Sprout Social is an advanced social media management tool with great team collaboration and other advanced features. Its robust suite of features comes at a high price, though.
The Sprout Social pricing plans are designed with large businesses in mind, so there may be better options for small businesses. If you’re struggling to decide whether or not Sprout Social plans and pricing are worth it, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we’ll take you through a detailed review of Sprout Social’s pricing plans and the types of businesses they’re suitable for. We’ll also provide an affordable alternative to Sprout Social if you want similar features at a more competitive price.
Read on to find the answers you seek to make an informed choice.
Sprout Social offers four pricing plans to cater to different types of businesses. However, none of their plans are suitable for solopreneurs or startups as the prices are quite expensive.
That said, here’s a breakdown of the Sprout Social pricing plans to help you choose the right plan for your business.
| Sprout Social Pricing | ||||
| Plan | Pricing | Accounts Supported | Users Allowed | Cost for Extra Channel |
| Standard | $249/month | 5 social profiles | 1 | N/A |
| Professional | $399/month | Unlimited | 1 | N/A |
| Advanced | $499/month | Unlimited | 1 | N/A |
| Enterprise | Custom | Unlimited | Custom | N/A |
Sprout Social is an advanced tool designed for large businesses and agencies, and its 3 out of 4 plans allow you to manage unlimited social profiles. However, for a smooth experience, you might end up paying a lot more than required due to restrictions such as having only one user seat for $399/month. If you want additional team members to work on the project, you’ll pay the same amount for each added user.
As you can see, the prices are on the higher side, so it comes down to what features it offers for you to decide if it’s worth it. That’s exactly what we’ll discuss in the following sections, so read on.
In this section, we’ll discuss the various pricing plans offered by Sprout Social and who they’re suitable for. Let’s get started.
1. Individuals
Suitable Sprout Social Plan for Individuals:
None
Essential Features Included:
Sprout Social is not meant for individuals and doesn’t offer any plan that’s suitable for them.
Missing Features:
Not applicable
Sprout Social’s pricing plans start at a premium cost, making the tool inaccessible for content creators, influencers, solopreneurs, or individually managed establishments.
2. Small Businesses
Suitable Sprout Social Plan for Small Businesses:
Standard plan ($249 per seat/month, 5 social profiles)
Essential Features Included:
- All-in-one social inbox
- 5 social profiles
- Social media content calendar
- Content scheduling and publishing
- Real-time keyword/brand monitoring
- Review and comments management
- Profiles, keywords, and locations monitoring
- Paid promotions for Facebook
- Mobile apps
This is the starter plan offered by Sprout Social that allows you to manage five social profiles. It is perfect for small businesses that are present on a few social platforms and just need a tool to manage their social profiles. However, the price is still steep for small businesses, especially given the number of missing features, which we’ll discuss below.
Missing Features:
- Reporting and analytics
- Hashtag and keyword trend analysis
- Team collaboration features
- Send time optimization
- Message tagging
- Custom workflows and approvals
Sprout Social’s Standard plan is the only one suitable for small businesses, but it has several limitations. First, it charges $249 per month for a single seat for managing just five social profiles. It is priced at a higher end, making it expensive for small businesses.
Second, it misses some key features like hashtag management and reporting. These are essential for small businesses to evaluate their social media performance and optimize their strategies. However, if features like a unified inbox and review management are your priority, this social media platform could be a good option for you.
3. Agencies
Suitable Sprout Social Plan for Agencies:
Professional plan ($399 per seat/month, unlimited social profiles)
Essential Features Included:
- Unlimited social media profiles
- Robust analytics and reporting
- Custom workflows and approvals
- Send-time optimization
- Saved replies and message tagging
- Online content and assets library
- Hashtag tracking and management
- AI assistant — suggestions only
- Paid promotions reporting for multiple channels
Sprout Social’s Professional plan is built for teams that handle numerous social media profiles, making it perfect for agencies. It has all the essential features an agency would need to manage social media profiles for multiple clients.
Agencies on this plan can effectively manage unlimited profiles by optimizing send times and analyzing performance for each profile. It also allows multi-step approvals with multiple approvers, which allows better team collaboration and client handling.
