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The short answer
Sprout Social is $79/seat/mo Essentials (annual), $99 monthly. Hootsuite is ~$99/user/mo (Standard, list). Sprout Social suits enterprise reporting and workflow, while Hootsuite suits enterprise listening, ads, support inbox. Work out which description fits how you actually post, because the feature lists overlap far more than the pricing models do.
Sprout Social vs Hootsuite at a glance
| Sprout Social | Hootsuite | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid price | $79/seat/mo Essentials (annual), $99 monthly | ~$99/user/mo (Standard, list) |
| Free plan | No, 30-day trial | No, discontinued |
| Best for | Enterprise reporting and workflow | Enterprise listening, ads, support inbox |
Sprout Social
Essentials is $79 per seat per month billed annually, $99 monthly, and covers 5 social profiles. Standard is $199 and Professional $299 per seat. The per-seat model is what makes it expensive for teams, and it is aimed at organisations that need the reporting, approval workflow and support depth rather than at anyone who mainly wants to schedule. No free plan.
Hootsuite
The enterprise default since the early 2010s, and priced like it. Social listening via Talkwalker, ad management, and a support inbox with auto-routing and agent collision avoidance. The free plan is gone and Standard is per-user and billed annually, which is what sends most people looking. Worth the money only if you genuinely use the listening and inbox depth.
If neither fits
These two are not the only options, and for a lot of people they are not the right two. Everything below is a working alternative, cheapest first.
| Tool | Entry paid price | Free plan | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Publer | $5/mo Professional ($4/mo billed yearly) | Yes, free forever tier | The cheapest paid tier with a real free plan |
| Post Bridge | $29/mo (Starter, 5 accounts) | No, 7-day trial | Deliberately minimal publishing |
| Zoho Social | $10/mo (Standard, billed annually) | No | Teams already inside the Zoho suite |
| PostNext.io | 19 EUR/mo (Premium, 15 channels); 11 EUR/mo billed yearly | Yes, 1 connected account and 10 posts/mo | AI post and blog generation on a flat price |
| Planoly | Around $16/mo Starter (annual) | Yes, limited to 1 user and 1 social set | Instagram-first visual planning |
| Tailwind | $17.99/mo annual Pin Scheduling ($29.99 monthly) | Yes | Pinterest, and Pinterest SEO in particular |
| Later | $18.75/mo Starter (annual, 25% off) | No | Visual planning for Instagram-led brands |
| FeedHive | $19/mo (Creator, 4 social accounts) | No | Solo creators who want AI recycling |
| CoSchedule | $19/mo Social Calendar (annual) | Yes, Free Calendar with 1 user and 1 profile | A marketing calendar that happens to post |
| Metricool | $20/mo (Starter, 5 brands) | Yes, 1 brand and 20 posts/mo | Analytics depth at a small-team price |
| SocialPilot | $20/mo Essentials ($17/mo annual) | No | Agencies managing many client accounts |
| Buffer | $5/mo per channel (Essentials) | Yes, 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts | The cheapest way to start on one or two channels |
| SocialBee | $29/mo Bootstrap ($20.17/mo annual), 5 profiles | No, 14-day trial | Category-based evergreen recycling |
| MeetEdgar | $29.99/mo Eddie ($24.91/mo annual), 5 accounts | No, 30-day trial | Set-and-forget evergreen automation |
| Sendible | $29/mo Creator (1 user, 6 profiles) | No | White-label agency reporting |
| Planable | $33/workspace/mo Basic | Yes, 50 free posts with no time limit | The cleanest approval and review experience |
| HeyOrca | $35/mo per calendar (Agency Basic) | Yes, light posting on 1 calendar | Client approval workflows |
| Kontentino | $39/mo (Basic, billed annually) | No | Approvals with a brand-safety review step |
| Loomly | $49/mo Starter ($65/mo monthly) | No, trial only | Unlimited calendars and a post-ideas board |
| eClincher | $65/mo (Basic, 10 profiles, 1 user) | No | The closest all-in-one to Hootsuite itself |
| Agorapulse | $79/mo Standard (annual) | Yes, limited | A social inbox without enterprise pricing |
| Mixpost | $299 one-time (Pro), self-hosted | Yes, Lite is open source | Owning your data on your own server |
What 15 connected accounts cost
PostNext Premium includes 15 connected accounts. This is what the same fifteen cost on the tools people compare it with, taken from each vendor's own pricing page on 5 September 2026, billed monthly, in the currency the vendor lists.
| Tool | Plan that covers 15 accounts | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| PostNext | Premium, 15 connected accounts | $19 |
| Post Bridge | Creator, 15 connected accounts | $39 |
| Postiz | Pro, 30 channels (Standard stops at 5) | $49 |
| Buffer | Essentials, $5 per channel, times 15 | $75 |
Buffer prices per channel, so fifteen channels is fifteen times the Essentials price. Postiz's entry plan stops at 5 channels; the next plan up carries 30. Post Bridge's Creator plan carries exactly 15. Prices move, so check the vendor pages before you decide.
Checked (2026-09-05)
Read the full comparisons
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