When managing your social media presence, choosing a suitable tool can make all the difference between thriving and surviving. Two major players, Hootsuite and Sprout Social, dominate this landscape, each offering unique features that cater to different business needs.
But which one is really worth your investment?
In this in-depth comparison of Hootsuite vs Sprout Social, we’re not just looking at the basic features. We’re diving deep into publishing, scheduling, analytics, social inbox, listening, collaboration, ease of use, and finally pricing.
Ready to dive in and find your perfect match? Let’s compare!
Imagine you’re at the crossroads of social media management, with two routes ahead–one leads to Hootsuite and the other leads to Sprout Social. Both offer and promise potent abilities, but which road will take your social media strategy to the next level?
It’s a decision that could change how you manage, engage, and grow your social media. Here’s a quick comparison to help you choose the tool that meets your requirements. As a bonus, we’ve included insights from SocialPilot in our overview to give you a broader perspective and a better frame of reference for making your choice.
 Hootsuite |
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| Number of Reviews | 4561 | 3483 | 814 |
| Overall Star Rating | |||
| Ease of Use | |||
| Quality of Support | |||
| Ease of Setup | |||
| Minimum Pricing | $99/Month | $249/Month | $30/Month |
| Number of Social Accounts | 10 | 5 | 10 |
| Number of Team Members | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Scheduling & Publishing |
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| Social Inbox |
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| Collaboration |
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| Whitelabel |
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| Best For | Professionals, Brands, Big Businesses, and Enterprises. | Small Business, Enterprise, Agencies | Marketing Agencies, SMBs, Multi-Location Brands & Professionals |
| Learn More | Learn More | 14 Days Trial |
When comparing Hootsuite and Sprout Social, the differences in features, pricing, and user ratings are clear. Hootsuite offers a more affordable starting price of $99/month, allowing you to connect one user and manage up to 10 social media accounts. In contrast, Sprout Social starts at a much higher price of $249.month, but only for 5 accounts. However, Sprout Social edges out Hootsuite in overall user satisfaction, achieving a 4.3-star rating compared to Hootsuite’s 4.0 stars, and scores slightly higher in ease of use and support quality.
Hootsuite is a popular choice among professional teams and large enterprises. At the same time, Sprout Social tends to cater to medium businesses, agencies, and enterprises, offering robust features like social listening and advanced analytics. Both tools offer potent capabilities, but choosing between them depends on your team’s needs and budget.
PS: If you know what Hootsuite and Sprout Social are in general, please head directly to the Head-to-Head comparison section. This overview is crafted for those who aren’t aware of these two tools.
Hootsuite Overview
Hootsuite is a leading social media management tool designed to help businesses manage their social media activities from one centralized space. It offers a wide range of features, including content scheduling, analytics monitoring, social listening, competitor analysis, and team collaboration, making it a comprehensive tool to streamline social media workflows.
With support for major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube, Hootsuite enables users to manage multiple accounts seamlessly through a single dashboard. It’s particularly beneficial for businesses looking to handle everything from content strategy to customer engagement to advertising, all in one place.
However, many users find Hootsuite’s interface challenging to navigate initially, requiring time to fully master. Despite the learning curve, its powerful features make it an essential tool for businesses seeking to elevate their social media presence.
Anati Z.
Hootsuite makes managing multiple social media accounts a breeze. I can schedule posts, track engagement, and analyze performance all in one place. The collaboration features make it easy to work with my team, and the app integrations help streamline our workflow.
Sprout Social is also a social media management platform designed for businesses seeking to boost their social media strategy. Known for its intuitive user interface and comprehensive features, Sprout Social lets users streamline content scheduling, track analytics, and effectively engage with their audience. The platform is a frontier in social listening, allowing businesses to monitor conversations around their brand and trends that matter to their brand.
With support for major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, Sprout Social enables seamless management of multiple accounts from one unified dashboard. Its advanced reporting features and user-friendly design make it popular for agencies and larger enterprises looking for in-depth insights and easier collaboration.
While Sprout Social is priced higher than its competitors, it offers a smooth and polished experience with top-tier customer support. The platform’s extensive features often justify the higher cost, making it a go-to for teams aiming for a powerful and insightful social media management tool.
Heide R.
