Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social vs. Agorapulse: Which Should You Pick for Your Social Media Management Needs?

Written by Amanda Greenwood

Published Mar. 18 2021

Can’t decide between Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or Agorapulse? You’re not alone.

Every month, more than 1,600 social media managers like you compare these three companies on Google because they are three of the best social media management platforms on the market.

To save you a Google search, and to help you find the best social media management platform for your social media management needs, we analyzed over 6,000 reviews on G2, the biggest, most trusted global review site, and wrote this “Agorapulse vs. Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social” article with the results.

Ready to find out which social media management platform is right for you?

TL;DR

If you haven’t got time to read the whole piece, read this high-level summary instead:

Hootsuite is ranked the lowest in terms of ease of use, support, and product direction, and Agoraulse is ranked the highest for all three. Sprout Social is slightly ahead of Hootsuite in regard to its publishing, social listening, and reporting features. Agorapulse’s publishing, social listening, and reporting features are ahead of both of them.
Both Hootsuite’s and Sprout Social’s pricing will shock you. Hootsuite only shows its annual pricing and quickly forces growing companies to upgrade from cheaper plans to expensive ones. And Sprout Social is eye-watering-ly expensive whereas Agorapulse prides itself on its clear, honest, and affordable pricing.
If an agency chose Hootsuite or Sprout Social, and they needed more than 3 users and/or 20 social profiles, they’d have to pay astronomic fees to meet this need. For instance, with Hootsuite, they’d have to choose the Business plan and pay-per-year, as there’s no month-to-month option.

When deciding which social media management tool to go for, it’s worth comparing how each social media management platform performs in these three areas:

Ease of set up and use
Customer care and support
Future product features

According to G2 reviewers, Agorapulse comes out on top in each of these areas, in comparison to Hootsuite and Sprout Social. That might sound biased (this is an Agorapulse article, after all), but that statement is based on reviews from users on G2.

Let’s dive into the details.

As you’ll be using your social media management platform every day, you need it to be easy to set up and simple to use.

G2 reviewers gave Agorapulse 9.1 points for how easy the social media management platform was to set up and use. This was three points more than Sprout Social, which got 8.8, and a whopping six points more than Hootsuite, which only got 8.4.

When a big social network has issues, a social media management crisis erupts, or you post something you shouldn’t have, you need help, and you need it fast.

So, when you’re looking for a new social media management platform, you need to find one that you can rely on to give you the best support in the industry.

When we compare Agorapulse with Hootsuite and Sprout Social, Agorapulse is the clear winner in regard to the quality of support it offers its customers, rated much higher than both Hootsuite and Sprout Social.

With a rating of just 8.0, Hootsuite has one of the worst customer support ratings on G2, trailing a full twelve points behind Agorapulse. Although Sprout Social scores better than Hootsuite with a rating of 8.7, it still is five points behind Agorapulse as well.

With its high rating by reviewers, Agorapulse has proven that it’s the No.1 for customer support in the social media industry. Agorapulse is ranked as having the best social media customer support not just on G2 but on Capterra and TrustRadius, too.

If you’re looking for a social media management platform that’s constantly bringing out new, innovative, and useful features to make managing your social media accounts easier, then you should factor product direction into your decision.

With 9.1 points, Agorapulse outranks both Hootsuite and Sprout Social for its product direction. In fact, Hootsuite’s score of just 7.3, is one of the lowest in the industry.

But if these G2 rankings don’t convince you, the rankings on the highly trusted Capterra review site, which is owned by Gartner, will.

The Capterra scores reinforce the fact that Hootsuite and Sprout Social once again are behind Agorapulse in every single category.

All three social media management platforms have similar features. So, to see which platform is best, we’ll see how Agorapulse, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social compare in regard to the three main features that you’d expect from a social media management platform:

As part of your day-to-day job, you need to create content and schedule or publish it across multiple different social media networks. So you need a social media management tool that makes this often arduous task easy.

Agorapulse, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social all do a decent job of helping you to create and publish content to all your different social media channels. Although Sprout Social does have a slightly higher score for social publishing than Agorapulse (8.9 and 8.8, respectively).

