Whether you are a B2B or B2C business, social media has become one of the most effective ways to market and sell your products and services. Start with viral beauty productsTik TokAlmost any product or service can benefit from social media promotion, from innovative technological solutions on LinkedIn.
However, social media management can be a time-consuming task. This is why many companies usesocial media management tools;to simplify the process. Hootsuite and Sprout Social are two of the most popular options, and each provider offers unique benefits for a wide variety of businesses. When comparing the features and pricing of Hootsuite and Sprout Social, keep your business's unique needs in mind.
Jump to:
- What is Hootsuite?
- What is Sprout Social?
- Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Post-Planning
- Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Analyze
- Hootsuite and Sprout Social: Collaboration Tools
- Hootsuite og Sprout Social: Integration
- Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Social Listening
- How to choose between Hootsuite and Sprout Social
What is Hootsuite?
HootsuiteIt has been around for over a decade. Its functionality was initially focused on Twitter, but quickly expanded to support all major social media platforms. Hootsuite is particularly popular because it integrates with many applications that businesses already use, including productivity tools,Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System., and more.

Hootsuite can be used to:
- Create and schedule posts.
- Manage incoming messages on social media platforms.
- Optimize your social media campaigns with recommendations on post times and trends.
- Monitor content and paid advertising performance with detailed analytics and reports.
They are received
The company offers a variety of pricing options and packages to suit different business needs and sizes. Here's the Hootsuite pricing breakdown:
- Free Plan: Free. Include a user with up to two social media accounts.
- Professional plan: $49 per month on annual billing. Includes 1 user and up to 10 social accounts.
- Group plan: $129 per month on annual pricing. Includes up to 3 users and up to 20 social accounts.
- Business plan: $739 per month on annual pricing. Includes 5 users and up to 35 social accounts.
- Enterprise Plan: Pricing varies and adjusts to business needs. Designed for businesses with a large number of users or accounts.
What is Sprout Social?
developing societyIt offers a broad set of features that allow businesses to optimize their social media strategies and content. The platform has a very user-friendly user interface and provides powerful data insights to help businesses understand the performance of their social media strategies.

Sprout Social can be used to:
- Publishing and scheduling posts.
- Monitor conversations and trends with social listening tools.
- Benefit from detailed social media analytics and reporting.
- Engage with your customers and followers.
They are received
Sprout Social doesn't offer a free plan, but they do offer a free trial. They have three paid plans:
- Standard plan: $89 per user per month on annual pricing. Include up to 5 social profiles.
- Professional plan: $149 per user per month on annual pricing. Contains up to 10 social profiles.
- Premium Plan: $249 per user per month on annual pricing. Contains up to 10 social profiles.
Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Post-Planning
Both Hootsuite and Sprout Social allow users to schedule posts and messages across major social media platforms. They also offer all the post timing suggestions to help your content reach a wider audience and increase engagement.
Hootsuite is the best choice if you want to schedule multiple posts at once. While both offer unlimited manual posting, Sprout Social has a limit of 10 scheduled posts per day. Manual publishing can take a significant amount of time, so limitations in batch scheduling capabilities can create serious productivity issues in the long run. This is especially true for startups or very small businesses.
Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Analyze
Hootsuite offers powerful reporting and analytics, but you'll need to pay for a more expensive plan or a special add-on to access many of the service's best analytics features. E.g,Hootsuite effectsis an analytics tool that helps you measure and demonstrate the ROI of your social media efforts, which is great for businesses that need clear data for decision making. However, this feature is only available on business or enterprise plans.
Sprout Social also has a powerful analytics dashboard that allows users to easily create custom reports. Their platform is very data-centric, offering reports on job performance, trends, competitor comparisons, and employee activity metrics. Sprout Social does a great job of providing sophisticated reporting while maintaining a user-friendly interface that doesn't overwhelm new users.
Hootsuite provides basicscollaboration toolIt allows users to review and edit each other's work before posts are made public. They also have team assignment tools so teams can delegate social media tasks and direct incoming messages or customer questions to the right team member.
It's worth noting that Hootsuite's higher-tier plans include multiple users rather than being charged per user. user as Sprout Social. This makes Hootsuite more accessible for larger teams.
Sprout Social also includes group assignments and tasks, as well as group and task reports. These reports can help managers or small business owners understand how effectively specific team members are responding to incoming messages or performing social media tasks.
