Sprout Social vs. Sysomos, now part of Meltwater

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Sprout Social
Score 8.1 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
Sysomos, now part of Meltwater
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Sysomos was a social media listening and marketing solution for content discovery, planning, publishing, moderation, and analytics. Sysomos was acquired by Meltwater, and is no longer available, but the features of the former Sysomos are now part of the Meltwater platform.
$1,000
per month
Pricing
Sprout SocialSysomos, now part of Meltwater
Editions & Modules
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
Sysomos
$1,000.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Sprout SocialSysomos, now part of Meltwater
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Sprout SocialSysomos, now part of Meltwater
Considered Both Products
Sprout Social
Chose Sprout Social
Sprout is more intuitive and it's more reliable.
Chose Sprout Social
I've used many tools and this is one of the easiest. Very easy to set-up, pull reporting and get started. Others only have a boolean search which is very complicated. The pricing is reasonable and I highly recommend this product.
Sysomos, now part of Meltwater
Chose Sysomos, now part of Meltwater
We've used Sprout Social & Hootsuite in the past -- and they all stack up pretty evenly. Sysomos has the same features as Sprout or Hootsuite, except their reports and analytics are a little more detailed. Hootsuite has a better social media management software and dashboard …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Sprout SocialSysomos, now part of Meltwater
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Sprout Social
7.3
53 Ratings
4% below category average
Sysomos, now part of Meltwater
-
Ratings
Boolean keyword searches6.839 Ratings00 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam7.043 Ratings00 Ratings
Sentiment analysis7.124 Ratings00 Ratings
Broad channel coverage8.334 Ratings00 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Sprout Social
4.9
57 Ratings
48% below category average
Sysomos, now part of Meltwater
-
Ratings
Content planning and scheduling7.157 Ratings00 Ratings
Audience targeting3.048 Ratings00 Ratings
Content optimization3.549 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow management5.952 Ratings00 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Sprout Social
6.0
55 Ratings
30% below category average
Sysomos, now part of Meltwater
-
Ratings
Automated routing and prioritization2.725 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer interaction histories7.851 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk actions7.446 Ratings00 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Sprout Social
4.7
39 Ratings
48% below category average
Sysomos, now part of Meltwater
-
Ratings
Lead generation2.431 Ratings00 Ratings
Content marketing3.035 Ratings00 Ratings
Paid media management6.23 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions7.24 Ratings00 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Sprout Social
7.5
59 Ratings
13% below category average
Sysomos, now part of Meltwater
-
Ratings
Twitter7.757 Ratings00 Ratings
Facebook6.359 Ratings00 Ratings
LinkedIn8.352 Ratings00 Ratings
Google+7.721 Ratings00 Ratings
Instagram7.249 Ratings00 Ratings
Pinterest7.214 Ratings00 Ratings
YouTube8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Sprout Social
5.9
58 Ratings
28% below category average
Sysomos, now part of Meltwater
-
Ratings
Campaign success analytics4.154 Ratings00 Ratings
Real-time tracking6.555 Ratings00 Ratings
Competitor analysis6.947 Ratings00 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Sprout Social
7.6
58 Ratings
7% below category average
Sysomos, now part of Meltwater
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions & privileges7.655 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile access7.551 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Sprout SocialSysomos, now part of Meltwater
Small Businesses
Publer
Publer
Score 9.8 out of 10
Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
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Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
Mention
Mention
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
Sprout SocialSysomos, now part of Meltwater
Likelihood to Recommend
7.5
(115 ratings)
7.0
(46 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(62 ratings)
6.8
(28 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(42 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Availability
7.7
(8 ratings)
8.2
(5 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(7 ratings)
8.5
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
5.2
(37 ratings)
2.0
(8 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(2 ratings)
Online Training
7.3
(3 ratings)
8.0
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(11 ratings)
10.0
(8 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Sprout SocialSysomos, now part of Meltwater
Likelihood to Recommend
Sprout Social
Sprout [Social] is great for small businesses, small agencies and those who need a platform but don't want to spend a fortune. If you need multiple user log-in's, the cost will add up. This is great to share a log-in for different people to use or add one or two users
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Discontinued Products
Sysomos Expion is best suited, in my opinion, to offices where either you have only one moderator/manager OR where multiple users plan to manage a specific channel. Without live updates, it gets far too complicated for multiple users to manage the exact same workload
Read full review
Pros
Sprout Social
  • The Landscape system that Sprout Social offers allows me to modify all the images that I want to publish on my social networks. This service allows me to modify the size of the image, add filters, modify the colors and much more, it is a very important tool to be able to have a better presentation of the images that we use in our publications on social networks.
