Buffer vs. CoSchedule Marketing Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Buffer
Score 8.4 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Buffer is a social sharing tool. When browsing content, clicking on the Buffer icon automatically stores the content and schedules posts to social media channels throughout the day.
$0
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
CoSchedule provides a content calendar, content optimization, and contentmarketing products, with users among 50,000 marketers worldwide, helping them organize their work, deliver projects on time, and prove marketing team value.N/A
Pricing
BufferCoSchedule Marketing Suite
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Essentials
$6
per month per channel
Team
$12
per month per channel
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BufferCoSchedule Marketing Suite
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsA discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BufferCoSchedule Marketing Suite
Features
BufferCoSchedule Marketing Suite
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.6
Ratings
7% above category average
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
-
Ratings
Content planning and scheduling9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Content optimization8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow management8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.3
Ratings
5% above category average
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
-
Ratings
Campaign success analytics8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
9.0
Ratings
12% above category average
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions & privileges9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile access9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Creation
Comparison of Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
7.3
Ratings
10% below category average
Ideation00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Content collaboration00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Content calendar00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content Publishing
Comparison of Content Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
10.0
Ratings
21% above category average
Content distribution00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content promotion00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content automation00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Content Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
10.0
Ratings
24% above category average
Closed-loop tracking and reporting00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content performance analytics00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
User Ratings
BufferCoSchedule Marketing Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.1
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BufferCoSchedule Marketing Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
It is a very interesting tool for entrepreneurs or CEOs of startups who do not have much time to manage social media communication and also have few resources at the beginning of their venture. It can also be convenient for small companies that do not have specific personnel with training in community management and require easy-to-use tools to carry out the basic actions of scheduled publication on social media.
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CoSchedule does more than just content planning, it helps you organize your content, betters your content with headline analyzers, and allows you to organize your work and marketing calendars as well. If your organization is in a spot where you need a well-rounded tool to help with content, marketing, or even task organization, CoSchedule might be the right fit.
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Pros
  • I can plan and publish content on social channels.
  • Buffer's interface is quite tidy and generates the necessary facilities to save us time in publishing consistent content.
  • It has a special price; it is pretty affordable.
  • It has the possibility of integrating with other tools to improve its functions.
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  • Best time to post is great at updating to when we get the most engagement by platform
  • Requeue tool to slate out additional posts for a given piece of content is a huge time saver
  • Aggregate analytics tool shows us a peek across our posts on a given platform that's actually easier to read than the platform itself
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Cons
  • Analytics-- The analytics on the Pro plan are limited at best. You can simply review your posts from the past 30 days, but you can't access any analysis (or even simple tallying of Likes, Shares, etc.) without upgrading to the Premium or Business plans, which are otherwise more than we need at the moment.
  • Publish+Reply+Analyze-- It's a bit tedious to have these basic social media functions/tools separated out as three distinct products, as well as overkill for a small nonprofit without a dedicated social media team. I imagine each tool is good at its job if you need 'em.
  • Linking to Accounts-- Buffer seems to lose touch with Facebook and LinkedIn somewhat frequently. It's vaguely annoying but very simple to fix, so I just roll with it.
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  • The import Google Doc to WordPress functionality never worked successfully or reliably for me. So I just manually copy and paste Google Docs to the WordPress editor instead.
  • The social sharing counter was not that helpful, because it only counted Facebook and Google+. Who uses Google+ anymore? Plus, now they don't even show the social counter in the monthly calendar view. so you can't see the numbers without doing some extra digging.
  • In the monthly calendar view, some titles get cut off if they don't wrap cleanly in the day's box. So I would make it look cleaner instead of having words broken up by a hyphen.
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Likelihood to Renew
