Free LinkedIn post scheduler: what “free” actually gets you on each option

Free is the wrong first question

Every free plan is shaped by what the vendor pays for. X’s API costs money per post, so free plans drop X. LinkedIn’s API is free but hard to get approved for, so smaller tools drop LinkedIn. Storage and support cost money, so queues get capped. Before comparing prices, decide which of these you actually need:

• A company page as well as your profile. Half of the free plans count a page as a second channel; LinkedIn’s scheduler handles both but with fewer formats on pages.
• Editing after scheduling. Obvious, until you learn LinkedIn’s own scheduler cannot do it.
• Native video. Uploading a file so it plays in the feed, rather than pasting a YouTube link that renders as a card.
• Queue depth versus monthly volume. “10 scheduled posts” and “20 posts a month” sound similar and behave completely differently — more on that below.
• Something other than a browser. A spreadsheet, a script or an AI assistant that queues posts for you.

LinkedIn’s own scheduler: free, native, and oddly rigid

LinkedIn added scheduling to the post composer in late 2022. It is the clock icon next to Post, it works on personal profiles and company pages, and it is completely free. It is also the tool most “free LinkedIn scheduler” articles are quietly competing with, so it is worth being precise about where it stops.

Free plans compared for LinkedIn, September 2026

Figures below are from each vendor’s pricing page or help centre on the date at the top of this page. They change; the pattern — cap the channels, cap the queue, drop the expensive networks — has held for years.

Queue depth versus monthly volume: the arithmetic that decides it

“10 scheduled posts per channel” is a limit on how many posts can be waiting at once. “20 posts a month” is a limit on how many publish. They suit different habits.

Say you post to LinkedIn three times a week — about 13 posts a month, the cadence most consistent personal-brand posters settle at. On a queue-capped plan you can batch at most ten of those on a Sunday and have to come back mid-month for the rest, but you could in theory publish 40 a month by refilling. On a volume-capped plan you can queue the whole month in one sitting, and 13 leaves seven spare for a company page.

• Batchers — people who write a fortnight at a time — hit queue caps first. A volume cap suits them.
• Daily posters — one post every weekday, 22 a month — exceed a 20-a-month free plan and never notice a 10-deep queue. A queue cap suits them.
• Profile plus page doubles both numbers. Two channels on a 3-channel plan is fine; 26 posts on a 20-a-month plan is not.

What PostMCP’s free plan includes for LinkedIn

The free plan is the same engine as the paid ones with a 20-credit monthly allowance; one credit is one post delivered to one profile, and the balance resets every month with no card on file. For LinkedIn specifically that engine gives you:

The LinkedIn post scheduler page goes deeper on the mechanics — URNs, the image upload dance, token expiry — and the LinkedIn API reference documents every field.

How to schedule LinkedIn posts for free

1. 1
   Connect LinkedIn

   Complete LinkedIn’s official OAuth screen. Company pages you administer are listed and connect alongside your profile. No developer app or API approval on your side — PostMCP holds the registration.

2. 2
   Write, or ask for a draft

   Up to 3,000 characters, with an optional image or video URL. Or give the agent one line and let it write a LinkedIn-shaped version — a 3,000-character post is a different piece of writing from a tweet.

3. 3
   Pick a slot in your timezone

   Date, time and zone. Pre-flight reports the character count against LinkedIn’s limit and the credit cost before anything is queued.

4. 4
   Edit freely until it goes out

   The post sits on the calendar, movable and editable. At its slot it publishes and records the live permalink — or LinkedIn’s exact error, if there was one.

The limit nobody hits, and the one people do

LinkedIn’s posting API allows 150 requests per member per day and 100,000 per application, reset at midnight UTC. No human posting schedule comes near it. The limit that does bite is social: LinkedIn’s feed rewards a steady cadence over bursts, and an account that goes silent for three weeks then posts six times in a day tends to see the sixth post go nowhere. Spreading posts across the calendar is the whole point of scheduling, and the free plans above are all big enough for the cadence that works.

Where PostMCP fits

PostMCP is a scheduler and publishing API for seven networks; it does not have a LinkedIn analytics module, an inbox, or a follower-growth tool, and this page does not pretend otherwise. If you want a free LinkedIn scheduler that also handles your company page, uploads real video, lets an AI draft in your voice and can be driven from a script, the free plan is that. If you want analytics, LinkedIn’s own page and profile analytics remain free and are, for a single account, better than what most tools resell.