Overview
What is Hootsuite Used For?
Hootsuite is a market leader among social media management tools that helps businesses to manage their social media marketing activities from a single space. With a versatile set of features to automate and streamline social media activities, it makes complicated tasks achievable in a shorter time.
Social media management entails many activities, including planning your content strategy, scheduling your posts, monitoring analytics, listening to conversations online, and much more. Well, Hootsuite does it all. It also lets the users onboard their team members and clients into the workflow and collaborate successfully.
Hootsuite will enable you to run multiple social media accounts from a single dashboard as it supports many significant social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube. So all you have to do is connect accounts from these platforms, and you’ll hold all their controls from your Hootsuite account.
According to users’ opinions, Hootsuite has a very intricate UI, which, if mastered, can make the tool a great asset. But it takes a lot of time to learn the tool thoroughly.
What is Sprout Social?
Sprout Social also is a social media management tool. And just like Hootsuite, it is a multipurpose tool that can take care of all facets of social media marketing. Sprout Social integrates multiple social platforms so you can manage them all from a single space.
The tool supports Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Youtube, TikTok, Facebook Messenger, Google Business Profile, and Whatsapp. Other than these social platforms, Sprout Social also accumulates many other app integrations like Canva, Bitly, Google Analytics, Feedly, Salesforce Cloud Intelligence, and many more. Together, these help users scale up their overall marketing efforts to a greater extent.
Industry pros prefer Sprout Social because of its commendable strength in data and analytics. Few Sprout Social alternatives can match what it offers in its robust data-backed insights, which in turn support and strengthen its various other capabilities. And another notable feature of the tool is its social listening. You can engage with your audience proactively and monitor your brand image in the public eye from Sprout Social. This also makes for excellent customer care.
When you go to publish a post, the tool tells you the best possible time to schedule it for!
Best Suitable for
Hootsuite
Start with $99
Professionals, Brands, Big Businesses, and Enterprises.
SproutSocial
Start with $249
Small Business, Enterprise, Agencies
SocialPilot
Start with $30
Marketing Agencies, SMBs, Multi-Location Brands & Professionals
At a Glance
If we compare some of the basic but essential facts about these tools, it will become apparent that Hootsuite and Sprout Social have different strengths and weaknesses.
Hootsuite has a slightly lower overall star rating than Sprout Social. As mentioned earlier, Hootsuite is a difficult tool to get used to. So Sprout Social scores higher in ease of its setup process, usability, as well as quality of its customer support than Hootsuite.
Note: Compared to Hootsuite or Sprout Social, SocialPilot is a much more user-friendly tool, scoring higher than the other two in ease of use, support, and the setup process.
Have a look at the user ratings of Hootsuite vs Sprout Social along with SocialPilot to get a clearer view.
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Hootsuite |
SproutSocial |
SocialPilot |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Reviews | 4591 | 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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| Analytics |
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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 |
Quick Comparison
Now, let’s dive a little deeper into the specifics to get a clearer picture to see which tool comes out on top.
If you compare it to Hootsuite, the tool itself is priced fairly high, but Sprout Social’s primary paid plans seem to leave the former in the dust. However, Hootsuite charges a whopping $739 per month for its Business pack, while Sprout Social’s Advanced plan costs $499 for the same time.
If we talk about the broader spectrum of features related to a social media management tool, both these tools have all of them.
When comparing Sprout Social vs Hootsuite, both the tools have users worldwide, but only Sprout Social supports multiple languages, including English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. In the case of customer support, both tools provide email and chat support. But only Hootsuite provides support through tweets. Another aspect that Sprout Social lacks from Hootsuite is providing white-label solutions. Any marketing agency using Hootsuite can customize its tool to give its clients a branded experience, but Sprout Social doesn’t possess that ability.
However, it’s hard not to mention that SocialPilot provides all the features, including white-label, making a great Hootsuite alternative at an unbelievable price!