Plus, Sprout Social has content authentication so you can implement security measures to ensure all content has the right branding and messaging.
Hootsuite og Sprout Social: Integration
Both platforms integrate with all the major social media platforms that businesses regularly use:
- Youtube
- Google Commerce
Neither service integrates well with TikTok, so you'll need to use the app's native creator and business tools to manually publish those videos and track analytics.
Hootsuite and Sprout Social offer many third-party software integrations, including CRM systems, productivity tools, and social business tools. Hootsuite offers over 150 integrations so you can search for your favorite software optionsherSee if they can integrate with Hootsuite. Sprout Social offers far fewer integrations to exploreher.
Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Social Listening
Social listening is the practice of monitoring conversations related to your business, your industry, or topics related to your brand. It helps you keep track of what everyone is talking about, even if they don't tag you. This helps you track trends, optimize your content for popular keywords, and stay up-to-date on any conversations about your business.
Both solutions have decent trend tracking and reporting capabilities. Hootsuite offers powerful social listening capabilities for small businesses just getting started with social listening. However, Sprout Social offers more advanced social listening capabilities, including industry or event-specific tools that can help you drill down and get more effective data.
How to choose between Hootsuite and Sprout Social
Each of these solutions offers powerful social media management capabilities that you can use to improve your digital marketing strategy and social media presence.
While you may be happy with either option, there are some important factors to consider when choosing between the two services, including:
- your budget.Hootsuite offers a free plan, and its plans are generally cheaper than similar plans from Sprout Social.
- The size of your team.Sprout Social has slightly more powerful collaboration tools, but it can be expensive for teams because you have to pay for each additional user separately.
- necessary integration.Both offer a variety of third-party integrations, but Hootsuite has a larger network of partners. The right solution will integrate with the CMS, design, commerce and productivity tools you already use to run your business.
If you want to dig deeper into insights, automate messaging and engagement, leverage advanced social listening capabilities, and create organized team workflows, Sprout Social is a stronger contender. Hootsuite is a better value for smaller businesses with smaller budgets and a greater focus on post-launch and planning.
If you're still not sure which solution is right for you, you can compare Hootsuite and Sprout Social with other providers on our list.
FAQs
Hootsuite vs Sprout Social: Comparing Social Media Management Tools? ›
You'll pay a flat rate for Hootsuite Professional, Team, and Business and get up to five user seats with no extra fee. Sprout charges up to $349 per month per additional user. Hootsuite's team plans support between three and five users, while Sprout's support only one.
What is the comparison of Sprout Social to Hootsuite? ›You'll pay a flat rate for Hootsuite Professional, Team, and Business and get up to five user seats with no extra fee. Sprout charges up to $349 per month per additional user. Hootsuite's team plans support between three and five users, while Sprout's support only one.
Why sprout is better than Hootsuite? ›Hootsuite offers live chat support, but does not offer either phone or email support, landing it a score of 5.5 out of 10 for customer support. Sprout is the reverse: It offers both phone and email support, but not live chat, securing a score of 7.8 out of 10 in our research.
Why is Sprout Social better? ›Sprout Social is an impressively comprehensive social media software, covering everything from publishing through to social listening and reporting. Its interface is intuitive, it offers effective collaboration tools, and there is even a free one-month trial. Rating image, 4.10 out of 5 stars.
What is sprout and Hootsuite? ›Hootsuite provides brand mention alerts and sentiment analysis available only as add-ons for Business or Enterprise plan users. Sprout Social offers an exceptional social listening feature as an add-on. It tracks mentions of your brand across channels and pulls them for review.
Is Hootsuite a social media management tools? ›Discover what's ahead for social marketing, commerce, and customer service. Hootsuite is awesome for planning out social media posts and it's great if you run multiple social media accounts for your business. They've helped us become much more efficient—our whole business is better off because of them.
Who are competitors to Sprout Social? ›- Zoho Social.
- Hootsuite.
- Salesforce Social Studio (Legacy)
- Sprinklr Social.
- Khoros Social Marketing.
- Adobe Social (Legacy)
- Hearsay Social.
- Unbound Social.
Hootsuite stands out as one of the most comprehensive social media management tools on the list. Along with its competitors, Hootsuite lets users schedule social media content in advance, select times when their audience is most likely to be engaged and use an interactive planner to review scheduled content.