  • It offers me a perfect statistical system where I can consult all kinds of movements that have occurred in all my social networks, I can see statistics individually or generally. The statistics allow me to see group reports, participation, information on audience movement on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and also allow me to view the activity that has occurred in my account.
  • Sprout Social allows me to view a record in real time that shows me all the movements that my social networks are having by my employees. As Director of the Marketing Sector, this is a very important role, as I can know what actions my employees are taking to improve marketing with social networks.
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Discontinued Products
  • Ad-hoc research. During planning phase of a campaign it is a helpful tool to understand the marketplace, key influencers and topics that engage a target demographic.
  • Post-event hashtag analysis. Rapid generation of reporting on efficacy of a campaign, key voices, topics that resonated, viral reach and more.
  • User interface. Friendly and accessible enough to minimize training needs and enable decentralized access, though we have found some hand-holding is still required to get the most out of the platform.
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Cons
Sprout Social
  • I'd love to see more robust tag reporting capabilities, but they mentioned that this is something in the pipeline for improvement.
  • I wish it was easier to batch content and shift it to approval or draft mode. Sometimes clients can change their mind and moving through each post individually can be a bit time consuming. This is a very minor thing.
  • I'd love to see more customization options come to its reporting feature so we can insert graphics. Currently it supports the insertion of text only.
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Discontinued Products
  • It does not provide a visual for volume over time.
  • The visuals aren't excellent, and would require an export to create better looking graphics.
  • The interface isn't intuitive and sometimes requires clicking around to find things that seem like they should be under a different title.
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Likelihood to Renew
Sprout Social
While I am currently no longer working with the company in which I was employed and utilized Sprout Social, I do know that the company is still utilizing Sprout Social on a daily basis and I do not foresee a time when the subscription would be cancelled.
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Discontinued Products
There are two differentiating features that Sysomos MAP has that the competitor tools I have experienced (Radian6, Meltwater Buzz) did not: user-friendly Boolean queries for searches and near-real-time results. The former is important because, of course, your results are only as good as your search/campaign. With Sysomos, once you master Boolean queries (which isn't terribly difficult) you're set for creating any kind of listening report. I strongly prefer this to the "campaign creator" forms that other services provide. Second, Sysomos MAP returns results almost immediately - like a Google search. So if you get your results and see that you need to tweak your query - no big deal. Or if you have a last-minute request for a client - not an issue. Meltwater can take up to 48 hours for a search to fully populate. This is a major issue if you get your full set of results back and see that you need to adjust the query; you're looking at another two days of wait time. A long wait on results can also prove problematic in agency settings where clients or prospective clients often need results with a quick turnaround.
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Usability
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is extremely user-friendly. The publishing feature is easy to use, and provides previews of what your content will look like once posted. I also love the calendar view where you can view all posts you have scheduled for the month. The collaborative nature of the platform makes working directly in Sprout Social with clients a breeze, and we are seeing our content get approved much faster.
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Discontinued Products
The product is very easy to use. The platform is visual and data is easy to read. Boolean construction can sometimes be difficult, but the boolean constructor tool is helpful for boolean beginners. For more experienced boolean constructors, the boolean display at the top is very helpful in identifying where there may be holes in the construction
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Reliability and Availability
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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Discontinued Products
Not really an availability issue, but concurrency licensing rules mean that only one user can be logged in at a time.