Missing Features:
- AI assistant for content optimization
- Sentiment analysis
- Automated workflows
- Automatic link tracking
- CSAT and NPS surveys
- Helpdesk and CRM integrations
- Automatic report scheduling and delivery
- Visibility controls and external approvals
- Tags management
- Advanced team collaboration features
Looking at this list, it would seem that a lot of features are missing. However, these are mostly good-to-have features, not essential functionalities. In fact, this pricing plan stands out as one of the best plans offered by Sprout Social, providing all the key features at a reasonable cost, making it worth the investment.
That said, features like automatic reports, tags management, and automation workflows are important for large businesses with extensive social media operations. The fact that agencies and businesses need to pay an additional $100 to access these advanced features is seen as a drawback by most decision-makers.
4. Multi-Locational Brands
Suitable Sprout Social Plan for Multi-Locational Brands:
Advanced plan ($499 per seat/month, unlimited social profiles)
Essential Features Included:
- Unlimited social profiles and audience size
- Team and productivity reporting
- Message spike alerts
- CSAT and NPS surveys
- Automated conversational workflow via chatbots
- Rule builder for automated workflows
- AI assistance for writing appropriate responses to messages
- Case routing for teams
- Tags organization and management
- Automatic link tracking
- External approval workflow
- Customer care reports and customer feedback reports
- Automatic report scheduling and delivery
One of the most important things for multi-locational brands is team collaboration among different regional or cross-functional teams. Social Sprout’s Advanced pricing plan is designed specifically for that.
Along with everything you get with the Professional plan, it offers some advanced team features. One key feature is that you can track responses and performance at an individual level. This plan also allows external approval workflows for better team collaboration.
Missing Features:
- Professional consulting services
- Implementation and onboarding services
- Priority support
- Social listening
- Premium analytics
- Employee advocacy tools
- Influencer marketing tools
- Custom plans and personalized services
One of the biggest limitations of this plan is that despite the high price point, you don’t get priority customer support, which is only available with the Enterprise plan. Also, when you compare it with other tools, you can easily find an alternative that offers almost all these features at a cheaper price and with priority support.
5. Enterprises
Suitable Sprout Social Plan for Enterprises:
Enterprise plan (Custom price quote, unlimited social profiles)
Essential Features Included:
- Personalized implementation and onboarding services
- Professional consulting services
- 24/5 priority customer support
- Option to customize the plan as needed
- Option to include premium add-on services to the plan
The Social Sprout Enterprise pricing plan is designed to cater to the unique needs of large businesses. You can ask for customized plans and negotiate prices by reaching out to their team.
Missing Features:
- 24/7 customer support
Many of Sprout Social’s competitors offer 24/7 customer support and priority support for customers on top-tier plans. Sprout Social only offers five-day support, which can be a big issue for large businesses. Moreover, many customers complain about its poor and non-responsive customer support, so it lacks both frequency and responsiveness.
Jonathan C.
You would think that with an EXPENSIVE monthly price, you would have a STELLAR support experience. That’s not the case. Slow response times to my open tickets. I had to move the needle forward which shouldn’t be my job. SproutSocial needs to make their customer support experience WAY better.
6. Non-Profits
Suitable Sprout Social Plan for Non-Profits:
Professional and Advanced plans (Starting at $399 per seat/month)
Essential Features Included:
- All features covered under these two plans
If you’re looking for a separate Sprout Social non-profit pricing plan, that doesn’t exist. However, it does offer discounted prices for non-profits for Professional and Advanced plans. They have not disclosed the details on their website, so you need to contact them to find out the exact discounted rates.
Missing Features:
- All the additional features and services available with the Enterprise plan
Given the high price points of Professional and Advanced plans, we reckon that even discounted prices might not fit the budget of a non-profit organization.
By now you have a clear understanding of the Sprout Social plans and pricing and can decide if it’s worth it for your business needs. Before you do that, we want to give you an affordable alternative that offers more bang for your buck.
While Sprout Social could be a great choice for large enterprises with a huge budget, it’s definitely not affordable for everyone. SocialPilot stands out as a great alternative as it offers a robust suite of features at a fraction of the cost.
Before we get into more detail, here’s a quick comparison of the two, including their pricing plans.
