Buffer for Bluesky in 2026, and the alternatives

TL;DR. Buffer supports Bluesky on every plan, free included. You connect with a Bluesky app password, and you get scheduling, threads of up to 25 sub-posts, analytics and a reply inbox. Free is 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts per channel; Essentials is $5 per channel per month ($60 yearly), Team $10 ($120). If that is more tool than you need: Typefully has a free tier and a $12.50 Starter plan across six networks, Fedica schedules Bluesky free with 10 active scheduled posts at a time, and Postiz is AGPL-3.0 and free to self-host, $29 a month on its cloud. All checked 3 September 2026. There is one case where none of them is the answer, and it is narrow: your posts already exist in a Telegram channel and you want copies on Bluesky without a queue at all.

The search that brings people here is a yes-or-no question: does Buffer do Bluesky? It does. What follows is the rest of the answer — what you actually get on that channel, what it costs, and where to look if the answer is yes but the price or the shape is wrong.

What Buffer does with Bluesky

Connecting it works differently from most channels — you generate an app password in your Bluesky settings and paste it into Buffer, because that is how the AT Protocol lets third-party clients in. After that it behaves like any other channel in the queue.

• Scheduling and a queue. Posts go into a per-channel queue and out on your posting times, which is the entire job most people are shopping for.
• Threads. Up to 25 threaded sub-posts inside one composed post. Composing them is a web-version feature rather than a mobile one, and the free plan allows one Bluesky thread scheduled at a time in each queue.
• Analytics. Per-post metrics and an Insights dashboard, with one caveat Buffer states itself: Bluesky’s API only shares a live follower count, so there is no history backfilled from before you connected.
• Replies and crossposting. The Community inbox collects Bluesky replies; the same composed post can go to X, Threads, Mastodon and LinkedIn in one click.
• Media rules to know before you queue anything. Images must be under 1 MB, GIFs under 15 MB and under 60 seconds, and video requires a verified email on the Bluesky side.

Two things are not there: direct messages, and repost suggestions for older posts.

Underneath all of it sit the protocol’s own limits, and they are worth knowing whatever tool you use. A Bluesky post caps at 300 graphemes — the lexicon sets maxGraphemes to 300 with a 3,000-byte ceiling beneath it — and an image embed holds at most 4 images. Every scheduler in this article is working inside those same two numbers.

What it costs

Free is $0 for up to 3 channels, with 10 scheduled posts per channel that refill as they publish — a real free plan, and for one account posting a few times a week it may be the end of the article.

Above it, Buffer prices per channel. Essentials is $5 per channel per month, billed yearly at $60, and removes the scheduled-post cap while adding advanced analytics, hashtag manager, first comment scheduling, channel groups and custom video covers. Team is $10 per channel per month, $120 yearly, adding unlimited team members, approval workflows, custom permissions and branded reports. Channels 1 to 10 are at the standard rate; above 10 the per-channel price drops. API access comes with the paid tiers — 3 keys and 7,500 monthly requests on Essentials, 5 and 15,000 on Team.

Per-channel billing is the thing to look at twice. One Bluesky account is $5. Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn and two Instagram accounts is $25 a month for the same feature set — which is the arithmetic that sends people looking for alternatives.

The alternatives, and what each is actually for

Typefully is the writing-first option. It natively supports X, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon and Instagram, and prices by account rather than by channel: a free tier that writes and schedules with images, then Starter at $12.50 a month, with a 14-day trial. If your destinations are on that list of six, the per-channel maths stops applying entirely.

Postiz is the open-source one. AGPL-3.0 on GitHub, Bluesky and Mastodon among 14 networks, deployable on infrastructure you own for nothing but the server bill. Its hosted cloud starts at $29 a month for 5 channels with unlimited posts, then $39 for 10, $49 for 30, $99 for 100. Self-hosting is genuinely free and genuinely work — you own the upgrades, the database and the debugging.

Fedica is the free-scheduling one. Its free tier schedules Bluesky posts and threads with 10 active scheduled posts at a time plus unlimited drafts, and crossposts free to Mastodon, Pixelfed, Threads, LinkedIn, Instagram and X. The catch is where the paywall sits: engagement statistics start on the Publish plan, follower analysis on Grow. Free publishing, paid understanding.

When the job is not a scheduler at all

There is a fourth case, and it is not a cheaper Buffer. Your posts already exist — written, published and living in a Telegram channel — and you want the same thing to appear on Bluesky without opening a second tool at all.

That is what mirroring a Telegram channel does here. A new post in the channel is copied out to Bluesky and Mastodon automatically, with photos and albums up to 4 per post — the protocol’s own ceiling — and a link back to the original Telegram post. A post longer than Bluesky’s 300 graphemes is shortened at a sentence boundary, or, if you turn that on, turned into an AI teaser at a cost of 1 credit per long post. Free connects 1 external account, Pro up to 5. Bluesky connects by app password, the same mechanism Buffer uses; Mastodon by logging in on your instance.

