# Buffer for Small Business: Free Plan, Google Reviews and Real Costs > How Buffer fits a small business week: free plan for 3 channels, Google Business Profile posts and reviews, Essentials vs Team for a helper, and yearly costs. _Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/buffer-for-small-business — The Professional's Toolkit · updated October 2026_ --- **3 channels** — Free for one user on Buffer, enough for Google Business Profile, Instagram and Facebook. - **$5 per channel** — a month on Essentials, billed yearly - **10 networks** — in the Community inbox, Google reviews included - **50% off** — for 12 months for eligible startups ## What a small business week asks of a scheduler Picture the owner of a bakery, a salon or a plumbing firm. Social media is one job among twenty. Posts get written on a Sunday night or between customers, and the accounts that matter are usually local: a Google Business Profile that shows up in Maps, an Instagram account and a Facebook Page. Maybe one helper, a part-timer or a family member, writes a few posts. Somebody has to answer comments and Google reviews. Nobody has time for a monthly report. That is the week we mapped against Buffer. Buffer describes itself as social media software made for small businesses, and its small business page leans on three promises: a free plan for businesses with one or two channels, pricing that grows only as you add channels, and no hidden fees or locked features [1]. **The pricing model fits a small business well**, because you pay per connected channel rather than per user. This guide walks through the week in the order it happens, from planning to posting to replies, and then adds up what a year costs at three common sizes. It closes with what Buffer does not do. ## Starting free with the local trio The free plan covers up to three channels and one user, with ten scheduled posts per channel waiting at any time [2]. For many small businesses those three channels are exactly the local trio: Google Business Profile, Instagram and Facebook. You also get the AI Assistant without limits, the Community inbox for comments and reviews, Insights with 30 days of history, 100 ideas and a Start Page. No card is needed and nothing expires. A shop posting once a day to each channel can keep about a week and a half queued. The limits show up in specific moments. You want to queue a whole month in one sitting, and the ten-post ceiling stops you. A helper asks for a login, and Free has only the owner. You want to add TikTok or LinkedIn as a fourth account. Or you need more than 30 days of numbers. Each of those is a fair reason to pay. None of them is urgent on day one. **Start on Free with your three most important accounts**, and upgrade only when a limit costs you real time. Our guide to [whether Buffer is free](/articles/is-buffer-free) covers every Free limit in detail. ## Google Business Profile: posts yes, video and analytics no For a local business, the Google Business Profile often matters more than any social network, because it is what people see when they search for you. Buffer publishes to it automatically, with no phone reminder to finish the job. The profile has to be verified with Google before Buffer can connect it [3]. You can schedule three post types: What's New, Offer and Event. Each post can carry an optional button such as Book, Order online, Buy, Learn more, Sign up or Call now. Google sets several rules that Buffer passes on. Phone numbers are not allowed in the post text, so put the number in the Call now button instead. Video and GIFs are not supported, because Google's API limits third-party tools. WebP images are rejected, and so are images that still carry EXIF data, which Buffer advises stripping before upload. Alt text is not available for these images. Event and Offer times follow the local time zone of the business location, which helps when you schedule from somewhere else. Google allows up to 50 posts a day through Buffer, far more than a shop needs. The bigger gap is measurement. **Google Business Profiles get no analytics in Insights**, because of the limits of Google's API. Buffer imports no history for them either. So you can publish an offer for Saturday and answer the reviews it brings in, but you have to open Google's own dashboard to see views or calls. For most owners this is a small inconvenience. For anyone who reports results to a partner, it means two places to check. > 💡 **Put the phone number in the button:** Google does not allow phone numbers in Business Profile post text. Use the Call now button on the post instead. ## Planning on Sunday: ideas, templates, AI drafts and CSV Most small businesses plan in short bursts. Buffer's Create space holds ideas you save during the week, such as a photo of a new product or a customer question worth answering. Free keeps 100 ideas in three groups, and paid plans raise that to 5,000 ideas per organization. Ideas are visible to everyone in the organization, so on Team, where a helper has a login, they can drop suggestions there. On iOS you can save an idea from the Control Center, the Action Button or an Apple Watch. The mobile share extension can save a web page as an idea too. Templates cut the blank-page problem. The composer offers more than 100 ready-made post templates, and you can build your own: one custom template on Free, five on Essentials and unlimited on Team. The AI Assistant drafts and rewrites posts from a prompt of at least four words. It can brainstorm ideas from your business and audience, adjust tone and length, and keep each version inside the right length for each network. It is optional and acts only when you open it. One caution matters for a business: the assistant runs on OpenAI, and the text you type is shared with OpenAI. Keep customer names and private details out of prompts. If you plan a month of promotions in a spreadsheet, the CSV bulk upload saves real time. It works on every plan from each channel's settings. Free accepts up to ten posts per channel per upload, and paid plans accept up to 100. Be careful with three limits. Rows beyond your limit are skipped without an error. Only text and single-image posts are supported, so no video, Reels or carousels. And