CarouselMaker alternative: SlideBuddy
CarouselMaker is $9 a month and makes carousels quickly for a lot of platforms. SlideBuddy is three times that and publishes them for you. If the uploading doesn't bother you, the cheaper tool wins.
- $9 vs. publishing
- Export vs. posted
- Updated August 2026
Five carousels free, no card · Or 7 days of everything
What CarouselMaker does well
It's the cheapest way into this category and it covers more platforms on paper than SlideBuddy does. For a lot of people that's the right trade.
- Pro is $9/month, or $7.50 billed annually — well under SlideBuddy's cheapest paid plan.
- A free tier that's genuinely usable: three carousel downloads a day, six slides each.
- Carousels sized for LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
- Generation in over 100 languages, where SlideBuddy is built around English.
- Nothing to configure — no brand setup before your first carousel.
Side by side
Where the two actually differ
| The job | CarouselMaker | SlideBuddy |
|---|---|---|
| Getting a post live | Download the slides, then upload them yourself. | Published through Instagram, TikTok and Facebook's own APIs. |
| Price | $9/month Pro, or $7.50 billed annually. | $29/month Solo. The difference is the posting. |
| Free tier | 3 downloads a day, 6 slides — watermark removal is a Pro feature. | five carousels total, unwatermarked at full resolution. |
| Scheduling | Not part of the product. | Queued daily and spread between 7am and 10pm in your timezone. |
| Deciding what to post | You bring the topic every time. | A topic bank picks daily if you want it to. |
| Pacing a new account | Not applicable — you're doing the posting. | Warm-up ramp: one post a day in week one, climbing weekly. |
| Multiple clients | Not a concept in the product. | Separate brands with their own voice, palette, schedule and accounts. |
Pricing quoted from CarouselMaker's published pricing page, checked 3 August 2026. Features and pricing on both sides change. Check CarouselMaker's own site for their current features and pricing.
Which one
Honestly, it depends what you're doing
Pick CarouselMaker if…
- You want the cheapest working carousel tool and $9 versus $29 settles it.
- You're happy to upload posts yourself — it's two minutes, not two hours.
- You need LinkedIn or Twitter, which SlideBuddy reaches poorly or not at all.
- You work in a language other than English.
- You post now and then rather than daily.
Pick SlideBuddy if…
- You're posting most days and the uploading is the part you dread.
- You want TikTok photo posts published directly rather than exported.
- You'd rather approve a batch than start each carousel from scratch.
- You want it running during the weeks you don't log in.
- You're running client brands that need to stay separate.
Questions
- Isn't CarouselMaker much cheaper?
- Yes — $9 against $29, and that's the honest headline. The question is what the extra buys: publishing to connected accounts, daily scheduling, a warm-up ramp for new accounts and alerts when one breaks. If you wouldn't use those, the cheaper tool is simply the better purchase.
- Does CarouselMaker post to Instagram or TikTok?
- No — it's export-only. Their plans describe carousel creation and downloads, with no publishing or scheduling. You make the carousel there and post it yourself.
- Do they watermark the free tier?
- Their Pro plan lists watermark removal as a paid feature, which implies the free tier carries one — worth confirming on their site. SlideBuddy doesn't watermark output at any tier, free included.
- Can I use both?
- Not much point — the overlap is almost total. This is one of the few comparisons where you should just pick the one that matches how often you post.
Try it on your own brand
Every feature free for 7 days, publishing included — the only way to compare two of these properly is to watch both post.
Full features for 7 days, cancel any time before it ends. Card required to start the trial so posting can begin immediately — or take five carousels free on the no-card plan, for ever.