Publish Now vs Hootsuite
Hootsuite's Professional plan is $99/mo for 1 user and 10 accounts, with no API. API access lives on their top tier - sales-quoted, typically $1,000+/mo, behind a discovery call. Publish Now is the API-first unified social tool at $5/mo + credits, bought with a card.
5-day free trial. Cancel any time.
TL;DR
Hootsuite is for large marketing orgs with approval workflows and procurement. Its API is locked behind a sales-quoted top tier that typically starts north of $1,000/mo. Publish Now is the API-first unified social tool at $5/mo + credits - bought with a credit card.
curl -X POST https://publishnow.app/v1/posts \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-d '{
"content": "Hello from Publish Now!",
"platforms": ["x", "instagram", "tiktok"],
"schedule_at": "2026-06-10T09:00:00Z"
}'The reasons people search
API access gated behind their top tier - sales-quoted, typically $1,000+/mo before you can write a single line of code
You cannot sign up with a credit card - every API buyer goes through a discovery call, scoping, contract, and NET-30 invoice
Designed for a marketing org, not a builder - the product shape assumes a team of seats clicking through queues, not a developer making one API call
Multi-tenant SaaS posture is a top-tier add-on you negotiate, not the default
The API is an afterthought to the suite, not the product - it exists to let big buyers wire Hootsuite into their stack, not to let you wire social into yours
Entry price: $99/mo (Professional, 1 user, 10 accounts)
Price to get API access: Sales-quoted top tier, typically $1,000+/mo
Buying motion: Discovery call, demo, scoping, contract, NET-30 invoice
Pricing model: Per-seat top tier, sales-quoted
Time to first API call: Weeks (procurement cycle)
Entry price: $5/mo + credits
Price to get API access: Included in the base price
Buying motion: Sign up, start 5-day trial
Pricing model: Flat subscription + included credits
Time to first API call: Minutes
Hootsuite is the established suite. If your job is running a large marketing org with approval workflows, social listening, and a shared inbox that legal signs off on, Hootsuite has years of investment in that surface and it is the correct answer.
Every row is sourced from public docs. No cherry-picking.
| Axis | Hootsuite | Publish Now |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $99/mo (Professional, 1 user, 10 accounts) | $5/mo + credits |
| Hootsuite Professional does not include API access. | ||
| Price to get API access | Sales-quoted top tier, typically $1,000+/mo | Included in the base price |
| Buying motion | Discovery call, demo, scoping, contract, NET-30 invoice | Sign up, start 5-day trial |
| Pricing model | Per-seat top tier, sales-quoted | Flat subscription + included credits |
| Time to first API call | Weeks (procurement cycle) | Minutes |
| Platforms supported | Standard suite set | 3 at GA (X, Instagram, TikTok) |
| Self-serve onboarding | No (sales required for API) | Yes |
| Multi-tenant SaaS fit | Top-tier concession, negotiated per contract | Built multi-tenant first, included by default |
| MCP server for AI agents | No native MCP server | Native MCP surface |
| Published uptime SLA | Contract SLA, not public | 99.9% target |
| Engagement automation | Bundled into the suite (inbox, monitoring) | Comments, DMs, follows on the roadmap as first-class product |
| Cancellation | Annual contract, renewal cycle | Cancel from your account page |
The shape of the product, not just the pitch.
No discovery call. No scoping doc. No procurement loop. No NET-30 invoice. Sign up, start the 5-day free trial, get a key, post. Time-to-first-API-call is minutes, not weeks.
Hootsuite started as a suite and bolted an API onto the top tier for big-buyer integrations. Publish Now started as an API. The docs, the pricing, and the support model all assume the API is the thing you came to buy.
Hootsuite Professional is $99/mo with no API. Their API tier is sales-quoted, typically $1,000+/mo. Publish Now is $5/mo + credits with the API included. For a builder, that is a 200x gap on the thing they actually need.
If you are building a product that posts on behalf of your customers, multi-tenant support is the default. One Publish Now account, many end-user accounts, bill decoupled from your customer count. No contract to negotiate it in.
Hootsuite does not ship a native MCP server. Publish Now ships a typed MCP surface alongside the REST API so Claude, Cursor, and other agent runtimes get first-class `publish` and `schedule` tools out of the box.
Queues are the primary surface. The same JSON that posts now also posts later. You get scheduling-first workflows without paying for a social inbox, a listening product, and approval queues your team does not use.
Run the same scale-up against both and you stop second-guessing the bill.
| Scale | Hootsuite | Publish Now | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 user, 10 accounts, no API | $99/mo (Professional) | $5/mo + credits | - |
| Professional plan does not include API access. | |||
| 1 user, API access | ~$1,000+/mo (sales-quoted top tier) | $5/mo + credits | ~99% less than Hootsuite's API tier |
| Small team, multi-tenant SaaS | Custom top-tier contract, seat add-ons | $5/mo + credits | Bill decoupled from your customer count |
| Indie dev, weekend project | Not a supported buyer | $5/mo + credits | No sales call required |
You run a large marketing org with formal approval workflows and role-based publishing controls, and a shared suite is where your team lives all day.
You need a mature social inbox, social listening, and brand-safety review queues built for legal and compliance sign-off on every post.
You have non-technical staff who need a UI to plan, schedule, and review content, and you buy software through procurement on annual contracts.
You are an indie dev, startup, or small team that wants to ship a posting feature this week instead of starting a six-week procurement cycle.
You want credit-card buying with public pricing, no discovery call, no scoping call, and no contract to negotiate before you write code.
You are building a product that uses social media (multi-tenant SaaS, AI agent, internal tool), not running a marketing organization that manages social media as a function.
Switching from Hootsuite
Swapping from Hootsuite is a low-risk move because the core ideas carry over: a post body, a target list of platforms, a schedule. What changes is the buying motion and the auth model - both get simpler.
Email yo@publishnow.app - the founder writes back same day. No sales call, no contract review, no support tier you have to negotiate up to.