Facebook remains the world‘s largest social network with over 2.9 billion monthly active users in 2024. For businesses and marketers, having a strong presence on Facebook and consistently posting engaging content is essential. However, manually publishing posts can be incredibly time-consuming, especially if you‘re managing multiple pages and groups.
That‘s where Facebook scheduling tools come in. With a good scheduling app, you can plan out and create your Facebook content for weeks or even months in advance. The tool will then automatically publish your posts at the desired times, freeing up your time for other important tasks.
But with so many options on the market, which Facebook scheduler should you use? In this guide, I‘ve rounded up the 10 absolute best tools for 2024 based on hands-on testing. Whether you‘re a small business owner, social media manager, or part of a large marketing team, you‘ll find the perfect solution for your needs and budget.
What Makes a Great Facebook Scheduling Tool?
While the specific features you need will depend on your unique situation, here are some key aspects I looked at when evaluating the tools for this list:
- Supports all major post types, including images, videos, and Stories
- Ability to bulk upload and schedule multiple posts at once
- Integrated content calendar for easy campaign planning
- Auto-scheduling posts at recommended best times for engagement
- Built-in photo editing and creative tools
- Collaboration and approval workflows for teams
- Supports crossposting to other social networks
- Robust analytics and reporting
- Incorporates AI tools to speed up post creation and optimization
- Reasonable pricing plans for different budgets
With these criteria in mind, let‘s dive into my top picks! I‘ve organized the tools into a few categories to help you quickly find the best fit.
Top Overall: Meta Business Suite
Surprised to see Meta‘s native tool in the top spot? While Business Suite had a somewhat rocky launch when it replaced Creator Studio, the platform has massively improved in recent years. And it certainly can‘t be beat on price, as it‘s 100% free for all business and creator accounts.
Some of the key advantages of Meta Business Suite include:
- Manage all your Facebook pages, groups, and ad accounts in one place
- Schedule and auto-publish all post types, including Reels and Stories
- Get AI-powered recommendations for the best times to post
- Built-in creative tools like video trimming and image editing
- Detailed post performance analytics and audience insights
- Respond to comments and messages via an integrated inbox
While Business Suite may lack some of the more advanced features of third-party tools, it handles all the basics incredibly well. Recent updates have made it more stable and user-friendly. And you simply can‘t argue with the price for Facebook-specific scheduling.
The main drawback is that it obviously only supports Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram). It also has a limit of scheduling posts up to 75 days in advance. For unlimited scheduling and multi-platform support, check out the other options below.
Best for Publishing Full Campaigns: Sprout Social
If you‘re part of a larger brand or agency and need to publish a full content calendar across multiple Facebook pages and groups, Sprout Social is an excellent choice. It‘s pricier than the other tools but offers unmatched publishing power and flexibility.
You can plan and schedule every aspect of your Facebook campaigns in one place, including feed posts, Stories, videos, carousels, and ads. The Smart Compose feature allows you to auto-generate and schedule hundreds of posts at once using a pre-defined template.
Sprout‘s tools go way beyond just scheduling. You can also:
- Manage audience engagement via a unified inbox
- Track Facebook-specific metrics in the analytics dashboard
- Conduct automated paid promotion campaigns
- Monitor brand sentiment with social listening tools
- Run Facebook lead generation and sales campaigns
Sprout also has a robust permissioning system, allowing you to set up workflows and approval processes for large social teams. You can be confident your scheduled content aligns with brand standards before it goes live.
While Sprout is overkill for individuals or small businesses, it‘s an outstanding enterprise solution. Teams can try it out with a 30-day free trial.
Most Affordable for SMBs and Solopreneurs: Hootsuite
Hootsuite has been a leader in the social media management space for over a decade, and it‘s a great option for small-to-medium businesses and solopreneurs. Plans start at just $49/month and include scheduling for up to 10 social profiles.
Creating and scheduling Facebook posts in Hootsuite is a breeze with its intuitive composer window. You can preview how the post will look on desktop and mobile before scheduling. Hootsuite will also recommend the optimal send times based on your historical performance data.
Other handy features for Facebook marketers include:
- Bulk scheduling with CSV upload
- Content curation and creative asset templates
- Centralized inbox for comments and messages
- Facebook post performance analytics
- Boosting top-performing posts with paid promotion
- 150+ app integrations to fit your workflow
Hootsuite also released a nifty AI assistant in 2024 to help with tasks like auto-generating post copy and recommending hashtags to boost reach. It‘s a handy timesaver.