Is sprout a CRM tool? ›Sprout's social CRM tools provide contextual information to help teams resolve support issues, nurture prospective leads and deliver an exceptional brand experience.
Who are competitors of Hootsuite? ›- Zoho Social.
- Sprout Social.
- Salesforce Social Studio (Legacy)
- Sprinklr Social.
- Khoros Social Marketing.
- Adobe Social (Legacy)
- Hearsay Social.
- Unbound Social.
Who is Hootsuite best for? ›
Hootsuite is best for businesses that need an all-in-one social media management tool that will integrate with a wide range of social networks. The entry-level packages are priced sensibly and provide access to a great platform for publishing and monitoring social media content.
What are the downsides of Sprout Social? ›Limited number of social networks. Unlike Hootsuite, Sprout Social limits user access to four social networks — Twitter, Facebook (page and user profile), Google+ page, LinkedIn (company page and user profile) — and a single Feedly RSS reader account. The platform does not integrate with Pinterest or Instagram.
What makes Sprout Social different? ›Sprout Social allows you to schedule content across all of your social media profiles, and see everything from a single calendar. Learn more about our social media scheduling features. Can you schedule tweets with Sprout Social? Yes.
What are the cons of sprout? ›Raw sprouts are very rich in antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes. On the negative side, the dangers of eating sprouts include sickness from salmonella poisoning and exposure to potentially deadly strains of bacteria such as E. coli (Escherichia coli).
What can Hootsuite not do? ›- You can't assign user roles.
- You can't view live team activity.
- You can't view team statistics.
- There is no team audit trail.
- There is no team publishing workflow.
Create, schedule, publish, and manage your content and ad campaigns across social networks from a single dashboard. We help maximize the impact of your social marketing by providing real-time insights, so you can focus on other areas of your business.
Do companies use Hootsuite? ›Around the world in 2023, over 19941 companies have started using Hootsuite as social-media tool. Companies using Hootsuite for social-media are majorly from United States with 15847 customers. 59.94% of Hootsuite customers are from the United States.
Which social media management tool has the best analytics? ›One of the best social media analytics tools is Cyfe – a business dashboard tool. It syncs up data from many, many, many marketing tools in one place.
What tools should a social media manager have? ›- Google Analytics. Google Analytics is the most popular social media management tool to track campaign performance and measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
- Hootsuite. ...
- Facebook Insights. ...
- Buffer. ...
- Canva. ...
- Sendible. ...
- HubSpot.
30,000 organizations and brands of all sizes rely on Sprout
Some of Sprout Social's customers include: Evernote, the Denver Nuggets, Edelman, Subaru, the University of Pennsylvania, NBC Universal, the City of Las Vegas, Glassdoor, Loews Hotels, Vice, Shopify, and Havas.
Does Salesforce own Sprout Social? ›
Sprout Social is Salesforce's preferred social media management solution. This global partnership creates one centralized location for Salesforce customers to gain a full 360-degree customer view, deliver world-class social customer care and turn social data into critical insights.
What are the top 3 fast growing social networks? ›Among leading social platforms, the networks with the highest growth rates between 2020 and 2022 were TikTok/Douyin, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter.
Is Hootsuite free anymore? ›We are saying goodbye to the Hootsuite Free plan. If you're a Free plan customer, you'll need to upgrade to a Professional plan to continue using Hootsuite. We'll begin restricting Free accounts that haven't upgraded on March 31, 2023.
What are the Instagram limitations for Hootsuite? ›Instagram: 2,200 characters per post. Twitter: 280 characters per tweet. LinkedIn: 3,000 characters per post. TikTok: 150 characters per post.
Which is the top rated social media marketing platform? ›- Loomly. ...
- Brand24. ...
- AgoraPulse. ...
- Iconosquare. ...
- NapoleonCat. ...
- Visme. ...
- Audiense. ...
- Planoly. Trusted and loved by 5+ million users, Planoly is a comprehensive platform that you can use to plan and schedule your content on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook.
sproutsocial.com Ranking
Website ranking helps evaluate the value of a business. Over the last three months, sproutsocial.com's global ranking has increased from 30,020 to 23,469.
No half-measures – every part of Sprout Social's platform is brilliant. Post tagging makes it easier to manage your social media content. Scheduling posts (via content calendar) is very user-friendly. Reporting and analytics offer a large number of reports and offer excellent insights.
