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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
1st
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
1st
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
2nd
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
3rd
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 (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Social CRM category, the mindshare of HootSuite is 13.7%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sprout Social is 9.7%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Social CRM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HootSuite13.7%
Sprout Social9.7%
Other76.6%
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

"Customer Service: Great. Technical Support: Good."
"The best features HootSuite offers in my experience are the pipeline and the order status."
"I love the usability of HootSuite, and it is easy to learn; that is one of the great things."
"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 reducing the man-hours needed for maintenance, our load to do a campaign has become shorter, so all our tasks resolve faster and can be done more efficiently."
"The main improvement HootSuite offers is allowing my organization to run social media campaigns."
"HootSuite has an AI engine to suggest trending topics related to our business. The engine works really well and comes up with excellent suggestions for more posts."
"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."
"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."
"I have definitely seen a return on investment with Sprout Social, as it has led to time savings, improved efficiency, and financial returns since not everything had to be manually posted."
"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 has positively impacted our organization by aligning with our team goals and being very efficient at scheduling, publishing, and pulling analytics."
"Sprout Social has centralized all of our social media communications, saved us a lot of time, and allowed the team to be more organized and on top of what is going on in social."
"Sprout Social has positively impacted my organization by providing me with reporting capabilities and allowing me to assess how my posts are performing."
"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."
"In my experience, the best features Sprout Social offers are the ability to manage multiple campaigns."
 

Cons

"I advise against using Hootsuite."
"I think HootSuite can be improved with a better user interface."
"The pricing would be great if it were free. It costs $99 per month, which is quite expensive."
"Bulk scheduling."
"The company should reduce the pricing to make it easier for companies to deploy to larger social teams."
"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."
"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."
"Before choosing HootSuite, I evaluated the sales team, which is acceptable, but I need the legal team, the finance team, and integration about the pipeline, which is not very good."
"Maybe trying to figure out the reason why sometimes the engagement could be less when posted through Sprout Social rather than manually."
"As of now, I have been using Sprout Social for almost two years, but there are some glitches in the back-end; sometimes the posts are not integrated or do not come with the proper details, proper dates, or proper content."
"There is a limitation for us with Sprout Social in publishing boosted content within LinkedIn, and we would appreciate that to be improved."
"Realistically, I find the pricing quite high."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

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
20%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Media Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
13%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

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: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.