The Best Social Media Management Tool of 2024 (It May Surprise You)

The number-one social media management tool in 2024 may not be the one that immediately comes to mind (yet). If you’re thinking of such legacy tools like Brandwatch, Hootsuite, Meltwater, Sprinklr, or Sprout Social, you’ll need to think again.

More than 12,000 marketers and social media management professionals have voted via ratings and reviews on G2. The results are in.

Agorapulse is by far the social media management suite with the most top ratings. Out of 41 categories, Agorapulse outranks the five legacy players in 29.

See how Agorapulse compares to these social media platforms in terms of features, usability, support, product direction, and much more. Then, sign up to try Agorapulse and experience our social media publishing, engagement, listening, and reporting tools for yourself.

Agorapulse Easily Outperforms in Terms of Usability, Support, and Product Direction

From setup to support and beyond, G2 reviewers overwhelmingly rate Agorapulse higher than the competition. Here’s a closer look at how these top social media management tools compare.

User requirements

At the very least, you need social media management software that checks all the essential boxes. So, which tool is best at meeting requirements?

G2 reviewers rate Agorapulse an 8.5 out of 10 in this department.

To be fair, Sprout Social also earns an 8.5. But the others (Meltwater in particular) rank lower, suggesting that even at a basic level, they simply don’t meet social media marketers’ needs.

When you invest in a social media management tool, you need to feel confident it will make your workload easier—not more difficult. Yet some of the lower ranked tools above lack key capabilities.

As a result, teams that use them often have to complete tasks outside of the tool. This leads to arbitrary limits on content publishing, wasted time, and overly complicated workflows.

This Brandwatch review succinctly sums up the issue:

Implementation and usability

Next, you need software you can implement on a timeline that works for your organization. The sooner you complete setup, the faster you start to see return on investment (ROI).

Of course, implementation is just the first piece of the puzzle. What happens in the weeks and months after setup is arguably more important for your overall results.

G2 reviewers rate Agorapulse first for ease of setup (9.1), ease of admin (9.1), and ease of use (9.0).

What does this mean for your organization? Compared to Brandwatch, Hootsuite, Meltwater, Sprinklr, and Sprout Social, Agorapulse is far easier for social media teams to adopt. In comparison, Meltwater garners particularly low ratings for ease of use (7.9), ease of setup (7.8), and ease of admin (8.1).

However, Sprinklr’s ratings are by far the lowest of the five for ease of use (7.5), ease of setup (6.8), and ease of admin (7.4). These ratings likely stem from the fact that one of Sprinklr’s two plans doesn’t include a self-service platform. Instead, it includes a completely custom setup that requires a lot of oversight.

As this review from a Sprinklr customer suggests, this approach doesn’t always work well for customers:

So, why does Agorapulse have such high ratings in this area?

Our onboarding and training experiences deserve much of the credit for these wins. All of Agorapulse’s pricing plans include group training, while our Custom plan has one-on-one training tailored to your team.

Setting up users and permissions in Agorapulse couldn’t be simpler. After inviting team members to your workspace, assign permissions for all relevant social media profiles. This way, everyone can complete their tasks without gaining access to profiles or capabilities they shouldn’t have.

Customer support

Ideally, the social media tool you choose is effortless to use. But when you find a bug or you want a hand navigating a feature, you need reliable customer support.

Agorapulse outranks all competitors in this area hands down, earning a 9.2 from G2 reviewers.

In fact, G2 reviewers rate Agorapulse’s quality of support is more than a full point above both Hootsuite and Sprinklr.

How good is our support team exactly? We’re proud to maintain a 96% user satisfaction rating.

Part of this impressive rating comes from our support team’s in-depth product knowledge—which the competition doesn’t come close to emulating.

As this zero-star Sprinklr review explains, “The ‘support’ is outsourced and genuinely do not know anything about the product they’re supposed to support.” In addition, “the knowledge base / documentation is grossly out of date […] so even if you want to self-serve, Sprinklr goes out of their way to make it difficult.”

Agorapulse’s 24/7 support availability is also a key factor in our high satisfaction ratings.

