Sprout Social Pros and Cons: Review & Alternatives 2024

With social media doubling as a lucrative marketing platform, robust social media management tools have gradually become indispensable for brands. These tools help businesses maintain an active presence on social media by allowing them to manage their social media accounts effectively. But like every other tool, Sprout Social pros and cons are also something worth considering before making up your mind.

Sprout Social is a popular social media management tool that helps brands maintain a presence on social media platforms by offering a suite of publishing, engagement, and reporting solutions.

Founded in 2010, Sprout Social’s initial focus was catering to small and medium-sized businesses. But with time, the platform expanded its offerings to larger organizations and enterprises.

Even though Sprout Social is a tool of choice for many, it comes with a set of limitations that make it unsuitable for some brands. The hefty pricing, slower response times, and lack of streamlined analytical reporting are just a few disadvantages many users report.

In this comprehensive Sprout Social review, we will discuss the features of the platform that make it a tough choice for several users. We will also look at a few Sprout Social alternatives.

Disadvantages of Sprout Social

Even though Sprout Social offers a decent set of features to users, the platform’s continued use throws up varied problems and disadvantages. Some of the most notable pros and cons of Sprout Social are:

1. Sprout Social Pricing

When you talk about Sprout Social pricing, you first need to know of the four paid plans: Standard, Professional, Advanced, and Enterprise plans of Sprout Social.

Many people also ask, ‘Is Sprout Social free?’ While the platform doesn’t offer a free plan, you can try it for free with a 30-day trial. Again, this can be a major inconvenience for a vast number of users as observed in Sprout Social reviews.

The Standard plan comes at $249 per month. A major flaw in the Sprout Social pricing is that for each additional user in this plan, you would have to pay $199 per month. The Professional plan, on the other hand, costs $399 per month, and for each additional user, you’ll pay $299 per month in this plan.

For the Advanced plan, a user needs to shell out $499 per month. And, for each additional user, you need to pay $349 per month. To know the cost of Sprout Social’s Enterprise plan, you need to get in touch with them.

One look at the pricing of Sprout Social’s plans, and it’s evident that the tool comes with a hefty price tag. But what makes things worse is that the Sprout Social cost model is on a per-user basis, making it difficult for small businesses .

Let’s see what a monthly investment in regard to the Sprout Social pricing looks like. How much does Sprout Social cost if you go for the Standard plan, for instance? You would have to pay a minimum of $249/month for just one user. For any additional user, it would cost you $199/month. Now, in case you need 10 users, you would have to pay more than $2000/month, and that is for only 5 social media profiles.

If you look at Sprout Social alternatives, you will find tools that offer more users even for their higher plans, with no additional cost involved. SocialPilot, a strong contender in the list of Sprout Social’s alternatives, offers plans starting from as little as $30 per month.

2. Limited Social Media Profiles

If you go for Sprout Social’s basic plan, i.e., the Standard plan, you will get to connect 5 social media profiles. For a plan that costs $249 a month, these profiles are extremely limited. You can find other alternatives in the market offering as many features, yet more profiles at a fairly lesser price.

Also, if you want to connect more accounts, you have no option but to purchase the next plan, which is the Professional plan that costs more at $399/month.

Thus, many Sprout Social reviews read that, the number of social profiles offered in the already pricey base plan can hinder many smaller businesses from even considering its purchase.

3. Steep Learning Curve

The platform comes with several tools and features, which can make it daunting for any new user to learn the ropes. Features such as reporting can overwhelm any new user, especially those still learning to navigate social media management.

Hence, several users stated in their Sprout Social reviews about a steep learning curve with the scheduling tool. You need to take considerable time to train yourself in using this tool, so bear this in mind before deciding to adopt it.

If you don’t have the resources or time to learn the intricate features of this platform, then going for it can pose a considerable challenge. Instead, you can opt for simpler Sprout Social alternatives like SocialPilot, known for a comprehensive resource library and ease of usage.

4. Slower Response Times

Who doesn’t love a good customer service experience? It holds significant power to make or break a business.

