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HootSuite vs Sprout Social comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

HootSuite
Ranking in Social CRM
2nd
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
2nd
Ranking in Social Media Analytics Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sprout Social
Ranking in Social CRM
3rd
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
4th
Ranking in Social Media Analytics Software
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
AI Customer Experience Personalization (10th), AI Content Creation (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Social CRM category, the mindshare of HootSuite is 10.3%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sprout Social is 8.3%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Social CRM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HootSuite10.3%
Sprout Social8.3%
Other81.4%
Social CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Calin Balaita - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at Wärtsilä
Consistent scheduling has amplified our global branding and simplified weekly content sharing
HootSuite does a good job at what it does, and I didn't have any issues with it. If I had to think about one thing that could make my experience even better, the interface on the iOS version could be a bit smoother and things could be more visible, but other than that, it works fine.
Mirella Karpiesiuk - PeerSpot reviewer
Social Engagement Manager at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Centralized social channels have transformed daily engagement and reporting workflows
Regarding how Sprout Social can be improved, these are very minor areas. Sometimes we have this metric called action rate, which reflects how fast a message has been touched in Sprout Social, whether that is the message being tagged, responded to, or closed out. Apparently, we cannot get a 100% action rate because some responses come in that are auto-replied to, and that action rate misses that. I think this is one thing that can be improved: figuring out how to count those auto-responded messages. This is a niche area. Outside of that, I do not have much advice for improvements in Sprout Social; I truly think it is a hub of value and provides a lot for us. The user interface is great; it is super friendly. For someone who has never touched it before, I knew where everything was and maneuvered through it within a week of using it. The integrations are seamless with all of our social media accounts: Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and all of that. We can also export data and PDF files, which helps us with other projects. I see very minimal improvements needed on my end; I think it is a very valuable program that we use.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"HootSuite is an easy way to get social media posts out, as you're able to upload and schedule posts in the future, which saves time and allows for the continuity of having the same post across various platforms."
"The best features HootSuite offers in my experience are the pipeline and the order status."
"HootSuite has impacted my organization positively by making my social media marketing easier by ensuring that it got posted on time."
"HootSuite has positively impacted my organization quite significantly because we have seen a rise in applications, and I think we won an award for the best branding use of this technology."
"Customer Service: Great. Technical Support: Good."
"HootSuite has positively impacted my organization by making it easy for us to post our socials without having to add staff."
"HootSuite has been truly useful and helpful in my organization because impressions have increased, there has been an increase in traffic, scheduling has become simpler, and approvals have been excellent."
"HootSuite has positively impacted my organization by offering the possibility to connect everything in one platform, all the social channels, import the assets, and create the copies."
"Sprout Social has saved us a lot of time, provided the convenience of a single login to multiple socials, and requires less time for training, making it very easy to use and start using it."
"The only outcome I have seen in my workflow because of Sprout Social is the time, as the same thing if I do manually will cost me around maybe one day or two days, and using Sprout Social this time has shortened to maybe one hour or one and a half hour maximum."
"One of the biggest advantages of Sprout Social is its user-friendly dashboard and clear visual reports, which make it easy to interpret data and present insights to clients."
"Sprout Social impacts my organization positively by allowing me to gauge the sentiment around different topics and helping me to stay on top of my social media growth and reporting."
"Sprout Social has positively impacted our organization by aligning with our team goals and being very efficient at scheduling, publishing, and pulling analytics."
"My main use case for Sprout Social is enterprise-level social media management and analytics, and I use it for all my social media operations, from publishing, customer care, and social listening through one channel."
"Sprout Social is the best; it is very good, actually, because I have used Intercom and Zendesk, but when I look at the different software I have used as a customer service agent, I would go for Sprout Social as it is more complete and easy to navigate."
"Sprout Social has positively impacted the organizations that I have worked with by helping us to be more efficient and it was much easier to use rather than manually going into these social channels."
 

Cons

"I think HootSuite can be improved with a better user interface."
"HootSuite can be improved regarding their summarized AI brand sentiment."
"The pricing would be great if it were free. It costs $99 per month, which is quite expensive."
"Sometimes the suggestions or the content suggestions that the OwlyWriter AI gives are not up to the mark that we want."
"I advise against using Hootsuite."
"There are a few issues with it being somewhat glitchy and the timeline not showing up consistently as of recently, but overall, it is a great product."
"Bulk scheduling."
"HootSuite has a solid platform for social media publishing and monitoring, but I think it could be improved with more advanced analytics, deeper AI-powered insights and summaries, or more customizable reporting."
"Maybe trying to figure out the reason why sometimes the engagement could be less when posted through Sprout Social rather than manually."
"Realistically, I find the pricing quite high."
"Sprout Social could be improved by being able to schedule out Stories, which is a current limitation."
"Currently, in the pilots that I have done, I have not found it to be very highly accurate, so there is a felt need to get improvements in those areas."
"Sometimes, when it comes to user experience, it's really hard to tag businesses in the copy because the way they appear in the dropdown is really slow, and it doesn't always find them, even when I use the at symbol to tag them."
"Sprout Social can be improved because the user experience of having hundreds of channels to navigate can be quite fiddly, especially when trying to bulk post."
"If you do not already have existing solutions and you are using the platform to help schedule out marketing campaigns, it will not be that helpful."
"There is a limitation for us with Sprout Social in publishing boosted content within LinkedIn, and we would appreciate that to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​I have only used the free versions.​"
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
21%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Media Company
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
11%
University
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HootSuite?
I think HootSuite can be improved with a better user interface. I believe it could be a little clearer on the instructions.
What is your primary use case for HootSuite?
My main use case for HootSuite is marketing towards social media. A specific example of how I used HootSuite for my marketing is that I posted social media content for my law firm. HootSuite helped...
What advice do you have for others considering HootSuite?
My advice to others looking into using HootSuite is to check it out, try it out, and see if it works for you. I gave this product a rating of 8.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sprout Social?
We do not mind the setup cost because the organization provides whatever we are asking for, and we are just working on it. We do not know much about pricing and setup costs as we have a separate te...
What needs improvement with Sprout Social?
I think enhanced AI features as well as APIs to talk to CRM programs would certainly make Sprout Social more efficient. Regarding Sprout Social's AI capabilities, I currently think they manage it w...
What is your primary use case for Sprout Social?
My main use case for Sprout Social is management of the social media channels at Harman, where we manage it for eight plus brands across key platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, an...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vega, TicketLeap, Radio Italia, The PureMatter Agency, Kiva, The Vancouver Canucks
Hyatt, Stanford University, Coldwell Banker, Razorfish, UPS, Box, Zipcar, PepsiCo, YogurtLand, Dove, TechSmith
Find out what your peers are saying about HootSuite vs. Sprout Social and other solutions. Updated: July 2026.
911,436 professionals have used our research since 2012.