The main limitation of Hootsuite is that you can‘t schedule Stories, which is now supported by many other tools. And its reporting is not quite as advanced as some competitors. But overall it‘s an excellent, affordable choice for small teams and solo accounts.
Best Free Option for Basic Scheduling: Buffer
Need a completely free way to schedule Facebook posts? Check out Buffer. Their forever-free plan includes scheduling for up to 3 channels, including a Facebook page or group.
While Buffer has a sleek and minimal UI, it still packs in a surprising number of features for a free tool. You can create different types of posts (images, links, videos, etc.) and customize them for each network. Buffer also shows you a preview of how the post will look on Facebook before scheduling.
For optimal send times, you can allow Buffer to auto-schedule your content queue based on engagement data. Or choose your own custom time slots. The Analytics tab provides performance metrics for your scheduled posts, so you can see what‘s working.
Buffer‘s free plan should be enough for solopreneurs or brands that are just getting started with Facebook marketing. If you need more advanced features like Instagram First scheduling, the Pro Plan is still quite affordable at $15/month.
Best for Maximizing Organic Reach: Agorapulse
With organic reach on Facebook seemingly always on the decline, marketers need every edge they can get to maximize views and engagement of their scheduled posts. Agorapulse is a fantastic tool for this, thanks to its sophisticated publishing and analytics tools.
One of Agorapulse‘s standout features is its AI Assistant for Facebook. This tool analyzes your historical post data and provides specific recommendations to boost reach and interaction.
It offers suggestions for the best types of content to post, optimal character counts, hashtags to use, and the top times to publish based on audience activity. You can easily implement these tips as you‘re scheduling posts.
Agorapulse also has a handy queue scheduling system to keep your content calendar full and consistent. Just load posts up into different queues based on categories or campaigns, and set the days and times you want content to be published from each one. The tool will cycle through the scheduled posts.
In terms of analytics, Agorapulse is top-notch. You can measure reach, engagement rate, audience growth, and dozens of other metrics. It even lets you benchmark your page‘s results against competitors to see where you stand.
While it‘s not the cheapest tool at $89/month for 10 social profiles, Agorapulse provides excellent value for Facebook marketers serious about organic performance.
Best for Scheduling Facebook Reels: Loomly
Short-form video content is one of the biggest Facebook trends for 2024, and Reels are the top format. While Meta Business Suite supports Reels scheduling, most third-party apps have been slow to add this feature. Loomly is one of the best options.
With Loomly, you can schedule Reels of up to 60 seconds directly to your Facebook page. The tool will automatically format your video to meet all of Facebook‘s Reels requirements, including aspect ratio, file size, etc.
Scheduling Reels is fast and simple. Just upload your video clip, add your caption and hashtags, and choose your desired publication time. Loomly‘s integrated Canva button also allows you to quickly create the Reel thumbnail image without leaving the app.
In addition to video posts, Loomly supports scheduling for all other Facebook feed post types. It offers a clean and user-friendly calendar view to visually map out your campaign. You can even plug in major events and holidays to inspire relevant content ideas.
Loomly is an excellent all-in-one option for most Facebook marketers, with plans starting at $35/month. But it‘s an especially great choice for brands focusing heavily on Reels in 2024.
Best for Social Media Agencies: Sendible
For marketing agencies managing Facebook pages for multiple clients, Sendible is a great choice. It offers affordable pricing with a ton of flexibility.
You can set up each client as their own separate workspace, with individual content calendars, assets, and user permissions. Sendible‘s white-labeling option also allows you to put your agency‘s branding on reports for a professional touch.
Creating content is quick and efficient. The Canva integration lets you design graphics right within the Sendible composer. You can also store pre-approved visuals in the team media library for easy access.
Sendible has also added some handy AI tools recently to speed up your workflow as an agency. The AI Assistant can auto-generate post copy and suggest hashtags based on your topics. And the SmartQueues feature uses machine learning to determine the optimal posting frequency and times for each client‘s unique audience.
Measuring results is also a breeze. Sendible‘s analytics dashboard tracks all the most important Facebook KPIs, and you can easily create client-facing reports with a couple of clicks.
