot drop below 6 Social Sets or 4 users without a downgrade.
Credits for Ideas and Caption Writer share one pool. The pricing grid says 1 credit generates 3 ideas or 1 caption. Credits reset on the 1st of each month at midnight UTC, even if the subscription renews on another day. Help 15701256720407 does not sell one-time credit packs.
Nonprofit pricing on the FAQ and help 360042492454 (updated 22 Jun 2026) is 50% off the annual Growth plan for qualified organizations, desktop only. Add-ons are excluded. That is not 50% off Starter or Scale.
Where the Free plan and the 14-day trial hide
later.com/pricing on 25 Sep 2026 showed Starter, Growth, and Scale. It did not list a Free SKU. Help 360059362253 still names Free: 1 user, 1 Social Set, a 2-week calendar window, Link in Bio, introductory analytics, 1 Access Group, and Help Center plus chatbot. Help 40920284785687 sets Free at 12 scheduled posts per profile per month, YouTube Shorts at 1 per month, and AI credits at 0. Drafts count toward the monthly post count. Instagram carousels and Stories stay on current paid plans.
The 14-day trial is on every paid card. Help 360060127733 (updated 3 Dec 2025) requires a card, auto-starts the selected paid plan unless canceled, and allows one trial per account. Past paid subscribers are not eligible. Extra sets or users on a Growth trial are free during the trial and bill after unless removed. That FAQ still says extra sets on existing Free accounts apply to Growth and Advanced plans only. Advanced is a legacy name after 1 Jul 2025.
Canceling a trial before it ends leaves paid features on for the rest of the 14 days and blocks a second trial. Desktop and iOS cancellations do not cross over. Help 360042991873 (updated 3 Dec 2025) calls plans non-refundable, points at the trial, and still allows case-by-case exceptions that may carry early termination fees. later.com/terms (effective 17 Jan 2024) leaves refunds to Later's discretion. Neither document publishes a 7-day or 30-day window.
Downgrades take effect at the next billing cycle (help 1500000067342, updated 17 Jul 2026). Switching annual to monthly counts as a downgrade even when the plan name is higher. Moving a paid plan to Free counts as a cancellation.
Which features wait until Growth or Scale
Starter is a one-person, one-brand scheduler with 3 months of Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, and Pinterest analytics on the marketing FAQ. The comparison grid on the same page freezes Pinterest analytics at 3 months on Growth and Scale too. Threads analytics on that grid scale to 1 year and 2 years. Help 40920284785687 says Threads analytics are capped at 3 months on every plan. Trust the help row for Threads until the grid is edited.
Growth is where approvals, calendar notes, an external comment link, Social Inbox, UGC collection, custom roles, and collect-by-tags or mentions appear on the pricing grid. Help 40920284785687 marks Social Inbox DMs as Growth and up, Instagram and Facebook, desktop only, with a preview on Free and Starter. The same article's intro still groups Social Inbox with Custom Analytics as a Scale-only preview. The table, not the intro sentence, matches the Growth card.
Scale adds unlimited posts, 2 years of platform analytics, Custom Analytics, Meta Ads Analytics, competitive benchmarking (up to 20 competitors, Instagram, desktop), Brand Health, Brand Mentions, Future Insights, and a 12-hour support target. Pricing FAQ copy puts future insights and competitive benchmarking on Scale. Help 360059362253 lists Future Trend Insights on Growth next to Smart Scheduling, and Daily Future Trends Insights plus Industry Insights on Scale. Those are different names. Growth "Smart Scheduling with Future Trends" is not Scale's listening suite.
Search-based hashtag suggestions are Yes on Starter in the marketing table; help 40920284785687 starts them at Starter and keeps auto-caption hashtags on Growth and up, Instagram, desktop only. The marketing table also marks Auto Hashtag Suggestions Yes on Starter. Shareable Instagram Performance Reports are Yes on Starter in the grid; help limits them to Growth and up with a 90-day window.
The paid-plan feature grid claims unlimited media storage with a 20 MB photo cap and a 512 MB video cap. Help 40920284785687 lists video size as 25 MB on Free, 512 MB on Starter, and 1.5 GB on Growth and Scale. Dropbox and Canva show as included from Free upward. Zapier does not. Help 360060842914 (updated 28 Apr 2026) names Zapier, Reddit, Bluesky, HubSpot, ClickUp, Google My Business, RSS feeds, and LinkedIn Page analytics as unsupported. Auto Publish FAQ copy includes YouTube and Snapchat. The feature-grid blurb names Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Pinterest, and LinkedIn and omits YouTube and Snapchat. Check the post type against help 360060842914 before promising a channel.
Can an agent publish through Later
No public Later Social publishing API appeared on later.com/pricing, in the plan comparison, or in the plan-availability reference. Named integrations are Dropbox, Canva, Mailchimp, and Mavely. There is no documented Later Social MCP host.
The string "Later API" that shows up in search belongs to Later Influence, a separate product. docs.reporting.api.later.com/getting-started (accessed 25 Sep 2026) documents a read-only Reporting API at reporting.api.later.com. Credentials (clientId, clientSecret) are issued by an account team. The docs restrict calls to server-side clients. A token POST returns a JWT; example list calls use GET /v2/instances with limit=50. Campaign performance examples sort on estimatedRoi. That surface cannot schedule an Instagram carousel.
