People taking part on the open social internet have an issue: it’s not but potential to achieve customers on a number of websites like Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads with a single publish. While third-party instruments can be found, most are designed for small companies and creators, with excessive costs to match. To resolve this downside, a brand new cross-posting app known as Croissant, launching right this moment, affords an inexpensive strategy to cross-post throughout social companies at simply $2.99 monthly.
The app was designed and developed by Ben McCarthy, a Dublin-based designer and developer finest identified for the favored digicam app Obscura, alongside Canadian iOS developer Aaron Vegh.
Explains McCarthy, “…I discovered myself getting very annoyed on the strategy of publishing a publish with a number of pictures, and alt textual content for every picture, throughout a number of companies. You’d copy the textual content, swap app, paste, swap again, faucet to open a picture, faucet to open alt textual content, copy alt textual content, swap app, paste alt textual content, swap again, and many others.,” he says. “It doesn’t take too lengthy for programmer mind to kick in and say, ‘hey, perhaps this might be higher.’”
When discussing the problem with others, McCarthy was pointed to options just like the cross-posting service Buffer. However, Buffer’s subscription tiers are designed to finest cater to professionals, groups, manufacturers, companies, and businesses, together with anybody centered on social media advertising. The identical holds true for bigger platforms like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Sprinklr, Brandwatch, and others.
“We needed to focus on of us who use social media as a part of their job, however maybe don’t straight generate income for it,” he says.
Meanwhile, a contest led by the subscription administration platform RevenueCat supplied the inducement that prompted him to get began constructing. With Vegh’s assist, the app got here collectively in a couple of month, McCarthy says.
At launch, you should use the iPhone app to simply cross-post to Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads. It additionally helps threaded posts, picture attachments, Alt Text on Mastodon and Bluesky, computerized drafts, content material warnings on Mastodon, and viewers choices (who can see your publish, as supported by every community.)
Croissant is iOS 18-optimized, with help for iOS 18’s tinted icons, along with a number of customized app icons.
If the app positive factors traction, the workforce goals to roll it out on different platforms, like iPad and Mac, whereas including extra options like scheduled posts and auto-complete for usernames and hashtags.
Croissant competes with not solely Buffer, however different cross-posting instruments with a free plan, like Fedica, and different consumer-focused cross-posting apps and open social purchasers, like Openvibe.
Of course, cross-posting instruments is probably not needed in the long run. Already, bridges are being constructed between Mastodon and Bluesky, whereas Instagram Threads is working to totally federate with the open social internet, also called the fediverse — a bunch of interconnected companies working over the ActivityPub protocol.
In the meantime, Croissant makes for a helpful addition for early adopters seeking to extra simply have interaction in a number of areas.
In addition to the $2.99 monthly tier, customers may choose to pay $19.99 per 12 months for Croissant or make a one-time lifetime fee of $59.99.
