Hootsuite vs Sprout Social: Choose the finest social media tool to help you succeed
We made the decision to officially compare Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social. I work in social media, so I’ve used a lot of tools for managing social media, such as Tweepi and Buffer, but my two favorite platforms are Social Sprout and Hootsuite.
Despite having more formal experience with Hootsuite, I have chosen to use Social Sprout whenever possible for managing personal social media initiatives and have used it at work for the past year.
You can schedule Facebook posts, respond to messages, and examine your social media audiences using both platforms, but there is a better option available. The matchup between Sprout Social and Hootsuite that we have all been waiting for has finally arrived.
Comparison between Hootsuite vs Sprout Social
Who is targeting Sprout Social?
For medium-sized to large organizations with many social media profiles on each platform and multiple members of a social media management team, Sprout Social is an excellent choice. Sprout Social is among the greatest solutions available because of its functionality for managing social networks, posting, and reporting.
Many individuals and businesses find Sprout Social appealing, yet some are excluded by its cost. The starting price for this platform is an incredible $99 per month for each user, and the price increases with each succeeding tier.
Its pricing puts it in the near-enterprise range of expensive, despite its great functionality, user-friendliness, and intuitive design.
Hootsuite is for whom?
Hootsuite is an excellent all-around social media management platform for organizations and individuals of all kinds due to its range of features, integrations, publishing options, and even its pricing. And the most compelling aspect of those is the cost of Hootsuite.
Not only are all tiers reasonably priced in light of all the features offered by the platform, but they also provide a free alternative with restricted capability for individuals who are new to social media management.
Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Features
Arguably, one of the most crucial subjects in any platform comparison is features. Which social media management platform offers the most functionalities for carrying out your advertising campaigns?
What Sprout Social offers
Social Sprout is an all-in-one platform for managing social media that can do almost everything you ask of it. Social Sprout can help, regardless of whether you need to plan a posting campaign weeks in ahead or want to do a thorough social media audit with detailed data.
All of the main elements of your social media campaigns are summarized in the Sprout Social dashboard, from channel messages and posting to-do lists to daily interaction metrics and today’s posts.
It’s the ideal way to start the day by catching up on everything you’ll be working on.
Beyond the dashboard, there are a plethora of other tools available, ranging from basic posting methods to an intricate Sprout Social calendar that allows you to plan and keep an eye on your social media feeds well in advance.
When compared to Hootsuite’s more cluttered social dashboards for post tracking, I really appreciate how clearly Sprout Social implemented the social media content calendar.
Sprout Social excels at social listening, but it also offers post automation, team workflows for managing your social media activities, and even an internal inbox for coordinating your marketing strategy.
You can plan a great campaign by keeping an eye on your own metrics, but you can also gain deep insights into the topics that your audience is discussing.
These social listening tools will compile data from social media posts that are pertinent to your sector and issues, and they will generate reports on emerging trends that you should include in your messaging.
What Hootsuite offers
As one might anticipate from a social media management platform, Hootsuite has all the standard functions, including social analytics, team administration, post scheduling, feed monitoring, and post sharing.
Using Hootsuite for some of my marketing contract work has allowed me to accomplish all the tasks necessary to carry out a thorough social media marketing plan.
The social media analytics division at Hootsuite is the one area where I think there is room for improvement. When connecting to services like YouTube, I’ve experienced problems finding the information I require in Hootsuite reporting—that is, assuming the data is even included in the analytics reports.
When you pay for a platform to manage all of your social media accounts in one location, it might be a little annoying to have to resort to the native social analytics dashboards.
Results
Although the feature lists of these two platforms are similar, Sprout Social surpasses Hootsuite thanks to its greater social listening capabilities and better analytics reporting.
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Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Support
Which platform will provide you with the assistance you require to address your issues and get the answers you seek when times are tough?
