Software Alternatives & Startups

Planable.io VS Refract

Compare Planable.io VS Refract and see what are their differences

Planable.io

Planable is a social media management tool for mature teams, agencies, and multi-location brands that need to organize, coordinate, and scale social media workflows across clients, teams, and locations.

Rating
5.0 · 1 review
Pricing
Paid Free trial $33 / Monthly (per workspace, unlimited users)
Refract

Write a post once. Refract’s AI drafts a native version for every network, from Bluesky and Mastodon to Pinterest and WordPress. You approve, it schedules.

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Paid Free trial $10 / Annually

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, Planable.io seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 2 times since March 2021.

social mentions
2 vs 0
Social Media Marketing popularity
99% vs 1%
alternatives listed
240+ vs 13

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

Planable.io
Refract
Website planable.io refract.social
Pricing
Paid Free trial $33 / Monthly (per workspace, unlimited users) Official pricing
Paid Free trial $10 / Annually Official pricing
Platforms —
Web SaaS MCP
Company Startup from the United States · 2016 Startup from the United States · 1 - 9 employees · 2026
Listed in

About Planable.io and Refract

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

Planable.io
Refract

Planable is a complete social media management tool for teams that create content together: planning, creation, feedback, approvals, scheduling, publishing, engagement, analytics, competitor benchmarking and social listening in one workspace. Most tools treat scheduling as the product and...

Read more about Planable.io

Refract is a social media scheduler that writes a native post for every network. You write one note. An AI agent for each network turns it into a post that fits there: the right length, tone and format. You review each version, edit what you want, and Refract schedules it. It learns from your...

Read more about Refract

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

Planable.io 9 features
Refract 11 features
  • User-Friendly Interface
    Planable features a highly intuitive and easy-to-use interface that allows users to quickly understand and navigate the platform without extensive training.
  • Collaborative Features
    The platform excels in collaboration, enabling teams to work together seamlessly on content creation, review, and approval processes in real-time.
  • Content Calendar
    Planable provides a comprehensive content calendar that helps users visualize their social media schedule, making it easier to plan and organize posts.
  • Multi-Platform Support
    The tool supports multiple social media platforms, allowing users to manage and schedule posts for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more, all from one place.
  • Approval Workflow
    Planable includes an effective approval workflow feature that ensures all content is reviewed and approved by the right team members before going live.
  • Rich Media Support
    Users can easily add rich media, such as images and videos, to their posts directly within the platform, enhancing the visual appeal of their content.
  • Post Preview
    The platform offers a post preview feature that shows exactly how the content will look once published on each social media channel.
  • AI Automation
    Planable includes built-in AI tools for caption generation, content rewriting, and ALT text creation. Brand Context lets you define a client's tone of voice once so every AI-generated post stays on-brand. Teams can also connect AI assistants like Claude via the MCP integration, or build custom workflows through the Public API.
  • Competitor Analysis Features
    Planable's Competitor Analytics lets you track up to 5 competitors per page, with daily data refreshes on follower growth, engagement rates, posting frequency, and top-performing content, all inside the same Analytics dashboard you use for your own pages.
  • Native post per network
    One note becomes a version written for each network’s length, tone and format
  • Networks
    10 live today: Bluesky, Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pinterest, Tumblr, Telegram, Discord, Slack, WordPress, DEV. 8 more coming soon
  • Voice and rules
    Learns from your edits so drafts sound like you, with rules per network
  • Scheduled posts
    Unlimited on every plan
  • Calendar
    Drag to reschedule, in your time zone
  • Bulk import
    Load a week of posts in one go
  • Approvals
    Nothing posts until it’s approved, with client approvals for agencies
  • Studio
    AI images, slideshows and video in the right shape for each network
  • Analytics
    Results per network, with missing numbers labelled
  • API, webhooks and MCP
    Included on every plan. Schedule from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor
  • Free trial
    14 days

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

Planable.io
Refract

Overall verdict

  • Planable.io is a good choice for teams looking to improve their social media management workflow. Its intuitive interface, robust collaboration features, and support for a variety of social platforms make it a valuable tool for marketers and content creators.

Why this product is good

  • Planable.io is a social media collaboration platform designed to streamline the process of planning and scheduling social media content. It allows teams to work together seamlessly, offering features such as real-time collaboration, content preview, feedback, and approvals. The platform is user-friendly, integrates with various social media networks, and enhances productivity by providing a centralized space for social media content management.

Recommended for

  • social media managers
  • marketing teams
  • content creators
  • agencies handling multiple clients
  • businesses aiming for a cohesive social media strategy

No analysis of Refract yet.