What companies use sprout? ›Company | Website | Company Size |
---|---|---|
BIPARTISAN POLICY CENTER INC | bipartisanpolicy.org | 50-200 |
Search Engine Optimization, Inc. | seoinc.com | 500-1000 |
California State University-Stanislaus | csustan.edu | 1000-5000 |
Blackfriars Group | blackfriarsgroup.com | >10000 |
In January 2010, the Hootsuite company was spun out of Invoke Media after venture capital firms Blumberg Capital and Hearst Interactive Media raised $2 million in financing for the company.
Who is Hootsuite owned by? ›In this burgeoning world of social media, Hootsuite Founder and CEO Ryan Holmes saw a need.
Does Hootsuite work with TikTok? ›
When you add a TikTok account to Hootsuite, you can schedule and publish videos to it, engage with your audience, create analytics reports, and more. Super admins, admins, and those with custom organization permissions to Add Social Networks can add social accounts to organizations.
What technology does Hootsuite use? ›Hootsuite uses 161 technology products and services including HTML5 , jQuery , and Google Analytics , according to G2 Stack. Hootsuite is actively using 167 technologies for its website, according to BuiltWith.
What are the pros about sprout? ›Sprout Social's scheduling functionality allows us to post to multiple accounts simultaneously or at different times based on priority. Sprout Social lets us schedule posts, generate reports, analyze data, and makes teamwork easy.
Why is Sprout Social not working? ›If you're experiencing issues with Sprout Social, it might be a browser issue. Ensure you're using the latest version of your browser, and then perform a hard refresh or clear your cache.
Can you post from Sprout Social? ›Here's how to create scheduled Facebook posts with Sprout: Click the Compose icon to open the Compose window. Click the Profile Picker to select the Facebook pages for your post. Create your post.
Why don't some people like sprouts? ›A 2011 study by Cornwall College found that sprouts contain a chemical, similar to phenylthiocarbamide, which only tastes bitter to people who have a variation of a certain gene. The research found that around 50 per cent of the world's population have a mutation on this gene.
What are two examples of Sprout? ›Vegetable or leafy sprouts: Such as radish, broccoli, beet, mustard green, clover, cress and fenugreek sprouts. Nut and seed sprouts: Such as almond, radish seed, alfalfa seed, pumpkin seed, sesame seed or sunflower seed sprouts.
How many users can use Sprout Social? ›With the Standard Plan in Sprout, you can: Connect up to five of your social profiles. View messages you receive from those profiles in the Smart Inbox. Publish, schedule, draft and queue posts for your profiles using the Publishing Calendar.
What are the side effects of sprout? ›Side-Effects & Allergies of Sprouts
Sprouts have been found to cause salmonella, e coli bacteria and virus attack in the body. This is caused when low quality sprouts are used. People have developed bouts of fever and diarrhea when low quality sprouts were consumed, and some people developed abdominal cramps.
Sprouts grown in the home also present a risk if eaten raw. Many outbreaks have been attributed to contaminated seed. If pathogenic bacteria are present in or on seed, they can grow to high levels during sprouting even under clean conditions.
How much sprouts per day? ›
You can consume 100 to 150 grams of sprouts daily. They can be consumed at any time during the day. Other than weight loss, sprouts also help in improving your cholesterol levels, heart health, immunity, vision, and even digestion.
What is the 80 20 rule in Hootsuite? ›If you're starting from scratch and you're simply not sure what types of content to post, try the 80-20 rule: 80 percent of your posts should inform, educate, or entertain your audience. 20 percent can directly promote your brand.
Can Hootsuite manage Facebook pages? ›Add a Facebook group or Page to Hootsuite to manage it from the same place as your other social media accounts. When you add a Facebook account to Hootsuite, you can publish to it, engage with your audience, create reports, and more.
What time is best to post on Hootsuite? ›For example, the Hootsuite social team likes to post at times that work for both the Eastern and Pacific time zones in North America, since that's where many of Hootsuite's Facebook followers are based. That means 6:15 a.m. PST, 9:15 a.m. PST and 12-12:30 p.m. PST are usually the best posting times.
How often should you post on social media Hootsuite? ›He suggests sharing a couple of in-feed posts per week and a couple of stories per day. Hootsuite suggests posting on Instagram three to seven times per week. And remember: Don't post more than once per day.
