Verdict: Predis.ai wins on price for businesses that want the AI to make the posts — its Core plan costs $24 a month billed yearly ($288 a year) and is the cheapest way to generate images, carousels, and short video from one prompt. Pick Buffer instead if your team writes its own posts and only needs scheduling plus a genuinely free AI text assistant. The other three — FeedHive, ContentStudio, and Ocoya — earn their place on automation and agency features, not on generation.
TL;DR
- Cheapest full generator: Predis.ai Core at $24/mo billed yearly with 1,300 credits — the only one of the five that makes images, carousels, and video, but it will not auto-post until Rise at $55/mo.
- Best free option: Buffer's free plan covers 3 channels with an unlimited AI text assistant, but that assistant cannot produce images or video.
- Best for agencies: ContentStudio's Agency Unlimited is $99/mo billed annually with client workspaces; listening costs $99 extra.
- Best for recycling: FeedHive's $29 plan adds workspaces and collaboration on top of its AI for teams that repost evergreen content.
Why most comparisons quote the wrong price
Every tool in this category changed its pricing recently, and the listicles have not caught up. A 2026 pricing review that predates the change still cites Predis Core at $19 a month; Predis's own pricing page today shows $24 billed yearly with a $32 month-to-month strike-through. The same staleness hits Ocoya: Capterra's listing still shows the retired $59 Silver tier, while Ocoya's own site sells Starter at $29, Team at $79, and Agency at $199. Buffer's headline $5 and $10 figures are the annual rates — its own support page bills monthly users $6 and $12 per channel. Every figure in this article was read off the vendor's page on October 13, 2026 — a date most competing pages never state.
The second reason these pages mislead is structural. The five tools bill three different ways, and comparing sticker prices across billing models is the single most expensive mistake a buyer makes.
Which pricing model actually fits you
- Per channel (Buffer). Every connected account multiplies the bill: five channels on Essentials costs $30 a month on monthly billing, falling to $4 per channel from channel 11 and $1 from channel 51 on Buffer's monthly bands. Rewards a small footprint; punishes scale less than its reputation suggests.
- Flat monthly (FeedHive, ContentStudio, Ocoya). One price covers a fixed bundle of accounts and users. ContentStudio sells extra accounts at $5/mo and extra users at $10/mo once you exceed the plan's included count, so flat pricing has step-ups too.
- Credits (Predis). Generation burns metered credits — 15 per image, 200 per 8-second video, 15 per slide — so Core's 1,300 monthly credits buy roughly 86 images, and the meter bites exactly when every post needs a graphic.
At a glance
| Predis.ai | Buffer | FeedHive | ContentStudio | Ocoya | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $24/mo yearly | $6 per channel/mo | $19/mo | $19/mo yearly | $29/mo |
| Billing model | flat + credits | per channel | flat | flat + add-ons | flat |
| What the AI does | generates images, carousels, video | text assistant only | text plus scheduling intelligence | text plus AI Studio | text plus design studio |
| Auto-posting | Rise plan and up | all plans | all plans | all plans | all plans |
| Real free plan | trial only | yes — 3 channels | 7-day trial | trial | trial |
| Best for | volume AI creative | schedulers who write | recycling automation | agencies | ecommerce shops |
The five tools, honestly
Predis.ai — the pick for generated content
Predis.ai is the only tool here that turns a prompt or a product URL into finished posts — image, caption, hashtags, carousel, or short video — in your brand kit. Core is $24 a month billed yearly, $288 a year, with 1,300 credits; Rise is $55 a month billed yearly with 3,200 credits and auto-posting, while Core publishes nothing by itself. Generation supports 18+ languages, which matters for regional pages most schedulers treat as an afterthought.
- Strengths: the widest generation surface of the five at the lowest entry price; brand-kit consistency; competitor analysis built in.
- Limitations: the credit meter bites on video — a single 8-second standard video burns 200 credits, a sixth of Core's monthly allowance per the credit table. No auto-posting below Rise. Output needs an editing pass before it is on-brand.
Buffer — the pick if you write your own posts
Buffer remains the cleanest publishing queue in the category, and its AI is the only one bundled free on every tier: the free plan includes 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel, and unlimited AI assistant use. Paid plans run Essentials at $6 per channel monthly ($5 annual) and Team at $12 ($10 annual). The support page's lifetime 8-channel connection cap on the free plan is a real trap for tinkerers who connect, disconnect, and reconnect accounts.