Note: Despite having a much lower price point, SocialPilot trumps the other two in customer support. It has a very active support team, available to all its users through chat, email, and phone calls. They even help out with customer queries on social media platforms.
Have a look at all the notable features, Hootsuite vs Sprout Social along with SocialPilot to get a direct perspective.
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Hootsuite |
SproutSocial |
SocialPilot |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Can't Miss to Compare | |||
| Minimum Pricing | $99/Month | $249/Month | $30/Month |
| Number of Accounts | 10 | 5 | 10 |
| Number of Team Members | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Number of Posts that Can Be Scheduled | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Core Capabilities | |||
| Scheduling & Publishing |
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| Analytics |
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| Inbox |
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| Collaboration |
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| Competitor Tracking |
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| Localization | English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish | English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish | German, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish |
| Support | Email, Chat, Tweet for Support | Priority Email & Chat Support | Email, Chat, Social Media, Phone |
| Learn More | Learn More | 14 Days Trial | |
Reviews
Positive
- With Hootsuite, you can effortlessly manage and schedule posts on multiple social networks in one place, saving your time and increasing your social media productivity.
- It has a 30-days free trial for marketers who are getting started and also has a Hootsuite academy that provides all resources about social media management.
- Hootsuite has a feature that helps you import and schedule reports on a weekly and monthly basis. These reports can be customized as well.
Negative
- Hootsuite has a limitation of size for uploading, due to which you can't schedule large files such as animations.
- Hootsuite price is on the higher end, making it an unaffordable software for smaller businesses and digital marketing agencies. Many other social media management softwares are available at lower prices.
- Sometimes the social profiles get occasionally disconnected from the platform, and it is difficult to reconnect the profiles.
Positive
- You can streamline social media conversations with Sprout Social's unified message inbox, allowing you to view and respond to messages from multiple networks and searches all in one convenient place.
- Sprout Social gives you good experience in social media management with it's user-friendly interface. The platform is intuitive and straightforward, making it easy for you to manage your social media presence with ease and efficiency.
- Sprout Social offers insights on the top-performing posts, including information on the best posting times, the impact of photos versus videos, and other relevant data.
Negative
- The overwhelming amount of reports can be difficult to navigate, making it challenging to extract the desired information. The large volume of data available is a plus, but the lack of streamlined reporting can make the process time-consuming and overwhelming.
- The inability to automatically tag all comments under a post when tagged at a later time is a major disadvantage. It requires users to manually go back and tag each comment, which can be a time-consuming and a tedious process.
- The rise in the cost of Sprout Social has resulted in a substantial monthly fee, making it a costly investment. It can be a significant burden for smaller companies and may limit the accessibility of this platform to a wider range of users.
Positive
- You get a social media calendar screen in SocialPilot, which gives a bird-eye view of all the scheduled content as well as create and schedule new content from. You can also change the publishing time and date of any queued posts right from the calendar and reschedule it.
- You can prevent delays and ensure that everything gets published according to schedule. As a result, with SocialPilot, your consistency on social networks remains uninterrupted.
- Users get to see how each and every post would look on the social platform it is meant for even before it is published. The newly designed SocialPilot dashboard generates a preview of the post with all the content and customizations, before scheduling it. This gives insights as to how the customer would see the post content.
Negative
- Users have expressed a desire for the ability to add music from platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to their reels. However, this limitation is not exclusive to SocialPilot and is also present in many other scheduling platforms.
- SocialPilot does not have a color coding feature which simplifies the interface and makes it easier to navigate.SocialPilot does not have a color coding feature which simplifies the interface and makes it easier to navigate.
- One disadvantage of SocialPilot not offering a social listening feature is that it may not be the best choice for businesses or individuals who require comprehensive social media monitoring and analysis.
Pricing
Now, let us consider one of the most vital aspects when comparing Sprout Social and Hootsuite, i.e., their pricing models. Before starting, it’s important to note that pricing can vary based on various factors. Hootsuite and Sprout Social have four paid plans, so we compare them one by one.
