Metricool pricing in 2026: plans, add-ons, MCP

Metricool pricing on 20 Sep 2026 is billed by brand count, not by API calls. Free stays $0 with 1 brand and 20 published posts per calendar month. Annual Starter starts at $20 per month for up to 5 brands ($36 for 10). Annual Advanced starts at $53 per month for 15 brands, then $85 for 25 and $159 for 50. Monthly cards print $25, $45, $67, $107, and $210 for those same bands. X is a $10 per-account add-on with no annual discount ($120 per year either way). The hosted MCP at https://ai.metricool.com/mcp is included on every plan, including Free. The REST API is Advanced or Custom only. Trends MCP is not a Metricool substitute. It wins when the job is public multi-source trend boards inside Cursor, not owned-account scheduling.

What does each Metricool plan actually bill?

The Metricool pricing page (accessed 20 Sep 2026) sizes paid SKUs by how many brands sit in the account. A brand is one business or client with one profile per network. The page defaults to the Annual tab, labeled "save up to 24%."

The 24% annual headline is not the Starter discount. Five-brand Starter falls from $25 monthly to $20 annual, which is 20%. Fifty-brand Advanced falls from $210 to $159, which is about 24%. Euro cards on the same HTML print annual Starter at €16 / €29 and annual Advanced at €43 / €69, with a 50-brand annual footer of "€130" and no /month on that one line. The USD sister line prints $159/month. Quote the string as shown rather than inventing a billed-year total Metricool did not print.

Free never expires and does not take a card. Help article bl0v9 (20 Sep 2026) lists the live Free caps: 1 brand that cannot be added or deleted, 20 published posts per calendar month, 30 days of analytics with a watermark, 5 fixed competitors on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Twitch, and 5 AI text credits. LinkedIn, X, PDF/PPT downloads, SmartLinks, the hashtag finder, Post library, Canva, and Google Drive stay off Free. Looker Studio, Make, and Zapier stay on Advanced or Custom.

The 20-post Free cap counts published posts, not drafts. Duplicates count once per network they actually go out on. Help says posts scheduled beyond 20 sit in the planner, and only 20 publish that month. The counter resets on the 1st. Paid planner use is subject to Metricool's fair use policy, which the pricing HTML also flags.

Starter is the first paid band that adds LinkedIn, unlimited publishing under fair use, PDF/PPT reports, longer analytics history, and Canva plus Google Drive. Advanced adds team and client seats, role controls, post approval, custom report templates, the Looker Studio connector, and the REST API. Custom starts at 50+ brands and is a sales-quoted card on the same page.

Cancelation keeps paid access through the current cycle, then the account drops to Free. Upgrades apply immediately with unused time deducted. Downgrades wait until the period ends. Help 0lrpo (20 Sep 2026) limits withdrawal refunds to the first 15 calendar days after a first paid purchase, including first-purchase add-ons. Automatic renewals are not refundable. Plan changes themselves are not refunded.

Which extras sit outside the brand-count price?

Two add-ons sit on top of a paid plan. Neither is bundled into the Starter or Advanced sticker.

X is billed per connected account, not per brand pack. Help wt5wy (accessed 20 Sep 2026) prices the current add-on at $10 / €10 per month, or $120 / €120 per year. That yearly total is the same on monthly and annual billing. Twelve monthly payments of $10 equal one annual payment of $120. The plan discount does not apply here. Current pricing took effect on 13 Jul 2026. Accounts that already had X add-ons before that date keep $5 / €5 per month ($60 / €60 per year) only while at least one X add-on stays active. Removing every X add-on drops the legacy rate permanently.

Free cannot connect X at all. Starter or higher is required, then one add-on per X account per brand, up to the plan's brand cap. Adding an add-on bills immediately (prorated mid-cycle). Reducing add-ons waits for the next renewal.

Advanced Analytics is an account-level extra, not a per-brand line. Help ft6hi and the pricing-page tooltip (both 20 Sep 2026) start it at $12 / €10 per month on Starter and $36 / €30 per month on Advanced. Exact dollars can vary by brand band, so the live checkout is the confirmation step. Without the add-on, Starter and Advanced get 2 Metricool Studio views (5 versions each) and 3 campaign dashboards per brand. Detailed analytics without the add-on is 15 days, and only on Advanced. The add-on extends that window to 30 days, opens deletion of Studio views and dashboards, and applies across every brand on the account. Free cannot buy it.

A five-brand annual Starter at $20 plus one X account at $10 is $30 per month before tax. The same Starter plus Advanced Analytics at the $12 starter rate is $32 before X. Agencies that connect X on every brand should budget $10 times brand count on top of the card, not inside it.

Which Metricool MCP path runs on Free?

Hosted MCP is included on Free. The REST API is not.

Help 5y3ib and h72jg (20 Sep 2026) split the two products cleanly. Metricool MCP works on any plan, including Free. Metricool API is Advanced or Custom only. Connecting MCP does not raise plan limits. A Free MCP session still hits 20 published posts and 30 days of analytics.

