# Metricool Planner: How to Schedule Posts, Autolists and Bulk Imports > How to use Metricool's Planner: connecting brands, per-network posts, what auto publishes, Best Times, autolists, recurring posts, CSV import and the limits. _Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/metricool-planner — The Professional's Toolkit · updated October 2026_ --- **20** — Published posts a month on Metricool's Free plan; paid plans lift the cap under a Fair Use Policy. - **200 posts** — per autolist - **250 posts** — post library cap per brand (paid plans) - **50 a day** — Instagram posts per rolling 24 hours ## What the Planner is, and what your plan changes The Planner is the scheduling half of Metricool: a calendar where you write a post once, adapt it for each network, pick a time and let Metricool publish it or remind you to. Around that calendar sit the tools this guide walks through: Best Times, autolists fed by hand or by RSS, recurring posts, a post library, CSV import, an image and video editor, and links to Canva, Adobe Express and Google Drive. We read Metricool's help center and product pages to build it; we did not schedule posts on a live account ourselves. Your plan decides how much of this you get. **Free covers one brand and 20 published posts a month**, with every network except LinkedIn and X. Starter costs $25 a month billed monthly or $20 a month billed annually, for up to 5 brands, and lifts the monthly cap. It adds LinkedIn, Canva, Google Drive, the post library and hashtag search, but still has one user. Advanced costs $67 a month billed monthly or $53 a month billed annually, for up to 15 brands, and adds recurring posts, post approval and team members. On plans bought on the web, X needs a paid plan plus the X add-on at $10 a month per connected X account (since July 13, 2026; accounts that bought it earlier keep $5 a month), while the app-store Starter Mobile 5 plan includes X in its monthly price. Our [Metricool pricing guide](/articles/metricool-pricing) covers the larger brand tiers. ## Step one: connect your networks to a brand Everything in the Planner hangs off a brand. **A brand holds one account per platform**, so two Instagram accounts mean two brands, and every Google Business Profile location needs its own brand too. LinkedIn is not available on Free, and a personal LinkedIn profile and a company page cannot sit in the same brand. Instagram must be a business or creator account, and Metricool recommends connecting it through a Facebook Page, because the direct Instagram login gives basic metrics only. Threads connects through the Instagram account it is linked to. YouTube channels under a Brand Account can be connected only by a Primary owner or Owner. Choose carefully at the start. Connecting a different social account to an existing brand mixes the history of both accounts, and swapping the connected account means deleting the brand and starting over, an option the free account does not include. Agencies on Advanced have an easier route for client accounts: a connection link that lets the client attach their own networks without registering. That link expires after 71 hours and does not give the client access to the brand itself. Set the time zone next. The account time zone is the default, and each brand can override it in the Planner. > 💡 **Plan brands before connecting:** Each brand holds one account per platform, and swapping the connected account later means deleting the brand. Map accounts to brands first. ## Creating a post: one draft, a tab per network You start a post from the calendar, select the networks, and write once. Metricool then shows a tab for each network, and editing one tab detaches it from the shared template, which you can reapply at any time. **Saving creates one publication per selected network**, so the calendar shows each one separately. In the Planner a post has a single publishing time for all the networks you picked. Feed previews exist for Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Google Business Profile and YouTube, and the Instagram preview now uses a single vertical format for every device. Links need care. They must start with HTTPS to be detected, previewed or shortened. Only the last link in a post gets a preview, and that preview is an approximation, since the network picks the final image from the page itself. The composer also has a UTM builder, though Metricool offers no UTM analytics. Formatting is plain. There is no rich text: no bold, italics, underline or bullet points in the post body. TikTok goes further and ignores line breaks entirely, so a TikTok caption cannot be split into paragraphs. ### First comment, alt text, collaborators and location A first comment can be scheduled only together with its post, on Facebook, the Instagram feed, LinkedIn, TikTok professional pages and YouTube. The limits differ widely: 2,200 characters on Instagram, 8,000 on Facebook, 1,250 on LinkedIn, 150 on TikTok and 10,000 on YouTube. Alt text works on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest, LinkedIn and X, per image in carousels, but not in Stories or autolist posts. The AI alt text generator uses AI credits on Free and Starter and is unlimited on Advanced and Custom. Instagram posts can carry **up to 5 collaborators**, not on Stories, and each must accept in the Instagram app, or the post goes out without the collaboration. Private or age-restricted accounts cannot be collaborators. Location tags work only on Facebook and Instagram, one per post, and not on Stories. On Instagram a location requires auto-publishing to be switched on. If the tag is missing, publish that post by notification instead. ## What publishes itself, and what arrives as a notification Metricool auto publishes Instagram posts, Reels, Trial Reels and Stories for business and creator profiles, and it sends every video to Instagram as a Reel. Some formats cannot go through the API, though. **Stories with links, mentions or stickers, Reels with interactive stickers or audio outside Metricool's library, and