How Far Back Social Media Analytics Go

Data retention is the quietest line on a social media tool's pricing page and one of the most expensive to get wrong. Publer's free plan keeps published posts for 24 hours. Buffer and Metricool stop free accounts at 30 days. Later sells history in three lengths and charges $82.50 per month for the longest. Two of the vendors we read publish no retention figure anywhere we could find. If you plan to compare this quarter against last year, that line decides whether you can. Figures checked October 15, 2026.

Later is the only vendor that prices history openly

Later puts the window in the plan bullets. Starter lists "Platform analytics (Up to 3 months)" at $18.75 USD per month billed yearly. Growth lists "up to 1 year" at $37.50.

Scale lists "up to 2 years" at $82.50 per month billed yearly. The jump from Growth to Scale is therefore $45 per month for one extra year of lookback, by our arithmetic on that page.

Nothing else in Later's table is sold as a time window. Posts, users and AI credits are counted, and we read those meters in what AI credits in social tools buy.

Buffer and Metricool draw the same free-plan line at 30 days

Buffer's comparison table lists Insights as "30-day history" on Free and Unlimited on Essentials and Team. Essentials is $5 per channel per month, or $60 per channel billed yearly.

The free tier loses the export too. Reports, described as exporting "your data as CSV, PDF, or markdown", are marked Not included on Free and Included on both paid tiers.

So a Buffer free account cannot keep its own numbers after 30 days by any route the page describes. Anything you want for a year-on-year comparison has to leave the tool while the window is still open.

That ceiling is one of several on Buffer's free tier, and the cheapest way to find them is to read them together, as in Buffer, Later and Hootsuite free plans.

Metricool phrases it as storage rather than history. Its analytics table lists Metrics Storage at "30 days" on Free and "Unlimited*" on Starter, Advanced and Custom.

The asterisk matters: "*30-day metric storage limit for Twitter/X". Unlimited storage on a paid Metricool plan does not extend to X, which also needs a $10 per month per account add-on to connect at all.

Metricool's Free plan bullet repeats the figure as "Access 30 days of analytics". Starter, which lifts it, is listed from $20 per month on annual billing for up to 5 brands.

Publer keeps free accounts to 24 hours

Publer is the strictest free tier we read and it says so plainly: "24-hour post history. In the free version, we will store the published posts on our servers for only 24 hours."

Its first paid tier removes the clock entirely. Professional, at "$5.00 / month" or "$4.00 / month billed yearly", lists "Eternal posts history" in its bullet list.

That is the cheapest unlimited history in this comparison by a wide margin. Analytics reporting itself, though, sits one tier higher: "Analytics insights & reports" is a Business feature at $8 per month billed yearly.

So on Publer the post record and the analytics are sold separately. Keeping the history costs $4 a month; being able to report on it costs $8.

Hootsuite publishes a listening window, not a retention one

Hootsuite's plans page does give one dated figure, and it is about listening rather than your own posts. Professional adds the ability to "Search up to 30 days of conversations with Quick Search".

The same bullet set raises competitor benchmarking from five competitors on Standard to "up to 20 competitors" on Professional, and adds trend forecasting "up to 90 days ahead".

What the page does not state is how long Hootsuite keeps your own analytics. We read the plans page and its feature comparison with a headless browser as well as a fetch, and its help centre article on the subject returned a sign-in wall.

We therefore could not find a retention figure for Hootsuite in official documentation as of October 15, 2026. Standard is $99 per user per month on annual billing, so this is not a cheap unknown.

Two more pages with no figure to quote

Sprout Social's plan overview quantifies social profiles, AI agent credits and brand keywords per group, but no retention window appeared in the comparison we read. Seats run from $79 to $399 per month on annual billing.

Agorapulse touches history only as a gate. "Import historical data" appears in the Custom tier bullet list, alongside API access and sentiment, and Custom carries "Tailored Pricing" with no number.

Its priced tiers run from US$79 to US$149 per user per month on annual billing, and we compared that model with flat-rate workspaces in Sendible against Agorapulse.

What each plan stores

• Publer Free: 24 hours of published post history.
• Buffer Free: 30-day Insights history, with no report export.
• Metricool Free: 30 days of analytics, and 30 days for X on every tier.
• Later Starter: up to 3 months at $18.75 per month billed yearly.
• Later Growth: up to 1 year at $37.50 per month billed yearly.
• Later Scale: up to 2 years at $82.50 per month billed yearly.
• Publer Professional: "Eternal posts history" at $4 per month billed yearly.
• Buffer Essentials and Team, Metricool Starter and above: unlimited, with X excepted on Metricool.
• Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Agorapulse: no retention figure we could find in official documentation on October 15, 2026.

Export before you need to, not after

A retention window is not a promise to warn you. When the oldest month falls off the end, the comparison you wanted to run simply returns less data than you expected.

• Export a monthly CSV from day one, even on a paid plan with unlimited storage.
• Check whether export is gated separately, as it is on Buffer Free.
• Check per-network exceptions, such as Metricool's 30-day cap on X metrics.
• Ask about retention in writing when the page is silent, which is three of the eight tools here.
• Remember that the networks hold their own windows upstream, as set out in Instagram and TikTok API limits for schedulers.

Frequently asked questions

How long does Buffer keep analytics?

Thirty days on the free plan and unlimited on Essentials and Team, per its feature comparison. Report exports as CSV, PDF or markdown are not included on Free, so free data cannot be preserved outside the tool.

Does Later charge more for older data?

Yes, and it is the only vendor here that prices it openly. Starter gives up to 3 months at $18.75 per month billed yearly, Growth up to 1 year at $37.50 and Scale up to 2 years at $82.50.

What is the cheapest unlimited post history?

Publer Professional, at $4 per month billed yearly, which lists "Eternal posts history". Its free plan stores published posts for only 24 hours, and analytics reporting sits on Business at $8 per month billed yearly.

Does Metricool store X data the same as everything else?

No. Its table marks paid metrics storage as unlimited but footnotes a 30-day metric storage limit for Twitter/X, and X connections need a $10 per month per account add-on.

How long does Hootsuite keep my analytics?

We could not find a figure in official documentation as of October 15, 2026. The plans page publishes a 30-day listening search window on Professional, which is a different thing from retention of your own data.

Can I import history into a new tool?

Agorapulse lists "import historical data" only in its unpriced Custom tier. No other page we read on October 15, 2026 published a historical import on a self-serve plan.

Bottom line

Treat retention as a feature you are buying, not a technical detail. The cheapest fix is a scheduled export, and the second cheapest is Publer Professional at $4 per month billed yearly.

If a vendor will not publish the window, assume it is short and get the answer in writing before you sign.

The same scepticism applies to every unquantified line, as in how to read a social media tool pricing page and in what a link in bio page costs.

All figures reflect each vendor's own pricing page on October 15, 2026, exclude tax and VAT, and can change without notice.