- Strengths: honest free plan; the AI assistant adjusts its register per platform — more formal for LinkedIn, punchier for Instagram; volume bands cut the per-channel rate to $4 from channel 11.
- Limitations: the assistant is text-only — no images, carousels, or video, ever. API access is capped at 3,000 requests per 30 days on free and 7,500 on Essentials — a real ceiling if you wire Buffer into automation, as our own hands-free content engine does.
FeedHive — the pick for recycling and automation
FeedHive is built around posting intelligence: posting plans, conditional posting, best-time optimization, and AI credits across Creator at $19 with 4 socials, $29 with 10 socials and 5 workspaces, $99 Business with 100 socials, and $299 Agency with white-labeling. Its AI writes drafts and suggests improvements, but it is a scheduler's AI, not a design studio's.
- Strengths: the strongest recycling and approval workflow per dollar; workspaces arrive at the $29 tier, where Buffer still charges per channel for collaboration features.
- Limitations: no free tier — only a 7-day trial; generation stops at text.
ContentStudio — the pick for agencies
ContentStudio bundles an AI Studio for text, images, and video with client workspaces and approval chains: Standard $19 per month billed annually, Advanced $49, Agency Unlimited $99, with month-to-month prices of $29, $69, and $139. It publishes to 12 networks including Bluesky, Threads, and Google Business Profile, the widest list among the five.
- Strengths: the agency tier includes unlimited users and workspaces; the AI Studio produces visuals too, within stricter daily limits than Predis.
- Limitations: the add-ons stack — five extra accounts plus the $99 listening add-on adds $124 a month to Advanced.
Ocoya — the pick for ecommerce shops
Ocoya positions itself as the agency replacement for a single brand: AI copy, design templates, and scheduling in one workspace at Starter $29, Team $79, Agency $199, flat monthly with no published annual discount. Ecommerce integrations are its differentiator — product feeds become post queues.
- Strengths: one-tool simplicity; template-driven output that stays visually consistent across a catalog.
- Limitations: the entry price is the highest of the five and the pricing page prints three numbers and little else — the thinnest AI at the steepest start.
Which one should your business pick
- You cannot afford a content hire. Predis.ai Core at $24/mo generates the most raw content per dollar; add a scheduler later if auto-posting matters, or pay for Rise at $55/mo.
- You already write your own posts. Buffer free, then Essentials at $6 per channel when you need analytics — the AI is included either way.
- Your bottleneck is repetition, not creation. FeedHive $29 recycles evergreen content hardest.
- You manage clients. ContentStudio Agency Unlimited at $99/mo annually, with white-labeling at $149.
- You run an ecommerce catalog. Ocoya Starter at $29/mo.
Generation is one layer of a small-business marketing stack — the same reasoning applies when you pick an AI email marketing platform, a copywriting tool for long-form work, or an AI CRM to run the pipeline. And if you want the content strategy itself driven by AI rather than the posting, our AI content system for growing an Instagram account covers the layer above these tools.
FAQ
Q: What is the cheapest AI social media post generator?
A: Predis.ai Core at $24 a month billed yearly with 1,300 credits is the cheapest among the five that generates real creative — images, carousels, and video.
Q: Is there a genuinely free AI post generator?
A: Buffer's free plan includes an unlimited AI text assistant on 3 channels — but it writes drafts, it does not generate images or video.
Q: Do these tools replace a scheduler?
A: With one gap: Predis Core cannot auto-post — publishing starts on Rise at $55 a month. The other four schedule natively on every paid tier.
Q: How far do 1,300 Predis credits go?
A: Credits cost 15 per image, 15 per slide, and 200 per 8-second standard video, so 1,300 credits is roughly 86 generated images a month by the credit table on Predis's pricing page — less if you generate video.
Q: Which tool is best for LinkedIn and X specifically?
A: FeedHive and ContentStudio both treat LinkedIn and X as first-class targets — FeedHive's posting plans and ContentStudio's 12-network support (full network list) cover both with approval workflows that a solo scheduler lacks.
Q: Why do other reviews say Predis Core costs $19?
A: Predis repriced Core to $24 billed yearly, and multiple 2025-era reviews still quote the old $19 figure — always buy against the vendor's own pricing page, checked the week you pay.
Last verified: October 13, 2026. Pricing was read from each vendor's public pricing page on that date; plan terms change, so confirm the live page before you commit a budget. This article was produced with AI assistance as part of our editorial process, and every price in it links to its source.
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