What it does not do, because half of it is what a scheduler is for:

• No queue, no calendar, no posting times. Posts leave when they are published in Telegram. There is nothing to schedule.
• No composer. You write in Telegram — no per-network preview, no hashtag manager, no first comment.
• No analytics on the Bluesky side. None. Buffer and Fedica both have this and we do not.
• Videos, paid media and paywalled posts are not mirrored.
• Edits and deletions are not mirrored. Fix a typo in Telegram and the copy keeps the typo.
• Two destinations. Bluesky and Mastodon. Nothing else.

It fits exactly one person: someone whose source of truth is a Telegram channel. If that is not you, a scheduler is the right category and this is not it.

Honestly, where Buffer beats the alternatives

• The price is fair and it is the safe default. $5 a channel for unlimited scheduling and analytics is not the thing to optimise if you have one or two channels.
• The channel list. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and the rest, in one queue. Typefully covers six networks, we cover two.
• Threads with 25 sub-posts, composed and previewed. Fedica does threads too; the smaller tools rarely do them as comfortably.
• First comment scheduling and a hashtag manager. Real features on Essentials with no equivalent below.
• A team layer that works. Approval workflows, custom permissions, branded reports, unlimited members on Team.
• It is maintained by a company whose product this is. Self-hosting Postiz is free until the upgrade that breaks on a Sunday.

The case where you should just stay

You run a small brand account. Bluesky is one of four or five places you post, the copy is written for each of them, and someone other than you approves it before it goes out. Buffer costs less per month than the hour you would spend migrating, and every alternative here drops either channels you need or the approval step. Close the tab.

Who’s who

	Buffer	Typefully	Postiz	Fedica	AdminHub
Bluesky scheduling	Yes, all plans	Yes	Yes	Yes, free tier	No — mirrors instead
Entry price	$0, then $5/channel/mo	$0, then $12.50/mo	Self-host free; cloud $29/mo	$0	$0; Pro 400 Telegram Stars / 30 days
Priced by	Channel	Account	Channels per tier	Feature tier	External accounts: 1 free, 5 on Pro
Free plan limits	3 channels, 10 posts each	Write and schedule with images	Your own server	10 active scheduled posts	1 external account
Threads	Up to 25 sub-posts, web only	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Bluesky analytics	Yes, no pre-connection history	—	—	Publish plan and up	No
Other networks	Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, YouTube and more	X, LinkedIn, Threads, Mastodon, Instagram	14+, self-configured	Mastodon, Pixelfed, Threads, LinkedIn, Instagram, X	Mastodon only
Open source	No	No	AGPL-3.0	No	No
Composer	Full, with previews	Writing-first	Full	Full	None — you write in Telegram

Buffer takes most of those rows, which is what a mature scheduler looks like next to four narrower tools. Two of them decide it in practice: how many channels you are paying per, and whether the post already exists before you schedule it.

If… then…

If	Then
You have one or two Bluesky accounts and want a queue	Buffer’s free plan, then Essentials at $5 a channel
You post to several networks and hate per-channel billing	Typefully at $12.50 flat, if your networks are its six
Owning the software matters more to you than owning your evenings	Postiz, AGPL-3.0 — your instance, your upgrades
You want free scheduling and can live without stats	Fedica’s free tier, 10 scheduled at a time
Someone approves posts before they go out	Buffer Team, and it is not close
Every Bluesky post you make is a copy of a Telegram post	The mirror — nothing to queue, one free account to test it
You need Instagram or TikTok in the same queue	Buffer. Nothing else here reaches them.

Where to start

Do not migrate anything on day one. Count two numbers instead: how many channels you would be paying Buffer for, and how many posts a week actually go to Bluesky. One channel and four posts, and the free plan already covers you.

If it is five channels and $25, price Typefully and Fedica against your real network list before you price features — the per-channel model is what you are escaping, not Buffer itself.

And if every Bluesky post you make is a copy of something you already wrote in Telegram, stop shopping for a queue. Set up the mirror, connect one account on the free plan, and watch a week of posts land on their own. If that week is boring, you have found the right tool. The wider category is in our broader roundup of Bluesky automation.

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Sources, all fetched 3 September 2026: Buffer’s pricing page and help centre article Using Bluesky with Buffer; postiz.com/pricing and the Postiz repository for the licence; Typefully’s own Buffer comparison page for the free tier, the $12.50 Starter plan and the 14-day trial, and typefully.com for its six networks; Fedica’s Bluesky scheduler page. The 300-grapheme and 4-image limits come from the AT Protocol lexicons app.bsky.feed.post and app.bsky.embed.images.