Social media · checked 2026-10-19Can I vibecode Metricool?
KINDA· weekend project
Pulling the numbers for your own accounts into a dashboard and scheduling a few posts is a weekend job: Meta's insights, YouTube Analytics and Bluesky or Mastodon feeds all work for accounts you own. What gets hard is breadth and upkeep. LinkedIn analytics sit behind partner approval, X charges for API access, competitor tracking relies on public data you must collect yourself, and every network changes fields and limits without warning. A narrow version for Instagram, Facebook and YouTube with a PDF report is realistic; Metricool's coverage and client reporting are not.
$25/moprice
$300you'd save a year
weekendbuild time
—people replaced it
What you need on hand.
DifficultyAdvanced · Real infrastructure or OAuth work.
TimeA weekend; getting API access for each network is the slow part
- Claude Code, Codex or CursorAny of them can run the prompt.
- Node.js 22better-sqlite3 compiles a native module, so build tools must be installed.
- A Meta developer appIn development mode it works with accounts that have a role on the app, which covers your own.
- A Google Cloud projectFor the YouTube Analytics API; the OAuth consent screen in Testing status expires tokens after 7 days.
- Chromium for PDF reportsplaywright downloads it on first run.
Before you buildMetricool Free already covers one brand with 20 scheduled posts a month and 30 days of analytics. Try it before you pay or build anything.
- 1. Install one agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.
- 2. Make an empty folder and open it in the agent.
- 3. Paste the prompt below, press enter, and answer its questions as it builds.
The prompt
Build me a social analytics dashboard with a post scheduler for my own accounts to replace Metricool. Requirements: - Node.js 22 + TypeScript: a Hono server that renders pages with htmx, and Chart.js served from /static. `npm start` serves http://localhost:4880 and runs a collector job in the same process. - Storage: better-sqlite3 in ./data/metrics.db: accounts (network, handle, encrypted token), daily_metrics (account, date, followers, reach, impressions, engagement), posts (remote id, url, text, published_at, a metrics snapshot per day for 30 days), scheduled_posts and report runs. Tokens are encrypted with AES-256-GCM using TOKEN_KEY from .env. - Collectors behind one interface fetch(account, since): Instagram and Facebook Page (Graph API insights), YouTube (YouTube Analytics API, OAuth), Bluesky (`@atproto/api`) and Mastodon (instance API). Run at startup and every 6 hours, backfill what each API allows, and store the raw JSON next to the parsed row so a renamed field does not lose data. - Dashboard: one page per account with a follower line, reach and engagement-rate charts, a heat map of weekday x hour by engagement rate and a top-posts table; an all-accounts page comparing networks over 7, 30 and 90 days. - Competitors: add public Bluesky, Mastodon and YouTube handles and record followers and posting cadence daily. Instagram competitors are out, because the API returns little about other accounts. - Scheduler: compose a post for Instagram, a Facebook Page, Bluesky or Mastodon with a date and time in TIMEZONE from .env. A worker publishes it, setting status to publishing first so nothing posts twice. - Reports: a "Generate report" button renders the dashboard for a date range to PDF (`playwright` page.pdf) and a CSV of daily metrics in ./data/reports/; an optional setting writes one on day 1. - Single user with one password in .env. No accounts, no telemetry, local-first. The only outbound calls are to the networks listed above. - Out of scope: LinkedIn, TikTok, X, ads accounts, team roles and approvals, white-label reports, AI assistant. - README: creating the Meta and Google developer apps, scopes, token refresh, which metrics each network returns, where the data lives and how to back it up.
Opens your agent with the prompt filled in, you press enter. Or copy it and paste it into an empty folder.
Then keep going
Next prompts, same folder.
The first prompt builds the core. Run these one at a time in the same folder to grow it into your own Metricool.
Add a monthly emailed report to the analytics dashboard in this folder. Requirements: - On day 1 at 08:00 in TIMEZONE, generate last month's PDF and CSV and email them with nodemailer SMTP (settings in .env) to REPORT_TO. - The email body is a plain-text summary: followers change, best post, worst week, and the top 3 hours to post, each computed from the database. - Keep a history of sent reports with date and status; a "Send now" button re-sends the last one. - If a collector has been failing for more than 2 days, say so at the top of the email. - Update the README.
Add drop alerts to the analytics dashboard in this folder. Requirements: - After each collector run, compare each account's reach and followers with its trailing 14-day median. - Raise an alert when reach falls more than 40% below the median for 2 days in a row, or when followers fall by more than 2% in a day. The thresholds live in settings. - Show alerts on the dashboard and send one email per alert, at most once per account per day. - Do not alert for the first 14 days of an account's history. - Add unit tests with fixed series for each rule. Update the README.
Add a website traffic panel to the analytics dashboard in this folder. Requirements: - Read daily visitors, pageviews and top referrers from an Umami or Plausible instance whose URL and API token are in .env. - Show them as one more account on the dashboard, with the same 7, 30 and 90 day views. - On each chart, mark days where a scheduled post was published, so traffic bumps can be matched to posts. - Cache responses for 1 hour and show "unreachable" instead of failing if the instance is down. - Update the README.