Why is buffer better than Hootsuite? ›The simple answer is: Buffer is better for small organizations that are just looking for a scheduling tool with a few extra features; Hootsuite is for larger organizations that want a robust social media management tool, especially those that want conversation management.
Is Hootsuite a CRM system? ›Social Media Dashboard HootSuite adds Social CRM Tools and Advanced Statistical Tracking.
Does Hootsuite do media monitoring? ›Stay on top of things with social listening tools. Find out what people are saying about your brand, monitor trends, and keep an eye on the competition with social media monitoring from Hootsuite.
What are Big 4 social media tools? ›There are a lot of social networks out there today, but the “big 4” are definitely the ones you hear about the most.
What is the most popular social media tool today? ›Facebook is the largest social networking site, with nearly 3 billion people using it monthly.
What are the three social media tools? ›
Generally, there are three kinds of social media tools. Listening platforms, publishing platforms, and competitive analysis platforms.
Is Hootsuite good for analytics? ›Getting insightful reports is quick and easy with Hootsuite Analytics. Your dashboard shows all your data for accounts across all your social networks. Plus, it allows you to create attractive and skimmable social media analytics reports to share with your team. Cue the snaps from your boss.
Which social media management tool is best for small business? ›- Zoho Social – Best for small businesses.
- HubSpot – Best customer support options.
- Hootsuite – Best for solo users.
- Sendible – Best for functionality.
- Loomly – Best for Snapchat and TikTok.
- Sprout Social – Best for mid-sized businesses.
What does a social media manager do? Social media managers are ordinarily responsible for developing strategies to increase followers, creating and overseeing social campaigns, producing content, reviewing analytics, and communicating with key stakeholders in a company.
Do I need a social media management tool? ›Social media management tools are a necessity for businesses that want to succeed on social media. These tools help you save time and improve your online presence. There are many different social media management tools available, so find the one that works best for you and start using it today!
Which social media post scheduling is best? ›- SproutSocial.
- Agorapulse.
- Tailwind.
- Social Pilot.
- MeetEdgar.
- Sendible.
- Planable.
- SocialBee.
Benchmark your social presence with Sprout's Competitive Analysis Listening tool, which offers a side-by-side competitor comparison of key performance metrics across social, including share of voice, engagement, sentiment and impressions.
Can you track competitors on Hootsuite? ›Hootsuite Analytics does Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter competitive analysis for you. You can track up to 20 competitors per network, and get a clear view of your strengths and weaknesses — plus actionable insights on the top posts, hashtags, and types of content in your niche.
Is there a free version of Sprout Social? ›Try Sprout Social for free with a 30-day trial
Pull reports, access social analytics and schedule messages across all your social profiles within a few minutes of getting started—no credit card required.
- SocialPilot.
- Hootsuite.
- Buffer.
- Tailwind.
- Sendible.
- Later.
- Hopper HQ.
- Sked Social.
How do you successfully manage multiple social media accounts at once? ›
- Document Your Social Media Strategy. ...
- Use Social Media Management Software. ...
- Create an Editorial Calendar. ...
- Monitor Social Media Activity and Engage. ...
- Analyze Your Social Media Strategy.
Hootsuite allows you to keep your eye on multiple platforms at the same time! This means you can check in on major platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, but at the same time look at other platforms you may be just beginning to use.
What is the comparison period in Sprout Social? ›You can compare data from a range of time with other data trailing from a previous time period in Sprout Social. This helps you to better understand data trends by comparing an Activity Date Range that you select against the same amount of time previous to your selected range.
Is Sprout Social a listening tool? ›And with Sprout's built-in templates, you can start listening ASAP. These listening tools are a powerful complement to our extensive social monitoring features. You can get a comprehensive view of keywords, campaigns and brands across platforms.
What is the downside of Hootsuite? ›One of the biggest "cons" of Hootsuite is that there are so many features that it's almost impossible for social media marketers to master them all. Another con is the price---it's more expensive than most other social media schedulers.
What are the limitations of Hootsuite? ›Limit or requirement | Description |
---|---|
Number of streams | You can add a maximum of 10 streams to each board. |
Number of scheduled posts displayed | Streams displays up to 100 scheduled posts. This applies to scheduled Facebook posts, tweets, Instagram posts, and LinkedIn posts. |