I like that it’s intuitive and easy to work with and understand. I use it daily in my work and have not encountered any issues. If you’re coming from a competing scheduling platform, it’s a pretty easy switch.
In comparison to Hootsuite and Sprout Social, SocialPilot is an inexpensive social media tool crafted for small businesses, agencies, and marketing professionals. Its core features include content scheduling, analytics, and team collaboration while supporting multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Threads, Pinterest, and Google My Business. One of its standout attributes is its ease of use, paired with a simple and easy-to-navigate interface that helps users get started quickly.
With higher overall ratings than competitors, SocialPilot provides robust functionality, including bulk scheduling and client management capabilities. It also outshines ease of setup and customer support, making it a more accessible option for businesses looking for a powerful social media management solution without a steep learning curve.
Marisol S.
Combined Reports are helpful and convenient when dealing with multiple clients. It’s easy to customize the text for each platform for one post, and fast customer support is available. Our Marketing Agency uses it daily because it’s easy for us to implement within each staff member. As a team, we can help each other by viewing all posts with the ease of integrating several platforms, making it easy for all of our clients to use.
Scheduling and Publishing
Hootsuite and Sprout Social both offer powerful publishing and scheduling capabilities to help streamline your social media efforts. Hootsuite’s bulk scheduling is ideal for managing large volumes of content across multiple channels, while Sprout Social focuses on optimizing post timings with insights for its built-in analytics.
Below, we’ve compared the publishing and scheduling features of these tools, alongside SocialPilot to help you find the best fit for your needs.
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| Smart & Advanced Queueing |
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| Customize Post for Each Platform |
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| Post Preview |
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| Canva Integration |
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| Unsplash Integration |
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| Slack Integration |
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| URL Shortener |
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| Visual Post Support (Image, Video, GIF) |
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| UTM Parameters |
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| Cloud Storage |
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| Hashtag Suggestions |
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| Advance Publishing Capabilities | |||
| Save Draft Posts |
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| AI Assistant |
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| Watermark on Images |
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| Bulk Scheduling |
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| Auto publishing from RSS |
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| Social media calendar |
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| Mobile App |
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| Browser Extension |
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| Advance Facebook Publishing Capabilities | |||
| Reel Scheduling |
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| Support Album Posts |
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| Support Carousel Posts |
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| Alternate Text on Image |
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| Support Facebook First Comment |
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| Audience Targeting |
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| Boost Post Scheduling |
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| Support Mention and Hashtags |
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| Advance Twitter Publishing Capabilities | |||
| Location Tagging |
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| Support Mention and Hashtags |
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| Support Multiple Image Posts |
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| Threads Scheduling |
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| Advance Instagram Publishing Capabilities | |||
| Reel Scheduling |
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| Story Scheduling |
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| Tag Profiles on Images |
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| Location Tagging |
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| Support Instagram First Comment |
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| Instagram Grid |
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| Advance LinkedIn Publishing Capabilities | |||
| Audience Targeting |
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| Support LinkedIn First Comment |
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| Advance YouTube Publishing Capabilities | |||
| Shorts Scheduling |
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| Mention of Other YouTube Accounts |
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| Learn More | Learn More | 14 Days Trial | |
Hootsuite is known for its versatility and efficiency in content scheduling. It offers bulk scheduling, a content calendar, and the ability to schedule social media posts across multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, Threads, Pinterest, GMB, YouTube and LinkedIn. Hootsuite also integrates with Canva, making content creation smoother for teams. However, its interface sometimes feels cluttered, especially when managing multiple streams or accounts. Additionally, Hootsuite lacks the ability to post the first comment natively on Facebook, Instagram, and X/Twitter, which can be among agencies.
While offering similar scheduling features, Sprout Social stands out with its advanced optimization capabilities. It directly integrates social listening and analytics into its publishing, helping users schedule posts at peak engagement times. However, Sprout Social’s higher price point and limited number of social accounts per plan can be a drawback for some users. Additionally, it cannot similarly post first comments on social media platforms.
SocialPilot is a strong contender in the publishing and scheduling aspect, especially for agencies and small businesses. It offers a streamlined experience with bulk scheduling of up to 500 posts at once, a user-friendly content calendar, and the ability to schedule posts across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more. Additionally, the intuitive interface minimized the learning curve, making it efficient for teams who want to post content to maximize productivity without dealing with complex workflows.