carousels with videos over 60 seconds go by notification** [1]. On TikTok, effects, filters, stickers, music outside the Top 100 trending songs, a visible location, Duets and Stitches need the same manual route. Manual publishing works like this. At the scheduled time Metricool sends a push or email notification, and you finish the post in the network's own app. Push and email alerts are available on every plan, including Free, but a phone notification needs the Metricool iOS or Android app installed. Metricool notifies you only for manual posts and errors, never for success. A post marked Sent was handed to you by notification, and it cannot be switched to auto-publishing afterward. The auto-publish toggle also persists for new posts until you change it, and there is no bulk action to flip existing posts. Check that toggle before you schedule a week of content. > ⚠ **Some Instagram posts need your phone:** Stories with links, mentions or stickers, some Reels and carousels with videos over 60 seconds go by notification. Install the mobile app to get the push alert. ## Picking the time: Best Times and the Meta change Best Times suggests when to post from your audience's activity. It can take up to 7 days to appear after you connect an account, and it needs at least 100 followers. Personalized Instagram times need the account connected through Facebook; TikTok needs a business account. X times need at least 300 active followers and an Advanced or Custom plan, on top of the X add-on. The suggestions keep no history, so past and future weeks show the same slots. Small accounts get nothing. The bigger caveat is Facebook. Meta stopped supporting best times in its API on September 24, 2024, so Facebook accounts connected after that date get times drawn from general behavioral studies rather than their own audience. LinkedIn and YouTube work the same way, because neither network supplies account data for this. *Treat those slots as a starting point.* The mobile app shows only a basic view of Best Times, so plan your week on the web. ## Filling the calendar in bulk ### Autolists and RSS An autolist is a queue of evergreen posts that publishes on a weekly frequency, with as many time rows as you need. Each list holds **up to 200 posts**, and extra posts are not published [2]. Each post takes at most 10 attachments. With Repeat on, published posts move to the end of the list, so the queue runs in a circle; with it off, they drop out after publishing. You cannot tag people or products on Instagram posts from an autolist, and alt text is not available there. An autolist can also be fed by an RSS feed, which Metricool checks periodically for new items. It is built for blog feeds. That suits a company blog well. A WordPress feed shows the latest 10 posts by default. Images come through only for Instagram and Pinterest; other networks get the link alone, and a YouTube feed publishes an image plus a link rather than the video. ### Recurring posts Recurring posts repeat a single post on a schedule, and they are **an Advanced and Custom feature**. Recurrence runs up to 180 days ahead and up to 200 posts, can use the Best Times for each selected network, and keeps a 30-day task history [3]. You cannot send recurring posts for review. The notifications for recurring scheduling are always on. Starter has no recurrence in the Planner itself. Starter users can duplicate posts, or ask an AI assistant through Metricool's MCP, which works on every plan, to create one scheduled post per date. ### CSV import For larger batches, the Planner imports a CSV with columns for Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, Threads and Bluesky. There is no hard row limit, but Metricool recommends files of about 50 posts. Media must be a public direct link, carousels use separate Picture Url columns, and the Brand name column is case-sensitive. The template has no auto-publishing field, so whatever the toggle says at import time applies to every row. Facebook mentions need the numeric Page ID and LinkedIn mentions the full URN. > 💡 **Keep CSV files near 50 rows:** There is no hard limit, but Metricool recommends about 50 posts per file. The auto-publish toggle at import time applies to every row. ## Media: the editor, the stock bank and design tools The built-in image editor crops, filters, resizes and adds stickers, frames, drawings and censoring, and Metricool says it works on every plan, including Free. The video editor trims, splits and merges clips, toggles audio and adjusts size, filters and color, also on any plan. Resizing never enlarges an image beyond its original size. Video editing is web only; the mobile editor handles images. For stock media the composer opens a Pexels gallery for images and video, and Giphy for GIFs. Design tools plug into the composer as well. Adobe Express works on all plans for creating and editing images, though not yet for video, and brings Story templates for Facebook and Instagram. Canva connects in the Planner on paid plans only, with one Canva account per Metricool account; sending a single-image design from Canva's own site works for free. Google Drive is paid plans only and personal to each user, so teams share files through shared Drive folders. ### The post library The post library stores undated ideas and ready-made post templates per network. It is a paid-plan feature that holds **up to 250 posts per brand**, raised from 50 in August 2026, and the cap cannot be lifted. A board view tracks drafts through up to 30 columns on the web. Scheduling from the library creates an independent copy, and library posts deleted by mistake cannot be recovered. Delete with care. ## Network quirks: threads, LinkedIn carousels, YouTube and TikTok Threads can run to 80 posts on X, Threads and Bluesky, and one thread can go to all three at once. The whole thread publishes at a single time; individual posts cannot have their own slots. Thread scheduling is not available in the mobile app, and on X it still depends on the paid plan plus the X add-on. On LinkedIn, **every carousel