Parse.ly vs. Sprout Social

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Parse.ly
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Parse.ly is a content optimization platform for online publishers. It provides in-depth analytics and helps maximize the performance of the digital content. It features a dashboard geared for editorial and business staff and an API that can be used by a product team to create personalized or contextual experiences on a website.
$499
per month
Sprout Social
Score 8.4 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
Parse.lySprout Social
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
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
Parse.lySprout Social
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Parse.lySprout Social
Features
Parse.lySprout Social
Web Analytics
Comparison of Web Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Parse.ly
7.5
7 Ratings
7% below category average
Sprout Social
-
Ratings
Lead Conversion Tracking6.23 Ratings00 Ratings
Bounce Rate Measurement5.85 Ratings00 Ratings
Device and Browser Reporting8.36 Ratings00 Ratings
Pageview Tracking8.16 Ratings00 Ratings
Event Tracking7.65 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting in real-time8.66 Ratings00 Ratings
Referral Source Tracking7.66 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Dashboards7.66 Ratings00 Ratings
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Parse.ly
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
7.9
87 Ratings
3% above category average
Boolean keyword searches00 Ratings7.565 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam00 Ratings7.576 Ratings
Sentiment analysis00 Ratings7.556 Ratings
Broad channel coverage00 Ratings8.865 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Parse.ly
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
8.6
110 Ratings
6% above category average
Content planning and scheduling00 Ratings9.5110 Ratings
Audience targeting00 Ratings7.787 Ratings
Content optimization00 Ratings8.296 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings8.896 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Parse.ly
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
8.1
100 Ratings
0% below category average
Automated routing and prioritization00 Ratings7.962 Ratings
Customer interaction histories00 Ratings8.288 Ratings
Bulk actions00 Ratings8.285 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Parse.ly
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
7.3
78 Ratings
5% below category average
Lead generation00 Ratings7.357 Ratings
Content marketing00 Ratings8.574 Ratings
Paid media management00 Ratings6.23 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions00 Ratings7.24 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Parse.ly
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
8.7
110 Ratings
3% above category average
Twitter00 Ratings9.198 Ratings
Facebook00 Ratings9.3109 Ratings
LinkedIn00 Ratings9.1100 Ratings
Google+00 Ratings8.136 Ratings
Instagram00 Ratings9.099 Ratings
Pinterest00 Ratings8.633 Ratings
YouTube00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Parse.ly
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
8.7
111 Ratings
11% above category average
Campaign success analytics00 Ratings8.8103 Ratings
Real-time tracking00 Ratings8.6100 Ratings
Competitor analysis00 Ratings8.889 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Parse.ly
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
8.1
104 Ratings
1% above category average
Role-based user permissions & privileges00 Ratings8.299 Ratings
Mobile access00 Ratings7.992 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Parse.lySprout Social
Small Businesses
StatCounter
StatCounter
Score 9.0 out of 10
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 9.7 out of 10
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Optimal Workshop
Optimal Workshop
Score 9.2 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
Parse.lySprout Social
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(82 ratings)
8.7
(168 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.7
(32 ratings)
9.5
(65 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(35 ratings)
8.7
(95 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
7.7
(8 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(7 ratings)
Support Rating
7.8
(35 ratings)
5.8
(38 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(23 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Parse.lySprout Social
Likelihood to Recommend
Parse.ly
Parse.ly is a great tool for publishers who want to track engagement and audience behaviour across websites. With Parse.ly, we can easily track metrics like pageviews, time spent on page, and scroll depth to see which content is resonating with our audience and optimize our content strategy accordingly. Our marketers found Parse.ly to be an excellent tool for tracking the effectiveness of our campaigns. We can use Parse.ly to track metrics like referral sources, conversion rates, and engagement by audience segment to see which channels and tactics are driving the most engagement and conversions.
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.
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Pros
Parse.ly
  • Firstly, the platform is super easy to use, it is user-friendly and easy to navigate through.
  • Secondly, the platform also provides you the option to use filters to your best fit and adjust the filters according to what data you want to look at.
  • Thirdly, it enables the user to have live feedback on their articles and see what can be improved going forward to address the need of the readers.
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
Parse.ly
  • A more readily understandable visual guide to a visitor's pathway through your site would help understand what keeps a reader on-site.
  • The total page view number for the day should be more readily visible--on the overview page, not just by going to Posts>Historical.
  • Maintain the archive for longer than a year under all plans--it's a shame to lose year-on-year data quickly.
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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Parse.ly
As an employee, this is difficult for me to comment as I am not directly funding or making these business decisions. However, it is a tool many get on with for surface level data that is useful to editorial teams.
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).
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Usability
Parse.ly
The Parse.ly platform is very user-friendly and easy to use. User management is simple, and reporting setup only takes a few minutes. They provide very helpful documentation for implementing the scripts on your site and have great customer support to help with custom development such as implementing their content recommendation engine.
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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.
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Reliability and Availability
Parse.ly
No answers on this topic
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
Parse.ly
No answers on this topic
Sprout Social
It is quick to post, however you have to refresh the page every time you add a new scheduled item.
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Support Rating
Parse.ly
I rate this question this way solely because I haven't requested any support. I feel where I will eventually get support would be when we take Parse.ly up on some training that is being offered. We are looking to do that at some point after the first of the year and when our schedules support it.
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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.
Read full review
Online Training
Parse.ly
No answers on this topic
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
Parse.ly
No answers on this topic
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
Parse.ly
Parse.ly does pretty well compared to Chartbeat, particularly when it comes to historical information and analysis options that are easy for employees to use after some short training. The onboarding for Parse.ly is intuitive, and the scheduled reports take away basically all of the inconvenience associated with regular metrics reviewing. But Chartbeat wins in its social audience tracking because it can source traffic to a specific social post, which can show you exactly how your audience is coming to your content and where you need to put your content to be sure you get that audience.
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.
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Return on Investment
Parse.ly
  • Sometimes in meetings our editorial director will point out stories that didn't perform well. To us, that means readers don't really care about the topic, so we'll pivot away from writing about that in the future. That might not be "business objectives" though.
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

Parse.ly Screenshots

Screenshot of Overview in full-screen mode: Many Parse.ly pages, like the Overview, are TV-ready. Keep your entire team up-to-date with live, full-screen dashboards on TVs in your office.Screenshot of Overview screen: See a snapshot of what your audience is paying attention to today so you can make fast decisions about what content to produce or distribute. Customize it to show only what your team cares about by filtering it to a particular author, section, or tag. You can pick what stats and listings are displayed.Screenshot of Real-time posts page: See what’s gathering steam so you can capitalize on attention to every post, campaign, or section.
Real-time data includes the last 24 hours and updates every five seconds. It can be seen, filtered, and sorted on most screens.Screenshot of Historical posts page: Explore historical trends by post, author, section, topic, referrer, or campaign. Compare today’s performance to last week, month, or year.Screenshot of Campaign tracking: Easily tie in your off-site promotion to engagement with your on-site content using UTM parameters.Screenshot of Multi-channel tracking: Track all your content in one place, no matter where it lives.
Compare how your content performances on various distributed channels including your website, AMP, Facebook Instant Articles, and Apple News.

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.