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Performance
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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Discontinued Products
This has not been an issue. It is actually beating TweetDeck when we are tagged within a post that TweetDeck is monitoring.
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Support Rating
Sprout Social
Sprout Social's customer support is extremely prompt and always helpful. Not only do they provide quick and useful service, but the representatives follow up multiple times to ensure that the issue is fully address and/or completely resolved. The overall experience is exemplary; very few other companies provide comparable service.
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Discontinued Products
Unfortunately, we have not had a great experience with customer support from Klear. In the sales process, they were very responsive and helpful, but when onboarded, it definitely changed. We are based in the US and our customer service rep is based in Israel, meaning our work hours barely overlap. Oftentimes we're waiting 24+ hours for a response, and when it's a time-sensitive issue (like the platform not pulling in Instagram Story data) we want it to be resolved as quickly as possible. Klear also has a chat feature for more immediate help, but we've experienced a similar situation there where it takes 12+ hours to get a response and it's usually from our customer service rep. Our rep is very nice, but also doesn't seem very knowledgeable about the platform, and usually can't provide an immediate answer to a question we ask and has to "check with her team."
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Online Training
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
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Discontinued Products
We had a kick-off training with the whole team where they walked us through the functionality. This was a pretty effective and comprehensive training.
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Implementation Rating
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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Discontinued Products
Implementation was so easy I dont even remember it!
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Alternatives Considered
Sprout Social
I used Buffer previous to Sprout Social for two years. It was a good solution as we were getting a handle on scheduling content. It was the first real tool we had for this. But we outgrew it and they began removing features that were critical to our workflow, such as the RSS Feed. While their 50% off policy for non-profits was very helpful, once we started adding up the cost to use features like Replies and Analytics, we discovered that our needs were simply too robust for Buffer to handle. Sprout Social was the solution suggested by all our peers and we've been very happy with it ever since.
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Discontinued Products
We've used Sprout Social & Hootsuite in the past -- and they all stack up pretty evenly. Sysomos has the same features as Sprout or Hootsuite, except their reports and analytics are a little more detailed. Hootsuite has a better social media management software and dashboard though
Read full review
Return on Investment
Sprout Social
  • Sprout has given insights to lead our creative refreshes every quarter. As we have a healthy budget on paid social, it is crucial to understand the type of creative that works best.
  • Sprout has the ability to send notifications based on certain types of messages received. This is crucial for social media teams who don't have 24/7 coverage but need to be notified of urgent matters.
  • Sprout has saved me hours of time as I no longer pull analytics natively from each social platform. The generated reports give me a look at all of the platforms and can be customized.
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Discontinued Products
  • Lowered costs and overhead when Expion got introduced as we now use one centralized solution for all of our social media work
  • We can finally calculate ROI with ease and understand our campaign performance through proper tracking and analytics
  • Competition tracking was never easier
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ScreenShots

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.

Sysomos, now part of Meltwater Screenshots

Screenshot of TOP CONTENT: See the best performing content from all your social media channels in one view plus compare it against your competitors’ pages.Screenshot of FAN MODERATION: Sysomos Expion makes it easy to know who to speak to, when to engage in conversation and can even be integrated with customer care centers.Screenshot of PUBLISH: Easily plan, schedule and publish content from a simple drag-and-drop calendar with workflow that’s easy to track and review.Screenshot of OPTIMIZE PAID ADS: Optimize paid ads with smarter analytics and trending triggers so you can better understand how organic and paid content are working together.Screenshot of DYNAMIC DASHBOARDS: Powerful marketing analytics shows that it’s not just about creating a report or crunching some numbers - but about telling a story.  You’ll discover patterns, breakouts, and trends in real time to capitalize on opportunities.