Buffer is a social sharing tool. When browsing content, clicking on the Buffer icon automatically stores the content and schedules posts to social media channels throughout the day.
$15
per month
Sprout Social
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Sprout Social provides social media management, marketing, customer care, data and intelligence, and employee advocacy solutions for brands and agencies, including Ticketmaster, Chipotle, Grubhub, Subaru, and Zendesk. Sprout’s platform is used to simplify social publishing, engagement, reviews, analytics and listening for customers. Sprout also provides customer success and technical support, to deliver consistent value to all users. Any organization, regardless of size or industry, receives…
$249
per month per user
Pricing
Buffer
Sprout Social
Editions & Modules
Publish Pro
$15
per month
Analyze Pro
$35
per month
Analyze Premium
$50
per month
Publish Premium
$65
per month
Publish Business
$99
per month
Standard
$199 annual / $249 monthly
per user/per month
Professional
$299 annual / $399 monthly
per user/per month
Advanced
$399 annual / $499 monthly
per user/per month
Free Trial
Free
for 30 days
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Buffer
Sprout Social
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Here are the prices of our various plans:
Pro: $15/month
Small Business: $99/month
Medium Business: $199/month
Large Business: $399/month
Enterprise: Feel free to get in touch with us at onboarding@buffer.com.
All plans can be paid on either a monthly or yearly basis. If you choose to pay yearly, you would receive a 15% discount, which works out to be approximately two months free per year.
I've previously used Sprout Social and while I think that is a more robust product overall (including its reporting/tracking capabilities), the cost is much more manageable with Buffer. As compared to Hootsuite, Buffer has a far more intuitive interface and makes it simpler to …
Hootsuite and Sprout Social also allow for multiple account management and easy scheduling of content. However, the functionality of Buffer and the ease of interface make it superior to the rest.
Buffer is a very cost-friendly tool with similar functionality to the tools above (Hootsuite/Sprout Social). While the other tools may offer more functionality or a better user experience, Buffer is by far the most cost-friendly option that still allows for a good and reliable …
I like Buffer better than Hootsuite or Sprout Social because it's so much easier to use and their customer service is second to none. I love Buffer support and they are constantly improving. I also love the interface the most. It's clean, simple, and easy to use. Hootsuite is …
I've always found Hootsuite's user interface to be a bit clunky when compared to Buffer. I find myself troubleshooting issues more often on Hootsuite, as well. I think that you can connect more accounts and add more posts to Hootsuite at a time but have found Buffer's limits to …
I've used Sprout Social for two clients now and find it somewhat difficult to use. I'm sure there are ways to circumvent the issues, but I've even tried talking to/working with customer service and one issue just couldn't be worked out. Buffer is easy. I've maybe had to contact …
I think Sprout Social and Hootsuite provide more comprehensive tools and analytics, but they have more expensive plans that don't cater to businesses of all sizes. Plus, all of that complexity can make it hard to find what you're looking for. That's where Buffer excels. It's …
They all solve the same problem. Buffer initially started as a way to post content without worrying about the "when". Just add to the queue, and Buffer would post at a specified cadence. Buffer's price point is very reasonable for the services that it offers. They've grown …
We selected this tool to maintain the activity of publication in social networks at a low cost and good productivity, we consider that it adds to our objectives of brand awareness or discovery, since it allows us to keep our channels active with information and content that we …
I would recommend Buffer for ease of use, social media intergration and costs, also Buffer rarely has any issues or downtime. If they do they warn you well in advance.
I find it easy for a business to implement this versus a larger tool (Hootsuite). Easy to quickly schedule in content and keep it within the dashboard.
I feel that Buffer is very much an entry level product because it lacks some of the additional functionality offered by other tools. In that sense I recommend it only for small companies, or those just starting out with scheduling. In terms of scheduling content it does that …
Buffer is way more intuitive than Hootsuite. While it doesn't have the in-depth reporting or social media inbox Sprout Social offers, it makes up for it in simplicity, cost and customer service. Sprout Social is a great tool with equally good customer service, but the cost is …
We needed something more thorough than the free products we had tested (Hootsuite and TweetDeck), but the more robust products (Falcon) were out of our budget. Sprout hit the sweet spot of having everything we needed at the time for the right price.
Verified User
Employee
Chose Sprout Social
I've found that Sprout Social has more capabilities than other social platforms, and goes above and beyond in its functionality and support. I also think that Sprout Social has one of the cleanest, easy to use interfaces of all the social platforms. Hootsuite and TweetDeck, for …
I didn't select Sprout. Clients selected it. I would recommend Buffer. I also wanted one client to evaluate AgoraPulse. I haven's used Hootsuite enough to know it would stack up. The primary reason the one client selected Sprout was for the approval ability. I definitely feel …
Sprout Social's hashtag trend identification and analysis capabilities, overall real-time analytics, and simple ramp-up were the major draws of the product for our team. By comparison, Hootsuite's column-oriented dashboard is the most customizable and optimal for seeing "the …
Well, it depends on what you're looking for. If you want a one-stop shop social media management tool, then it's better than Hootsuite, but Buffer beats Sprout Social's scheduling features. TweetDeck beats Sprout's social listening features. Twitter provides way better Twitter …
It helps me save hours by devoting only half an hour in a month's worth of posting, in addition to that it is quite simple to use. Buffer for scheduling social posts well in advance, but I have begun using it instead of posting natively on the social apps themselves because it makes it super easy to post the same messages to more than one platform.