Cursor Desktop is the documented install path. Browser-only Cursor is not. The paste block Metricool prints for mcp.json is:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "metricool-mcp": {
      "url": "https://ai.metricool.com/mcp",
      "type": "http"
    }
  }
}

After save, the server shows as unauthenticated until Connect finishes browser OAuth. Help eqp9h lists URL/OAuth for ChatGPT, Make, Zapier, Smithery, Mistral Vibe, Cursor, and TypingMind. N8N is the outlier: header name X-Mc-Auth with the Metricool API key from Account Settings. That header path is the API product, so it needs Advanced. Claude Desktop is documented through npx mcp-remote against the same host. Claude Code's add command belongs in a terminal, not in prose:

claude mcp add --transport http metricool https://ai.metricool.com/mcp

PyPI package mcp-metricool is 1.1.9, uploaded 7 Oct 2025. The README's local uvx config uses METRICOOL_USER_TOKEN and METRICOOL_USER_ID, and the same README still says API access needs the Advanced tier. Help articles agree that token-based MCP clients that speak the API are Advanced, not the Free OAuth URL. requires_python on PyPI is >=3.12. The README text still says Python 3.8 or higher. The README names 28 tools (get_brands through get_pinterest_boards). Metricool's Claude marketing page on the same day says "Over 20 tools." Cite both. A GET of https://github.com/metricool/mcp-metricool returned HTTP 404 on 20 Sep 2026 even though help 1i3w0 and the Claude page still name that repo as public.

Trends MCP uses a different Cursor shape. llms.txt and docs.md (both last updated 20 Sep 2026) print url plus transport: "http" plus a Bearer header against https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp. Homepage and /data-sources copy-config snippets on this run omit transport. Use the docs block:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trends-mcp": {
      "url": "https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp",
      "transport": "http",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Metricool MCP reads and writes the connected Metricool account: brands, metrics, posts, SmartLinks, inbox, Google Business Profile reviews, ads campaigns, autolists, and linked Canva or Drive files, inside plan limits. That is owned-account operations. It does not return a live public TikTok hashtag board or an X trending topic list. For public X topics without an X developer app, see X trending topics without the X API. For public TikTok boards, see TikTok trends.

Who should skip Metricool and buy public trend data instead?

Keep Metricool when the work is scheduling, inbox, owned analytics, and ads for profiles the account already connects. Skip it as a trend-data buy.

Trends MCP prices by request count on 20 Sep 2026: Free $0 for 100 requests per month, Starter $19 for 1,000, Pro $49 for 5,000, Business $199 for 25,000. Annual billing saves 20%, printed on HTML yearly cards as $16 per month ($192 billed), $39 ($468), and $159 ($1,910). HTML /pricing still heads the page with 30+ data sources and answers the FAQ with 40+ sources. llms.txt lists 16 keyword sources plus 24 live feed names. Do not flatten those counts. HTML FAQ counts one successful API or MCP call as one request. pricing.md and llms.txt still meter MCP get_top_trends at 1 credit per 10 requested rows (max 10 credits). Trial copy splits too: FAQ says the card is not charged until day 8, yearly plan fine print says after day 7.

A social team that needs both jobs usually runs both products. Metricool MCP in Cursor talks to the planner. Trends MCP in the same Cursor MCP server talks to public boards. Mixing them is the usual architecture, not a single-vendor swap.

Metricool still wins competitor tracking for profiles already loaded into the brand (5 fixed on Free, up to 100 on paid cards). That is account-level competitor analytics, not a live ranked feed. Trends MCP wins when the question has no starting handle: what is trending on TikTok, YouTube, Google, or X right now, across sources, with MCP plus REST on every plan.

FAQ

Does Metricool MCP require a paid plan?

No. Help h72jg and 5y3ib (20 Sep 2026) put hosted MCP on every plan, including Free. Plan limits still apply after the client connects. The REST API, Looker Studio, Make, Zapier, and N8N's X-Mc-Auth header path stay on Advanced or Custom.

How much is Metricool for 5 brands?

Annual Starter for up to 5 brands prints $20 per month on the 20 Sep 2026 USD annual tab. The monthly tab prints $25. X is extra at $10 per connected account per month with no annual discount. Advanced Analytics starts at $12 per month on Starter if that add-on is on.

Can Free publish to LinkedIn or X?

No. Help bl0v9 keeps LinkedIn on paid plans and keeps X on a paid plan plus the X add-on. Free can still schedule up to 20 published posts per month on the networks it does connect, with 30 days of analytics.

Is Metricool a Trends MCP alternative?

Only for owned-account social work. Metricool MCP schedules and reads the connected brands. Trends MCP returns public keyword series and live ranked boards. Use Metricool to publish. Use Trends MCP to see what is moving off-platform before a post is written.

Does annual billing cheapen the X add-on?

No. Help wt5wy prices X at $10 per month or $120 per year per account, and states those two totals are the same. The "save up to 24%" toggle on the pricing page applies to the brand-count plan cards, not to X.

Sources: Metricool pricing (USD and EUR HTML, 20 Sep 2026); Metricool help bl0v9, xux1u, wt5wy, ft6hi, eqp9h, 5y3ib, h72jg, 1i3w0, 7qhoi, 0lrpo (20 Sep 2026); PyPI mcp-metricool 1.1.9; Metricool Claude MCP page; Trends MCP /pricing HTML, pricing.md, llms.txt, docs.md, homepage, and /data-sources (20 Sep 2026).