Many users have recorded a poor experience with Sprout Social customer service. They have reported having experienced slower response times resulting in lower customer satisfaction. Sprout Social’s support team is sometimes found to take too long to provide responses on issues and keep the user waiting.

For instance, if a user uses the chat support feature of Sprout Social, the responses often get redirected to email, and it can take up to a day to get an initial response.

No one likes to be stuck in a never-ending loop, waiting for the help desk team to get back with a response. So, before you choose Sprout Social, you need to be aware of this limitation in its customer support.

5. Lack of Important Features for Scheduling & Reporting

Another downside of using Sprout Social is the unavailability of some important features related to scheduling and analytical reporting.

For instance, the tool doesn’t offer an easy way to store frequently used hashtags. This makes the process of organizing and tagging content more time-consuming.

Also, every business finds the need to tag other profiles in posts every now and then. But, you cannot always rely on the Sprout Social process of social tagging other profiles in posts. The frequent bugs and glitches make the steps cumbersome.

Apart from this, users also face difficulties in tagging people on Instagram when creating a post using this tool. For brands relying on Instagram for their social media marketing, this is a must-have feature.

With regard to reporting, Sprout Social offers a large volume of reports that can easily overwhelm any user. When you get down to the nuts and bolts, navigating and extracting the necessary information from these reports becomes challenging.

A Reddit user has also pointed out that the tool doesn’t offer a way to compare reports:

The bottomline? The overall lack of a streamlined reporting feature can make using the tool time-consuming for businesses and agencies.

6. Limited Core Social Media Publishing Options

As a social media publishing platform, Sprout Social comes with limited core publishing options compared to some other such management tools. For example, Sprout Social doesn’t support Instagram Reel scheduling. For businesses relying heavily on Instagram for their social media marketing campaigns, this option is vital.

Also, businesses are increasingly looking for core publishing features, such as Facebook first comment and LinkedIn first comment, in any competent social media management tool today. The first comment feature lets you add a first comment to your social media posts so that you can automatically start a conversation. This, in turn, leads to more engagement.

The presence of such features has become more of a norm in times when businesses need to keep their social media game stronger than ever. You can switch to SocialPilot to access these core publishing features that Sprout Social lacks. About 1000 Sprout Social users are migrating to SocialPilot to access more features at an affordable price.

Are There Any Advantages to Sprout Social?

Sprout Social offers a variety of tools for scheduling and publishing social media content, helping you smoothly manage several social accounts. The tool also enables you to create, view, and edit a customizable publishing calendar to plan and schedule your content for social media well in advance.

Sprout Social’s social media listening tool also offers useful insights from social conversations. Sprout’s Listening provides a view of hashtags, keywords, industries, brands, and multimedia content. This allows you to analyze sentiment and discover trends on major social platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Bottomline: Is Sprout Social Worth It?

Now’s the time to finally put this question to rest – Is Sprout Social worth it? The answer is yes, and probably no. If you are looking for a social media business solution, irrespective of the price, you should go ahead with the platform. Sprout Social reviews point to the fact that the tool offers a feature set that helps take care of the publishing process as part of the social media marketing strategy.

But, if you are a brand or organization that simply can’t afford the Sprout Social pricing model, going for a less costly alternative will be your best bet. The tool also comes with several limitations, as reviewed above, which can render it unsuitable for many businesses.

What Are the Alternatives to Sprout Social?

You can find many alternatives offering similar and additional features to Sprout Social.

Let us look at five social media management tools that are strong contenders as Sprout Social alternatives.

1. SocialPilot

SocialPilot is a robust social media management tool you can rely on to boost your brand’s presence across different social media platforms. Specifically designed for businesses and small digital marketing agencies, the tool helps you execute a well-planned social media posting schedule, thanks to the easy-to-use interface and rich feature set.

The tool’s key features include publishing support on 10 platforms, advanced scheduling with the bulk schedule feature, content curation, analytics and reporting, team and client feedback and collaboration workflow, and much more.

