9 Best Sprout Social Alternatives in 2026 (Pricing Compared)

Short answer: Sprout Social is a polished all-in-one suite for publishing, engagement and reporting. Teams leave because it's priced per seat ($199 per seat/month on Standard, billed annually), because Listening is a separate add-on with no published price, and because annual plans are paid upfront. The right alternative depends on which part of Sprout you actually use:

• Hootsuite for the closest like-for-like suite, with brand and competitor monitoring on every plan
• Agorapulse if the shared inbox is where your team spends its day
• Sendible for unlimited users instead of per-seat pricing
• SocialPilot or Buffer if you mostly schedule posts and want to spend far less
• Metricool for a free plan and analytics-first reporting
• Updately if you mainly used Sprout for listening and you sell B2B. It monitors LinkedIn, X, Reddit, Bluesky and Hacker News and turns mentions into leads. Updately replaces Sprout's Listening, not its publishing: it has no scheduling and no Instagram, Facebook or TikTok coverage.
• Brand24 or Awario for broad brand and PR monitoring

Table of Contents

1. What Sprout Social does well
2. Why teams look for Sprout Social alternatives
3. Sprout Social alternatives compared
4. Alternatives that replace all of Sprout
5. Alternatives if you mainly used Sprout for listening
6. How to choose
7. FAQ

What Sprout Social does well

Credit where it's due: Sprout is one of the most complete social media management suites. From its current plans:

• One inbox for every profile. Messages, comments and reviews in one place with collaboration tools, plus sentiment in the inbox on the Advanced plan.
• Publishing and reporting together. Scheduling, profile- and post-level reports, and competitor, tag and paid insights from the Professional plan.
• Trellis, an AI agent on every plan, with 100 credits per seat each month for inbox briefings, report summaries and drafted replies.
• Room to grow. The Sprout API and helpdesk integrations on Advanced, plus add-ons for premium analytics, employee advocacy and influencer marketing.

For a team that publishes, answers customers and reports every month, Sprout is a reasonable default. The reason to switch is usually cost, not quality.

Why teams look for Sprout Social alternatives

All figures below are from Sprout's pricing page in November 2026.

• Every user is a seat. Standard is $199 per seat/month on annual billing, Professional $299 and Advanced $399. A three-person team on Standard pays $597 a month, or $7,164 a year, before any add-ons.
• Listening costs extra. Standard and higher plans include brand keyword monitoring (10 brand keywords per group, 20 on Advanced). The Listening product, with Smart Categories, sentiment tracking and spike alerts, is a separate add-on for Standard and up. Sprout doesn't publish its price, so you book a demo to get a quote.
• Annual billing is paid upfront. Sprout's FAQ says annual billing needs a one-time upfront payment for the whole term. Month-to-month costs more: $249 per seat on Standard, $399 on Professional and $499 on Advanced.
• Profile caps on the lower plans. Essentials and Standard connect 5 social profiles. Unlimited profiles start on Professional.
• The cheapest plan skips monitoring. Essentials ($79 per seat/month billed annually, $99 monthly) is built for publishing and doesn't include brand keywords.

On the plus side, Sprout's 30-day free trial needs no credit card.

Sprout Social alternatives compared

Prices are list prices from each vendor's pricing page in November 2026. "Annual" is the monthly rate when billed yearly.

Alternatives that replace all of Sprout

These six tools publish, schedule, handle replies and report, like Sprout. Of them, only Hootsuite includes social listening in its self-serve plans.

1. Hootsuite: closest like-for-like replacement

Hootsuite covers publishing, a shared inbox, analytics and listening, and like Sprout it's priced per user. The difference is the entry point: Standard costs less per seat, connects 10 social accounts instead of 5, and includes monitoring for your brand and competitors. Professional adds Quick Search across 30 days of conversations and trend forecasting up to 90 days ahead.

• Price: Standard $99 per user/month, Professional $199, Advanced $399, all billed annually. Monthly billing costs more per user (the rate isn't shown on the plans page). Enterprise is custom. 14-day free trial.
• Choose it if: you want to keep an all-in-one setup and get listening without a separate add-on.
• Skip it if: per-seat pricing is why you're leaving. Hootsuite uses the same model.

2. Agorapulse: best for inbox-heavy teams

Agorapulse is built around one inbox for messages and organic comments, with ad comments, assignments and team performance reports from Professional. Advanced adds labels, saved replies, automated moderation rules, ROI analysis and competitor benchmarking. Listening isn't part of the plans. It's sold as an Advanced Listening add-on through a demo.