first comments cannot be bulk uploaded. ## Posting between jobs: phone, browser and recommended times Small business owners rarely sit at a desk to post. Buffer's mobile apps for iOS and Android, the browser extension for Chrome, Safari, Opera and Edge, and the web app all publish posts, and all three are on every plan, Free included. The extension is handy for sharing an article about your industry while you read it. The mobile app lets you combine images and video in one post and reply to comments. Some tasks stay on the web, though. Start Page editing, team settings and attaching files from Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Photos or OneDrive are not available in the apps. Timing is the next question. Each channel has its own posting schedule and time zone, and Buffer adjusts for daylight saving automatically. Buffer can suggest a posting schedule for you. Those recommended times come from data on active real accounts in US time zones since 2025, by platform. **They are general patterns, not your own audience**; the small business page says recent account performance feeds in only on some plans. Insights itself does not yet offer best-time-to-post advice. You can also set a posting goal of one, three or five posts a week, which creates recommended times without replacing your schedule. Treat the suggestions as a starting point. Watch your own results. ## Comments and Google reviews in one inbox Replying is where small businesses earn trust. Here Buffer has grown this year. Community, the comment inbox, covers ten networks on every plan, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. Since March 2026 it also handles Google Business Profile reviews. That means a five-star review and an Instagram question can be answered from the same screen. Reviews with star ratings get AI reply suggestions, new reviews can take up to two hours to arrive, and Google reviews appear only in List view. The plan limits are small but felt. Free gives five AI reply suggestions a week and one saved reply. Essentials and Team lift both the suggestions and the saved replies to unlimited. A saved reply is worth setting up early for the questions you answer every week, such as opening hours or parking. Some things stay outside the inbox. Comments on Google Business Profile posts, stories and reminder posts are not collected. Liking comments is not possible on Instagram, Threads, Google Business Profiles and YouTube. And Instagram direct messages and Story replies never appear. > ⚠ **No Instagram DMs in the inbox:** Community handles comments and Google reviews, but Instagram direct messages and Story replies never appear there. ## Link in bio with a Start Page, and why it costs a slot Instagram allows one link in your profile, so many businesses use a link-in-bio page. Buffer's Start Page is a small mobile-friendly site at a start.page address, with blocks for images, videos, music, updates and an email signup form that connects to Mailchimp. It is included on every plan. Building and editing it happens on the desktop only, and you need a verified email to publish it. Videos must be YouTube links, the page shows only your five most recent updates, and published updates cannot be edited. The catch is counting. **A Start Page is a channel.** On Free it takes one of your three slots, so the local trio plus a Start Page no longer fits. You would have to drop one account. On paid plans it is billed like any other channel, and deleting the page does not free the paid slot. If your website already has a good landing page, you may not need it at all. Link your site instead. > ⚠ **A Start Page uses a channel:** On Free it takes one of the three slots, and on paid plans it is billed like any other channel. ## What a year costs at 3, 5 and 8 channels Buffer's paid plans price each connected channel. Essentials is $6 per channel a month billed monthly, or $5 per channel a month billed yearly. Team is $12 per channel a month billed monthly, or $10 per channel a month billed yearly. Once you upgrade, every connected channel is billed, including the first three. The choice between the two plans is simple for a small business. Essentials suits one person. Team is the plan that lets a helper in. ### Three typical sizes The figures below use yearly billing unless noted, by our arithmetic. Three channels, the local trio, come to $180 a year on Essentials and $360 a year on Team. Five channels, say adding LinkedIn and a Start Page or TikTok, come to $300 a year on Essentials, or $360 a year if paid monthly, and $600 a year on Team. Eight channels come to $480 a year on Essentials and $960 a year on Team; on monthly billing those rise to $576 and $1,152. Volume discounts start only above ten channels, so they do not change these numbers. Our [Buffer pricing guide](/articles/buffer-pricing) covers the larger tiers. ### Essentials for one person, Team for a helper Essentials keeps one user but removes the friction of Free: unlimited scheduled posts under fair use, unlimited Insights history with exports, first comments on Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook Pages, the hashtag manager and channel groups for posting to several accounts at once. Team adds unlimited users, approval workflows and access levels per channel. A helper can be set to Needs Approval, so their drafts wait for you before going live. At five channels, that control doubles the bill, from $300 to $600 a year. Sharing one login on Essentials is cheaper but leaves no record of who posted what. Young companies should check the startup program before paying. It gives 50% off any paid plan for the first 12 months to companies with fewer than 50 employees, two years old or younger, from pre-seed to Series A or unfunded, that have never paid for Buffer [4]. Agencies, consultancies and development shops are excluded, and most established local shops will not qualify on age. Payment is by card, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Cash App or Link (a US bank account works only through Stripe on payments over $250), in US dollars with taxes extra, and adding a channel mid-cycle is charged at once and prorated. > 💡 **Give a helper Needs Approval:** On Team, set a helper's access