Hootsuite vs Later | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 7.8 out of 10

Based on 649 reviews and ratings

Score 8.4 out of 10

Based on 49 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Hootsuite

Later

Boolean keyword searches

Filtering out noise/spam

Sentiment analysis

Broad channel coverage

Hootsuite

Later

Content planning and scheduling

Audience targeting

Content optimization

Workflow management

Hootsuite

Later

Automated routing and prioritization

Customer interaction histories

Bulk actions

Hootsuite

Later

Lead generation

Content marketing

Paid media management

Campaigns and promotions

Hootsuite

Later

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google+

Instagram

Pinterest

YouTube

Hootsuite

Later

Campaign success analytics

Real-time tracking

Competitor analysis

Hootsuite

Later

Role-based user permissions & privileges

Mobile access

Pros

The great thing about it is that it allows us in making schedules for social media posts belonging to different pages.
I strongly appreciate its analytics and tracking the most which help us a lot in facilitating our business in many ways. It let us organize our whole social media. It has made our marketing staff contented.
This is the most helpful tool in tracking matrices, followers, posts, and weekly activities as well.
This superb tool helps us in keeping the whole social media at a single location.

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Jennifer Osborne

Senior Account Executive

Redis LabsComputer Software, 201-500 employees

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Later is great at Instagram marketing thought leadership. I love their newsletters they send out on Instagram marketing tips and new features to take advantage of.
I love the ability to manage my visual content in once place in later. I can connect to Drive or Dropbox to bulk upload my images and categorize them with tags.
I also love the ability to store captions so that I can have a repository of captions and just connect them to an image.
It's really easy to tag others in my posts.

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Meredith Walter

Marketing Manager

Meredith Walter FitnessHealth, Wellness and Fitness, 1-10 employees

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Cons

I personally don't like the way Hootsuite displays multiple social channels on the interface. It's very utilitarian and it does have a modern look, but there's just something about the multiple column look that really bugs me. It feels a bit dated and cluttered.
I've used both the free and the pro versions before. Pro is somewhat overpriced for the value that it provides and the free version limits you to too few social profiles which puts you in a position to either overpay or go to another option like Buffer which is cheaper but isn't as reliable. I'd say somewhere around $12-15/mo. would make the single-user Pro tier more palatable.

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Marketing Advisor

Victoria Marquez MusicEntertainment, 1-10 employees

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Later doesn't allow you to tweet just a link (no photo attached), which can be a challenge at times when planning content.
It would be nice if Later could pull in posts that are shared natively. Sprout Social does this and it is very convenient.
As of right now, you can only sort by account (IG, TW, FB) to see your content. I would be nice if you could select multiple and see the content calendar as a whole across platforms.

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Director of Content

Platypus LabsMarketing and Advertising, 1001-5000 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Hootsuite 8.4

Based on 74 answers

At this time we are satisfied that Hootsuite offers the most of what we are looking for at the most reasonable price point. As the social media landscape and monitoring/scheduling software changes, so do our needs. We re-evaluate our tools semi-annually or as new tools emerge onto the market. If we find at any point that we aren't gaining an advantage, then we are open to switching products.

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President/Owner

Social Savvy Geek, LLCMarketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Usability

Hootsuite 9.1

Based on 27 answers

The layout of horizontal columns for each stream or search is a very cumbersome way to display information. There isn't an easy way to sort, filter, or otherwise re-organize the streams to limit the current view to relevancy. This is one of the primary reasons why we plan to move to another platform.

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Matthew Hardesty

Founder

UpticaMarketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees

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Later 9.4

Based on 3 answers

Later is extremely easy to use. I love the visual planner portion of the tool so I can see ahead of time what my images will look like next to and stacked amongst each other! The posts are so easy to set up, tag, and schedule. UX and UI are great!

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Meredith Walter

Marketing Manager

Meredith Walter FitnessHealth, Wellness and Fitness, 1-10 employees

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Reliability and Availability

Hootsuite 10.0

Based on 36 answers

Any outages are communicated in advance and have not been a problem. We let our clients know based on communications from HootSuite.Since we operate 24/7 with multiple shifts, planned outages can interfere with our operations, but we can always work around it.

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Verified User

Manager in Marketing

Marketing and Advertising Company, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Performance

Hootsuite 10.0

Based on 32 answers

Hootsuite makes passing on articles from the web very easy- when it works! I have had a number of gliches with Chrome where it does not open properly and the solution (after some toing and froing with support) was to uninstall and reinstall. The support staff are always very helpful (which is great!) but the gliches..... well, they suck when you are already busy!