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

Planable.io 6 videos + Add
Refract 1 video + Add

Planable Demo Video - See How Planable Works

More videos

  • - Can Planable make the social media approval workflow easier | Social Media Scheduler Review
  • - Planable vs other social media & content calendar platforms
  • - Planable Review: A Useful Social Media Management Tool?
  • - Planable — Plan, Review, and Schedule Social Media Content
  • - Planable Review: Great and easy to use social media scheduler

Social media scheduler that writes for every network | Refract

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
Planable.io
Refract
99% 99%
1% 1%
0% 0%
100% 100%
98% 98%
2% 2%
0% 0%
100% 100%

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing Planable.io and Refract.

Who are some of the biggest customers of your product?

Planable.io's answer

KFC, Ecco, Mastercard, Soedexo, Peroni, Bolt, SMEG, Warner Music Group

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

Planable.io's answer

Marketing agencies and in-house social media teams managing content across multiple clients, brands, or locations. Typically 5 to 60 people, running 5 or more client workspaces across 10+ social channels. Common industries include digital marketing agencies, real estate, hospitality, retail chains, financial services, and B2B/SaaS brands.

Refract's answer:

Creators, small businesses and agencies that publish on several networks and don’t want to rewrite every post by hand. That’s especially true for people active on Bluesky, Mastodon and community channels like Discord and Telegram. It also suits developers and AI-first teams who want to draft and schedule posts from their own tools through the API or MCP.

What makes your product unique?

Planable.io's answer

Planable is built around collaboration first, publishing second. Every post lives in a visual workspace where teams, clients, and stakeholders see a realistic preview of how content will look on each platform; before anything goes live. Clients can approve posts directly without creating an account. Approval workflows are a first-class feature: optional, required, or multi-level. Internal comments stay hidden from clients. Content locks after approval. Posts auto-schedule on sign-off. Each client gets a separate workspace with its own pages, roles, and settings, so agencies can manage 10+ clients without mixing work.

Refract's answer:

Most schedulers post the same text everywhere. Refract gives each network its own AI agent: you write one note, and each agent rewrites it for its network’s length, tone and format. You review every version before it’s scheduled, and Refract learns from your edits so later drafts sound more like you.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

Planable.io's answer

Most social media tools are built for publishing. Planable is built for the review cycle that happens before publishing. The structured approval flow (combined with per-client workspaces, granular roles, internal vs. client visibility, and real platform previews) makes it the tool agencies reach for when spreadsheets and email chains stop working. It also covers the full content pipeline: planning, collaboration, scheduling, analytics, competitor tracking, social listening, and community management, all in one place.

Refract's answer:

Choose Refract if you post across several networks and want each post to feel native, not copy-pasted. It’s strongest on networks the big tools treat as an afterthought: Bluesky, Mastodon, Pixelfed, Discord, Telegram and Slack. Every plan includes unlimited scheduled posts, plus the API, webhooks and an MCP server for scheduling from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor. One caveat: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn and X are still coming soon, so if those are your main networks, check back shortly.

What's the story behind your product?

Planable.io's answer

Planable was founded in 2016 by Xenia Muntean, Nicolae Gudumac and Vlad Calus. Xenia was running a social media agency and spent more time managing content feedback over email than actually creating content. They built Planable to fix that: a single visual space where content gets created, reviewed, and approved without the chaos. The company joined Y Combinator in 2018 and has since grown to serve thousands of agencies and brands worldwide.

Refract's answer:

Refract is built by Anpsthemes, a small WordPress themes team in Ljubljana, Slovenia. We share our own content across many networks, and we kept rewriting the same post again and again, because every network wants something different. So we built a scheduler that does that rewriting for us, then opened it to everyone.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

Refract's answer:

Laravel, Inertia.js and React, on PostgreSQL. It runs on Hetzner with Cloudflare DNS, uses Resend for email, PostHog for analytics and Sentry for error tracking, and has a remote MCP server with OAuth sign-in.

User comments

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Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

Planable.io 5.0 · 1 review
Refract no reviews yet

View more

We have no reviews of Refract yet. Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

Planable.io 2 mentions
Refract 0 mentions
  • 8 Best Facebook Post Schedulers For Developers [2023 Addition]
    Planable is a social media management tool that allows you to schedule posts on multiple platforms, including Facebook. It offers features such as customizable scheduling, analytics, and team collaboration. Planable has paid plans... - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago
  • Top 5 effective ways to market yourself as a freelancer
    Join social media freelance groups or professional membership organizations, be proactive in discussions, ask questions, and share pieces of advice with others. Determine your goals and research what tools you might need to facilitate... - Source: dev.to / over 4 years ago

Tracking Refract since Oct 2026.

Alternatives to Planable.io and Refract

When comparing Planable.io and Refract, you can also consider the following products.