Hootsuite Review: Mijn ervaring in 2025

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Door Ewen Finser

Last Updated on januari 20, 2025 by Ewen Finser

If you are considering Hootsuite, this article is my latest take on this social media marketing platform in 2025.

I’ve been using social media automation tools for the better part of a decade and Hootsuite was one of the first I tried! It has a storied record, but it’s also changed in many significant ways.

In this review I’ll break down my thoughts on the strong points (and what could be better). I’ll take a look at the pricing plans, integration partners and the broader competitive landscape.

At the end of the article I’ll highlight who should, and who should not, use Hootsuite in 2025.

To get right into it, let’s get started with the highlights for me…

What I Like About Hootsuite

These are some of the marquee features for me with Hootsuite:

  • Customizable Insights & Deep Analytics: Hootsuite stands out for it’s deeper analytics and social intelligence tools, compared to most other platforms I’ve tried. What I like most is the ability to custom configure measurement and reports based on specific KPIs and use cases. They also have some really useful preset views and tools:
  • Paid Social Ad Campaign Tools: One unique aspect of Hootsuite is it’s support for paid campaigns (not just organic). If you do any paid promotion whatsoever, this alone makes Hootsuite worth a close look:
  • Widely Integrated: As a legacy play, Hootsuite plays nicely with MANY other platforms. This can be a huge value unlock for me, as I have a few favorite integrations and an existing tech stack. It’s just easier when they can speak directly to each other and I don’t have to toggle multiple dashboards.
  • Bulk Posting Uploads: Unlike some other platforms (like Buffer), Hootsuite directly supports bulk uploads for up to 350 messages at a time.
  • Unified Social Inbox: Like many premium social media platforms, Hootsuite now features a unified “inbox” to handle messages and events across all of your linked social accounts. Big fan of these tools.
  • Team Approvals & Workflows: Met Hootsuite kun je taken toewijzen, inhoud goedkeuren en workflows beheren, waardoor het een ideale tool is voor teams. I also like that you can customize these permission levels and workflows based on your business needs.

Wat kan beter

Conversely, these are some of the areas I’d like to see improved with Hootsuite… At the very least this should be helpful to determine if Hootsuite is NOT for you:

  • Entry Level Pricing Tiers: I really liked when they had a $19/month plan a few years ago as I felt it was a more approachable entry point for a huge swathe of users. That said, I understand their upmarket focus and they do pack a lot of value in their Pro package. Still, it wouldn’t be too difficult to roll out an entry-level plan for budget-conscious creators and smaller teams.
  • Interface Updates: This was a minor nitpick, but I had to dig around a bit to find some of the tools and features in the dashboard. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but I think they could continue updating the interface and UI to make it more intuitive and “current” with peers.

My Thoughts on the Hootsuite Pricing Plan

If you haven’t recently seen Hootsuite’s pricing, they’ve changed things quite a bit in the last few years.

When I first started using Hootsuite 8+ years ago, Hootsuite was all things to all people. They had entry level pricing for solo creators, free plans, and 5+ different tiers to choose from. As I recall, they were more directly competing with tools like Buffer at the time.

Today, they’ve streamlined things considerably and gone a bit upmarket in terms of pricing and features fit:

Just to get started using Hootsuite, you’ll be locking into a $99/month plan. There IS a free trial available for 30 days, but no freemium or free tier.

The real distinction here is if you are running a solo brand with a 1-person social media team, OR working with peers on the Team plan. If you move beyond 3 users (or 20 social accounts), you’ll be in the customized enterprise tier. I suspect many larger organizations quickly end up here.

$99/month for the entry tier is certainly higher than many peers, although not as high as more enterprise facing platforms like Sprout Social, Brandwatch, etc…

My Bottom Line on Hootsuite Pricing: At this price point, my take is that you’ll need to already be invested in social media marketing and have stakeholder buy-in and/or a proven ROI to optimize for. That said, it’s still a cut below some of the other larger enterprise pricing entry points, making it an affordable “upmarket” SMM suite.

Hootsuite Integrations Examined

As one of the first social media automation platforms, Hootsuite also benefits as being one of the best integrated.

You can find integrations with pretty much EVERY major platform and a whole bunch of minor ones (I’ve never heard of), too.

I was hard-pressed to find any third party that was NOT represented in their integration library.

And – as an incumbent player – their Zapier network is well represented as well. For whatever you cannot find in their native integrations, there’s likely some sort of Zapier connection available.

My bottom line on Hootsuite’s integrations: Fairly robust, healthy ecosystem and established third-party integration platforms like Zapier, Make, etc… to leverage.

What About Hootsuite Alternatives?

I’m all about evaluating the competitive landscape before making a final decision. These are some Hootsuite competitors that give a slightly different look or trade offs:

  • 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.
  • Buffer: 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)Kijk hoe Buffer compares directly to Sprout Social.

Who Should NOT Use Hootsuite?

So before I discuss who I think Hootsuite is ideal for (and it is for many), here’s who I think should steer clear (for now).

  • Beginners: If you are just getting started in the social media game, I don’t think Hootsuite is the right place to start. Until you have a good sense for your ROI (return on investment e.g. what “social” is worth to you), Hootsuite is probably overkill. Bookmark it for later, but try a free or freemium tool first to validate your thesis.
  • Solo Creators: Similarly, if you do not rely on a team to run your operation and are running solo, I don’t think Hootsuite is the best value fit. It’s usable, just a lot of horsepower to manage by yourself. The exceptions are if you are a solo creator but fit one of the criteria in my next section below.

Who is Hootsuite Right for?

On the flipside, here’s who are think are ideal fits for Hootsuite:

  • Brand Teams: If you have 3 or more folks on your Social team, Hootsuite feels like the ideal fit. The team management and approval workflows function almost like a project management suite for social. If this sounds like you, go with Hootsuite.
  • Agencies: If you run an established agency, Hootsuite is a good fit and the customizable reports will save you a lot of time reporting out to clients and demonstrating impact. If this sounds like you, go with Hootsuite.
  • Paid Social Marketers: If you are running any type of significant paid social campaigns, Hootsuite’s paid traffic insights are a valuable additional data layer to work with. If this sounds like you, go with Hootsuite.

There you have it, that’s my opinion! Feel free to let me know in the comments what you think.


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