Other tools provide 24/5 support at most. This means you could end up waiting until Monday for a response to an issue that arises over the weekend—even if you purchase an enterprise-level plan.

Agorapulse’s speedy replies don’t hurt either. We respond to customer questions in 30 minutes or less on average. But you never have to guess how long you’ll wait for a response to your support request.

Every Agorapulse plan specifies a support response time. For example, entry-level Standard plans have a 6-hour response time, while Custom plans have a 30-minute (or less) response time.

As the data shows, experience with other social media software support isn’t nearly as smooth. For example, this G2 reviewer had a particularly poor experience with Hootsuite support:

Partnership and product direction

As an enterprise or agency user, you need much more than a helpful tool to manage social media marketing. Instead, you need software that acts as a business partner and works with you to achieve important objectives.

Compared to Brandwatch, Hootsuite, Meltwater, Sprinklr, and Sprout Social, G2 reviewers consider Agorapulse (9.1) a much better business partner.

G2 reviewers also rate Agorapulse’s product direction (9.1) higher than the competition. In comparison, Meltwater (7.8) and Sprinklr (7.8) customers rate product direction more than a full point lower.

A glance at Agorapulse’s release notes is all it takes to see why customers rave about our product direction. In the first four months of 2024 alone, our product team released:

• Advanced Listening, a tool that monitors brands across social media and the web
• Advocacy, a tool that taps into employees and brand advocates to amplify social content
• HubSpot and Salesforce integrations to connect your CRM with our social inbox
• Agorapulse API to integrate social analytics into your business intelligence tool
• Facebook stories publishing, giving you another way to connect with followers
• Facebook post boosting to get your social content in front of your target audience

Sign Up for Agorapulse and Try These Features

Agorapulse Is a True All-in-One Social Media Management Solution

Brandwatch, Hootsuite, Meltwater, Sprinklr, and Sprout Social all bill themselves as social media management suites. However, most are missing key features or only offer them as pricey add-ons.

Either way, G2 reviewers rate Agorapulse higher than all five legacy players for most features.

Let’s see how we measure up.

Social media management features

On G2, Agorapulse has the highest rating for four out of seven standard social media management features. Reviewers rate our platform highest for:

• Social analytics (8.8)
• Campaign optimization (8.5)
• Social engagement (8.9)
• Campaign planning (8.4)

And our social media solution earns a close second place for social publishing (8.8).

In several cases, Agorapulse ranks more than a full point ahead of the competition.

Brandwatch ranks particularly poorly for social analytics (7.7) and campaign planning (7.3). Likewise, Meltwater has especially low ratings for campaign optimization (7.5) and campaign planning (7.3).

Content creation and team collaboration features

Agorapulse overwhelmingly outranks the five legacy players for five out of six content creation and team collaboration features.

And our social media tool gets a close second for content creation (8.2).

It’s easy to see why when you create social media campaigns with Agorapulse, it’s is a breeze. Design creatives can use Agorapulse’s Canva integration, upload images from Google Drive, or pull them from your asset library. Alternatively, upload social media posts in bulk and publish to brand or client accounts.

Then, customize posts as necessary for each social media account. Agorapulse supports capabilities like adding first comments on Facebook and LinkedIn, creating X threads, and publishing stories and reels to Facebook and Instagram.

Plus, our custom fields feature can save you time when scheduling content across multiple social media profiles. Configure custom data for each profile, and plug it into relevant posts with one click.

Social listening and monitoring features

Because our Advanced Listening tool is so new, G2 reviews don’t reflect it yet. However, Agorapulse still takes first place for one out of six social listening categories: social measurement (8.7).

And our social media platform is a close second for brand monitoring (8.5),  keyword tracking (8.3) and trend analysis (7.8).

G2 reviewers also rank Agorapulse at the head of the pack for data management and analysis capabilities related to social listening, such as sentiment analysis (7.9).

And we’re a close second for social listening reports (8.6) and social listening alerts and notifications (8.3).

