Ayrshare is a developer-facing publishing and engagement API — comments, DMs, and mentions handled through the API, not just posting — built for teams building their own product on top of it. Metricool is an all-in-one agency dashboard: scheduling bundled with deep analytics, competitor tracking, and ads management, whose "API" is really a data-export tool gated to its higher tiers, not a platform meant for building a product on top of. Neither is us — this is a factual, sourced comparison of the two of them, so you can judge which actually fits your team.
Every figure below is sourced from ayrshare.com and metricool.com (including Metricool's Help Center API documentation) as of this writing and may change — verify current details on their sites before deciding.
| Dimension | Ayrshare | Metricool |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing & free tier | No permanently free plan — a 28-day free trial. Paid plans list from $149/mo (Premium, 1 social profile) up to $599/mo (Business, 30 profiles), with custom Enterprise pricing above that. | A genuinely free plan exists ($0/mo, 1 brand, up to 20 posts/month). Starter runs $25–$45/mo (5–10 brands). Advanced runs $67–$210/mo (15–50 brands). Custom/white-label pricing is quote-only. |
| Platform coverage | Publishes to 14+ platforms: Facebook, X, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, Telegram, TikTok, Google Business Profile, Threads, Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube, and WhatsApp (beta). | Schedules and publishes to the major networks — Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, Google Business Profile, and Threads — though the free plan excludes LinkedIn and X. |
| Developer API access | Built as a third-party developer platform from day one: OAuth-based account linking, a REST API meant for other products to publish through, and official SDKs for building on top of it. | The API is data-export and automation oriented, not a publishing platform for third parties — token auth via an X-Mc-Auth header, gated to the Advanced and Custom plans only, with no documented rate limits or OAuth flow for connecting your own end users. |
| Engagement API & webhooks | Real-time webhooks for posts, comments, mentions, and DMs, with a dashboard to replay events and audit requests — a genuine social-inbox surface, not just publishing. | No publicly documented webhook product with a signature scheme. Metricool's API and Help Center describe token-based data export and Zapier/Make automation rather than signed event delivery or a comments/DMs/mentions inbox. |
| White-label & multi-tenant support | A branded OAuth linking page with your logo and domain starting on the Launch plan ($299/mo); full custom CSS, favicon, and footer are gated behind the separate Max Pack add-on. | Manages multiple client brands under one account on Starter and Advanced, with team roles and post approval on Advanced. Branded, white-label client reporting is reserved for the Custom, contact-sales tier. |
| SDKs & AI-agent tooling | Official SDKs for Node, Python, Go, and a CLI, plus a native MCP server exposing roughly 27 tools covering publishing, analytics, history, comments, DMs, and profiles. | No official multi-language SDK. Metricool publishes an API reference (Advanced/Custom plans only) and offers its own MCP server for AI assistants, but third-party developers otherwise rely on raw HTTP calls. |
| Analytics, competitor tracking & ads management | Not Ayrshare's focus. It exposes analytics data through the API, but it isn't an all-in-one dashboard with native competitor tracking or ad-spend management. | A core strength: native cross-network analytics, competitor tracking, and direct management of Meta, Google, and TikTok ad campaigns alongside organic content, all in one hosted dashboard. |
You're building a product that publishes on behalf of your own users and need a real social-inbox API — comments, DMs, and mentions as first-class objects with webhooks and an audit trail. You're comfortable with a higher base price ($149+/mo) in exchange for official SDKs, a native MCP server, and a broad platform list (14+, including Snapchat, Reddit, and WhatsApp beta).
You want one hosted dashboard to run your own or your clients' social presence — deep analytics, competitor tracking, and Meta/Google/TikTok ads management alongside scheduling — and you don't need to build a separate product on top of a publishing API. Its API exists to export your own data and automate your own workflows, not to power a third-party app.
If neither Ayrshare's pricier engagement-first model nor Metricool's all-in-one dashboard quite matches what you need, PostGate takes a third approach: a free sandbox plan with no card required, paid plans starting at $4.00/mo, white-label environments with a verified custom domain and bring-your-own Meta/TikTok/LinkedIn app credentials per organization, signed webhooks with per-target delivery evidence, SDKs generated in six languages, and a draft-first hosted MCP server.
Read the detailed, sourced breakdowns: PostGate vs Ayrshare and PostGate vs Metricool.
Bring your own Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn app credentials per organization — quotas and approval status stay isolated to your app instead of a shared one, behind a verified custom domain. Read the environments guide.
Subscribe to signed (HMAC-SHA256) post.published, post.partial, and post.failed events, plus a test-delivery endpoint, instead of guessing why a post stalled. Read the webhooks guide.
Build from generated clients in Node.js/TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, and .NET, or connect an AI agent to the hosted MCP server, whose create_post tool saves a draft unless the call explicitly sets confirm: true. Read the SDKs & MCP guide.
Start on the free sandbox plan — no card required, live in minutes.