But Agorapulse is ranked higher than both Sprout Social and Hootsuite for social analytics, campaign optimization and social engagement.

Monitoring, or social listening, is a crucial, everyday task for any social media marketing manager.

You, therefore, need a social media management platform with monitoring and social listening features that will enable you to:

Monitor what existing and potential customers, and competitors are saying about you, so you can adapt and change your strategy, quickly.
Listen out for key industry conversations, and quickly jump into them to establish yourself as an expert in your field.

So, how do Agorapulse, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social compare for their monitoring and social listening features?

For its monitoring and social listening capabilities, Agorapulse scored an average of 8.1 points in this section, and ranked higher than Sprout Social and Hootsuite in four of the six subcategories. Sprout Social also had an average of 8.1 in this section, although they only were ranked the highest for one of the six subcategories (competitor analysis). Both Sprout Social and Agorapulse came out ahead of Hootsuite who scored a dismal 7.8 average for this section.

Reporting on social media campaign performance and other KPIs has got to be a social media manager’s most important task.

As a minimum you, therefore, need your social media management platform to:

Perform competitor, follower, and content engagement analysis
Identify key influencers to work with
Track paid campaign performance and allow attribution modeling
Build custom performance reports that you can export

So, how do Agorapulse, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social compare for reporting features?

It’s a similar pattern to what we’ve seen so far: Sprout Social is a little ahead of Hootsuite when it comes to its reporting features, but Agorapulse takes the lead with an average score of 8.5 in this category, and also ranks the highest for each of the reporting subcategories.

Time for complete transparency: If paid campaign tracking is an essential requirement for your business, Agorapulse probably isn’t your best choice, right now.

We do offer a free tool called AdsReport, which will help you track your paid campaigns, but it’s not as comprehensive as the paid campaign reporting tools offered by Hootsuite and Sprout Social.

However, be aware that this type of paid campaign reporting comes at a cost. It’s a paid extra with Hootsuite, and it will cost you 50% more, per user, with Sprout Social.

So if you want this type of reporting, you’ll have to either:

Sign up to Hootsuite’s Enterprise plan, get the Impact add-on, and pay around $18K per year
Sign up to Sprout Social and pay an extra $149 per month, per user, for this feature.

Now, anyone searching for a new social media management tool will be concerned about one, major thing: Pricing.

So, how much is Hootsuite? How much is Sprout Social? And how much is Agorapulse?

Let’s find out.

The unclear Hootsuite pricing plans

Quite honestly, Hootsuite’s pricing is unclear and underhand.

1. It’s difficult to differentiate between Hootsuite’s monthly cost and its annual cost.

The prices displayed on the Hootsuite pricing page look like they’re per-month prices. But if you look closely, you’ll see a small asterisk which, once you’ve scrolled down to the bottom of the page, explains that “prices are based on annual billing.”

The only way to uncover the real monthly price of your chosen plan is to create an account. (FYI: You’ll need to submit your credit card details to create an account and start a “free” trial.)

You’ll then see that your monthly price is 30% higher than the prices Hootsuite share publicly on its pricing page.

2. Agencies are often forced to upgrade from the Team pricing plan to the Business pricing plan.

Agencies are encouraged to choose the Team pricing plan because it allows three users to manage 20 social profiles. But many agencies manage more than 20 social profiles and need more than just three users. So, Hootsuite users are then forced to commit to the more expensive Business pricing plan, which is an annual plan (there is no month-by-month option once you upgrade), costing $7,200 upfront. It’s a huge jump in price from one plan to the other.

Sneaky, right?

Read more about Hootsuite’s REAL pricing in this Hootsuite’s Pricing Revealed article.

Although Sprout Social’s pricing page displays monthly options for all its plans, it is expensive! For example, Sprout Social’s Advanced Listening add-on starts at $999 per month, and its advanced reporting add-on starts at $249 per month.

