Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Hootsuite
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Hootsuite is a social media management platform for building brand awareness, engaging with customers, and driving business results. Users can schedule posts across multiple social networks (including Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube ), manage organic and paid social content together, keep track of customer conversations, integrate with over 200+ applications, and gain actionable real-time insights from social media to make critical business decisions from…
$149
per month 1 User, 10 Social accounts
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
HootsuiteSprout Social
Editions & Modules
Professional
$99
per month (billed annually) 1 User, 10 Social accounts
Team
$249
per month (billed annually) 3 Users, 20 Social accounts
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
per year
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
HootsuiteSprout Social
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPlans can be paid monthly or annually, with a discount for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HootsuiteSprout Social
Considered Both Products
Hootsuite
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite was a more effective social media management platform than Sprout Social, which felt less comprehensive at a similar price point. Hootsuite also has some excellent tools that were not widely available on many of the other competitors despite the competitors being …
Chose Hootsuite
Ultimately, we selected Hootsuite for the benefits-to-cost ratio it had. Sprout Social has an incredibly robust platform with great social listening, a nice scheduling calendar, and a lot of metrics you can view, plus team post creation and approval flows. It's an impressive …
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite has a few less features than Sprout Social; however, the price point is much more favorable for a small business to utilize.
Chose Hootsuite
Overall, Hootsuite is very similar to Sprout Social. some of the analytics are a little different, but the posting process is similar. Sprout does have a social listening too, but i can't remember how it compares to Hootsuite.

Compared to Hubspot, Hubspot is a all in one …
Chose Hootsuite
Our team had a budget of $1000 annually for a social media management tool. We wanted functionality like Sprout Social but we couldn't afford the price tag. Hootsuite was our next best because we got almost all or similar functions of Sprout Social within our budget and more! …
Chose Hootsuite
I do find Hootsuite to be more user-friendly, cleaner, and includes much more reporting for the price. Sprout Social charges quite a bit more for fewer reports and fewer included aspects, like listening and ads. The interface is more aesthetically pleasing, as well, and seems …
Chose Hootsuite
Sprout is a superior product and has more in-depth features, however, they are more expensive than Hootsuite. Sprout has great customer support and also offers many training options. I haven't noticed that with Hootsuite. It's easy to navigate both of their interfaces - I don't …
Chose Hootsuite
There's no doubt that Hootsuite is the industry leader when it comes to social media scheduling and monitoring. I find integrating channels easiest on Hootsuite (once you can find where to do it on your dashboard). In the past year I've also noticed fewer and fewer …
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite lacks many features as i've said before. I think their reporting is also not as great as other platforms. I find the interface really messy and hard to navigate. The metrics also vary a lot between platforms which makes comparing success between channels very …
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite’s free service is most useful to me at this time as social media management does not have a large budget within my business. However, they are no longer offering it at this time which has led me to go to another service. Over the years, Hootsuite has been taking away …
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite is great for managing multiple accounts across multiple platforms.
Chose Hootsuite
We selected Hootsuite due to the pricing and past experience of ease of use in the tool. We knew they could deliver an easy-to-use tool to achieve what we needed. We have a growing social media marketing team, and Hootsuite is able to make the best use of its time, allowing for …
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite is better because we do not have so many failed posts. We can set up or schedule a post without having to worry whether or not our post will go through. Sometimes we could be on Holiday and we would get a notification from the previous company about the post failing. …
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite has a better interface and overall usability.
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a bit less busy and easier to use,they also offer a lot of learning resources and tools. I like the simple interface in comparison to others.
Chose Hootsuite
The cost is more within our budget and ease of use is similar in both products so we chose Hootsuite over Sprout as affordable for our basic news, but we hope to grow with Hootsuite and be a larger partner as we expand.
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite exceeds any other social media management platform on the market in terms of usability and value. The interface simply suits the way I and my colleagues like to work.
Chose Hootsuite
I found Hootsuite much more user-friendly.
Chose Hootsuite
Comparably, Sprout would be similar from a cost point but its interface is much smoother. Falcion.io is also similar, however, they have poor customer support.
