9 Best Sprout Social Alternatives for 2026

Sprout Social is one of the most recognized names in social media management. It offers publishing, engagement, analytics, and social listening in a single platform -- and charges accordingly. At $249 per user per month for the Standard plan (billed annually), it is one of the most expensive tools in the category. The Professional plan jumps to $399/user/month, and the Advanced plan hits $499/user/month. For a team of five, you are looking at $15,000 to $30,000 per year before you even add premium features like social listening, which costs extra.

That pricing makes sense for large enterprises managing dozens of social accounts with dedicated social media teams. But for startups, small marketing teams, freelancers, and anyone who does not need the full enterprise suite, Sprout Social is overkill. Many teams only use a fraction of its features -- maybe just scheduling and basic analytics, or just social listening for Reddit and forums. Paying $249/month/user for one or two features is hard to justify when specialized tools can do those specific jobs better and cheaper.

This guide covers nine Sprout Social alternatives that range from free to significantly more affordable. Some are all-in-one platforms that cover most of what Sprout does at a lower price. Others are specialized tools that handle one thing -- like Reddit analysis or social scheduling -- exceptionally well. The right choice depends on which Sprout Social features you actually use and what you can live without.

1. Reddily -- Best for Reddit Analysis and Social Listening

If you are using Sprout Social primarily for social listening on Reddit -- tracking brand mentions, analyzing competitor discussions, or extracting product feedback from subreddits -- Reddily does this specific job far better at a tiny fraction of the cost. Reddily is an AI-powered Reddit analysis platform that uses Google Gemini AI to extract structured insights from Reddit threads and discussions. It works through a web dashboard and a Chrome extension, delivering sentiment analysis, pain point detection, feature request extraction, recurring themes, and key quotes from any Reddit thread in seconds.

Key strength: Deep Reddit-specific analysis that goes far beyond what any general social listening tool can provide. Instead of aggregate mention counts, you get thread-level insights including exactly what people are complaining about, what features they want, and which comments resonated most with the community.

Pricing: Pay-per-analysis with no subscription. Every new account gets 5 free credits (1 credit = 1 analysis). Credit packs start at $2.99 for 10 credits. Batch analysis lets you search for a keyword and analyze up to 25 threads at once. No monthly fees, no annual contracts, no per-seat pricing.

Best for: Product managers, founders, and marketers who need deep Reddit insights for market research, competitor analysis, or product feedback. Teams that use Sprout Social's listening module mainly for Reddit will find Reddily delivers more actionable detail at roughly 1% of the cost.

2. Hootsuite -- Best All-in-One Alternative

Hootsuite is the most direct Sprout Social competitor and the closest feature-for-feature alternative. It covers social publishing, scheduling, engagement, analytics, and social listening across major platforms. The interface is dashboard-based with a stream view that lets you monitor multiple feeds simultaneously. It supports team collaboration, approval workflows, and content calendars.

Key strength: Broad platform coverage with a mature feature set. Hootsuite has been in the social media management space longer than almost any competitor, and its integration library is extensive. If you need a single platform that does a bit of everything, Hootsuite is the safest choice.

Pricing: Professional plan starts at $99/month (1 user, 10 social accounts). Team plan at $249/month (3 users). Significantly cheaper per-seat than Sprout Social, though advanced social listening is still an add-on. Free 30-day trial available.

Best for: Teams that need an all-in-one social media management platform and want to cut costs compared to Sprout Social without sacrificing core features. Best for mid-size marketing teams managing multiple social accounts.

3. Buffer -- Best Free Scheduling Alternative

Buffer focuses on social media scheduling and publishing with a clean, simple interface. It does one thing and does it well: scheduling posts across multiple social platforms from a single queue. The free plan covers up to 3 channels with 10 scheduled posts per channel, which is enough for freelancers and very small businesses. Buffer has deliberately avoided feature bloat, making it one of the easiest social media tools to learn and use.

Key strength: Simplicity. If you switched to Sprout Social primarily for scheduling and find yourself drowning in features you never touch, Buffer is the antidote. The interface is clean, the learning curve is virtually nonexistent, and the free tier is genuinely useful.