 SocialPilot |
 Sprout Social |
|
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Starts at $25/month | Starts at $249/user/month |
| Best for | Agencies and small businesses | Agencies and enterprises with multi-location brands or multiple clients |
| Social profiles | 10 | 5Unlimited profiles with higher-tier plans |
| Ease of use | ||
| Support | ||
| Publishing | ||
| Bulk scheduling | 500 posts | 350 posts |
| Smart queues |  |
|
| Repeat post | |
|
| First comment | |
For Instagram only |
| Audience targeting | |
|
| Content planning and creation | ||
| Content library | |
Called Asset library |
| Calendar view | Easy to read |
|
| Holiday calendar | |
|
| AI assistant | |
|
| Instagram collab posts | |
|
| Location tagging | |
|
| Custom calls-to-action | |
|
| Image editor | |
|
| Engagement | ||
| Social inbox | Unified inbox |
Unified inbox |
| Reply to reviews and queries | |
|
| Reply to DMs and comments | |
|
| Analytics | ||
| Detailed social media analytics | Easy to read |
|
| Custom report builder | |
|
| Auto schedule report sharing to clients | |
|
| Post performance | |
|
| Team and client collaboration | ||
| Client management | |
|
| Approval workflows | Easy and swift |
|
| Per post-multi-user collaboration | |
|
| Approval on the go | |
|
| White labeling | ||
| White label dashboard | |
|
| White label downloadable report | |
|
| Try for free | Sprout Social review | |
When you assess Sprout Social’s pricing plans in relation to the features it offers, you’ll find it more expensive than most tools. Here are a few of its limitations that lead people to seek alternatives:
- The Standard plan, despite being priced at a whopping $249 per month, allows you to manage only five social profiles. This doesn’t fit the budget for small businesses and doesn’t offer enough features for large businesses.
- Essential features like analytics and reporting are only available with the higher-tier Sprout Social pricing plans, starting at $399 per month.
- There is no free plan to cater to individuals or solopreneurs, only a free trial for 30 days, which allows access to the Standard plan.
- Helpdesk and CRM integrations are available on the most expensive plan, which seems unfair for customers on lower-tier plans.
- Priority customer support is only available with the custom Enterprise plan and even top-tier Advanced plan customers don’t get that privilege.
- Some users complain about difficulties using the tool and the steep learning curve required for new users to use it to its full potential.
- Many useful tools for social listening, advanced analytics, and employee advocacy are available as paid add-ons, further increasing the already high costs.
- Overall, it seems to be best-suited for enterprises with big budgets and doesn’t effectively cater to the needs of small and mid-sized businesses.
Sarah-Mikal D.
The Custom Reporting features are below my expectations, we are not able to create custom charts beyond the general pre-populated templates. We are also not able to download every single data into csv, so my analysts has to manually hard code stuff.
Brandon S.
Poor customer service and often there are glitches that prevent our team from carrying out their functions.
Clearly, there’s a need for a better alternative that offers great features and great value for money. That’s where SocialPilot presents itself as a great option.
Here’s what SocialPilot offers:
- The Standard pricing plan starts at $42.50 per month and is perfect for startups and small businesses. It allows up to three users to manage 15 social media accounts.
- Even with the most basic plan, you get essential team collaboration features, a social inbox, and 1,000 AI credits for using the AI Pilot feature.
- The Premium plan, with 5 users, 25 social accounts, and 5,000 AI credits, costs just $100 per month, and is perfect for mid-sized businesses and agencies. Starting from the Premium plan, you get useful features like bulk scheduling, advanced analytics, client approval workflows, and white-label reports.
- With the Ultimate plan, you can manage 50 social accounts and have unlimited users. This is a great value for money compared to Sprout Social’s pricing plans, which are restricted to one user, irrespective of the plan you choose.
- The Enterprise plan has absolutely no restrictions on users, accounts, and AI credits, and also offers priority support and personalized onboarding.
- What’s more, is that you can try the tool for free for 14 days before making a financial commitment.
Overall, SocialPilot is an all-in-one social media management tool that offers great bang for your buck.
Final Verdict
Sprout Social is a great tool for large businesses and agencies with a good budget and need for advanced features. Its pricing, however, makes it inaccessible to small businesses, solopreneurs, and non-profits.
Despite the high price, Sprout Social doesn’t provide 24/7 customer support, and its plans are restricted to one user. To add more users, you need to buy another subscription, which raises the costs exponentially.
If you’re looking for an all-in-one social media management solution that offers more value for money, consider SocialPilot. It offers advanced social media scheduling and management features at a fraction of the cost. Check out its pricing plans and features to decide if it’s the right option for you. Good luck!