What you lose
- LinkedIn and X analytics, which sit behind partner approval or paid API access
- Competitor tracking for up to 100 profiles on Starter
- Facebook Ads, Google Ads and TikTok Ads reporting next to organic numbers
- Client reports with templates, schedules and white label
- Team roles and post approval for agencies
Why people still pay
One screen covers scheduling, analytics, competitors and ads for many accounts, and the price follows the number of brands rather than seats. The reports sent to clients are the product, and Metricool keeps the connections behind those numbers working while networks change their APIs.
Metricool or your own copy?
Over
Your usage
12h ×$/h
Metricool, 1 yr$300
Your own copy, 1 yr$44running + build session
You keep$257pays for itself in the first month
Estimate · Runs on your machine, or a $5 VPS if the collector must run while the laptop sleeps. The network APIs used here cost nothing. The build is token usage on your agent plan.
Take your data, then cancel.
1 · Take your data out of Metricool
- 1Reports: download PDF or PowerPoint reports from the reports section on Starter and above; automated reports can be scheduled.
- 2Raw data: Advanced and Custom plans get API access under Account settings > API, plus a Looker Studio connector. The App Store terms also describe CSV downloads of reports.
- 3Scheduled posts, captions and brand settings have no bulk export in what we read: copy what you need and keep the media in your own storage.
2 · Cancel Metricool
- 1On the Metricool website (not the mobile app) open Plan and Billing, click the three dots next to your plan and choose Cancel plan.
- 2Paid features stay until the current period ends, then the account moves to the Free plan.
- 3Subscribed through the App Store or Google Play? Cancel there instead.
- 4Deleting the account does not cancel the subscription, so cancel first.
- Free allows one brand and keeps the oldest one by creation date. Delete the brands you do not want kept before the downgrade completes, because you cannot change the choice afterwards.
- SmartLinks keep working on Free, but you can no longer edit or delete them. Take them offline or repoint your bio before the plan ends.
- Annual to monthly changes only at the end of the term and must be requested through support.
- Deleting the account permanently deletes analytics for every brand, so export reports first.
The escape hatch
Don't feel like building it? These are already free.
PostizOpen sourceAGPL-3.0 scheduler for many networks with a calendar, analytics and an API; a hosted version is also sold.★ 37k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗Mixpost LiteOpen sourceMIT-licensed Laravel app for scheduling and managing posts on your own server; paid editions add more.★ 3.8k · active Mar 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗BrightBean StudioOpen sourceAGPL-3.0 social media manager that publishes to 10-plus platforms from one self-hosted dashboard.★ 2.5k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗
WebVisit ↗Mixpost LiteOpen sourceMIT-licensed Laravel app for scheduling and managing posts on your own server; paid editions add more.★ 3.8k · active Mar 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗BrightBean StudioOpen sourceAGPL-3.0 social media manager that publishes to 10-plus platforms from one self-hosted dashboard.★ 2.5k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗
The numbers
Metricool pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual, per month | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 1 brand with all networks except LinkedIn and X, 20 scheduled posts a month, 30 days of analytics, 5 competitor profiles, 5 AI credits per brand a month. |
| Starter | $25 | $20 | 5 brands for $25 or 10 brands for $45 a month. Unlimited scheduling under a fair-use policy, LinkedIn, analytics with unlimited history, 100 competitor profiles, 20 AI credits per brand, PDF and PowerPoint reports, automated reports, several link-in-bio pages. |
| Advanced | $67 | $53 | 15 brands for $67, 25 for $107 or 50 for $210 a month. Adds team and client management, roles, post approval, customizable report templates, a Looker Studio connector, the API (Zapier, Make) and 35 AI credits per brand. |
| Custom | custom | — | Any number of brands, white label, a dedicated account manager, custom AI credits. |
- Free tier
- One brand, 20 scheduled posts a month and 30 days of analytics; no LinkedIn or X.
- Billing
- Priced by the number of brands, not by users. Monthly or annual, with annual about 20% cheaper. Prices exclude VAT. Cancelling keeps paid features to the end of the period; the help center links a refund policy with a 15-day window for first purchases.
- Hidden costs
- X (Twitter) features cost $10 per connected account a month according to the pricing tooltip, and the Advanced Analytics add-on starts at +$12 a month on Starter and +$36 on Advanced. Campaign dashboards beyond 3 and advanced AI reports beyond the included views are add-ons too.
- Source
- metricool.com
Also on the list
Related apps
Free covers 1 brand, 20 scheduled posts a month and 30 days of analytics.
Kinda. The core is a weekend build with the prompt on this page, but real gaps remain: LinkedIn and X analytics, which sit behind partner approval or paid API access, Competitor tracking for up to 100 profiles on Starter.
About $25 a month on the Starter (5 brands) plan, $300 a year (checked 2026-10-19).
LinkedIn and X analytics, which sit behind partner approval or paid API access; Competitor tracking for up to 100 profiles on Starter; Facebook Ads, Google Ads and TikTok Ads reporting next to organic numbers; Client reports with templates, schedules and white label; Team roles and post approval for agencies. If any of those matter to you, keep paying.
Yes: Postiz (open source), Mixpost Lite (open source), BrightBean Studio (open source).