Pricing: Free plan (3 channels, 10 posts/channel). Essentials plan at $6/month/channel. Team plan at $12/month/channel. Even at scale, Buffer costs a fraction of Sprout Social.

Best for: Freelancers, solopreneurs, and small teams that primarily need social scheduling. Pair Buffer with Reddily for Reddit analysis and you cover scheduling plus social listening for under $20/month total -- compared to $249+/month with Sprout.

4. Agorapulse -- Best for Social Inbox Management

Agorapulse positions itself as a simpler, more affordable alternative to Sprout Social with a strong emphasis on social inbox management. Its unified inbox lets you manage comments, messages, and mentions from all connected platforms in a single view. The platform also includes scheduling, reporting, and basic social listening. What sets Agorapulse apart is its ROI tracking, which helps you tie social media activity to actual business outcomes.

Key strength: The social inbox and community management workflow. If your team spends most of its time responding to comments and messages across platforms, Agorapulse's inbox-centric design is more efficient than Sprout Social's approach.

Pricing: Free plan (3 social profiles, 1 user). Standard plan at $49/user/month. Professional plan at $79/user/month. Roughly 70% cheaper than Sprout Social at comparable feature levels.

Best for: Social media managers and community managers who spend most of their time in the engagement inbox. Teams that need approval workflows and collaborative response management at a more reasonable price point than Sprout Social.

5. Sendible -- Best for Agencies

Sendible is built with agencies in mind. It offers white-label reporting, client management dashboards, content libraries, and integration with popular CMS platforms like WordPress and Google My Business. The platform covers scheduling, engagement, and analytics with a focus on workflows that make sense when you are managing social media for multiple clients simultaneously.

Key strength: Agency-focused features including white-label reports, client-facing dashboards, and multi-brand management. If you are an agency paying for Sprout Social's Advanced plan just to get white-label capabilities, Sendible delivers similar functionality for much less.

Pricing: Creator plan at $29/month (1 user, 6 profiles). Traction plan at $89/month (4 users, 24 profiles). Scale plan at $199/month (7 users, 49 profiles). White-label reports included in higher tiers.

Best for: Social media agencies and freelancers managing multiple client accounts. If the agency workflow and white-label reporting are the main reasons you use Sprout Social, Sendible covers those use cases at a lower price point.

6. Brand24 -- Best for Broad Social Listening

Brand24 is a dedicated social listening and media monitoring platform. Unlike scheduling-focused tools, Brand24 is built entirely around tracking mentions of your brand, competitors, and keywords across the internet -- including social media, news sites, blogs, forums, podcasts, and review sites. It provides real-time alerts, sentiment analysis, influence scoring, and historical trend data. For teams that use Sprout Social primarily for its listening module, Brand24 is a strong specialized alternative.

Key strength: Comprehensive mention tracking across 25+ million online sources with real-time alerting. Brand24's mention feed, sentiment analysis, and influence scoring are more detailed than what most all-in-one social tools offer in their listening add-ons.

Pricing: Individual plan at $79/month (3 keywords, 2K mentions/month). Team plan at $149/month (7 keywords, 5K mentions/month). Pro plan at $199/month (12 keywords, 25K mentions/month). No per-seat charges, which helps team economics.

Best for: PR teams, brand managers, and competitive intelligence analysts who need comprehensive social listening across multiple platforms. Pair Brand24 with Buffer or Hootsuite for scheduling and you replicate most of Sprout Social's functionality at a lower total cost.

7. Mention -- Best for Real-Time Brand Monitoring

Mention combines social listening with basic social publishing. Its core strength is real-time brand monitoring: it crawls the web, social media, forums, and news sites to alert you whenever your brand, competitors, or tracked keywords appear. The platform includes a social publishing feature, but monitoring and alerting are where it shines. Mention also offers competitive analysis reports that track how your share of voice compares to competitors over time.

Key strength: Real-time alerts and competitive benchmarking. Mention's alerting system is fast and reliable, and the competitive analysis dashboard makes it easy to track how your brand's online presence compares to competitors across channels.

Pricing: Solo plan at $49/month (2 alerts, 5K mentions). Pro plan at $99/month (5 alerts, 10K mentions). ProPlus plan at $179/month (7 alerts, 20K mentions). 14-day free trial available.

