Often, agencies fall prey to replicating elite brands and end up spending more resources for peanut results, especially in the case of social media marketing.
The reason behind this is improper research while creating plans.
Besides, every business has different needs, and a one-size-fits-all approach might lead you to disappointment. There are hundreds of tools in the social media marketing domain itself, making it insanely difficult to choose the right one.
But only a few qualify to deliver you results at a reasonable budget.
Agorapulse is one of the preferred social media management tools. It is an easy-to-use social software that allows you to drive engagement and build relationships.
It is loaded with features. However, like every tool, it comes with its own set of pros and cons, and you might be back on the hunting trail.
Hootsuite is an easy-to-use social media management tool that allows you to handle multiple social media accounts from a single interface. The tool is suitable for all kinds of enterprises ranging from a conglomerate to a startup.
Its web interface doesn’t require any special installations. With Hootsuite, you can easily schedule, publish, monitor, and analyze your social media activities.
It offers tools to boost your posts, uncover real-time insights from social media conversations, optimize social media ads, and understand main sources for ROI.
The tabular design interface of Hootsuite makes it easy to look at everything on a single dashboard. While Agorapulse bears a resemblance to mobile apps with notifications.
Hootsuite is made for all kinds of users, while Agorapulse may not be ideal for freelancers. Agorapulse also does not provide any telephonic customer support like Hootsuite.
While Hootsuite offers ROI analytics and third-party integrations, Agorapulse still needs to work on these features. It could turn out to be an expensive solution for a business that is looking to handle a couple of social media accounts.
Users expect a grid view of the Agorapulse dashboard, which will help them to drag and drop relevant images while scheduling a post. Unlike the desktop dashboard, the mobile app of Agorapulse is not user-friendly.
Pricing: Hootsuite’s ‘Professional’ plan starts at $49 once the 30-day free trial is over. It also offers a free monthly plan option known as ‘Team’.
After 30 days, the user needs to subscribe to it by paying $129 per month. You can also opt for the ‘Business’ plan, available at $599 per month.
Before enrolling in a ‘Business’ and ‘Enterprise’ option, users are given a demo of both plans.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive tool, it might be worthwhile to look. The platform has limited features for a free trial option.
Sprout Social has a CRM that builds customer relationships by knowing them well. You can schedule multiple posts at a single time. It has a well-organized dashboard that breaks into 6 categories: Messages, Tasks, Feeds, Publishing, Discovery, and Reports. You can reuse posts for analytics and tracking campaigns. All social media messages, including Instagram and Facebook, can be seen in a smart inbox.
It offers deep social media listening, analytics, customer care, and advocacy solutions to companies globally. Sprout Social’s products have been assisting users in extending their reach and amplifying their respective bands.
Its smart inbox monitoring lets you track what people are saying about your industry and your brand. The news content can be tracked using keywords, hashtags, locations, etc
The product is designed to cater to the needs of businesses through various plans such as entry-level, mid-range, and top-tier. One of the unique features of Sprout Social is automation in social chatbots. The bot builder enables your social media page to respond automatically on Twitter and Facebook messenger.
Sprout Social is recommended to try for free for 30 days and then decide if that suits your requirements.
Although Sprout Social offers limited connectivity options with social media profiles, it has strength in terms of offering chatbots and analyzing trends from Twitter keywords and hashtags.
While using Agorapulse you can track the sentiment on incoming comments, messages, posts, or tweets. Agorapulse cannot connect with Pinterest and so you can’t use it to schedule posts for your blog.
Sometimes, users do not see push notifications and they might have to uninstall and reinstall the Agorapulse app to activate this function. Although Sprout Social offers limited connectivity, certain features of it can’t be ignored for instance- all-in-one social inbox.
Pricing: The standard plan starts at $99 and the advanced plan for enterprises is available at $279. With a standard plan, you can connect 5 social profiles and 10 social profiles using the advanced plan.
Sendible provides advanced analytics powered by Google Analytics integration. It comes with efficient scheduling tools like Smart Queues that have the flexibility of publishing and highlighting the best-performing content.
Sendible has exciting features like GMB buttons, post previews, social inbox, and many more.
Sendible has most of the features that Agorapulse has. It appears appealing to small and mid-sized businesses as it lets them initiate social media marketing activity with fewer legacy workflows. Scheduling and queuing posts are some of Sendible’s highlights.
