Saving a group takes ten seconds. Deciding which groups to save is the part that decides whether you still use them in a month. This guide is about that decision. The buttons themselves are covered on the Managing multiple accounts feature page, so the short version is all you need here: pick two or more accounts in the composer’s channel picker, click Save selection, name it, and the group appears at the top of the picker.
One naming note, because it trips people up. In the composer the saved groups sit under a Templates heading. The API and the MCP tools call the same thing a channel set. It is not a post template, which saves what a post says rather than where it goes.
A worked example: one agency, 15 accounts
Say you run social for four clients and a house account:
- Acme Bakery: Facebook, Instagram, Google Business Profile
- Northside Dental: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn
- Kite Studio: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest
- Harbor Coffee: Facebook, Instagram, Threads
- Your own agency: LinkedIn, X
That is 15 accounts, which suits a Business plan (Pro stops at 30 channels but only 2 per platform, and this list has four Instagram accounts). Picking from 15 boxes for every post is tedious, and, worse, it is exactly where a dental clinic’s discount code lands on a bakery’s page.
Start with one group per client. Five groups, each named after the client, and the daily work is covered. Then ask what you actually do repeatedly across clients, and add only those:
- “All Instagram” for the weekly roundup you cross-post.
- “Short video” (Kite’s TikTok and YouTube, plus any client who starts making video), for a clip you want everywhere video fits.
- “All Facebook” for the platform-wide notice, like a holiday hours post that suits every client with a page.
That is eight groups. Not forty. The test for each one is a sentence you have said out loud: “this goes to Acme”, “this goes to every Instagram”. If you can’t finish the sentence, the group doesn’t exist yet.
Three ways to slice, and when each wins
| Slice | Example | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| By owner | “Client: Acme” | The same message goes everywhere that owner has a presence. The default for agencies and multi-brand companies. |
| By platform | “All Instagram” | The content is shaped for a format, like a vertical clip or a carousel. |
| By audience or region | “EU accounts” | The message depends on who reads it, such as a launch with different dates or currencies. |
A channel can sit in several groups at once, so you are not forced to choose. Applying a group replaces the current selection rather than adding to it, which means two groups can’t be combined with two clicks. If you need Acme plus the house LinkedIn page, apply one group and tick the extra account by hand, or save that combination as its own group if it keeps coming up.
Naming that survives a busy day
Names have to be unique within a workspace and can run to 100 characters, but the picker is small. Short and front-loaded wins.
- Put the owner first: “Acme, all” and “Acme, video only” read as a family in the list, where “All Acme” and “Video for Acme” scatter.
- Say what’s in it, not why you made it. “Q4 launch” means nothing in March. “Instagram + TikTok” still does.
- Skip the clever. A teammate who joins next month has to guess correctly from the name alone, because groups are shared across the workspace.
What happens when something changes
Groups hold references to accounts, so they keep working when accounts come and go, with a few consequences:
- A disconnected or deleted account is skipped when you apply the group. The rest still selects. If you reconnect that account, the group can include it again.
- A format an account can’t take is skipped too. Choose a post type one platform in the group doesn’t support, and that platform drops out of the selection instead of blocking everything. The number shown on the group counts the channels it can select right now, so it can read lower than you expect.
- A group with no usable channels selects nothing at all.
The risk is the quiet one. A group that shrinks does not warn you, and the post goes to fewer places than you pictured. Look at the selected-channels count before you hit schedule, every time. It takes a second and it catches the shrunken group.
Common mistakes
- Building groups before you have the habit. Start with the two you reach for most. Add the rest when you catch yourself ticking the same boxes a third time.
- One giant group. “Everything” is just select all with extra steps.
- Leaving dead groups in place. When a client leaves, delete their group and disconnect their accounts. There is a cap of 50 groups per workspace, and a long list of stale names is what makes people stop trusting the picker.
- Treating a group as a rule. It is a shortcut for selecting. You can still add or remove accounts for one post, and the saved group doesn’t change.
- Expecting different wording per platform. A group decides where a post goes. The text is a separate job.
A tidy-up routine
Once a quarter, open the picker and edit each group. Check the count against what you expect, remove accounts you no longer post to, and delete groups you haven’t used. Rename anything a new teammate would have to ask about. Groups are open to the roles that can create posts (owner, admin, approver and contributor), so anyone on that list can change them, and viewers can’t.
If you work from the API
Channel sets are part of the API. List them with GET /api/channel-sets, which works with an API key or an OAuth connection with the channels:read scope. Create, update and delete need an API key. A set needs a name and at least one channel id, every id must be one of your own, and duplicates in the list or a name already in use are rejected.
The API gives you a set’s channel ids, and creating a post still takes explicit channel ids, so your code reads the set and passes its channels along. The MCP server offers the same list, create, update and delete operations, which lets an assistant turn “post this to the Acme group” into the right channels. For the wider picture, see social media API for AI agents.
Plans
Channel sets are on every plan, Free included, with up to 50 per workspace. What the plan limits is how many channels you can connect: Free allows 3 (1 per platform), Pro 30 (2 per platform) and Business 75 (5 per platform). On Free with three accounts a group saves almost nothing. It starts to pay off at five or six accounts, and it matters most once you run several brands.
Related reading
If you’re sorting out how to run many accounts at all, start with how to manage multiple social media accounts, then managing multiple brands on social media and a scheduler built for multiple accounts. Pair groups with labels so the calendar filters the same way your groups do.
Ready to set it up? Start free, connect your accounts, and save your first group from the composer.
BulkPublish supports 15 platforms: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Discord, Telegram, Tumblr and Snapchat.
- Channel sets: every plan, up to 50 per workspace.
- Channels: Free: 3 (1 per platform). Pro: 30 (2 per platform). Business: 75 (5 per platform).
- Posts: Free: 3/day. Pro: 30/day. Business: unlimited.