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite was a great entry-level tool v/s some of the other tools like Falcon and Netbase in terms of breadth of features and solutions across verticals. I feel Hootsuite does a great job for D2C brands v/s enterprise solutions that need a more robust set of features and …
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite is way too expensive for a large number of accounts. It's fine if it's just for you.
Sprout Social
Chose Sprout Social
I haven't used Hootsuite in years. But we switched over because Hootsuite would allow you to schedule content in advance but you would still have to publish within an app on your phone. Sprout Social published on its own once schedule in the software. Sprout Social also offered …
Chose Sprout Social
Although the products are very similar, I've just found Sprout Social more intuitive to use. The dashboards they provide and how they've streamlined processes within the platform, prove for a very positive user experience for us. In my opinion, everything is simply laid out, …
Chose Sprout Social
I had used Sprout Social before, so I felt more familiar with it, but also I felt like for the price you got a lot of useful features. I also felt like these other platforms were more clunky and less user-friendly. Hootsuite definitely has some great tools, but it just didn't …
Chose Sprout Social
Sprout Social has everything each of these platforms have individually but put all in one. Sprout doesn't split everything up, it is easy to use and helps my team keep everything in one platform. Sprout also doesn't fail posts like Hootsuite did which made us switch.
Chose Sprout Social
I selected Sprout Social because the analytic reporting is much better (with more detailed results). I also went with Sprout Social because I was able to add many, many more accounts than I was able to with Hootsuite. On that platform, I was limited unless I paid into a much …
Chose Sprout Social
When I joined [...], we had two social tools - Sprout Social and also Hootsuite. We ultimately made the decision to keep Sprout Social and sunset the Hootsuite platform because Sprout Social was far easier to use for scheduling purposes and provided more extensive analytics …
Chose Sprout Social
We ultimately selected Sprout Social because the social media team we were partnering with used the platform and insisted we use the same technology to avoid gaps in team functionality. Compared to Hootsuite, it’s the same but has more available functions. Compared to HubSpot …
Chose Sprout Social
I think all the tools have a great interface when it comes to the scheduling calendars as they are so easy to see and show stakeholders. It allows for logins to be accessed more securely accross wider teams too. I would say Oktopost had the best social media advocacy tool and Ho…
Chose Sprout Social
Sprout Social is by far the most robust social media management platform I have worked with. Compared to Hootsuite, Sprout is designed for mid to large size businesses whereas Hootsuite is lower cost with entry level functionality ideal for smaller businesses. Sprout has much …
Chose Sprout Social
We selected Sprout Social because we saw more positive reviews than Hootsuite. The interface and usability also looked better.
Chose Sprout Social
I have to say, I hated how old school Loomly and Hootsuite software seemed to have. With using Loomly, it took a lot of clicks to get a simple task completed. Hootsuite was on a trial basis, and I just didn't like the usability. Loomly was great for the analytics, but …
Chose Sprout Social
It's not like we chose Sprout Social over Meta Business Suite. There are things we still need to use Meta for. But as a platform to work in, create in, schedule in, and draw information from, Sprout Social is like being in an easy chair while Meta is the narrowest, hardest, …
Chose Sprout Social
When scouting different social media management platforms, Sprout Social stood out as the best choice despite other companies offering competitive features and lower rates. Some key factors solidified our decision to stay with Sprout Social. One major drawback we noticed with …
Chose Sprout Social
Sprout Social is the most robust and reliable of all platforms I've tried by far.

It is not the best in scheduling and content strategy, but does a very adequate job and is worth it for the proper data and tracking in dashboards.
Chose Sprout Social
I think Sprout Social is the most advanced of all these scheduling tools, it can handle the largest accounts and makes scheduling and responding to posts easy. it's the most expensive of these four (with meta for business free) but it's a you get what you pay for situation. I …
Chose Sprout Social
Sprout Social has more features and is the most advanced social media platform. It may cost more, but it's worth it.
Chose Sprout Social
The customer care and account management stuck out to us overall. We felt like we were being taken care of, and not just sold something we didn't need. They allowed us to craft our plan based on what we were interested in and we didn't have to feel guilty about unnecessary …
Chose Sprout Social
I feel that Sprout has more to offer for the price and is easier to use.