You’ll also have to fork out some serious cash if you want 1:1 onboarding, or premium customer support on weekdays, during CST (Chicago, USA) business hours. You’ll either have to add the Premier Success Plan to your plan or subscribe to the Enterprise plan (which doesn’t have a price, but it’s likely to be more than the already astronomical cost of the Advanced Plan. The Advanced Plan would run you a monthly cost per user of $499. (Or $399 per user, per month, if you are willing to pay for the entire year at once)

Read more about Sprout Social’s REAL pricing in this Sprout Social Pricing Revealed article.

The honest and affordable Agorapulse pricing plans

At Agorapulse, we believe in clear, honest, and fair pricing. So, you’ll find all the pricing information you need, clearly displayed on our pricing page.

Like Sprout Social, our pricing plans are also based on the number of users you need, to give you flexibility, and to make sure that you only pay for what you need.

But the difference is, on Sprout Social’s Standard plan (which is their cheapest option) you’ll have to pay $249 per month, as standard, and then $199 for each additional user.

With Agorapulse’s Standard plan, you’d just need to pay $49 per user, per month, if you pay annually, or $69 a month, per user, if you pay monthly. So, you get to choose how many users you need, and just pay one price for any additional users. Nice and simple.

Hootsuite and Sprout Social ask you to contact them to get a quote for their to-tier Enterprise plans. With Agorapulse, if you can’t find a plan that suits your needs, simply contact us and we can advise you on the best pricing plan option, or create a bespoke, ‘Custom’ plan for you.

Find out more about Agorapulse pricing here.

Get your free trial of Agorapulse now!

Time for some home truths.

If you’re an agency, you’ll be paying through the nose if you choose either Hootsuite or Sprout Social.

For example, if you wanted the most basic plan that allowed you 4 users and 10 social profiles, this is what the price would be for each tool:

If you choose Sprout Social, you’ll not only break the bank, but you’ll end up confused and bewildered by all the extra add-ons that you have to purchase for agency-specific features. Sprout Social’s pricing is notoriously expensive, confusing, and jarring, particularly for agencies.

The Sprout Social Standard plan is $199 per user, per month – but this is only if you pay annually upfront the entire year, which would be $9,552. If you wanted to pay monthly, the per user cost goes from $199 to $249, so the price for four users would be $996/month, amounting to a total yearly cost of $11,952.

Hootsuite

Well, this is tricky, because according to the Hootsuite pricing page, there isn’t even a plan that supports four user accounts. The Professional plan includes just one user, and the Team plan includes up to three users…then it jumps to the Enterprise/custom plan, which starts at five users.

Confusing, to say the least.

So I suppose that means for only four users, you’d be forced to upgrade to an enterprise plan, and pay for an extra seat and extra features that you don’t even need (and who knows what the cost for that would be!) Basically, you’ll be penalized for success and forced into different tiers as your team grows.

Agorapulse

And if you choose Agorapulse, you’ll find that our pricing works with you, not against you. We understand how agencies work, so our plans are priced for growing teams and designed to give agencies what they need to thrive.

For our Standard plan, the per month cost would be a mere $276, coming to a yearly total of $3,312. And if you decide you want to pay annually, the price drops to just $2,352 per year. And this includes all four users accounts and ten social profiles, plus all of the greatest features that you need to easily manage and grow your agency.

For example, with Agorapulse, agencies can build professional, in-depth performance reports that visually explain what’s going on with their client’s social content, engagement, and growth.

The Shared Calendar feature offers a streamlined, content-approval workflow that can be shared with internal AND external people (unlike Sprout Social’s static “shared calendar” that can only be shared internally).

We even offer a free Agency Love program, which is full of discounts and perks for agencies. See for yourself and dig into the details on our agencies page.

As you can see, thousands of reviewers think Agorapulse is a better social media management platform than Sprout Social or Hootsuite.

Why?

Because Agorapulse has been built with YOU in mind. It’s an affordable, easy-to-use social media management platform, with features designed to make day-to-day social media marketing tasks easier.

Choose Agorapulse and start saving time, energy, and money on your social media management. Start a free trial with Agorapulse (no credit card required) to help you schedule, track, and measure all your social media efforts.

Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social vs. Agorapulse: Which Should You Pick for Your Social Media Management Needs?