to Needs Approval so their drafts wait for you before they publish. ## Reports for owners with no time for reports Insights covers Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn and most other networks Buffer publishes to, though not Google Business Profiles. On Free it shows the last 30 days, which answers the question most owners actually ask: did last week's posts land? AI takeaways summarize performance in plain sentences, and chart snapshots can be downloaded on every plan. That may be all the reporting a shop needs. Ten minutes a month is enough. Paid plans add unlimited history and exports to CSV, Markdown or PDF. Buffer's pricing page lists branded reports with your logo and a cover page on Team only, while its help center describes a PDF export with your own cover logo on any paid plan. One habit is worth knowing. Disconnecting a channel deletes its analytics, so reconnect carefully when you change a password or a Page owner. Buffer also offers human email support on every plan, and its support team usually replies within about two hours, which matters when a post fails on a busy morning. Our [step-by-step Buffer guide](/articles/how-to-use-buffer) covers setting up channels and schedules. ## What Buffer leaves out, and when to look elsewhere Buffer is a publishing and replying tool. Its own help center says it does not offer social listening, ads management, sentiment analysis or audience targeting. It does not send direct messages, and Instagram DMs do not reach the Community inbox. There is no Google Business Profile analytics, YouTube means Shorts only, and the web app is in English only. For a shop that posts, answers comments and replies to reviews, those gaps rarely hurt. For a business that sells through DMs or runs paid ads every week, they do. Several rivals cover those gaps. Metricool reports on Meta, Google and TikTok ads and runs Meta and Google campaigns from one dashboard, and it automates Instagram DMs through its Flows feature on paid plans (free there for a limited time, announced as a future paid add-on). Its free plan covers one brand, where each Google Business location needs its own brand. SocialBee's Bootstrap plan costs $29 a month billed monthly for five channels and one user, with a social inbox and Google Business Profile publishing. Later's Starter plan costs $18.75 a month billed yearly, but its social inbox (desktop only, in beta) and approvals start on Growth, and Later does not support Google Business Profile, so a local business would manage its Google profile elsewhere. Sprout Social includes review management and an inbox on Standard, priced at $199 per seat a month billed annually. The decision is fairly clear. Count your channels first. A local business with three to eight accounts, one owner and perhaps one helper gets simple per-channel pricing from Buffer, though tools that price by brand rather than by channel, such as Metricool, can cost less for one business on many networks, with different plan limits. A business whose sales arrive through Instagram DMs, or whose marketing depends on ads and listening, should shortlist one of the tools above instead. Buffer, Later and SocialBee each offer a 14-day trial, on different terms: Later's needs a card and converts to a paid plan unless you cancel, Buffer's runs on Team and converts only if a card is on file (otherwise the account drops to Free), and SocialBee's trial of Pro needs no card and locks the account when it ends. Try the shortlist on a real week of posts. ## FAQ **Is Buffer good for small businesses?** Buffer describes itself as built for small businesses, and its per-channel pricing fits owners with a few accounts. It covers publishing, a comment and review inbox, AI drafting and basic analytics, but not ads, listening or DMs. **Can Buffer post to Google Business Profile?** Yes. Buffer publishes What's New, Offer and Event posts automatically, with an optional button such as Book or Call now. Video, GIFs and WebP images are not supported, and the profile must be verified first. **Can I reply to Google reviews in Buffer?** Yes. Google Business Profile reviews appear in the Community inbox on every plan, with AI reply suggestions for reviews with star ratings (five a week on Free, unlimited on paid plans). New reviews can take up to two hours to appear. **Does Buffer show Google Business Profile analytics?** No. Google Business Profiles are not supported in Insights because of Google's API limits, so views and calls stay in Google's own dashboard. **Which Buffer plan should a small business choose?** Free covers three channels for one person. Essentials suits a solo owner who needs more posts, exports or first comments, and Team is needed once a helper should log in with their own access and approvals. **Does Buffer offer a small business discount?** There is no general small business discount. Eligible startups (under 50 employees, two years old or younger, never paid for Buffer) can get 50% off any paid plan for 12 months; agencies are excluded. ## The bottom line Buffer fits the small business week well. The free plan covers the local trio of Google Business Profile, Instagram and Facebook for one person, with the AI Assistant, the Community inbox for comments and Google reviews, and 30 days of Insights. Essentials adds volume and exports for a solo owner, and Team adds a helper with approvals at twice the price per channel. Remember that a Start Page counts as a channel, that Google Business Profile has no video or analytics, and that Buffer has no DMs, ads or listening. ## Sources [1] Social Media Management for Small Business — https://buffer.com/made-for/small-business (2026-10) [2] Pricing — https://buffer.com/pricing (2026-10) [3] Buffer Help: Using Google Business Profiles with Buffer — https://support.buffer.com/articles/using-google-business-profiles-with-buffer-CWwIBEqMjj (2026-10) [4] Buffer Help: Buffer's Startup Program — https://support.buffer.com/articles/buffers-startup-program-r5n1uwIgRH (2026-10) [5] Buffer Help Center — https://support.buffer.com/articles/buffer-pricing-and-features-6pJrOPuzIt [6] Buffer changelog — https://buffer.com/changelog [7] G2, Buffer reviews — https://www.g2.com/products/buffer/reviews