Trends MCP is the opposite shape: read-only trend data, public signup, MCP plus REST on every plan. Cursor config from llms.txt (last updated 25 Sep 2026) is:
"trends-mcp": {
"url": "https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp",
"transport": "http",
"headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
}
The homepage copy-config block on 25 Sep 2026 omitted transport: "http". Use the llms.txt object in Cursor. Setup detail lives on the MCP server for Cursor page. Keyword sources and live boards are listed on the social media trends API page. For TikTok hashtag and search boards specifically, see TikTok trends.
Public Trends MCP prices in pricing.md on 25 Sep 2026 are Free $0 / 100 requests, Starter $19 / 1,000, Pro $49 / 5,000, Business $199 / 25,000. Markdown says annual billing saves 20%. HTML yearly cards rendered Starter $16 per month ($192 billed annually), Pro $39 ($468), Business $159 ($1,910), billed after day 7. HTML FAQ copy charges the card on day 8. Do not collapse those trial-day lines. HTML /pricing heads the page with 30+ data sources while that FAQ says 40+. llms.txt lists 16 keyword sources and 24 live feed names. HTML /data-sources printed 36 sources, then Fifteen keyword plus twenty-one live, then 16 / 24, then 83, then a FAQ of 40+. Leave those counts as printed. HTML FAQ treats one successful call as one request; llms.txt meters MCP get_top_trends at 1 credit per 10 requested rows (max 10 per call) and REST at 1 request per call.
Later, Buffer, and Trends MCP side by side
Later is a visual publisher. Buffer is a per-channel publisher with a hosted publish MCP. Trends MCP is a trend-data MCP and REST API. None of the three is a substitute for the other two.
| Job | Later Social | Buffer (buffer.com/pricing, 25 Sep 2026, yearly cards) | Trends MCP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry paid rate | Starter $18.75/month billed yearly | Essentials $5 per channel billed yearly (save 2 months) | Starter $19/month (markdown); $16/month on HTML yearly ($192/year) |
| Free tier on the marketing page | Omitted; help still documents Free (12 posts/profile, 2-week calendar) | $0, 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel that refill | $0, 100 requests/month, no card |
| Unit of spend | Social Set (up to 8 profiles) plus seats | Channel | Monthly requests |
| Publish from an agent | No Later Social publish API or MCP | Hosted MCP on every plan | Read-only trend tools; no social publish |
| Live TikTok / Google / Reddit boards | Scale listening features; Zapier unsupported | Not a multi-source trend warehouse | MCP get_top_trends plus keyword get_growth |
Buffer's yearly cards on this run showed Essentials $5 per channel and Team $10 per channel, with Free at 3 channels and 10 refillable scheduled posts. The 20% FAQ versus 2-months-free cards are unpacked on Buffer pricing. Later is cheaper than Buffer Team for one handle on each of eight networks inside a single Social Set. Buffer is cheaper for two or three channels and is the scheduler of the two with a documented publish MCP.
FAQ
How much does Later cost per month?
Yearly cards on later.com/pricing on 25 Sep 2026 were Starter $18.75, Growth $37.50, and Scale $82.50 per month, billed once per year. The page's own 25% annual discount implies monthly list prices of $25, $50, and $110. Taxes are extra. Extra Social Sets, users, and credits on Growth and Scale change the total. Check the live calculator before paying; help 360059362253 still advertises 4 months free, which does not match the 3 months free banner.
Does Later have a free plan?
Yes, in the help center. No, on the public pricing page this run. Help 360059362253 and 40920284785687 describe Free as 1 Social Set, 12 scheduled posts per profile per month, a 2-week calendar, 0 AI credits, and 1 YouTube Short per month. Drafts consume post quota. Instagram carousels and Stories are paid-plan features.
Can Later add extra users on Starter?
The Starter card says extra users are not available and the FAQ caps Starter at 1 user. Extra users at $5 monthly / $3.75 yearly-as-monthly start on Growth. Extra Social Sets follow the same Growth-and-up rule. Extra AI credits are the unsettled row: Starter card no, help 360059362253 maybe, credits article $5 / $40 for 100 credits on current paid plans.
Does Later include an API for scheduling posts?
Later Social does not document a publishing API or MCP server on its pricing or plan-availability pages. Zapier is on Later's unsupported list (help 360060842914). The Influence Reporting API at reporting.api.later.com is read-only campaign reporting behind account-team credentials. Teams that need an agent to queue posts should look at a scheduler that publishes MCP, such as Buffer, or a dedicated social API. Teams that need trend boards for that agent should use Trends MCP.
Is Later worth it versus Trends MCP?
For a visual Instagram planner, Link in Bio, and a human calendar, Later is the product in this pair. For live Google, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, and shopping boards inside Cursor or Claude, Trends MCP is the product. Paying Later Scale for Future Insights does not replace a multi-source trend API, and a Trends MCP Starter key cannot auto-publish a Reel.
Sources: later.com/pricing (accessed 25 Sep 2026); Later help 360059362253, 40920284785687, 360055240773, 15701256720407, 360060127733, 360042991873, 360042492454, 1500000067342, 360060842914; later.com/terms (effective 17 Jan 2024); docs.reporting.api.later.com/getting-started (accessed 25 Sep 2026); buffer.com/pricing (accessed 25 Sep 2026); www.trendsmcp.ai/pricing, pricing.md, llms.txt, homepage, and /data-sources (accessed 25 Sep 2026).