Agorapulse’s newly launched Advanced Listening tool is likely to improve these rankings even further. It supports listening for brands, keywords, and hashtags across social media networks and the web. It’s a smart solution for monitoring brand health, analyzing competitors, and tracking industry trends.

This tool reveals search volume so you can spot and respond to spikes in activity. It also shows engagement trends so you can see when the brand or topic sparks conversation.

Agorapulse’s Advanced Listening tool automatically tracks sentiment as well. With a glance, you can see whether people have a positive, negative, neutral view of the brand or topic.

Social analytics features

G2 reviewers rank Agorapulse first in five of seven social analytics categories.

Agorapulse takes first place for follower analysis (8.4), post performance (8.9), and hashtag analytics (8.2).

Our social media tool also ranks first for attribution (8.1) and sentiment analysis (7.8). In comparison, tools like Sprout Social and Brandwatch—which boast advanced (or even premium) analytics—rank behind Agorapulse in almost all analytics categories.

One reason Sprinklr Social’s ratings are so low for analytics is that the platform offers insights in a separate product suite. That’s right: you’d have to purchase Sprinklr Insights just for social media analytics.

In contrast, Agorapulse offers a comprehensive all-in-one product suite.

Our social analytics tool automatically tracks standard metrics like audience growth, impressions, and engagement. We also monitor brand awareness to help you assess how often customers and followers start conversations about your brand on social media.

With Agorapulse, you never have to guess how much value your social media efforts have generated. Our social ROI reports automatically show the website traffic, transactions, and revenue your brand gets from social media.

You’ll see which social media channels, profiles, and campaigns contribute the most value via posts, comments, and messages. And when you use Agorapulse’s campaign tracking tools, you’ll see exactly which social media posts drive the most revenue.

Social reporting features

G2 reviewers also place Agorapulse first for two of four social reports and dashboards features. Agorapulse takes first place for report exporting (8.8) and report scalability (8.9).

Agorapulse also takes a close second for report customizability (8.1).

All our paid plans include report exports and white-label reporting. Our Advanced plan includes Power Reports, allowing your team to build customized reports for specific social profiles, campaigns, or clients.

In contrast, platforms like Sprout Social consider custom reporting a premium solution. Expect to pay top dollar to get access to Sprout Social’s premium analytics add-on, which includes a custom report builder.

Try Agorapulse’s Social Reporting Features

Agorapulse Pricing Is More Affordable and More Flexible

When you evaluate the price of a social media management solution, you have to consider more than just if the software fits in your budget. You also need to know how the cost affects your ROI.

Compared to the competition, Agorapulse is more affordable while still providing a complete (and highly rated) feature set. Here’s how Agorapulse pricing compares to the competition.

Agorapulse pricing

Most Agorapulse plans include 10 social profiles and one user. Need more capacity? No problem. Our plans support adding more social profiles for $10 per month when billed annually.

Need to onboard a larger team? That’s easy. Just multiply the base cost of the plan by the number of users you need to onboard.

For example, our Advanced plan (which includes almost all our standard social media management features) starts at $119 per month when billed annually. The math would look like this to upgrade the Advanced plan to four team members and 16 social profiles:

($119 x 4) + ($10 x 6) = $536 per month when billed annually

When you need more flexibility, our Custom plan is a smart choice. Ideal for large agencies and enterprise teams, it includes unlimited social profiles and unlimited shared calendars. Contact our sales team for a Custom plan quote.

Brandwatch pricing

Brandwatch pricing isn’t publicly available, as all plans require a custom quote. Finding pricing data for Brandwatch plans has been almost impossible since the company merged with Falcon.io in 2022.

Our research found that Falcon.io pricing started at $1,000 per month for a small team plan as of 2022. At this time, large teams could expect to pay $1,750 per month.

To get pricing for Brandwatch’s Social Media Management plan today, you’d need to contact sales.

Hootsuite pricing

Hootsuite has plans with standard pricing and enterprise plans with custom pricing. However, the standard plans don’t offer any flexibility in terms of users or social accounts.

If you have a team of more than one, you’re stuck with the mid-tier Team plan for $249 per month when billed annually. If you have a team of more than three, you’re stuck with the Enterprise plan.