Analytics Capability Comparison
When it comes to analytics, Hootsuite and Sprout Social provide robust social media analytics across all major social media platforms, offering comprehensive metrics that can help you optimize performance. Here is a breakdown of the major features of both tools compared to SocialPilot.
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| Whitelabel Downloadable Report in PDF Format |
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| Email PDF Report to Client |
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| Auto Schedule Report with Team and Client |
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| Custom Report Builder |
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| Learn More | Learn More | 14 Days Trial |
Hootsuite offers a comprehensive analytics suite that allows users to track performance across all major social platforms. It provides detailed reports on engagement, post reach, clicks, and follower growth, competitor analysis, and industry benchmarks and even offers sentiment analysis to grab audience reactions. Users can customize reports to focus on the main metrics, which makes it ideal for teams and enterprises that require tailored data. However, more advanced features like in-depth audience segmentation and ad performance tracking are available only in higher-tier plans.
Sprout Social is equally powerful and sturdy, offering a mix of pre-built and customizable reports. It includes all the main features, such as white labeling, email reports, auto-scheduling, and a custom report builder. Its main strength lies in detailed insights, particularly with social listening that tracks keywords and brand mentions across platforms, allowing businesses to understand the conversation around their brand. Sprout Social also provides detailed engagement metrics and competitive analysis, giving users a clear view of how their content stacks up against others in their industry. While Sprout Social provides exceptional analytics, these features come at a higher price point, especially compared to other tools on the market.
SocialPilot offers essential analytics features tailored for agencies and small businesses. It provides easy-to-read reports on metrics such as engagement, follower growth, and post-performance across multiple platforms. You can also see the best time to post on social media. Users can create reports with custom branding for clients, making it an appealing option for agencies managing multiple social profiles.
Inbox/Listening Capability Comparison
Now, let’s examine these tools’ listening capabilities. Being able to check and respond to all messages from one central dashboard is key for businesses that want to engage with their audience and craft a brand image. This demonstrates that you care about your customers and will go the extra mile to serve them the best experience.
Here is a feature comparison table to give you a high-level idea of how feature parity looks in both of these tools.
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| Can Reply to Messages |
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| Can Reply Questions and Reviews |
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| Can Reply on Visitor Posts |
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| Learn More | Learn More | 14 Days Trial |
Hootsuite provides key social listening and inbox features, allowing users to monitor mentions, comments, and messages across major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, and LinkedIn. The dashboard offers a clear view where users can track different conversations, keywords, and hashtags in real time. More advanced features like sentiment analysis and competitive listening are available but only in higher pricing plans.
Hootsuite’s unified inbox helps manage messages, allowing users to reply to comments and messages from one central dashboard. However, some users find the interface cluttered when managing multiple accounts or streams at once.
Sprout Social offers a more advanced set of listening features than Hootsuite. It allows users to monitor brand mentions, conversations, and keywords across a wide range of networks.
Sprout’s social listening capability is highly detailed compared to Hootsuite’s, providing sentiment analysis and a consolidated view of all social messages and interactions. However, some users have reported that the sentiment analysis on YouTube and other platforms is not accurate and that the listening feature is costlier than the competitors.
SocialPilot provides an easy-to-navigate social inbox that simplifies managing and replying to comments and messages across multiple platforms in one place. This makes it ideal for agencies that need efficient tools to handle large volumes of client messages and comments without any complexity or higher price tag.
When we talk about effective social media management, collaboration is essential because it ensures streamlined workflows, improves team efficiency, and improves consistency that aligns with your brand.
Take a look at our comparison table to know how these tools stack up against each other in essential collaboration features:
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| Free Unlimited Client Onboarding |
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| Per Post Multi-User Collaboration |
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| Access Management |
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| Content Approval Workflow |
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| Learn More | Learn More | 14 Days Trial |
When it comes to social media collaboration, Hootsuite offers an ideal solution for teams managing multiple social accounts. It allows users to assign specific roles and permissions, ensuring that tasks like post approvals and content creation are streamlined within teams. However, some of the more advanced collaboration features, such as approval workflows, all-in-one social inbox, and role-based access, are only available on higher-pricing plans. This can be a limitation for smaller teams or those on a budget.
