Content planning is one of those problems that every marketer faces, but nobody seems to solve the same way. Some swear by spreadsheets. Others live inside project management tools. A few have given up entirely and just post whenever inspiration strikes (we've all been there).
At TheMarketingVerdict, we wanted to cut through the noise. Our editorial team selected eight of the most popular tools that marketers use to plan, organize, and create social media content. We tested each one for six weeks across three real accounts - a local bakery, a B2B SaaS company, and a personal fitness brand.
Here's what we looked at: ease of use, pricing, collaboration features, content quality (where applicable), and whether the tool actually saved us time. That last point turned out to be the most important one.
A quick note before we dive in: most of these tools are content planning tools. They help you organize and schedule posts. But one entry on this list takes a fundamentally different approach - it creates the content for you. We'll get to that.
The 8 Tools We Tested
1. Trello
Trello is a classic Kanban board that works well for visual planners. We set up columns for "Ideas," "In Progress," "Needs Approval," and "Published." It's intuitive and the free tier is genuinely useful. But it's a general project management tool - there's nothing social-media-specific about it. No built-in scheduling, no content preview, no analytics.
2. Asana
Asana is a step up from Trello in terms of project management depth. Timeline views, dependencies, custom fields - it's excellent for teams that need structure. Our B2B tester loved it for coordinating content across writers and designers. But like Trello, it's a workflow tool, not a content tool. You still need to make everything yourself.
3. Notion
Notion is the Swiss Army knife of workspace tools. You can build content calendars, databases, wikis - essentially anything. Our testers loved the flexibility. The problem is that flexibility requires setup time. We spent two days just building our content planning template before we could start using it. If you enjoy building systems, Notion is paradise. If you want to get posting, it's a time sink.
4. Monday.com
Monday.com sits somewhere between Asana and Trello - colorful, visual, and good for marketing teams. It has content calendar templates built in, which is nice. But the minimum 3-seat requirement means solo marketers are paying for seats they don't need. For agencies managing multiple clients, it's solid. For a small business owner managing their own social media, it's overbuilt and overpriced.
5. Later
Now we're getting into dedicated social media tools. Later is one of the best visual scheduling platforms we tested. The drag-and-drop calendar is excellent, the visual planner lets you see how your grid will look before posting, and it supports Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. This is a real social media tool. Our fitness brand tester used it daily and loved the grid preview feature.
6. Planoly
Planoly is similar to Later but slightly more focused on Instagram and Pinterest. The interface is clean, and it works well for solopreneurs and small businesses. But with limited scheduling slots on the lower plans and a feature set that's largely overlapped by Later, it's hard to recommend Planoly unless you're specifically focused on Pinterest marketing. It does the job, but it doesn't stand out.
7. ContentCal (now Adobe Express)
ContentCal was acquired by Adobe and folded into Adobe Express. If you're already in the Adobe ecosystem, the content scheduler integration makes sense. It's got templates, scheduling, and a decent design tool built in. But the AI content suggestions felt generic, and the social scheduling features felt bolted on rather than native. It's a design tool that added scheduling, not a scheduling tool that added design.
8. Feedbird
Here's where our list takes a turn. Feedbird isn't a content planning tool. It's a done-for-you content creation service. You sign up, go through an onboarding process where they learn about your brand, and then a team of real human creators produces your social media content for you. Ten custom posts for $199 a month, or five short-form videos for $199 a month. You can get both for $398.
We should be transparent about what Feedbird is and isn't. It's not a content calendar. It's not a scheduling tool. You won't find Gantt charts or drag-and-drop planning boards. What you get is a team that handles the hardest part of social media: actually making the content.
For our bakery tester, this was a revelation. She'd been spending 8–10 hours a week creating posts herself. With Feedbird, she signed up, did a 15-minute brand onboarding, and received her first batch of posts within a week. She still used Later to schedule them - but the content itself was handled.
Our Verdict
If you need a content planning and scheduling tool, Later is our top pick. It's purpose-built for social media, the visual planner is excellent, and it supports all major platforms. For teams that need project management alongside content planning, Asana is the best choice.
But here's the thing we kept coming back to: planning content doesn't create content. Every tool on this list (except one) still requires you to write captions, design graphics, and edit videos yourself. For small business owners and solo marketers who are already stretched thin, the planning isn't the hard part. The creating is.
That's why Feedbird scored highest in our overall rankings. It's solving a fundamentally different problem, and for the right user - someone who needs quality social media content but doesn't have the time or skills to create it - it's the most impactful tool on this list.
The Bottom Line
Best for scheduling & planning: Later ($25–$80/mo)
Best for team collaboration: Asana (Free–$24.99/user/mo)
Best for done-for-you content: Feedbird ($199/mo for 10 posts)
Best free option: Trello (Free tier)
Our recommendation for most small businesses? Use Feedbird for content creation and Later for scheduling. Total cost: ~$224/mo for professional content on autopilot.
One final note: these tools aren't mutually exclusive. Several of our testers ended up pairing a planning tool with Feedbird - using one for the workflow and the other for the actual content. That combination turned out to be more effective than any single tool alone.
I've been using Later for about a year and I think the rating here is fair. It's great for scheduling but you still have to make everything yourself. I spend more time creating posts than I do scheduling them. Might look into Feedbird for the actual content part - the pairing idea makes a lot of sense.
Surprised Notion ranked so low. We use it for everything at our agency - content calendars, briefs, approval workflows. But I admit it took us weeks to set up properly. For a solo business owner it's probably overkill. Fair point.
Totally fair critique, Angela. Notion is incredible for agencies and larger teams. Our ratings leaned toward small business owners and solo marketers since that's the majority of our readership. For a team like yours, Notion is hard to beat.
Is it fair to compare a done-for-you service against DIY planning tools though? Feels like comparing apples and oranges. That said, as someone who's been doing their own content for 3 years and is exhausted... I get why it's on the list. The problem IS creating, not planning.
Been using Asana + Feedbird for two months now. Asana for the workflow (approval, revisions, scheduling reminders) and Feedbird for the actual posts. It's the best setup I've ever had. Total cost is about $125/mo which is way less than the freelancer I was paying $800/mo for worse quality.