In analytics, Sendible offers basic social media listening, sentiment analysis, and historical analytics functionality for most social media types. Setting up Sendible is quick and straightforward, as step-by-step instructions appear on pop-up windows during the set-up.
It has a clean and well laid-out interface that is not too cluttered, helping agencies and businesses with valuable insights in real-time. Also, its generated reports are easy to share.
An amazing thing that Sendible has to offer is support for your blogging platforms like WordPress, Medium, and Blogspot, besides regular social media management.
This can be a good option for bloggers and freelancers. Sendible also wins in terms of pricing and 14-days trial option. Unlike Sendible, Agorapulse does not support Pinterest.
With Agorapulse, it is challenging to change the options for scheduling across multiple platforms and editing texts/adding tags for multiple channels. Sendible has more integration with social media platforms, while Agorapulse has fewer options.
Pricing: The basic starter pack, ‘Creator,’ is offered at $29, and the most expensive ‘Scale’ pack is available at $199 for 7 users. In Agorapulse, the most expensive ‘Expansion’ pack is offered at $399 that lets you manage 15 users.
Compatible with both android and iOS, Buffer is one of the oldest social media management tools which supports social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Buffer brands itself as an engagement, publishing, and analytics platform for social media marketing. Like other social media platforms mentioned above, Buffer provides all the necessary features needed for good social media marketing.
The tool enables direct posting to Instagram and has team management features with built-in analytics. It’s super easy to create graphics using Pablo and makes it unique among its peers. The ‘Analyze’ function of Buffer can provide deeper insights into the target audience on social media. However, it comes at a price higher than Hootsuite.
Buffer scheduling capacity is impressive as it lets you schedule your posts one month in advance. The advantage of choosing Buffer is it enables ad-hoc posting, making your account more responsive. Buffer also offers a list of third-party app integrations, tools, and add-ons like Zapier, SharpSpring, WordPress, CoSchedule, and many more.
Buffer makes it easy to share brilliant content and keep an eye on interactions that posts encounter. Buffer’s analytics feature will help you analyze posts and any necessary edits that posts might require.
Agorapulse struggles when it comes to responding to DM’s on Instagram. However, this is not because of Agorapulse but rather the API of Instagram itself. It doesn’t support third-party and API integrations. Like Buffer, Agorapulse does not offer social publishing templates and A/B testing facilities.
Pricing: Buffer plan starts with $5/month for each social channel. If you have a team, then go with the Teams plan, which is available at $10/month for one social channel. There’s also a free version available.
Meet Edgar is developed to help perform the tasks of managing and posting content. This tool generates status updates from articles or blogs automatically. All you need to do is click a button and share it.
The auto-variation feature scans the content selected by you and shares the revised version of it for posting whenever you need it. Besides, it has similar features like scheduling a post, RSS feed, URL shortener, etc. Its Chrome extension lets you quickly share links and add content to your Edgar Library while you’re browsing anywhere.
Meet Edgar claims to be open in terms of understanding the customer’s pain points by considering the feedback of customers. They have reserved the right to change their privacy policy anytime. It uses third-party cookies to provide analytics reports to customers.
Meet Edgar seems to be a good option for freelancers, bloggers, and small agencies because it helps you manage important social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Also, there are no add-on charges which makes the selection process far less complicated. On the other hand, Agorapulse can be a good option for a big agency or a well-established business.
Pricing: The starter pack is available at $19. The regular tool comes at $49/month, and you can connect up to 25 social accounts and enter an unlimited amount of content into your library. And if you’re not satisfied, Meet Edgar gives a full 30-day money back guarantee.
Socialbakers is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered social media marketing tool. The company caters to enterprise brands and small-medium businesses by helping them grow their respective customer base through content personalization.
The tool lets you integrate with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google My Business, Snapchat, and a few others.
Various modules developed by Socialbakers include content intelligence, social media management, community management, and AI-powered marketing.
Socialbakers provides free tools to pull out Facebook and Instagram quadrant performance reports, Facebook ads calculator, Persona mapping, and Influencer search tool.
The essential plan by Socialbakers includes content management, scheduling, publishing, analytics, and mobile app features.