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CEO

Emma McLean KindergartenManagement Consulting, 1-10 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Hootsuite 7.8

Based on 63 answers

Their customer support has been very helpful during the few times I have contacted them. They seem to be knowledgeable and friendly. As users, you can reach them via email, live chat, tickets, and tweeter. They have a help center within the app that provides users with step-by-step guides and a resource library.

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Senior CRM Specialist

Ghabbour AutoAutomotive, 10,001+ employees

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Later 9.2

Based on 13 answers

Later are not just a software tool, they also provide marketing advice, tips, and tutorials via their blog. I’ve only had to reach out to them for help a few times and have found them to respond much faster than other tools in their category. I receive weekly emails with updates, marketing tips and invites to online events. I look forward to their emails as I’ve learned a lot of things that I’ve been able to actually implement.

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Ayo Bamgbose, Assoc CIPD, MSc

Social Media & Digital Marketing Educator

Social Media Design SchoolE-Learning, 1-10 employees

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In-Person Training

Hootsuite 6.0

Based on 1 answer

Very easy to teach and learn

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Jessica Rudolph

Search Specialist

MindshareMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Online Training

Hootsuite 10.0

Based on 8 answers

Would rate it a 10. We received two hours of online training and it was of very high-quality. HootSuite also offers HootSuite University which is an extremely comprehensive training portal with self-paced quizzes, training webinars and videos, best-practice papers, product certification, and access to a network of external experts. This is a fantastic resource.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Media Production Company, 11-50 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Implementation Rating

Hootsuite 10.0

Based on 65 answers

One person of the organization must take the time to understand the product throughly. Next that person should work with the Hootsuite team to maximize the architecture of your platform and mitigate any problems that may crop up. Also, if a team members voices a concern or is having a problem roll your sleeves up and help them if not it can kill support for the product and end any chances of a renewal. Lastly, set aside enough time to allow for training and refresher training. Solve all problems ambiguity can not be permitted

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Edgar Carpenter IV

Director of Social Media

United States Marine CorpsMilitary, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

Sprout Social has a better UI than Hootsuite. It uses a single feed approach compared to the multi-column layout that allows you to check and uncheck filters based on what you'd like to see at a given moment. Overall, Hootsuite was a better choice for our team given the stronger analytics reporting that it provided. Being in a data-driven business, this was particularly important to us to be able to provide performance metrics to leadership. Both tools are fairly similar, so it really is a toss-up in terms of which you should choose.

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Verified User

Contributor in Marketing

Marketing and Advertising Company, 1001-5000 employees

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We evaluated multiple social media scheduling programs and ultimately selected a service apart from Later, but with the addition of their new tools, we are looking to potentially go back. Later was always one of our frontrunners, and with its new improvements, we will likely be switching as we move into the new year. Later by far offers the most options and tools, including the ability to schedule Instagram stories in advance.

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Verified User

Employee in Marketing

Higher Education Company, 51-200 employees

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Scalability

We haven't needed to scale it all.

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Verified User

Strategist in Marketing

Hospital & Health Care Company, 1001-5000 employees

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No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Honestly, Hootsuite has been pretty close to a wash for us. The frequency with which we've had to wrestle with our Facebook Business connection has caused us to repeatedly put Hootsuite on the shelf and opt for manual posting to both FB and Instagram.
During the times it functioned properly, Hootsuite probably saved us around an hour of work per day, if you factor in both time required to post to various platforms and potential time spent ensuring/editing consistency between posts.

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Vice Creative Executive

BRAVE GIRLS CLUB LLCE-Learning, 1-10 employees

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It's hard to tell an overall ROI, but I feel it has been positive for the most part.
There are times that I have to reauthorize Facebook - sometimes I don't see or don't receive this alert in a timely manner so some posts go unposted that are scheduled.
Using the link in the bio feature better - so far I haven't had any results as I did with other products.
I wish there was auto-fill for website links used more than once.
I wish Instagram would allow users to be found when tagging.
The tagging function isn't intuitive, I wish I had gotten a tutorial on using it.

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Josephine Stafford

Owner

Sixpence Events & Planning, LLCHospitality, 1-10 employees

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Screenshots

See All (5) Hootsuite Screenshots

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Hootsuite Editions & Modules

Edition

Professional	$49.00¹
Team	$129.00²
Business	$599.00³
Enterprise	Contact for Pricing

per month (1 user / 10 social profiles)
per month (3 users / 20 social profiles)
per month (5, up to 10 users / 35 social profiles)

Additional Pricing Details

For feature comparison across our different plans, please visit: https://www.hootsuite.com/plans

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Later Editions & Modules

Edition

Free	$0.00¹
Starter	$15.00²
Growth	$25.00²
Advanced	$40.00²

per month
per user/per month

Additional Pricing Details

Price increases are users and social sets are added.

Rating Summary

Hootsuite

Later

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