Unlike Agorapulse’s Custom plan, Hootsuite’s Enterprise plan doesn’t include unlimited anything. Instead, you have to pay extra to onboard more than five users or connect more than 50 accounts.

Enterprise Hootsuite pricing isn’t publicly available. However, our research found that Hootsuite’s Enterprise plan starts at $16,000 for five users. This equals about $1,335 per month.

Meltwater pricing

Similar to Brandwatch, Meltwater pricing isn’t published on the company’s website. Instead, each plan requires custom pricing via a sales call.

However, our research led to a quote of $15,000 per year for a plan including four users and 16 social media profiles. This equals $1,250 per month, or more than twice the cost of Agorapulse.

Sprinklr pricing

Sprinklr offers two social media management plans. The Self-Serve plan includes a simpler UI with out-of-the-box solutions for $299 per seat per month.

The drawbacks? This option isn’t customizable. And the cost climbs quickly for larger teams. A team with four users can expect to pay $1196 per month.

However, Sprinklr doesn’t offer monthly plans. Instead, you’re stuck with an annual plan for $14,532. Sure, you can cancel any time. But you still have to pay for the full year.

In contrast, the Enterprise plan is custom built for brands that need to manage social media at scale. But as numerous G2 reviews report, neither admins nor users can set up features or handle complex use cases independently. This requires frequent support—which isn’t Sprinklr’s strong suit.

Sprinklr pricing isn’t publicly available for this plan. For details, you’d need to contact sales.

Sprout Social pricing

Like Hootsuite, Sprout Social has plan options with standard and custom pricing. And like Hootsuite, Sprout Social is relatively inflexible when it comes to adding more social profiles to a plan.

The entry-level Standard plan ($199 per seat per month when billed annually) supports five social profiles. If you need more, you’re stuck upgrading to the Professional plan ($299 per seat per month).

Sprout Social also places premium prices on add-ons like social listening and employee advocacy. You’d need to pay an extra $999 per month for advanced listening alone.

To get custom Sprout Social pricing for the Enterprise plan, you’d need to contact sales.

Agorapulse Is Designed for Agency and Enterprise Teams

Technically, all the legacy social media management platforms could work for agencies and enterprise teams. While the feature sets, capacity levels, and pricing vary, all the solutions we’ve covered accommodate large teams that need to manage dozens of social media profiles.

However, not all offer agency-specific tools or support. For example, Hootsuite doesn’t offer any agency-focused options.

Brandwatch and Meltwater promote product suites for agencies. But this simply means agencies (like any customer) can pay to add on extra products.
Sprinklr and Sprout Social have agency partner programs. But Sprinklr’s benefits focus on dedicated support—which may not be as helpful as it sounds, if the platform’s reviews are any indication. And Sprout’s offering is more of a referral program designed to increase agencies’ use of the platform.

In contrast, Agorapulse’s Advanced plan includes several features designed with agencies in mind:

• Shared calendars to keep clients in the loop and simplify external approvals
• Approval workflows that can involve any mix of internal and external stakeholders
• Bulk publishing that lets you schedule social media content at scale
• Advanced listening to monitor brand reputation for clients
• Automated inbox moderation so you can engage with customers more efficiently
• Power reports that let you build and schedule custom white label reports
• Social ROI reports that demonstrate the value of your social media campaigns

When you want unlimited shared calendars, CRM integrations, and a dedicated account manager, our Custom plan is an even better choice. Plus, all our plans include free membership to our Agency Love program, which includes software discounts and access to exclusive community resources.

Get Started With the Best Social Media Management Tool for 2024

More than 12,000 G2 reviewers have spoken. Agorapulse far outperforms Brandwatch, Hootsuite, Meltwater, Sprinklr, and Sprout Social in every area from features and usability to support and business partnership.

And with its agency- and enterprise-focused features, Agorapulse is ideal for large teams that need to publish content, moderate engagement, manage social listening, and analyze results at scale.

Ready to see how well our social media solution works for your team? Sign up for Agorapulse and start your free 30-day trial today.