Sprout Social, on the other hand, offers a versatile set of collaboration tools, making it ideal for larger teams and agencies. It shines in key areas like task management and multi-user collaboration, and these features are available on the lower-end plans. Its Smart Inbox also helps teams manage all social interactions from one place, streamlining workflows. However, Sprout Social’s higher price point can challenge smaller teams.
In contrast, SocialPilot provides a highly cost-effective alternative that offers key collaboration features like client approvals, role-based access, and post-approval workflows at a much more accessible price point. It is a great option for agencies and small to medium-sized teams that want effective collaboration on a budget.
Pricing
Now, coming to the main aspect of this Hootsuite and Sprout Social pricing comparison. We have created a breakdown of each platform’s pricing tiers to help you choose the best fit for your business:
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SproutSocial |
SocialPilot |
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Professional
$99/per month
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Standard
$249/per month
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Essentials
$30/per month
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Small Team
$249/per month
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Professional
$399/per month
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Standard
$50/per month
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Enterprise
Custom
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Advanced
$499/per month
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Premium
$100/per month
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Enterprise
Custom
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Ultimate
$200/per month
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30 Days Free Trial
Credit Card Required
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30 Days Free Trial
No Credit Card Required
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14 Days Free Trial
No Credit Card Required
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| Learn More | Learn More | Start Your free Trial |
Hootsuite offers 2 pricing plans, starting at $99/month for 1 user and 10 social media accounts for the Professional plan. The Team plan costs $249/month, adding more users, social media accounts, and features such as links in bio and assigning DMs to teammates. While the minimal pricing plan is more affordable than Sprout Social, it charges additional fees for advanced features like in-depth analytics, centralized inbox, and approval workflows.
Sprout Social starts at a significantly higher price point, with the Standard plan at $249/month for 1 user and 5 social accounts. The Professional plan starts at $399 per seat/month and offers features like social listening and competitive analysis. While Sprout Social offers rich features like CRM integration, Smart Inbox, and robust analytics, it can be overkill for smaller businesses. There are multiple budget-friendly alternatives to Sprout Social that can be more valuable for the money and offer similar core features.
SocialPilot offers a more optimal solution for small teams and agencies than pricier platforms like Hootsuite or Sprout Social. Its pricing starts at $30/per user/month for the Essentials plan, which includes 7 social accounts. For large teams who want to connect more users, the Standard plan costs just $50/2 users/month and includes up to 15 social accounts, offering ample room for collaboration. The Ultimate plan includes unlimited users, 50 social accounts, unlimited client onboarding, client approval, and White Labelling for agencies.
Customer Support
Finally, this is where most businesses are concerned: Customer Support. Here is a detailed analysis of their support strengths.
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| Live Chat Support |
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| Training |
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| Dedicated Account Manager |
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| Learn More | Learn More | 14 Days Trial |
Both Hootsuite and Sprout Social bring powerful support capabilities to the table for the customers. However, some of these, such as a Dedicated account manager are available on the higher tier plans.
For businesses and teams who require quick resolution of their support queries, SocialPilot can be a great addition. With all the major social media management capabilities, it also offers responsive customer support that’s one click away. You can get your queries resolved over a quick Live chat, email, and phone (24/5). If you get stuck while setting it up, the team quickly hops on a call to resolve it early and help you make the most of your social media game.
Final Verdict
Finally, what should you choose?
If you run an agency or a large enterprise, Hootsuite is a straightforward platform for managing multiple accounts, bulk scheduling, and basic analytics. However, advanced features such as in-depth analytics, CRM tools, sentiment analysis, and detailed reporting are only available on higher-priced plans.
Sprout Social, on the other side, stands out for its robust social media tool with CRM integration and detailed reporting, making it well-suited for larger enterprises and businesses. However, at $249/month for its base plan, Sprout Social can be expensive, especially for small teams that may not fully utilize these premium features.
However, other sprout social alternatives like SocialPilot can be a balanced option for agencies and SMBs, offering essential features like bulk scheduling, work approvals, client collaboration, and white labeling. This makes it a smart choice for businesses focused on efficient social management within a manageable budget.