IMO it's best for an organization that has a lot of different people working on social media. They could be in different departments or just different members of the same team responsible for different types of posts (corporate, e-commerce, branding, etc.). I don't think it's as vital for a one-person team working solely within the Meta platform, for instance, especially if they're less concerned with detailed analytics.
For each account, customize posts for each platform, and schedule them to go live simultaneously.
Employee Advocacy via Sprout Social has integrated AI assistance for captions. Usually I would generate one suggested caption for employees to use/stem from when re-sharing to their socials. But now, EA message ideas display in random orders to better promote the full range of content.
Sprout Social has made the option to gamify the sharing concept quite easily with Employee Advocacy. Using the Leaderboard feature, employees can earn points in Employee Advocacy. Customized point values ensure you know how to climb the Leaderboard and start some friendly competition.
Expensive Analytics: The upgrade you need to access your analytics is quite expensive, and I have come across other tools that provide the same or even more for a lesser priced plan.
No Media Library: The one feature I have found on another social media planning tool that I wish Buffer had is a media library. This allows you to upload photos you aren't using right away to have them readily available when you do decide to use them. This is not a feature in Buffer.
Social media platforms don't always play nice with Sprout so it will always be a challenge to get all integrations to work properly.
Sprout Social is a growing organization and they are acquiring new technologies, which can be good. However, they often spend time in meetings upselling new services. I like to learn about enhancements and opportunities but prefer to focus on my investments first.
I am giving buffer this rating because of a couple issues that it has compared to other platforms. It does not always post to instagram and you will need to go in an manually post. Also, one of the biggest qualms that we have with buffer is the price it costs to have robust analytics
I like Sprout for our needs and I like that it is easy to use. We want something better than HootSuite but don't need a high-level fancy program. The only think I don't like is customer service (except for chat).
We use Buffer for certain website content that should be shared on social networks, having this tool helps us to do it faster and easier since we can send the publications from the internet browser and the stack of scheduled messages. It is really fast and easy for all team members who share access to the account, so at the same time that we analyze the information that we can share, the message stack is prepared
Sprout Social's ease of use and navigation throughout the technology are relatively easy to figure out and teach. We also had a representative thoroughly walk us through the features and functionality to set us up for success in using the platform. I didn’t give it a ten because there were times when the navigation didn’t make sense, but once you figured out the quirks, it didn’t cause any trouble.
Uptime was OK, but given the fact that we are in Europe, there were some specific problems: They tended to take the system down for maintenance during the night in the US, which was during our workday. This was definitely problematic and hard to explain to our clients.
Buffer performs well on both desktop and mobile platforms. The one area as I have stated before is that it does not always want to automatically push to Instagram and the user will have to go do it manually. Buffer works very well pushing to other platforms. The instagram issue is the only reason buffer does not get a 10 on this section
Sprout Social's customer support is extremely responsive. They're also always looking for suggestions on how they can make the product better and will actually take your ideas to their team to see if they're worth implementing. I've never had an issue that couldn't be resolved by them in a timely manner.
Their training is good, but the promotion of it is even better. I don't need or have the time for training, but I was always happy to know it was there. They did a great job sending updates out and making me aware when there was a new feature that I may want training for. As for the training I never used it, so I can't comment on that
We were very satisfied with the implementation of Buffer. We had no issues switching from the platform that we were using over to buffer. Our staff did not even miss a beat when it came to posting content. It was an easy transition and I feel that is something that buffer has really done well. They have an "out of the box" usability platform
Make sure you do it all the way. Do not break it into phases. Pour yourself a coffee, start it in the morning and you'll be done before you finish that coffee.
I also used Combin which is easy and free to use. However, Combin only posts when the computer is active and connected to the internet. So, posting while you are not actively using your computer at that moment is not possible, therefore Buffer is much more efficient as you can even post while being on vacation without working.
We are constantly exploring our options and looking for the most cutting-edge products that suit our needs as a business. Sprout ticked the boxes for what we needed when it was time for a change. Both are powerful tools, and you can only see by doing.
Buffer does what it say on tin as they say! you can always count on Buffer. Buffer can be scale to 25 social account with 2,000 scheduled post which is enough for most agencies or businesses
One positive impact has been a huge time saver for our team. Where we once had multiple systems and delays from producing content to approval to publishing, now everything is seamless.
Another positive impact is streamlining the onboarding process for new team members. Sprout Social is user-friendly and intuitive, making it easy to study even for someone completely new to social media.
One negative impact has been the time it takes to wade through irrelevant social listening posts. The filtering is not effective enough to eliminate the noise.