Best social media content calendar tools (2026): 11 compared

A social media content calendar tool is software that shows planned posts on a calendar, so a team can see what goes out on each day, spot gaps, move posts and approve them before they publish. There are three kinds: spreadsheets (Google Sheets, Airtable), boards (Trello, Notion) and scheduler calendars, where the calendar is also the publishing queue. For how to fill one, see how to build a social media content calendar.

The table compares the eight tools that plan and publish. Notion, Trello and Google Sheets are left out of it because they do not publish.

SkedCast puts planning and publishing in one content calendar. Every scheduled, published and draft post sits in month, week, day or agenda view; drag a post to a new day or time to reschedule it, select several to move or cancel them together, and filter by client, network, account or campaign. Campaign lanes keep a launch’s posts together, public holidays for your country sit on the calendar, and each account’s best times show where you plan.

Because the calendar is also the publishing queue, nothing has to be copied from a planning tool into a scheduler. A month planned in a spreadsheet comes in as one batch (up to 2,500 posts per upload on Agency), approvals run on the same calendar from the Studio plan, and the view exports as an .ics file for Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar. It publishes to 11 platforms, including YouTube and TikTok, and starts free: Free — 2 accounts, then Free, then $15/mo.

Planable shows posts in Feed, Calendar, Grid and List views, moves them with drag and drop, and runs step-by-step approvals; approved posts can be scheduled automatically. Approvers can view and comment from a shared link without an account, and colour-coded labels and saved filters organise the calendar. Planable prices per workspace from $33/ws/mo (No — 50-post trial).

Loomly gives each brand its own calendar in a list or calendar view, where posts can be moved, duplicated or deleted, and suggests post ideas and trends to fill gaps. Custom approval workflows, comments and labels are built in, and the calendar exports for offline review. Plans start at $65/mo (No — trial only).

Hootsuite’s Planner shows scheduled posts from every connected account on one calendar, filters by account, and lets you drag and drop posts to new days or times while showing the best time to post. Approvals sit on upper tiers (Upper tiers), and pricing starts at $99/user/mo (annual).

Buffer’s calendar has week and month views filtered by channel, tag or post type, with drag to reschedule and drafts on every plan. Approvals come with the Team plan. Buffer prices per channel from $5/ch/mo (annual), and its free plan covers 3 channels.

Later lets you drag media from its library onto the calendar to schedule it, drag posts to reschedule them, and preview an Instagram grid before posts go live with its visual planner. It is strongest for image-led brands planning Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest, from $25/mo.

Sprout Social’s publishing calendar holds calendar notes and shares posts with outside stakeholders for approval, beside a separate campaign planner and asset library. Its optimal send times use 16 weeks of audience data. It is priced per seat from $79/seat/mo (annual), so it suits larger teams buying a whole suite.

CoSchedule’s Marketing Calendar holds social posts beside blog posts, email, events, projects and podcasts, so a whole marketing team plans in one place; projects can be dragged and dropped on the calendar. A free Marketing Calendar is available, and paid plans start at $29/mo (annual) / $39/mo.

Notion holds a content plan as a database you can view as a table, a board or a calendar, with a page for each post’s draft and notes. It is free to start and fits teams that already document their work in Notion. It does not publish, so each post still has to be scheduled somewhere else.

Trello turns each post into a card that moves through columns such as Idea, Draft, In review and Approved, which suits teams that think in stages. It is free to start and easy to learn, but like Notion it only plans: the approved card still has to be scheduled in a publishing tool.

A spreadsheet with one row per post is the cheapest content calendar and the easiest to share. It is also the format bulk importers read, so a month planned in Google Sheets can be scheduled in one upload. Airtable adds attachments, dropdowns and linked records to the same idea. Neither publishes on its own.

A content calendar is the plan: what goes out, where and when. A scheduler is the machine that publishes it at that time. Spreadsheets and boards are calendars only, so a team plans in one place and schedules in another. A scheduler with a built-in calendar does both, which removes the step where posts are copied across and can go wrong. A month planned in a spreadsheet can still be brought in at once with bulk scheduling.

Planning-only tools are still useful early on or for teams that already live in them. Once a team publishes more than a few posts a week, across several accounts or for clients, a calendar that publishes saves the most time.

Check these before you choose:

Match the tool to how your team works: