Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social: Was ich wählen würde

Last Updated on Januar 6, 2025 by Ewen Finser

Hootsuite and Sprout Social are two platforms that I’d consider more competitive than ever in terms of who they serve and what they’ve grown into.

I’ve personally used both SMM platforms over the years for marketing many of my brands in content, ecommerce, and services. I still remember first trying out Hootsuite almost 10 years ago! Back when Hootsuite and Buffer were pretty much the only games in town…

But in this comparison, I’ll be looking at where they stand today and how I see their strong suits in contrast. At the end, I’ll make some specific recommendations about which types of businesses I think are uniquely well suited to each respective platform.

First, I always like to get started with the major differences and distinctions…

So What are the Main Differences Between Hootsuite vs Sprout Social?

Here’s how I see it:

• I found Sprout Social’s UI to be noticeably more approachable compared to Hootsuite
• Sprout Social better connects social listening and engagement into a usable CRM funnel, whereas Hootsuite is more “what you see is what you get” with fewer unified views and insights.
• Hootsuite offers more affordable entry points at $99/user for their Professional Plan, whereas Sprout Social starts at $199/user, putting it more squarely in the mid-to-large enterprise or agency category.
• Hootsuite has a small advantage with third-party integrations compared to Sprout Social as they’ve been around longer.

The Stronger Points I see with Hootsuite

Rather than list an extensive list of every single feature (you can see their website for that), I wanted to highlight some of the strong points that stood out to me relative to Sprout Social and other social media platforms:

• More affordable entry point: The most obvious advantage Hootsuite has over Sprout Social is on price, with a more affordable $99/month plan for up to 5 social accounts. This is still a premium entry point, but a good $150/month less than the monthly entry point for Sprout Social.

• Leads the integration game: Hootsuite is one of the better integrated social media platforms. They have 100+ of the leading platforms, including many of the leading (and some less known) options.

• Syncronized posting across networks: This is a feature that Sprout Social doesn’t really offer, but Hootsuite is uniquely leveraged to do. A simple create once and post everywhere process truly cuts now on operator time and ensures timely messages are put out quickly in a unified marketing campaign.
• Ad scheduling support: Hootsuite is one of the best in the business for similarly automating paid ads campaigns. I’ve always wondered why it took so long for the paid side to catch up to the organic marketing side… so if you do paid social and want to automated that in an integrated workflow, Hootsuite is a great fit.

Stronger Points with Sprout Social

And here’s how I see Sprout Social shining nicely in contrast:

• Easier UX / UI: Sprout Social feels cleaner, easier to use and just a bit more polished overall, compared to Hootsuite, but also many other SMM platforms that I’ve tried. This is a subtle but important advantage that stands out across all of their features.

• Detailed reports: Sprout has some of the most in-depth and extensive reporting types for social media that I’ve seen native in a SMM stack. If measuring ROI and impact is high on your list – or something you currently need answers for in your organization – Sprout Social can quickly fill the data gap.
• Outstanding support: Sprout Social support is actually another hidden advantage, as they aren’t just there to answer questions but actually help you maximize the platform (a likley advantage of the more premium price point).
• Influencer analytics: This is one area that Sprout Social shines in comparison to Hootsuite, but also many other near-peer SMM platforms. Sprout also recently acquired one of the more successful Influencer marketing enablement platforms (Tagger), which gives them a big step up with end-to-end influencer marketing and measurement strategies.
• Employee advocacy tools: At first I completely missed this, but Sprout Social does have a unique add-on to leverage your network of employees to spread, support and amplify brand messages. This can be a super effective way to get a message penetrated and even viral into the market. LinkedIn – in my experience – is a great use case for this type of strategy.

• Enterprise data integrations: Small detail, but I was impressed by the array of high-octane, native enterprise data integrations with platforms like Salesforce, Tableau, Dynamics, and others. For organizations using these sales, data, and ERP-type solutions, Sprout Social is one of the few competent partners.

How the Pricing Plans Compare

I hit on this briefly, but Hootsuite and Sprout Social are overlapping but slightly differently positioned on the entry level plans.

Sprout Social is content to skip the solo creator and marketer crowd with their $249/month entry point and a 3-tier escalation. And this makes sense given their feature set.

You can save a bit on the annual pricing (as shown above), but this is going to be a significant enough investment that you’ll want to know social has juice for your brand before springing for it.

Hootsuite, on the other hand, competes for the same higher-end customers but extends a significant leg down for their two-tier pricing plan:

All-in-all, the features are very similar (with few exceptions); it just comes down to how they are priced and bundled.

Bottom Line on pricing: Hootsuite is the favorite for more budget-conscious teams on the initial tier, but otherwise Sprout Social and Hootsuite are similar enough investments are in the same wheelhouse for enterprise clients.

How I’d Compare Both Against the Competition

I never like to look at platforms in a vacuum, so these are some names I’d consider in the same discussion (with some slightly different positioning).

• Später: Later is an excellent platform that I’ve used specifically for Instagram marketing. They’ve since expanded to other platforms, but really excel with the visual-based mediums. If Instagram is a heavy part of your brand blueprint, consider Later.
• SocialBee: Socialbee is a really cost-effective SMM platform for agencies or portfolio owners that don’t want to manage multiple logins and dashboards AND also can’t quite swing the premium pricing with Hootsuite or Sprout.
• SocialPilot: Another good agency fit, SocialPilot is particularly well-suited for local businesses and local business marketing agencies as they have excellent review solicitation tools and a great integration with Google Business profiles.
• Metricool: Metricool only recently popped on my radar, but feels like a budget alternative to both Hootsuite and Sprout Social. Less specialized and advanced features, but integrates widely and a good baseline service.
• Sprinklr: Sprinklr is probably the upmarket alternative to Sprout Social, but it moves out of just social media and well into the general marketing and business operations space. Might be worth a look if you can leverage some of their other non-SMM features under one roof.
• Puffer: A tried and true classic, Buffer still caters to the early social media marketer. A great introduction to social media marketing if you aren’t quite sure about the ROI (but want to test it out). Siehe wie Buffer compares directly to Sprout Social.

So Who’s Ideal for Hootsuite?

Here’s who I think should opt for Hootsuite first:

Small to Midsized Established Brands: If you know social moves the needle, but are still fairly price conscious, Hootsuite’s more affordable entry point for often comparable features is a good starting point. The synchronized bulk posting is also a big time saver and companies of this size are likely leveraging smaller or even 1-person social teams. $99/month is still a reaonsably pricey investment for brand new bootstrapped startups without clean social product market fit, though, so I’d probably consider an alternative above if this is you.

And Who Should Stick with Sprout Social?

In contrast, these are the company profiles that make sense for Sprout Social:

• Large Enterprise: Larger brands and organizations with budget are the ideal customers for Sprout Social, particularly if you need enterprise-level insights, attribution, and integrations.
• Agenturen: I also love Sprout Social for agencies due to their in-depth analytics, custom report building, and white label reports off the shelf. It’s just an easier way to provide real value to clients.
• Brands Leveraging Influencers at Scale: As I mentioned before, if you are working with influencers to drive revenue, Sprout Social is the clear pick for me, particularly with their recent acquisition of Tagger.