Chose Sprout Social
Sprout social seemed more effective for team collaboration.
Chose Sprout Social
More robust reporting and a very in-depth training, learning, and support area.
Chose Sprout Social
Sprout Social was the most appealing option compared to competitors. It has the most comprehensive set of features while also being one of the easiest to learn and navigate.
Chose Sprout Social
Sprout Social is much more intuitive and easier to use, and has more features that are more effective.
Chose Sprout Social
Sprout Social is probably my top pick of the lot, mainly due to its simple navigation and content calendar. While some of the other platforms have more robust functionality and integrations, I've found I'm more comfortable using Sprout Social and would prefer a seamless user …
Chose Sprout Social
For the money, I have not found Sprout's equal. Admittedly no service is perfect, which is why your tech stack is in fact a stack. For the time it saves, the reports it generates, and the tabs it allows me to keep on an inordinately large competitive landscape, Sprout is and …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
HootsuiteSprout Social
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.0
275 Ratings
10% below category average
Sprout Social
7.9
87 Ratings
2% above category average
Boolean keyword searches6.7185 Ratings7.665 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam6.1193 Ratings7.576 Ratings
Sentiment analysis6.9187 Ratings7.656 Ratings
Broad channel coverage8.1255 Ratings8.965 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.0
383 Ratings
1% below category average
Sprout Social
8.6
109 Ratings
6% above category average
Content planning and scheduling8.8382 Ratings9.4109 Ratings
Audience targeting7.5260 Ratings7.886 Ratings
Content optimization7.7312 Ratings8.295 Ratings
Workflow management8.0322 Ratings8.896 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.8
308 Ratings
2% below category average
Sprout Social
8.1
99 Ratings
2% above category average
Automated routing and prioritization7.5220 Ratings7.961 Ratings
Customer interaction histories7.8237 Ratings8.287 Ratings
Bulk actions8.2265 Ratings8.284 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.5
295 Ratings
4% below category average
Sprout Social
7.3
78 Ratings
6% below category average
Lead generation6.7177 Ratings7.357 Ratings
Content marketing8.2263 Ratings8.574 Ratings
Paid media management7.5175 Ratings6.23 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions7.7225 Ratings7.24 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.8
376 Ratings
4% above category average
Sprout Social
8.8
109 Ratings
4% above category average
Twitter8.5344 Ratings9.098 Ratings
Facebook9.2360 Ratings9.2108 Ratings
LinkedIn8.8314 Ratings9.199 Ratings
Google+8.960 Ratings9.035 Ratings
Instagram8.9316 Ratings9.098 Ratings
Pinterest8.6161 Ratings8.633 Ratings
YouTube8.5149 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.1
306 Ratings
2% above category average
Sprout Social
8.7
110 Ratings
10% above category average
Campaign success analytics8.1282 Ratings8.8102 Ratings
Real-time tracking8.0282 Ratings8.699 Ratings
Competitor analysis8.1189 Ratings8.889 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.9
316 Ratings
2% below category average
Sprout Social
8.1
103 Ratings
1% above category average
Role-based user permissions & privileges8.5268 Ratings8.299 Ratings
Mobile access7.3294 Ratings8.091 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HootsuiteSprout Social
Small Businesses
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 9.8 out of 10
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 9.8 out of 10
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.4 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HootsuiteSprout Social
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(444 ratings)
8.7
(168 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(89 ratings)
9.5
(65 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(83 ratings)
8.7
(95 ratings)
Availability
9.7
(21 ratings)
7.7
(8 ratings)
Performance
9.7
(19 ratings)
8.0
(7 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(263 ratings)
5.8
(38 ratings)
In-Person Training
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(17 ratings)
7.3
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(39 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
Configurability
7.2
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.8
(2 ratings)
7.9
(23 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.8
(3 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.3
(18 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
HootsuiteSprout Social
Likelihood to Recommend
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a great starter tool for companies that want to use a scheduling service for their social media content. It allows access to nearly all of the commonly used social media platforms, so no matter where you share content, Hootsuite will allow you to do it with ease.