is published as a PDF**, so it needs a document title. You can upload a PDF, PPT, PPTX, DOC or DOCX of up to 300 pages, or let the image carousel option turn up to 20 images into one. YouTube posts need a title of up to 100 characters and allow a 5,000-character description. You can choose a playlist and a privacy setting, which stays changeable after publishing, but the notify-subscribers choice is fixed at upload. Shorts close to three minutes may be published as standard videos, and videos over 15 minutes need a channel verified by phone. TikTok auto publishes videos for personal and business accounts, one video per post, and photo carousels of up to 35 images. Business accounts can add Top 100 trending music; personal accounts get only random music on photos. ## Sharing the calendar and getting approval Free and Starter include one user, so sharing options depend on the plan. Any user with access to the same brand can open a permanent link to a single post. For clients, the calendar can be exported as a CSV file, a static snapshot that needs no account on their side, and Metricool says it works on all plans (one table on its help page says Starter or higher). Metricool Studio can publish a read-only calendar view from Starter up, and it is the only option that combines several brands in one calendar. Studio is free on paid plans only for a limited time and is announced as a future paid add-on. **Post approval is Advanced and Custom only.** You choose whether a post needs no reviewer, at least one or all reviewers, and one rejection stops publishing. Reviewers can be Metricool users or outside people added by email who need no account, though outsiders get a separate email for each post. Inviting a client as a team member also needs Advanced, and the client then needs a Metricool account. ## Limits to know before you schedule The Free counter is shown in the Planner. It counts published posts only, not drafts or scheduled ones, resets on the 1st of each month, and counts a duplicated post once per network it goes to. Paid plans have no monthly cap but sit under a Fair Use Policy: the base threshold is 600 posts per brand a month, and above it a manual check can pause posting, while a confirmed breach can suspend posting for the month. *Unlimited has a ceiling.* The networks add their own caps over a rolling 24 hours [4]. Instagram allows 50 posts across feed posts, Reels and Stories, and a carousel on Instagram or Facebook counts as a single post toward the limit. Facebook allows 30 Reels and Threads 250 posts. YouTube is capped at 10 posts on Free and 20 on paid plans, an internal Metricool limit based on quotas. Few small teams hit these. Some things the Planner simply cannot do. Published posts cannot be edited from Metricool, dragged to a new date or deleted from the calendar; you duplicate them instead. Posting into Facebook Groups stopped when Meta removed the permission on April 22, 2024, and only sharing a link to a group still works. YouTube community posts cannot be published because the YouTube API has no endpoint for them. Calendar-deleted posts, at least, can be restored for 45 days. If you want to drive the calendar from a chat window instead, our [Metricool MCP guide](/articles/metricool-mcp) covers that route. ## FAQ **Is Metricool's Planner free?** Yes. On the Free plan you get the Planner for one brand and 20 published posts a month, on every network except LinkedIn and X. Drafts and scheduled posts do not count until they publish. **Can Metricool auto publish Instagram Stories?** Yes for plain Stories on business or creator profiles. Stories with links, mentions or stickers go by notification, and you finish them in the Instagram app. **Does Metricool have recurring posts?** In the Planner, yes, on Advanced and Custom only. Recurrence runs up to 180 days ahead and up to 200 posts, and recurring posts cannot be sent for review. On any plan, Metricool's MCP can have an AI assistant create one scheduled post per date. **How many posts can an autolist hold?** Up to 200 posts, each with at most 10 attachments. With Repeat on, published posts move to the end so the list runs in a circle. **Can I edit a post after Metricool publishes it?** No. Published posts cannot be edited from Metricool or dragged to a new date; you duplicate them instead. **Can Metricool post to Facebook Groups?** No. Meta removed the permission on April 22, 2024, so only sharing a link to a group still works. ## The bottom line Metricool's Planner covers most of what a small team needs to keep a calendar full: per-network editing, first comments, alt text, Best Times, autolists with RSS, CSV import, an editor and a stock bank, with Free enough to learn it on one brand and 20 posts a month. The friction sits in the details. Some Instagram and TikTok formats still arrive as notifications, Best Times are generic for Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, and published posts cannot be edited. Recurring posts and approval wait on Advanced, and on plans bought on the web X costs extra. If Free's ceiling is your main question, read [whether Metricool's Free plan is enough](/articles/is-metricool-free). ## Sources [1] Metricool Help: schedule and post on instagram — https://help.metricool.com/schedule-and-post-on-instagram-6b6q5 (2026-10) [2] Metricool Help: schedule content from an autolist — https://help.metricool.com/schedule-content-from-an-autolist-fxehk (2026-10) [3] Metricool Help: how to schedule recurring posts in metricool — https://help.metricool.com/how-to-schedule-recurring-posts-in-metricool-r63b1 (2026-10) [4] Metricool Help: daily posting limits on social media — https://help.metricool.com/daily-posting-limits-on-social-media-sh58j (2026-10) [5] Metricool pricing page — https://metricool.com/pricing/ [6] Metricool Help Center — https://help.metricool.com/plans-add-ons-and-api-access-explained-xux1u [7] Metricool refund policy — https://help.metricool.com/metricool-refund-policy-0lrpo [8] G2, Metricool reviews — https://www.g2.com/products/metricool/reviews