With additional payments, you will be able to access features like sentiment analysis, workflow approval, community management, custom dashboards, automated content labeling, persona mapping, performance optimization, and influencer marketing.
While Agorapulse lacks such out-of-the-box solutions, you might have to check or pay additional fee to access such features.
Pricing: Socialbakers’ social media marketing tool is available to users starting from $200. With the essential plan worth $200, you can manage 20 social media accounts through 5 users.
CoSchedule promotes itself as a content creating, publishing, and social media marketing management software. The social media organizer by CoSchedule allows you to plan your social media strategy apart from all your marketing activities.
Its social automation tool lets you manage social media accounts by automatically resharing your trending social posts. Monitoring of social media conversations, handling campaigns, customized reports, tracking read-only views, and bulk uploads are also possible via the social media organizer tool developed by CoSchedule.
Apart from this, the tool lets you measure campaign performance and track valuable insights from campaigns. The tool is useful for both small and large teams. CoSchedule comes with a content calendar option for assigning tasks and projects to each team member.
Publishing calendar, social media reporting, monitoring, scheduling, approvals, workflows, automation, and bulk posting facilities are available in both tools.
However, what brings CoSchedule one step ahead of Agorapulse are the Email and content marketing management tools. Functions like asset library, enterprise support, unified reports, etc., are not available in Agorapulse.
Pricing: In terms of pricing, CoSchedule is a simpler and cheaper option than Agorapulse. The ‘Marketing Calendar’ is available at $39 for 10 profiles and 10 users.
eClincher is perfect for all business types and sizes with its advanced features. Its user interface is integrated with all the major social media sites. Multiple social media accounts can be managed effortlessly with team members. It comes with the auto-post feature, which lets you publish your post without scheduling.
eClincher has all features that other social media marketing tools offer. It supports scheduling in major social media platforms and has third-party integrations of tools such as Canva, Google Analytics, Zendesk, Google dynamic links, etc.
The tool is similar to SocialPilot. eClincher can identify influencers on social media using keyword search. It has integrated with Pocket to provide access to your saved articles or website links.
When you log in to eClincher, you can access Pocket accounts to share or schedule articles across social media accounts. Also, its unified inbox helps you keep tabs on incoming messages from multiple social media accounts.
The features are almost similar for both tools except for a few additional features embedded in eClincher. Those additional features include boosted posts, image editing, and an asset library.
Suggested content feed option and single inbox manage all messages, notifications, followers, and comments. eClincher supports 7 social media profiles, while Agorapulse supports only 5.
Pricing: The Basic, Premier, and Agency plans are available for $59, $119, and $219 respectively. The maximum number of profiles and users supported are 40 and 6. You are also given a 14-day free trial option to check your expectations with the tool. Just in case you want to add more profiles, you will have to pay extra.
Zoho Social is considered one of the best social media management tools because of its efficiency and flawless functionality. Zoho Social has smart monitoring and collaboration features. Its user interface is easy to use, and reports can easily be shared with other team members.
The social media management platform by Zoho Social lets you schedule, monitor, collaborate and analyze your posts on a single dashboard. Using its publishing calendar, you can preview scheduled posts and manage multiple content pipelines.
By connecting your Facebook Lead Ads account with Zoho Social, you can monitor leads in real-time and analyze the performance of your ad campaigns. The zShare browser extension lets you collate interesting articles too. You can convert social media updates into tickets and respond to messages faster. If you are looking for ways to generate leads from social media, Zoho’s CRM integration makes this possible.
Agorapulse and Zoho Social weigh equally, and it’s tough to say which one is better when you look at their features. Zoho Social is useful for planning and sharing your content with the communities you are active in. It has automated targeted engagement options and one window management system in addition to multi-channel marketing options.
It works across multiple social platforms with ease and is easy to use. Unfortunately, customer targeting options and real-time notification are not available with Agorapulse. The strength of Zoho Social lies in business intelligence, customizable dashboards, and access management features like API integration and performance.
Pricing: Zoho Social is cheaper than Agorapulse. The Standard, Professional, and Agency plans are available at $15, $35, and $200 respectively.
Later is a popular Instagram managing tool that can be used to post on other social media platforms. It’s a visual-first platform built for sharing photos, videos, and stories. You can search for content and hashtags to amplify your brand reach. Later lets you manage 6 social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Twitter.