Hootsuite charges way more than Sprout Social for its monthly agency plan. At $739 per month, 5 team members can connect 35 social accounts and schedule unlimited posts. In comparison, Sprout Social costs $499 per month for its agency plan and allows connecting an unlimited number of social accounts but has a limitation of 10000 posts that can be scheduled. Also, 10 users can work from the same Hootsuite account under this plan.
Note: If you refer to the information given in the table below, it is apparent that SocialPilot’s corresponding plans cost just a fraction of what Hootsuite’s or Sprout Social’s plans do.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison of all pricing plans, Sprout Social vs Hootsuite along with SocialPilot to get a clearer view.
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Hootsuite |
SproutSocial |
SocialPilot |
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Professional
$99/per month
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Standard
$249/per month
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Professional
$30/per month
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Small Team
$249/per month
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Professional
$399/per month
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Small Team
$50/per month
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Enterprise
Custom
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Advanced
$499/per month
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Agency
$100/per month
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Enterprise
Custom
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Agency+
$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 |
In-depth Scheduling and Publishing Capabilities Comparison
In this debate on Hootsuite vs Sprout Social, we’ll explore the essential features that form the foundation of social media scheduling tools.
Both tools have advanced capabilities in post-scheduling, including platform-specific customization, cloud content storage, and more. However, if we split hairs for comparing Sprout Social vs Hootsuite, the former lacks advanced queuing for smart scheduling and URL shortening. In contrast, Sprout Social does not have hashtag suggestions in its repertoire.
Another very important feature that Sprout Social lacks is the ability to schedule Instagram reels, which is an important part of marketing strategies. SocialPilot, however, does have the capability of scheduling Instagram and Facebook reels, making it a very cost-effective Sprout Social alternative.
Regarding in-app integrations, Sprout Social has many, but Hootsuite takes the cake in this one with over 40 app integrations. One more fact worth mentioning in this comparison is that Hootsuite lacks a browser extension.
Note: It is interesting to see that features like URL shortening and browser extension, missing from Hootsuite, is present in a much lesser-priced tool, SocialPilot. Also for platform-specific customizations, SocialPilot lets users schedule first comments along with the posts for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, which is missing from both Hootsuite and Sprout Social.
Here is an in-depth analysis of all the scheduling and publishing features of Sprout Social and Hootsuite, along with SocialPilot, for a more transparent analysis.
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Hootsuite |
SproutSocial |
SocialPilot |
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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 | |
In-depth Analytics Capability Comparison
Now we come to analytics and reporting, which acts like a roadmap for any user to retrace their strategic steps or plan for the path they want to take in the future.
Be it Hootsuite or Sprout Social, both contenders are quite skilled when it comes to data-related insights. Both provide powerful analytics for all the business pages you have connected and generate PDF reports for them in a neat and comprehensive dashboard.
Following is a comparative chart of the analytics capabilities of these tools along with SocialPilot.
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Hootsuite |
SproutSocial |
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 |
In-depth Inbox/Listening Capability Comparison
Now, we will discuss the listening capabilities of Hootsuite and Sprout Social. Although none of them boasts a specialty in this feature, they are more than adequately able to manage all social conversations with their social inbox.
Here is all you need to know about the listening capabilities of these two tools along with SocialPilot for a better perspective.
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Hootsuite |
SproutSocial |
SocialPilot |
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| Can Reply Message |
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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 |
In-depth Social Media Collaboration Capability Comparison
When it comes to businesses managing their social media or a marketing agency doing it for their clients, team workflows and multi-user capabilities are necessary. That is why collaboration is yet another aspect of social media management tools we can’t ignore.
Hootsuite and Sprout Social have team workflow capabilities and unlimited client onboarding allowance with the right pricing plans. You can define roles for each team member and have a content approval workflow to smoothen the back-and-forth communication.
Below is the representation for you, showing how both these tools are competent in their collaborative capabilities and see SocialPilot match them feature for feature.
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Hootsuite |
SproutSocial |
SocialPilot |
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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 |