If you use SocialPilot, you can tailor posts for different social media platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook.

Today, SocialPilot is considered one of the best alternatives to Sprout Social, and with good reason. As mentioned before, the tool offers plans starting from as low as $30 per month. Sprout Social plans, on the other hand, begin from $249 per month. You also need to pay more for every additional user.

With SocialPilot, you can also enhance your content by adding elements like CTAs, GIFs, emojis, videos, images, etc. This improves your chances of receiving more likes and shares. You also get to boost your content’s performance on Facebook and LinkedIn with the first comment feature.

Ultimately, a Socialpilot vs. Sprout Social comparison shows that the former offers high functionality, an easy-to-use interface, and unmatched overall value at a very affordable price.

2. Buffer

Buffer is a well-known social media management tool that facilitates publishing on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. This tool integrates over 60+ apps, enables inter-team collaboration, and allows easier team management.

You can use Buffer to schedule posts for multiple accounts at once. It lets you access analytics that prompt you to update popular posts for resharing. The tool also offers helpful customer support and works well with smartphone apps.

If we carry out a Buffer vs. Sprout Social comparison in particular, you will see that Buffer offers more robust site analytics, allowing users to view the interactions and other metrics for a post. However, Buffer does come with certain limitations as well. For instance, the inbox/listening capabilities of Buffer are limited. You also don’t have access to features such as emailing PDF reports to clients and auto-scheduling reports for teams and clients.

3. Spinklr

Allowing access to all important marketing platforms in one single location, Sprinklr is an effective tool for managing social media. You can manage your social presence across different platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more.

Besides letting you create and publish social media content, Sprinklr allows you to monitor hashtags, conduct competitive analysis, and look for industry-wide trend predictions to make smarter decisions. Powered by AI, this platform also provides you with a comprehensive view of your online presence by integrating over 30 digital channels.

For people searching for Sprout Social vs. Sprinklr on the web, it’s important to know that Sprinklr is a good alternative to Sprout Social because of the unique set of features it offers. However, it’s worth noting that beginner users consider Sprinklr a complex tool.

4. Loomly

Loomly is another popular social media management tool you can find in the list of Sprout Social alternatives.

This tool lets marketing teams develop brands online with the help of collaboration, publishing, and analytics features. With Loomly, you can manage platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Google My Business, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and Snapchat.

The platform also lets you manage all digital assets in one place. You can store images, videos, posts, and notes, all in one library. You also get post suggestions and ad previews. A user can respond to reactions and comments with this tool.

If we make a Loomly vs Sprout Social comparison, the latter is pricier. Loomly’s base plan is priced at $35/month, with which you can manage 10 social media accounts and 2 team members. This makes it far less costly than Sprout Social.

However, it’s also worth noting that Loomly’s photo size limit can bother users as it doesn’t allow posting full videos or photos. This can severely compromise the quality of your content.

5. Later

Later has expanded beyond the original purpose of scheduling Instagram posts and now offers scheduling options for LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If your primary focus is on visual marketing, Later is a good option.

In addition to scheduling your branded content, Later also allows you to share posts from other users. This feature is particularly beneficial for those who heavily rely on user-generated content for promotion. Other key features of the tool include adding a personalized touch to curated content and reporting features with insightful metrics.

Now coming to the Sprout Social vs. Later comparison: Sprout Social is suitable for businesses with fairly large teams and budgets. Later, on the other hand, is affordable even for a freelancer looking for effective social media management.

Having said that, it’s worth noting that some users of Later have reported slower response times with customer support. The tool also has limited social listening features.

Conclusion

Overall, the established credibility and several rave Sprout Social reviews have made it a preferred social media management tool for many. If you can justify the cost of this platform, it could be a great addition to your marketing strategy.

But, for businesses, small teams, and agencies looking for a much more affordable tool, it’s wise to take into consideration the Pros and Cons of Sprout Social and go for alternatives such as SocialPilot. The tool offers all the essential social media management features without you having to break the bank.