Best for: Marketing teams and PR professionals who need real-time brand monitoring and competitive benchmarking. A good middle ground between basic social media tools and enterprise-grade platforms like Brandwatch.

8. Zoho Social -- Best for Zoho Ecosystem Users

Zoho Social is a social media management tool that integrates natively with the broader Zoho suite, including Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, and Zoho Analytics. It covers scheduling, monitoring, analytics, and team collaboration. If your organization already uses Zoho products, the integrations create workflows that standalone social tools cannot match -- like automatically creating CRM leads from social interactions or routing support requests from social to Zoho Desk.

Key strength: Native integration with the Zoho ecosystem. If your team uses Zoho CRM, the ability to connect social media interactions directly to customer records and sales pipelines is a significant advantage that Sprout Social's CRM integration cannot match without additional setup costs.

Pricing: Standard plan at $15/month (1 brand, 9 channels). Professional plan at $40/month (1 brand, 9 channels, with listening). Premium plan at $65/month (1 brand, 11 channels). Agency plans start at $275/month for 10 brands. Among the most affordable options for teams already in the Zoho ecosystem.

Best for: Organizations already using Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, or other Zoho products. The native integration value alone can justify choosing Zoho Social over pricier alternatives, especially for teams that want to connect social media activity to their CRM pipeline.

9. Later -- Best for Visual Content and Instagram

Later started as an Instagram-first scheduling tool and has expanded to cover TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn. Its strength is visual content planning: the drag-and-drop calendar with visual previews makes it easy to plan visually cohesive feeds. Later also includes a link-in-bio tool (Linkin.bio), basic analytics, and user-generated content discovery features. It is the go-to choice for brands where visual content and Instagram are the primary focus.

Key strength: Visual content planning and Instagram optimization. Later's visual calendar, best-time-to-post suggestions, and Instagram-specific features like first comment scheduling and carousel planning are more refined than what generalist tools offer.

Pricing: Starter plan at $25/month (1 social set, 1 user). Growth plan at $45/month (3 social sets, 3 users). Advanced plan at $80/month (6 social sets, 6 users). Free 14-day trial on all plans.

Best for: Brands and creators focused on visual platforms, especially Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. If your social strategy is image and video-heavy, Later's visual planning tools are more useful than Sprout Social's generalist approach, and the price difference is substantial.

Comparison Table: Reddily vs Sprout Social

Since Reddit analysis and social listening are among the top reasons teams consider alternatives, here is a direct comparison between Reddily and Sprout Social for these specific use cases.

Specialized Tools vs All-in-One Platforms

The Sprout Social alternatives landscape breaks down into two camps: all-in-one platforms that try to replace Sprout entirely, and specialized tools that handle one specific function better and cheaper. Understanding which camp you need determines your best path forward.

All-in-one platforms like Hootsuite, Agorapulse, and Sendible cover scheduling, engagement, analytics, and some level of social listening in a single tool. They are the easiest migration path from Sprout Social because the workflow feels familiar. You trade some feature depth for lower costs, but the core experience is similar. Choose this path if your team genuinely uses multiple Sprout Social features daily and wants to keep everything under one roof.

Specialized tools like Reddily, Buffer, Brand24, and Later each excel at a specific job. Reddily goes deeper on Reddit analysis than any all-in-one tool. Buffer is cleaner and simpler for scheduling. Brand24 offers more detailed social listening. Later is better for visual content planning. The tradeoff is that you might need two or three specialized tools to cover what Sprout Social does in one platform.

Here is the thing most people discover after switching: the combination of two or three specialized tools often costs less than Sprout Social alone, and each individual tool is better at its specific function. For example, Buffer (scheduling, $6/month) plus Reddily (Reddit analysis, $2.99 per 10 credits) plus Brand24 (social listening, $79/month) gives you scheduling, deep Reddit insights, and broad social monitoring for roughly $90/month total -- compared to $249+/month for Sprout Social, which does each of those things adequately but none of them exceptionally.

The best approach is to audit which Sprout Social features your team actually uses on a weekly basis. If the answer is "mostly scheduling and occasionally social listening," you do not need an enterprise platform. A combination of Buffer for scheduling and Reddily for Reddit-based market research will save you thousands of dollars per year while giving you better results in both areas.