What Sprout Social offers
As one might anticipate from a software company, Sprout Social provides phone support, email inquiries, webinars, Q&A sessions, and a platform knowledge base, among other forms of assistance.
Regardless of the urgency of your questions, you can either file issues or obtain solutions with this level of service. It’s nice that Sprout Social Support responds to inquiries from customers via social media as needed.
What Hootsuite offers
Hootsuite provides three different kinds of customer service. Although there isn’t a typical phone option available for any of these help channels, you can still discover the answers to your issues.
The feedback button that is included into the program itself is the first and most fundamental kind of assistance. Using this button, you may provide Hootsuite comments describing your thoughts about the platform in no more than 500 characters.
The knowledge base, which offers assistance articles for a variety of platform queries, is the second format. The Hootsuite website’s help section contains a support ticket form, which is the last avenue of assistance. You can register and manage all of your issues with the support team in one location by using our ticket system.
Results
Sprout Social wins in terms of customer service. Although Hootsuite provides its users with a good amount of support, Sprout Social’s wide range of options is difficult to match.
Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Usability
Features and integrations mean nothing if the product you’re using is hard to use, cumbersome, and complicated. Which social media marketing tool is more user-friendly?
What Sprout Social offers
One of the easiest social media management platforms I’ve ever used is Sprout Social. There are very few bugs, nothing is difficult to locate, and the reporting features are simple to use and comprehend.
There’s a common misconception that enterprise-level software is inherently complex. Unlike Sprout Social, no. With its intuitive features, pre-made social analytics reports, and pre-populated, automatic social responses for your account inboxes, it completely defies this idea.
With its straightforward functionality, this social media management tool is intended for larger enterprises but can also be used by anyone.
What Hootsuite offers
Reading through the feature lists and uncluttered website might lead you to believe that Hootsuite is a straightforward tool, but there’s more to this platform than meets the eye. Not that Hootsuite is hard to use; nonetheless, Sprout Social is more user-friendly than Hootsuite.
In addition, I’ve found that Hootsuite can be glitchy and slow at times, which is annoying when I have other things to do besides reconnecting and deleting social media accounts that won’t load into the app.
Using Hootsuite is easy because all of your features and tools are located on the left-hand sidebar. The only problems with this platform are periodic bugs that could irritate users occasionally and dashboard clutter.
I’m obviously not a software developer, but who knows? Maybe some of these vulnerabilities come from the social networks themselves. The fact that I’ve never had these problems with Sprout Social also points to a few problems that still need to be fixed to enhance the Hootsuite user experience.
Results
Although Hootsuite offers a respectable experience for the majority of users, Sprout Social is the better solution in this category because of its exceptional ease of use.
Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Pricing
No matter how functional the program is, it won’t matter until it fits into your budget. What is the cost comparison between Hootsuite and Sprout Social?
What Sprout Social offers
Sprout Social isn’t quite the ideal social media management tool in this particular sector. Although it’s true that you get what you pay for, I’m not sure Sprout Social’s price is appropriate. Certainly not to this extent:
- Standard: $99 per user per month Five social media accounts, a single social media inbox, publishing tools, a content calendar, tools for tracking profiles and keywords, social CRM, thorough reporting, paid advertising, and mobile apps
- Expert: $149 per user each month: All of the aforementioned capabilities plus ten social media profiles, reports on competitions, content tagging, personalized workflows, ideal post scheduling, reports on response rates, time and trend analyses, sponsored social media reporting, and help desk integration
- Advanced: The capabilities listed above plus ten social accounts, message spike warnings, a digital asset library, chatbot automation, suggested responses, an automated inbox rule builder, custom URL tracking, and Twitter surveys are included in the $249/month Advanced plan.
Don’t get me wrong, Sprout Social’s offerings have really impressed me. However, I’m not convinced if Twitter surveys, asset libraries, and personalized URL monitoring are worth the extra $150 per user each month over the already pricey Standard plan.