• Price: Standard $79 per user/month annually ($99 monthly), Professional $119 ($149), Advanced $149 ($199). Standard to Advanced include 10 social profiles, and extra profiles are $10/month ($15 monthly). 30-day free trial, no credit card.
• Choose it if: your team spends most of its day on comments and DMs and wants a lower per-seat price than Sprout.
• Skip it if: you need listening included or want to get away from per-user pricing.

3. Sendible: best for unlimited users

Sendible includes unlimited users on every plan, which removes Sprout's main cost driver for growing teams and agencies. Plans are priced by workspace (6 social profiles each) and include unlimited scheduling, an inbox for mentions, comments and messages on your connected profiles, and reports. Approval workflows start on Plus.

• Price: Core $35/month (1 workspace), Plus $99 (3 workspaces), Premium $199 (7 workspaces), billed monthly. Yearly billing is cheaper (Core drops to $31/month). 14-day free trial, no card, and no contract on standard plans.
• Choose it if: several teammates or clients need access and seat costs are the problem.
• Skip it if: you need keyword listening beyond your own connected profiles.

4. SocialPilot: best value for small teams and agencies

SocialPilot is a lower-cost scheduler with an inbox, analytics and client tools. Each plan includes a set number of users instead of charging per seat. Watch the entry plan: Essentials has no analytics or social inbox, so Standard is the realistic Sprout replacement.

• Price (US): Essentials $30/month ($25.50 annually; 7 accounts, 1 user). Standard $50 ($42.50 annually; 15 accounts, 3 users). Premium $100 ($85; 25 accounts, 6 users). Ultimate $200 ($170; 50 accounts, unlimited users). Extra users are $5/month. 14-day free trial.
• Choose it if: you want scheduling, an inbox and reports for a small team at a fraction of Sprout's price.
• Skip it if: you need listening, or competitor and white-label reports below the Premium plan.

5. Buffer: best for simple publishing

Buffer is the simplest tool here. You pay per connected channel, and the Team plan includes unlimited team members, approval workflows and access levels. It has a community inbox for replying to comments, plus analytics, but no listening.

• Price: Free for up to 3 channels (10 scheduled posts per channel). Essentials $6 per channel/month ($5 annually). Team $12 per channel/month ($10 annually). Per-channel rates drop above 10 channels. 14-day free trial on paid plans.
• Choose it if: publishing was most of what you used Sprout for.
• Skip it if: you need any listening or keyword monitoring.

6. Metricool: best free plan and analytics

Metricool combines a planner, analytics, competitor tracking and reports, and prices by the number of brands rather than users. The Free plan covers one brand on every network except LinkedIn and X. LinkedIn needs a paid plan, X needs an add-on, and team management and approvals start on Advanced.

• Price (USD): Free. Starter from $20/month annually ($25 monthly) for up to 5 brands. Advanced from $53/month annually ($67 monthly) for up to 15 brands. The Hashtag Tracker for X or Instagram is $25 per day per network.
• Choose it if: you want strong analytics and reports for several brands on a small budget.
• Skip it if: you need ongoing keyword listening.

Alternatives if you mainly used Sprout for listening

If your team opened Sprout mostly for Listening, each tool below starts at or below the price of one Sprout Standard seat. Pair it with a publishing tool above if you still schedule posts.

7. Updately: best for B2B teams that want leads from listening

Updately's social listening monitors LinkedIn, X, Reddit, Bluesky and Hacker News for your keywords and scores every mention for relevance, buying intent and sentiment. Reddit and Bluesky are monitored in real time, X and LinkedIn hourly, and alerts go to Slack and email. The difference is what happens after the alert. A post like "can anyone recommend a tool for this?" can become a lead, through signals: Updately's AI SDR researches the person and contacts them on LinkedIn. More on that approach in finding B2B leads with social listening.

• Price: $49/month, or $39/month billed annually, for 3 listeners. 10-day free trial.
• Replaces: Sprout's Listening, not its publishing. Updately has no publishing or scheduling and doesn't cover Instagram, Facebook or TikTok.
• Choose it if: you sell B2B, your buyers talk on LinkedIn, Reddit, X or Hacker News, and you want listening to start conversations, not just fill reports.
• Skip it if: you need consumer-brand listening on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok, or news and podcast coverage for PR. Brand24 is broader there.

8. Brand24: best for PR and brand monitoring

Brand24 is broad media monitoring. Its sources include Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, news, blogs, reviews, newsletters and podcasts, with sentiment, reach, influencer analysis and advertising value equivalency (AVE). Plans are priced by keywords and mentions, and Team and higher plans include unlimited users.

