Need a content calendar template? You came to the right place.
We’ve all been there—juggling a million tasks and struggling to keep our content strategy on track. Whether you’re a marketer, a small business owner, or a content creator, managing your content can definitely feel like a full-time job. But here’s the good news: using a content calendar template can help you stay organized, consistent, and efficient.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through what a content calendar is, why it’s so important, and how you can leverage our picks for the 9 best free templates—whether you prefer Google Sheets, Docs, Excel, Word, Canva, or Lark.
What is a content calendar template?
A content is like a roadmap for your content strategy—it guides you in planning, organizing, and scheduling everything you want to share, whether it’s social media posts, blogs, or emails. It keeps you on course, ensuring you never miss a deadline and that all your content aligns with your marketing goals.
A content calendar template makes this journey even smoother. It’s a ready-made framework that helps you map out your ideas with ease. With customizable sections and editable fields, you can plan ahead, stay organized, and keep your content flowing—without the stress.
Common use cases for content calendars:
Social media content planning: Keep track of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X posts.
Blog post scheduling: Stay ahead with your editorial calendar.
Marketing campaigns: Coordinate product launches, promotions, and seasonal campaigns.
Team collaboration: Ensure everyone knows their role and deadlines.
Top features of a great content calendar template
A content calendar template should do more than just organize dates—it should simplify your workflow and bring clarity to your strategy. The best ones make planning easy and effective. Here’s what to look for:
Customization: A template with editable fields for content types, deadlines, and platforms will fit your unique needs.
Platform-specific planning: Separate sections or columns for Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc., to ensure you’re organized for each platform.
Visual organization: Use color-coded tasks, calendar views, and easy-to-read layouts to make your calendar intuitive and visually appealing.
Collaboration tools: A great template allows team members to assign tasks, leave comments, and track progress—all in one place.
Performance tracking: Include sections to track engagement, traffic, or conversions, so you can evaluate content effectiveness.
Automation-friendly: Integrate with tools like Zapier, Buffer, or Hootsuite to automate scheduling and publishing.
Top 9 free content calendar templates you can start using today
Why start from scratch? Check out these fantastic free templates to kick off your content planning with ease!
1. Basic content calendar template - Lark Base
This template is essential for content creators, marketers, and social media managers. Whether you're a freelancer, small business owner, or part of a marketing team, it helps you stay organized. It's also ideal for agencies managing multiple clients and educators teaching content creation. With this template, you can easily track the status of each content piece from conception to publication.
2. Marketing content calendar template - Lark Base
This template is tailored for marketing professionals, content creators, and social media managers who need to plan and manage content across multiple channels. Whether you're a freelancer with several clients, a small business owner, or part of a large marketing team, it helps streamline processes, save time, and make data-driven decisions. It's also ideal for those looking to leverage AI in marketing, featuring auto-fill options and task summaries.
3. Social media content calendar for small business - Excel
Small Business Trends has put together a free content calendar tailored specifically for small businesses. This template is based on the very calendar used by their own marketing team, and with over 160,000 followers on Twitter and 85,000 on Facebook, it's clear they know what works when it comes to effective marketing.
4. Content calendar template - Google Sheets
The Google Sheets Content Calendar Template by Backlinko simplifies your content planning and production, ensuring efficiency and organization. It's ideal for small advertising agencies presenting content deliverables to clients.
5. Video content calendar template - Google Sheets
The Video Content Calendar Template by Coefficient helps you organize video planning and execution efficiently. With its pre-built structure, you can quickly organize video ideas, visualize your content schedule for a consistent flow of engaging videos, and track performance to make data-driven decisions. This template is ideal for production houses managing video deliverables for clients.
6. Social media content plan - Canva
This free social media content calendar is available on Canva, making it perfect for creative teams seeking a visually appealing way to plan their content efforts. Fully customizable, you can easily edit the text, colors, and graphics to personalize the calendar to your brand’s style.
7. Social media calendar template - Word or Google Docs
Template.net offers thousands of easily editable templates, including this free one designed for social media content planning. Simply edit the content in each column for a straightforward, shareable view of your content strategy across multiple platforms.
8. YouTube content calendar template - Excel or Google Sheets
This free YouTube content calendar template, available in Excel or Google Sheets, helps streamline your video planning process. With a user-friendly layout, it allows you to schedule video topics, track deadlines, and organize content ideas by date.
9. Content calendar template - Excel
This free content marketing calendar for Excel (and Google Sheets) is ideal if you regularly create content for social media, ads, blogs, and other campaigns. It allows you to track progress using both a Gantt chart timeline and monthly calendar.
How to use a content calendar effectively
It’s not just about filling in dates on a calendar. Here’s how to make the most of it:
Plan ahead: Schedule content at least a month in advance so you're not scrambling to post at the last minute.
Stay flexible: Things change! Be ready to adjust your content plan for trends, breaking news, or unexpected events.
