Last Updated on February 8, 2025 by Ewen Finser
Sprout Social and Sprinklr are two upmarket heavyweights in the social marketing space.
I’ve personally used both for various brands and agencies I’ve operated, so I wanted to share some of the considerations here on the main differences between these digital / social platforms AND what type of company is the best fit for one versus the other.
I’ll discuss the main differences I see, the strong points I liked about each respective platform, how they both compare to the competitive landscape, and finally who the ideal fit is for each.
First, let’s jump into the clear distinctions that I see…
The Main Differences Between Sprout Social vs Sprinklr
- Sprinklr covers a broader surface area of “customer experience,” including customer support (and AI chatbots), digital marketing, digital insights, and social media, whereas Sprout Social focused more narrowly on social media automation and insights.
- Sprout Social offers more transparent fixed pricing tiers (starting at $249/month), while Sprinklr has one entry-level tier ($249/month), with the rest being customized quote-based (sales team) packages.
- Sprout Social offers dedicated influencer marketer tools (recently acquired a major platform in this space), whereas Sprinklr does not offer a comparative offering.
- Sprinklr offers an explicit “crisis management” interface, whereas Sprout Social doesn’t have a direct comp here.
- Sprout Social offers more usable social media insights out of the box, whereas Sprinklr takes more configuration to get set up and doesn’t focus exclusively on social media.
My Standout Sprinklr Features
Rather than list every single feature in a bullet point list, I’d like to just call out some of the unique and/or strong points I found with Sprinklr:
- Customer Experience Scope: Sprinklr’s positioning is immediately noticeably relative to Sprout Social (and other social tools) with their emphasis on customer experience management. Social is still an important part, but also integrates with customer support, marketing in a unified structure.
- Digital Landscape Tools: Sprinklr is really suited for organizations with dozens of digital touchpoints, including social, but not limited to social. This shows up with their platform listening tools across the digital landscape, including media monitoring insights and other content sources.
- Crisis Management: Unlike Sprout Social, Sprinklr has some dedicated “crisis management” tools that feel appropriate for larger organizations that frequently find themselves in “damage control” or who are otherwise susceptible to public fallout. If this is something you can use, Sprinklr is worth a closer look.
- Tone Modifcation: Another interesting feature is Sprinklr’s tone modification, leveraging AI to ensure a uniform (or specific) tone across networks or responses.
My Standout Sprout Social Features
Similarly, these are some of the places where I see Sprout Social shining:
- Beautiful UX / UI: Sprout Social feels cleaner, easier to use and just a bit more polished overall compared to Sprinklr. It’s fairly easy to find the core features and acts almost like a project management surface. This is a subtle but important advantage that stands out across all of their features.
- White Label Reports & Insights: 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. I also love this for white labeling for client work and agency use cases.
- Influencer Marketing Strengths: 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.
- Transparent Pricing: Unlike Sprinklr – which only has a basic self service plan and is otherwise hidden behind a sales quote process – Sprout offers predictable entry and midtier pricing. Sprout Social is still one of the more expensive social platforms, but if you can leverage the business intelligence or influencer tools, it’s a pretty good value. Also: my pet peeve is dealing with sales teams, so I’d rather get started with a “what you see is what you pay” approach.
Sprinklr vs Sprout Social Integrations
I love looking at integrations as a key distinguishing factors. Most brands – particularly the larger organizations that both Sprout and Sprinklr target – already have a tech stack that needs to “play nice” with new systems.
Sprinklr has a decent integration list, leaning more into similarly focused integrations that larger enterprises might leverage:
So you have enterprise solutions like Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, Salesforce and SAP represented as well performance tools like PowerBI and Tableau at the table.
Sprout Social clearly has more integrations, supporting a broader assortment of business types and use cases:
Unfortunately, neither Sprout Social or Sprinklr are supported on the Zapier network as of yet.
My bottom line on integrations: There isn’t a vast difference in terms of numbers, but I’d give Sprout Social the edge in terms of more varied direct integrations.
Pricing Plans Compared
Sprout Social isn’t cheap, but they do have a more predictable and upfront pricing structure:
Depending on the quotes you receive, Sprout may not always be cheaper per seat than Sprinklr, but in many cases you’ll find the best value mix on the Professonal Plan compared to Sprinklr.
Notably, Sprinklr does start on the exact same price point as Sprout Social, but offers up to 15 channels (and not just social).
My bottom line on pricing: It really comes down to value and positioning for me. If you are coming from a customer service-first perspective, I think Sprinklr has some advantages. But, if you are primarily looking for social media coverage and/or outbound marketing, Sprout Social feels like the better value. You’ll probably end up spending a similar amount on both platforms.
Other Competitors Worth Considering
There are many different digital insights and social media management options in this category. These are some of the names I’d also consider in the same breath:
- Meltwater: Meltwater has a little bit of everything, including the influencer marketing tools that Sprinklr lacks, but broader digital media analytics like Sprinklr.
- Brandwatch: Brandwatch is another upmarket competitor to Sprout and Sprinklr, although I’d put it closer to Sprinklr in terms of scope. Definitely a large enterprise solution and more geared towards customer service teams and applications.
- Buffer: The downmarket and benchmark comp for me, Buffer has been around forever and features a flexible pricing structure for everyone. Specifically, I like their buildable plans where you can mix and match users and social platforms to pay for only exactly what you need. Check out my comparison of Buffer vs Sprout Social.
- Hootsuite: Hootsuite is positioned above a Buffer, but slightly below a Sprout Social. A good solution if you can’t leverage Sprout Social’s influencer toolkit or are just running an internal brand social team. Check out my comparison of Hootsuite vs Sprout Social.
- SocialPilot: I like SocialPilot as an affordable alternative for agencies, particularly anyone doing local business marketing as they have dedicated tools like review management, Google Business direct integrations, and multi-location features (great for a local franchise, too).
So Who is Best for Sprinklr?
Sprinklr is definitely a bit further up the enterprise stack, but I can think of a few solid use cases in this bucket:
- Brands measuring digital visibility as a whole: This probably doesn’t look like your typical social media team, likely a layer or two above that. If you want to measure your digital footprint beyond just the social landscape, Sprinklr might be worth a look.
- Crisis response teams: This extends beyond B2B, into the government, NGO, and nonprofit space. But it can ALSO include brands in industries where a lot can be lost quickly with a scandal.
- Customer service teams: If most of your social interactions tend to be customer service-oriented—not necessarily marketing—consider Sprinklr for it’s more refined CX use cases and tools.
And Who Should Use Sprout Social?
On the other hand, I can think of more use cases right out of the gate for Sprout Social:
- Influencer marketing teams or departments: With their recent acquisiton of Taggr, Sprout Social is clearly positioned as one of the top digital platforms for influencer engagement, management, and reporting. If you do a significant portion of your business via inluencers, consider Sprout Social.
- Marketing agencies: I also think Sprout Social is more suitable for agencies offering social media marketing AND (importantly) reporting back to clients. Their extensive white label reports are invaluable. If this sounds like you, stick with Sprout Social.
- Outbound social marketing teams: If you are looking to make investments into social and grow your bottom line, Sprout Social is better positioned for growth (whereas Sprinklr might be better suited for a defensive posture). If social growth is what you need, consider Sprout Social.