Sprout Social
Sprout Social review
Sprout Social brings publishing, customer conversations and social performance into one service. Its strongest appeal is helping a team do the work together: plan what goes out, follow up on incoming messages and see what the activity achieved.
Give replies a clear place to go
The Smart Inbox combines supported conversations across social accounts. You can filter what needs attention, keep messages for follow-up and distinguish completed work from outstanding replies. That is more useful than simply displaying several feeds beside one another when more than one person handles the response.
Supported channels include Facebook and Instagram messages, LinkedIn Company Page messages and WhatsApp Business conversations. Personal-profile LinkedIn direct messages are not supported. Other coverage depends on the account type and connection permissions.
Plan and review content together
Sprout also provides a publishing calendar and collaboration tools. People preparing a post and those reviewing it can work from the same plan instead of sending screenshots back and forth. The benefit is a clearer connection between the intended message, the scheduled post and the response it receives.
Reporting gives colleagues a shared view of performance. Higher tiers add competitor and paid-social insights, customer-care reporting and integrations. That depth is useful when social results need to be explained beyond the person operating the accounts.
Sprout Social pricing
| Plan | Advertised annual-billing price | Main coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $79 per seat per month | Publishing and reporting for five profiles |
| Standard | $199 per seat per month | Full social inbox, collaboration and review management |
| Professional | $299 per seat per month | Unlimited profiles and more reporting features |
| Advanced | $399 per seat per month | Customer-care reporting and additional integrations |
Essentials also has a $99 monthly-billing option. A 30-day trial is available.
For example, two Standard seats cost $398 a month at the advertised annual-billing rate, or $4,776 for the year before taxes and extras. This is an illustration from the per-seat rate, not a separate team offer.
The biggest buying distinction is that Essentials is not the complete customer-care package. Budget for Standard or above if the Smart Inbox is your main reason to choose Sprout. Premium Analytics and Listening are separately priced add-ons, and each extra seat changes the total.
Other tools to consider
Agorapulse offers publishing and social inbox tools at a different per-user price. Metricool is worth comparing when downloadable performance reports matter more than customer care. Hootsuite also combines publishing, reporting and responses in a wider suite.
Our verdict
Sprout Social earns a closer look when publishing and responding are shared responsibilities. The Smart Inbox helps people follow conversations through, and the reports make that work easier to explain. Those capabilities give a team a shared way to manage the work from planned post to customer response.