• Price: Individual $199/month annually ($249 monthly): 3 keywords, 2,000 mentions a month, 1 user, updates every 12 hours. Team $299 annually ($349 monthly): 7 keywords, hourly updates, unlimited users. Real-time updates start on Pro at $399 annually ($499 monthly). 14-day free trial.
• Choose it if: you used Sprout's Listening for PR, share of voice and reputation reporting.
• Skip it if: you need many keywords on a small budget, since three go quickly. See Updately vs Brand24 and the best brand monitoring tools.

9. Awario: cheapest dedicated listening tool

Awario monitors X, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, blogs, forums, news and the web, with sentiment analysis and Boolean search. Each topic can hold unlimited keywords, so the entry plan goes further than a strict keyword cap.

• Price: Starter $29/month annually ($49 monthly): 3 topics, 30,000 new mentions a month, 1 team member. Pro $89 annually ($149 monthly): 15 topics, 10 team members, CSV export. Enterprise $249 annually ($399 monthly). Free trial on the Starter plan.
• Choose it if: you want broad brand monitoring at the lowest price.
• Skip it if: LinkedIn matters to you. It isn't among the sources Awario lists. See Updately vs Awario.

How to choose

Start with what your team actually did in Sprout over the last three months:

• "We publish, reply and report, and want it all in one tool." Hootsuite is the closest swap. Choose Agorapulse if the inbox matters most.
• "Seats are the problem." Sendible (unlimited users), Buffer Team (unlimited team members, priced per channel) or Metricool (priced per brand).
• "We mostly schedule posts." Buffer or SocialPilot.
• "We mostly used Listening." Use a dedicated listening tool: Updately for B2B leads from LinkedIn, X, Reddit, Bluesky and Hacker News, or Brand24 or Awario for PR and broad brand monitoring.
• "We need both, for less." Split the stack. Buffer Essentials for 3 channels ($15/month billed annually) plus Updately ($39/month billed annually) comes to $54 a month, against $199 for a single Sprout Standard seat.

Before you switch, export the reports you want to keep and run the new tool alongside Sprout for a week. Annual plans are paid upfront, so time the move to your renewal. For more price comparisons, see social listening tools pricing.

FAQ

What is the best Sprout Social alternative?

It depends on which part of Sprout you're replacing. For the full suite, Hootsuite is the closest match and Agorapulse suits inbox-heavy teams. To avoid per-seat pricing, Sendible includes unlimited users. For listening, choose Updately if you sell B2B and want mentions to become leads, or Brand24 for PR monitoring.

What is the cheapest Sprout Social alternative?

Buffer and Metricool both have free plans. Among paid plans, Buffer starts at $5 per channel/month, SocialPilot at $25.50/month and Sendible at $31/month, all on annual billing. For listening, Awario starts at $29/month and Updately at $39/month, both billed annually. Sprout's own cheapest plan, Essentials, is $79 per seat/month billed annually.

Is Hootsuite better than Sprout Social?

They're closer than most comparisons suggest: both are full suites priced per user. Hootsuite's Standard plan is cheaper than Sprout's ($99 against $199 per user/month, billed annually), connects 10 accounts instead of 5 and includes brand and competitor monitoring. Sprout's case rests on its inbox, reporting and add-ons. Sprout's trial is 30 days, Hootsuite's 14.

Does Sprout Social include social listening?

Partly. Standard and higher plans include brand keyword monitoring: 10 brand keywords per group on Standard and Professional, 20 on Advanced. The Listening product is a separate add-on for Standard and up, and Sprout doesn't publish its price. Essentials includes neither.

Can Updately replace Sprout Social?

Only the listening part. Updately monitors LinkedIn, X, Reddit, Bluesky and Hacker News and can turn a mention into a lead that its AI SDR contacts on LinkedIn. It doesn't publish or schedule posts or cover Instagram, Facebook or TikTok, so if you publish, you'll still need one of the management tools above.

How much does Sprout Social cost in 2026?

With annual billing, paid upfront: Essentials $79, Standard $199, Professional $299 and Advanced $399 per seat/month. Billed monthly: $99, $249, $399 and $499 per seat/month. Enterprise is custom. Listening, Premium Analytics and Employee Advocacy are add-ons with no published price.

If listening was the part of Sprout you used most, try Updately free for 10 days and see which conversations on LinkedIn, X, Reddit, Bluesky and Hacker News are worth joining. For more options, compare the best social listening tools for 2026.