Collaborate with your team: Assign tasks, set deadlines, and use comments for feedback. A content calendar is a collaboration tool, after all.
Track performance: Keep an eye on key metrics to see how your content is performing and adjust as needed.
Iterate and improve: Use your performance data to refine your content strategy and calendar over time.
Tools for content planning and calendar management in 2025
Finding the right tool is essential for smooth content planning. Here’s a quick roundup of popular options:
Notion: Perfect for building editorial calendars and collaborating with your team.
Lark: A powerful all-in-one platform that simplifies content creation, collaboration, and project management. Ideal for marketers, small businesses, and start-ups.
Asana: Great for task management and marketing campaign planning.
Hootsuite: Ideal for social media scheduling and analytics.
Canva: Excellent for creating eye-catching content and visually appealing templates.
Smartsheet: A flexible tool for project management and marketing plans.
Create and manage your content with Lark
Lark is the perfect tool for managing your content calendar—whether you're a solo creator or part of a collaborative team. Say goodbye to app-juggling and hello to seamless content planning. With Lark, everything you need to create, collaborate, and manage your content is integrated into one easy-to-use platform.
All of the features below are part of Lark, working seamlessly together to simplify your content management process.
Manage your content calendar in Lark Base
One of Lark’s standout features is Lark Base — a cloud-based database that helps teams manage projects, track progress, and stay aligned on goals. It’s an ideal solution for creating and managing your content calendar with maximum flexibility.
Highly customizable content calendar templates: Go beyond traditional Excel or Google Sheets by creating dynamic content calendars with custom fields such as content type, publishing platform, target audience, and keywords.
Multiple views: Seamlessly switch between 6 views including grid view for quick data edits, calendar view to map out publishing dates, and Gantt view to track content creation progress.
Automated workflows: Set up automatic task assignments for content creation, schedule reminders for publication deadlines, and trigger updates based on progress changes.
Transform your existing content plans by directly converting third-party spreadsheets into Lark Base, so all your content lives in one centralized, collaborative space.
Create what you need in Lark Docs
Lark Docs empowers your team to create and collaborate without limits. From drafting blog posts to planning campaigns, Lark Docs offers real-time co-editing and smart collaboration tools.
Content creation: Create documents, spreadsheets, databases, mindnotes, presentations, and more.
Embed content calendar: Add your content calendar into documents like meeting agendas, reports, or team plans. This allows your team to map out content strategies, track progress, and collaborate — all within a single, shareable document.
Real-time edits and comments: Team members can edit content and leave feedback directly, making it easy to brainstorm ideas and discuss changes.
Version control: Never lose track of changes with automatic version history, ensuring you can roll back or review edits anytime.
Template sharing: Turn your content into a template and share it with your team. Easily share with both internal teams and external collaborators, setting specific permissions like edit or view-only access.
Coordinate and collaborate with Lark Meetings
Lark Meetings and Lark Calendar streamline team collaboration. Whether you’re discussing upcoming campaigns or brainstorming content ideas, scheduling and running meetings is effortless.
Team calendar: View your team's availability in real-time and book meetings that fit everyone’s schedule.
Content sharing: Share your content calendar, campaign plans, or design mockups directly in meetings for productive, focused discussions.
Best value for money
Lark delivers unbeatable value for small businesses, marketing teams, and content creators. With a robust free plan offering 11 powerful products, you’ll have access to purpose-built tools for content creation, project management, and team collaboration. Plus, Lark’s free templates help streamline your workflows—boosting both productivity and creativity without adding to your expenses.
But the value doesn’t stop there. Lark’s Pro plan unlocks its full suite of collaboration tools, including advanced project management features, seamless video conferencing, unlimited chat history, 15TB of storage, and more.
What does this mean for your bottom line? Imagine a company with 100 employees using Slack for communication, Zoom for meetings, and Notion for content collaboration. By using Lark’s Savings Calculator, you can see that switching to Lark Pro can save the company a staggering $25,200 per year. That’s more than just a cost cut—it’s an opportunity to reinvest in growing your business, whether by scaling your team, launching bold new campaigns, or enhancing your product offerings.
With Lark, you're not just adopting another tool—you're embracing an all-in-one solution designed to reduce overhead and drive business growth.
Final thoughts on content calendar templates
A content calendar template is an essential tool for organizing, scheduling, and optimizing your content strategy. It helps you plan ahead, collaborate with your team, and track performance — keeping your workflow focused and efficient.
With Lark, creating a custom content calendar is simple and flexible. Its intuitive interface lets you design layouts tailored to your needs, integrating key features like deadlines, task assignments, and performance metrics. Real-time collaboration means your team stays aligned, making it easy to brainstorm ideas, update tasks, and monitor progress — all in one place. In addition, you can get started managing your content for free with Lark’s generous free plan.
Why wait? Get started with Lark’s free content calendar templates or build your own in Lark for free.
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