Apify free plan: what you get, how credits work, and which Actors you can run without a subscription for learning and light workloads.
Buffer costs $0 for 3 channels, $6 per channel per month on Essentials, or $12 per channel per month on Team. Annual billing drops those to $5 and $10 by giving you two months free. Above 10 channels the per-channel rate falls to $4, then $3, then $1-$2.
There is no Agency plan any more. Buffer retired it in the November 2025 pricing change and folded its features into Team.
Buffer's free plan gives you 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel at a time, unlimited AI Assistant, the community inbox, 30 days of analytics history, 100 saved ideas and one API key. It is permanent, needs no credit card, and never expires.
That is a materially better free tier than it was a year ago. Buffer used to gate AI and the inbox behind Essentials. It no longer does.
Chatbase looks affordable at first glance — there is a free plan, and the paid tiers start at $40 a month. But the platform runs on a credit-based billing model that is easy to misread, and several features that feel like table stakes (API access, branding removal, advanced integrations) are locked behind specific tiers. This guide explains exactly how message credits work, what you actually get at each price point, where hidden costs appear, and how to pick the right tier for your situation in 2026.
The honest answer: it depends on what you actually dictate. For some users, 2,000 words per week is genuinely sufficient indefinitely. For others, it lasts a Tuesday afternoon.
This post breaks down exactly what 2,000 words translates to in real work — emails, messages, documents, code comments — so you can decide whether the free plan fits before signing up, and whether Pro is worth the upgrade once you've tried it.
Octoparse's free tier caps you at 2 local tasks, 10,000 records per export, and no cloud—fine for learning the product, not for production workloads. Try Octoparse free or Apify's $5 free credits. Below: hard limits, what still works on $0, and when paying unlocks cloud, scheduling, and rotation.
Make.com's free plan includes 1,000 credits per month, a 15-minute minimum scheduling interval, and 2 active scenarios. It is enough for learning and low-volume automations. Production-scale workflows usually require a paid plan. This guide spells out exact limits and what fits.