Although I don’t frequently call software pricing “excessive,” in this instance I believe the phrase is appropriate.
What Hootsuite offers
However, as compared to Sprout Social, Hootsuite’s pricing is more affordable. To begin with, Hootsuite does in fact provide a free version that lets you link three social media accounts and schedule thirty posts a month.
When you’ve outgrown the free option, the paid tiers begin at just $29/month and include more capabilities, but they are still user-only, just like the free version.
However, once you choose one of Hootsuite’s higher feature packages, the cost does increase significantly:
- Free: one user, three social profiles, and thirty scheduled posts every month
- Professional: $29/month: $500 monthly ad spend cap, 10 social accounts, 1 user, infinite scheduling, social analytics, bulk scheduling, and RSS integrations
- Team: $129/month: 20 social media accounts, limitless scheduling, three users, personalized analytics reports, group tasks, one custom URL, one Hootsuite platform accreditation, and a $2,000 monthly maximum for ad spending
- Business: $599/month; includes 35 social media profiles, $5,000 monthly ad spend cap, analytics exporting, publishing approvals, app connectors, custom branded URLs, and up to 10 users.
- Enterprise: Agreed upon a customized solution with the user
Even if the cost does increase significantly after reaching the Professional tier, it is still far less expensive per user than Sprout Social.
Results
Hootsuite price is superior in almost every way. Sprout Social’s pricing seems exorbitant in compared to Hootsuite’s due to the abundance of features available on the former, such as its free option and the platform’s per-user costs.
Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Other Software integration
It’s a truth that in order to effectively post, schedule, and analyze your marketing activities, all social management platforms need integrations. Which platform therefore offers you a greater selection of options?
What Sprout Social offers
All of the main social networks and a plethora of well-known tools are integrated with Sprout Social, including:
Social
- YouTube
- Google My Business
- Trip Advisor
Tools
- Zendesk
- Bitly
- Google Analytics
- UserVoice
- Feedly
- Hubspot
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
What Hootsuite offers
Hootsuite excels thanks to its extensive array of software partnerships, apps, and social network integrations, which includes:
Social
- YouTube
- Google My Business
Tools
- Zendesk
- Trello
- Slack
- Adobe
- Salesforce
- Strava
- ReviewTrackers
Hootsuite offers a plethora of integrations for marketing, teamwork, and analytics requirements.
Results
There is a tie! Both programs have a long list of external connectors and are integrated with numerous social networks.
Sprout Social vs. Hootsuite: Getting started
Which of the two rivals’ onboarding processes is the least complicated and will get you up and running fastest?
What Sprout Social offers
Sprout Social’s startup procedure was really simple. After providing my email and other necessary details, I was able to utilize the tool in less than five minutes. I loaded all of my social media posts and data in a matter of minutes, and the setup process for linking my social networks was quite simple.
It’s nice to have a beginning procedure that doesn’t require a lengthy instruction to grasp the fundamentals.
What Hootsuite offers
Although creating a new account and entering information during the Hootsuite beginning process was similar to Sprout Social, I didn’t think the social network integration procedure was done as well as it could have been.
I’ve created Hootsuite accounts before, but each time I’ve tried to join, I’ve only been able to connect my social networks—Facebook in particular—with difficulty. In principle, this process would be easy if I could connect everything to Hootsuite without any problems or sluggish loading times.
Results
With Sprout Social, the onboarding process is more seamless and error-free. The user experience drives the difference more so than the process phases.
Finlae Thought
In terms of features, usability, support, onboarding, and user experience, Sprout Social is the undisputed winner. When it comes to an almost perfect user experience, Sprout Social is the best choice between the two, making it a fantastic choice for both novice and seasoned social media managers.
But cost is the main area where Hootsuite surpasses Sprout Social. In terms of value, Hootsuite surpasses Sprout Social in almost every aspect, including its free option and cheaper cost per user. In the end, the question is which is more important to your business: cost or features and user experience?