Here is a list of the 6 best social media scheduling tools that provide APIs for publishing, scheduling, and analytics.
Last year we published one of the most popular articles on the best social media APIs for publishing and scheduling. It has received a lot of attention from social media platforms, CMSs, agencies, and companies that want to publish programmatically on their own or on behalf of their users. In 2022, we’ll update the list and provide more in-depth analysis to help you find the right solution for your business.
Why use social media APIs?
If you want to manually post and schedule social media on networks like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube, here are some excellent Web-based publishing tool out there But, for example, if you run an app or platform such as a CMS where users can create content, users usually want a simple process that allows them to download content and post it to social media networks without having to do it manually. This sharing can be part of a workflow or automated process, but the key is to make it simple and easy for users to share without leaving the platform.
The unified API for social media allows you to publish programmatically from your backend system, giving you control over content, publishing schedules, administration, and republishing on your behalf.
There are two ways to integrate with your network.
- Directly connect APIs with each social network, such as Facebook Graph API or YouTube API. This often requires an authorization process and ongoing maintenance on each network, but the network does not charge for standard access.
- Third-party social media APIs. It’s easier to integrate and takes care of maintenance, but usually there is a monthly fee.
Below is an alphabetical list of third-party social media scheduling tools with API endpoints.
Top Social Media API List
Slogan: A powerful API that makes it easy to send social media posts. For developers and businesses of all sizes.
API documentation: link
price: Free up to $35/month for Unlimited Premium or Business Plan if you have multiple users on the platform. The free plan offers 8 social accounts and 25 posts per month. Business plans for multiple users as low as $2.20/mo.
good: In our humble opinion, Ayrshare API is the best choice if you’re looking for an all-in-one social media API… that means it’s our product after all! We are the only API-first social media scheduling tool, so everything we build is about fast and seamless integration with backend systems. That is why we have many SDK package, coding examples and comprehensive documentation. The API provides posting, scheduling, analytics, images and videos, automatic hashtags, Twitter threads, comments, and more.
There are 10 social network integrations: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Google My Business, Reddit, Telegram, Pinterest and LinkedIn.
bad: Dashboards are for managing users and developers. Provides JSON of all requests/responses and code examples. If you want to spend a day manually publishing to your desktop GUI, you have a better choice than Ayrshare. In fact, we wrote why you shouldn’t use Ayrshare.
Slogan: Tell your brand’s story and grow your audience with a trusted publishing, analytics and engagement platform.
API documentation: link – No new developer account from 2019
price: $5 or $10 per social channel. The free plan offers 3 social accounts and 10 posts/month per social channel.
good: We love buffers! It was the first tool I used before developing Ayrshare and it is a popular social media platform. Buffer’s dashboard is perfectly simple and is actually a model for all other apps. The Buffer API is clear and has everything you need to schedule posts, along with cool features like reordering and shuffling future posts.
bad: Simple – Terminate buffers for new developer access. If you don’t already have a developer account, you’re out of luck.
Slogan: Easily manage all your social media and get results with Hootsuite.
API documentation: link
price: $49 to $599 one month. The free plan has recently been changed to 2 social profiles and 5 posts.
good: Hootsuite is perhaps the most popular social media scheduling tool. They have a great reputation and feature set and have been around for a long time. The Hootsuite API is documented and straightforward. One of the best GUI’s if you want to publish manually.
bad: Hootsuite’s API is not updated It lacks a lot of new integrations like Instagram in over two years. Also, Hootsuite has raised prices for many users. However, of the few 3rd party social media APIs available, the Hootsuite API is one of the best to consider.
Slogan: Marketing, sales and service software that helps your business grow without compromise. Because “what’s good for the business” should mean “what’s good for the customer.”
API documentation: link
price: $50 to $3,200 per month
good: HubSpot is a great platform for marketing and also has API integrations for social publishing.
bad: Unfortunately it looks like HubSpot. Deprecated API. We found the API to be a bit confusing if there was no clear way to publish a post by selecting a network like Twitter or Instagram. However, if you are already a HubSpot customer, you should check out their API offerings first.
Slogan: Be more productive with advanced post-scheduling tools.
API documentation: link
price: $20 to $83 one month
good: SocialOomph takes a unique approach where each user sets up an open webhook and provides it to the platform. The platform then calls the webhook to publish to that user’s account.
bad: The use of webhooks is very technical and can be time consuming for the average customer/user to understand and set up.
Slogan: We help publishers earn more from the best content on social platforms.
API documentation: not publicly available
price: unknown
good: SocialFlow focuses on publishing and advertising for the media industry. It is used by many publishers, including The New York Times, National Geographic Channel, and Fast Company.
bad: SocialFlow is strict about pricing and APIs, so you should contact them directly.
Do you know of any other social media APIs you should include? If so, please let me know. If all you need is a social login, here are 7 options you should check out.