Read full review
Sprout Social
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.
Read full review
Pros
Hootsuite
  • Scheduling of content. The ease of use for Hootsuite's planner abilities is top of the industry. It is simple and effective in posting content to different channels and accounts.
  • Analytics are superior on Hootsuite. Their custom reports allow you to view very specific KPI's that you can adjust for each channel or account. The reports are also exportable to be used for others in the company.
  • Inbox management. The inbox manager is superior to any in the industry. Hootsuite allows you to tag certain phrases or keywords to better filter messages based on importance or topic.
Read full review
Sprout Social
  • 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.
Read full review
Cons
Hootsuite
  • One thing that's frustrating is when trying to change the date/time and having to go into each individual post to update it is a lot. With other calendar tools, you are able to drag and drop the post in the time you want it OR there is a pop up that allows you to change the date/time without having to go into editing the actual post.
  • It would be nice to have different calendar tabs for different brands. Instead of seeing all the brands scheduled posts on one calendar.
  • There needs to be a content library to house all the creative files so it's easier to choose and upload.
Read full review
Sprout Social
  • 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.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Hootsuite
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.
Read full review
Sprout Social
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).
Read full review
Usability
Hootsuite
The overall usability is awesome, the scheduling, reporting, etc. The spellcheck and feature that used to be a part of it was awesome and we are sad to see that it was taken away. However, we do like the AI feature and emoji customization. The new ad and paid media element is something we are starting to explore, especially for Facebook and Linkedin
Read full review
Sprout Social
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.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Hootsuite
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.
Read full review
Sprout Social
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.
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Performance
Hootsuite
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!
Read full review
Sprout Social
It is quick to post, however you have to refresh the page every time you add a new scheduled item.
Read full review
Support Rating
Hootsuite
I can manage all of my accounts on one site! It's absolutely amazing!
The dashboard is helpful to see how you are doing as well. Still
getting to understand the analytics and may need to reach out for help
on this
Read full review
Sprout Social
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.
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In-Person Training
Hootsuite
Very easy to teach and learn
Read full review
Sprout Social
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Hootsuite
The online training is decent; however, it takes a lot more time to search for answers to my questions. Having a training session with a live person was much more effective as they were able to quickly address the business needs I have.
Read full review
Sprout Social
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
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Hootsuite
• Combination of vendor and internal. The vendor bumped up our account to the Enterprise version (quite simple and easy) and then set up our organization and team structure. We then had to log in and set up team members and assign members to social media accounts. This was pretty easy to do as they have a great user interface. We simply had to drag and drop people into the correct team giving them access to specific social media accounts.
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Sprout Social
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.
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Alternatives Considered
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is definitely the most cost effective of the bunch for the goals that my clients have. The AI caption generation is also perfect for cutting down on time. Caption creation actually takes up a lot of time in the scheduling process for content and this feature made Hootsuite stand out to me!
Read full review
Sprout Social
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.
Read full review
Scalability
Hootsuite
We are only using in marketing and have been able to scale.
Read full review
Sprout Social
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Hootsuite
  • We're a small marketing team in our company so having hootsuite is a life saver, I'm spending less time posting content as I can do my plan in advance and then schedule it out over the month/months so I can get back to helping the team with the other work we deal with.
Read full review
Sprout Social
  • 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.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Hootsuite Screenshots

Screenshot of Monitoring: Monitors social media profiles and tracks the topics that matter to the brand.Screenshot of Publishing: Create, publish and schedule engaging posts across social channels.Screenshot of Customer Engagement: A consolidated stream of messages across networks that can be triaged and assigned to respond to customers faster. Provides optional chatbot handover for automated responses.Screenshot of Scheduling: Social content can be planned as a team with a shared calendar that features collaborative post drafts and built-in approval workflows.Screenshot of Analytics & Reporting: Measures the effectiveness of a social media strategy to help turn strategy into execution with meaningful and actionable insights. Reports can be customized and shared according to unique business goals and objectives.

Sprout Social Screenshots

Screenshot of Sprout’s social media publishing tools, used to schedule and post messages to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn simultaneously from a single Compose window.