This social media management tool has a feature to help turn your Instagram profile into a mini-website with Linkin.bio. It exactly looks like your Instagram profile but where you can track clicks and engagement effectively.
If your content calendar is dominated by visual-centric strategy, Later is the option to go with. Its support for Instagram and Pinterest is praise-worthy. Whereas in Agorapulse, there’s no provision for Pinterest scheduling at all.
Later’s pricing is also affordable for businesses with budget constraints. They also have an asset library to keep all your media in one place for easy accessibility. Agorapulse, when compared with Later, doesn’t justify its price for SMBs.
Pricing: The Starter pack starts at $15, while Growth and Advanced are priced at $25 and $40. You can opt for additional social media accounts at $40 and new users at $5 each in the Advanced plan.
Summing up
If you are looking for an affordable tool for social media marketing, this list will narrow down your choices. These are some of the best alternatives giving a stifling competition to Agorapulse.
Out of all the tools mentioned above, the most affordable one is SocialPilot, which supports 9 platforms for just $30. You can enjoy premium features at the price of a starter. Get your free trial of 14 days to see it for yourself.
Maybe not! It is advisable to decide your social media marketing goals and then choose the right product. Agorapulse lacks integrations, unified feeds, unified reports, asset library, animated GIF support, etc. Also, Agorapulse does not offer a free plan to get hands-on experience!
The best Agorapulse alternatives are as follows:
It depends on what your requirements are. But, SocialPilot is a better social tool than Agorapulse. It can be used to publish on 9 social media platforms seamlessly, whereas Agorapulse has limited capabilities to let you do the same. SocialPilot has all the requisite features to make your social media marketing successful. It offers customer support 5 days a week to all of its clients. If you require a high level of support with a dedicated account manager and telephone support, then Agorapulse is not for you. In this case, you should opt for SocialPilot. For enterprise accounts, SocialPilot designates a full-time customer support manager.
No, Agorapulse does not support scheduling on Pinterest. It neither has any provision for Google My Business or TikTok. It lets its users manage 5 social media platforms: Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. Whereas SocialPilot supports 9 platforms in total at a much lesser cost.
Yes, Agorapulse has a free trial of 30 days. They also offer a forever-free plan for individuals for managing 3 social media profiles. This plan is of little use to businesses because of limited functionality and lack of additional user and profiles support.
About the Author
Jimit Bagadiya
Jimit Bagadiya is the co-founder and CEO at SocialPilot. He brings 13 years of leadership experience in building SaaS platforms. He divides his time between working with his team on product engineering and maintaining a good customer happiness quotient. He aims to bring SocialPilot to the forefront of social business.
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Agorapulse Alternative – SocialPilot
SocialPilot is an excellent social media marketing tool that helps schedule posts in bulk on multiple social media accounts seamlessly. It has been developed considering the necessities of small businesses and agencies.
SocialPilot helps manage a business presence on social media, optimize ad management, monitor conversations, and coordinate hassle-free with the team. It is well known for providing user-friendly features like bulk scheduling, publishing, and engagement, apart from easy-to-understand analytics.
SocialPilot has developed a custom algorithm to detect spam content by considering factors like the number of posts, text on posts, referenced URL, frequency of publishing, and more to ensure a foolproof execution of your strategies.
Key Features
SocialPilot vs. Agorapulse
Even though the features of both the tools look similar, SocialPilot comes to your immediate rescue if you have a tight budget and are still looking to schedule posts and seek insightful analytics.
The agency plan offered by SocialPilot lets you connect up to 100 social media profiles, whereas the most expensive plan – ‘Enterprise’ by Agorapulse lets you connect only with 60 profiles. If you want to connect more profiles, you need to pay additional charges.
If you want to connect more accounts and schedule your posts in bulk, then SocialPilot is the right tool.
With SocialPilot, you can manage 9 social media platforms, and with Agorapulse, a user can manage only 5 social media platforms.
Pricing: SocialPilot offers a 14-day trial, and the subscription starts at $25.50/month compared to Agorapulse pricing, which starts at $79/month for subscription when billed annually.
Other plans offered by Agorapulse are over $100, while similar plans are available for less than $100 at SocialPilot. The company offers discounts for ‘Not-for-Profit’ agencies!
Check out a more detailed comparison of SocialPilot being one of the best Agorapulse alternatives here.