Ease of use, affordability, time saved and just love for the app and the team. It's not a miracle tool that will suddenly increase your company's value or leads, you still need to put in quality posts, thoughts and content but when used regularly and with thought, you'll be happy in the long run
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No answers on this topic
Usability
Easy enough to use even my boss got it right away. It helps to off-set the workload to less active times, and we can preschedule way in advance, which also helps to keep the team on track as we know what we have planned and want to reach our milestones before posts go online.
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The interface is very intuitive, from setting up social profiles, to posting, to tags, to optimizing for best day/time to post. It's super easy to scan the aggregate analytics. The calendar is very easy to grok at a glance, and the more advanced functionality is intuitive to set up.
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Reliability and Availability
Buffer is always on hand and very reliable, their software suite rarely has outages
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Buffer performs well on both desktop and mobile platforms. The one area as I have stated before is that it does not always want to automatically push to Instagram and the user will have to go do it manually. Buffer works very well pushing to other platforms. The instagram issue is the only reason buffer does not get a 10 on this section
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
  1. It really helped to my business to grow online.
  2. I was able to take actions mindfully as the analytics are damn good.
  3. Also used for managing clients social media accounts and it proved to be a best resource.
  4. Clients were really happy as they got high demand and growth on internet and the secret is Buffer.
  5. The user interface is really easy to understand and manage. Support is 24/7 available to help.
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I didn't have to use their official support, but I can say that they put out a lot of content online to help users. Their YouTube page has quite an array of tutorial videos explaining how things work and how to get the most out of their tools. If you're struggling, before picking up a phone or blasting off an email, try searching for your problem on YouTube or their forums.
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Implementation Rating
We were very satisfied with the implementation of Buffer. We had no issues switching from the platform that we were using over to buffer. Our staff did not even miss a beat when it came to posting content. It was an easy transition and I feel that is something that buffer has really done well. They have an "out of the box" usability platform
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Alternatives Considered
Both of them are great at their own levels but I find Buffer quite easy to go and the way they perform every task is quite like my way of work so I personally like Buffer more, it has helped me save my most of the time hence improved my work efficiency and also the creativity they put into my work is outstanding. The support I get whenever I run into problems they provide a quick response every time.
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CoSchedule is definitely a more powerful marketing tool than Loomly or Buffer, which are more dedicated to straight social media scheduling. I preview the calendar overview offered by CoSchedule, which makes it easy to see everything at a glance. PromoRepublic is similar but has the added Canva-type integration, which makes it more appealing to our clients who want to be able to easily put together their own images. CoSchedule is a bit pricy, which can be prohibitive for clients who don't pay in dollars.
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Scalability
Buffer does what it say on tin as they say! you can always count on Buffer. Buffer can be scale to 25 social account with 2,000 scheduled post which is enough for most agencies or businesses
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • It has saved money by allowing us to automate our social using one person
  • It allows us to connect one channel at a time instead of wasting money on larger account management tools
  • We are making money, because it has already delivered several clients
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  • Operationally, it is easier and faster to train new staff and get them comfortable in their roles and with their projects.
  • We are producing more content, faster.
  • We are more aware of what everyone else in the department is working on.
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ScreenShots

Buffer Screenshots

Screenshot of The Buffer dashboardScreenshot of Customizable posting scheduleScreenshot of Tailored PostsScreenshot of List or calendar view of scheduled postsScreenshot of Browser extensionScreenshot of Social media analytics

CoSchedule Marketing Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of Calendar Organizer: Visualizes everything in real time, and shows every project on a unified calendar of record. Helps to keep stakeholders in the know and pivot quickly when priorities change.Screenshot of Content Organizer: Eliminates content bottlenecks from idea to promotion. Optimizes the editorial process, and centralizes publishing and promotion by connecting marketing tools.Screenshot of Work Organizer: Maximizes resources by implementing consistent, defined workflows to speed up production and identify how urgent changes impact proactively planned work.Screenshot of Asset Organizer: Catalogs and maintains control of brand assets with customized taxonomies to find, update, and share files. Folders and files can be shared with stakeholders to make sure work is up-to-date.Screenshot of Idea Board: Used to write down ideas, take in requests, and prioritize the projects that are up-next, before giving them a publish date and putting them on the calendar organizer.Screenshot of An AI-powered Marketing Intelligence Assistant that can be used to write first-draft copy, complete work faster, and generate new ideas.