Plans start at $29/month for up to 12 social profiles. So it‘s a good deal for growing agencies. You can also get two months free by paying annually.
Best for Syncing with Other Marketing Channels: HubSpot
For brands with robust content marketing operations beyond just social media, HubSpot is worth considering. It‘s an all-in-one sales and marketing platform that includes a powerful social media scheduling tool.
With HubSpot, you can create and schedule your Facebook posts right alongside the rest of your marketing calendar, including email campaigns, blogs, landing pages, ads, and more. This allows you to craft cohesive messaging and creative assets that are perfectly aligned.
On the social publishing front, HubSpot supports all the key Facebook post types, including Reels and Stories. You can customize your content for each network, preview how it will look, and schedule it to auto-publish at the ideal times.
HubSpot also saves you time by allowing you to bulk schedule up to 500 social posts at once with a spreadsheet upload. And you can easily repurpose top-performing blog content as Facebook posts using the handy "Blog-to-Social" feature.
Once your scheduled posts go live, HubSpot provides deep analytics to measure your results. You can see key metrics like impressions, reach rate, and interactions. And even calculate the ROI of your Facebook campaigns by tracking leads and customers generated.
HubSpot can be overkill if you‘re only focused on social media. But if Facebook is a key part of your overall digital marketing mix, the platform is definitely worth checking out. Plans with the social scheduling tools start at $890/month.
Best for Audience Engagement: Sprout Social
While publishing content consistently with a Facebook scheduler is important, it‘s only half the battle. You also need to actively engage with your audience to build loyal communities around your brand. Sprout Social is my top pick for this.
Sprout‘s Smart Inbox is like command central for social engagement. It collects all your Facebook comments, mentions, and messages into one streamlined feed. You can quickly filter and prioritize conversations, and assign them to team members for follow-up.
The inbox is seamlessly integrated with Sprout‘s scheduling tools, so you can publish and engage in one app. You can also schedule and edit your responses with team approval layers to ensure quality control.
To help you stay on top of important interactions, Sprout provides automated alerts for messages that may be urgent or sensitive, based on keywords and sentiment analysis. It also tracks your typical response time and lets you display expected wait times on your Facebook page.
Another thing I love about Sprout is how easy it makes social listening. You can set up custom queries to track brand and competitor mentions across not just Facebook, but the entire web. It‘s incredibly useful for capitalizing on timely engagement opportunities.
For such a robust tool, Sprout is also surprisingly user-friendly. It has a clean and intuitive interface that makes collaborating with team members a breeze.
As mentioned, Sprout leans toward the pricey side at $249/month for the Standard plan. But you can test out all the engagement features with a 30-day free trial. It just might revolutionize your strategy for interacting with Facebook audiences.
Final Recommendations for Facebook Scheduling Tools
I hope this guide has helped clarify the best options for your Facebook scheduling and management needs. Here‘s a quick recap of my top picks for different use cases:
- Meta Business Suite: Best overall free option for native scheduling
- Sprout Social: Best for publishing enterprise-level Facebook campaigns
- Hootsuite: Most affordable for SMBs and solopreneurs
- Buffer: Best free option for basic post scheduling
- Agorapulse: Best for maximizing organic Facebook reach
- Loomly: Best for scheduling Facebook Reels
- Sendible: Best for social media marketing agencies
- HubSpot: Best for syncing social content with other marketing channels
- Sprout Social: Best for prioritizing audience engagement
To make the most of your Facebook scheduler, I recommend focusing on a few key things:
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Create a variety of engaging post types, including short videos, images, and Stories. Mix in curated content from other high-quality sources in addition to your own.
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Always include strong visuals that are properly formatted for Facebook‘s feed. Use the in-app editing tools or integrations like Canva to polish your images.
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Write compelling copy that encourages interaction. Ask questions, use emojis, and experiment with different call-to-actions. But keep things concise.
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Optimize your scheduling times based on audience analytics. Most tools will provide recommended posting slots based on historical engagement data.
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Check your results regularly and adapt your content calendar based on top-performing posts. Don‘t be afraid to repost or repurpose your best content as part of your scheduling mix.
By using these tips alongside one of the top Facebook scheduling tools, you‘ll be in great shape to streamline your workflow and smash your social media marketing goals. You‘ve got this!
