Here’s a quick summary of the best social media management tools and their superlatives:
Zoho Social
Superlative: Best Overall
Zoho Social is part of a larger suite of products made by Zoho that does CRM, accounting, email marketing and more. The tools integrate well with each other, though they aren’t required to use Zoho Social. Zoho wins our best overall for social media management software for its inclusion of essential social media management features and tools, including a lead generation tool, and its affordable plans compared to many other platforms that offer similar features.
Zoho offers a 15-day free trial to try out the platform. Beyond that, it’s inexpensive, varying from $10 to $40 per month.
That being said, the maximum number of accounts you can have with any of Zoho’s social plans is 11. It also offers limited third-party integrations, as it prefers you to use Zoho’s other products.
Pros:
Support for Google My Business
User-friendly interface
Posts with word, photo and video content
Cons:
Additional cost to add more users or channels
Limited integrations with third-party platforms
No support for YouTube Shorts
Hootsuite
Superlative: Best for Data-Driven Insights
Hootsuite is arguably the most well-known social media management platform. Hootsuite is constantly changing its pricing options; most recently, Hootsuite retired its free plan, making the starting price $99 per month.
Hootsuite offers all of the basic features: a content calendar, a social inbox and an AI-powered chatbot. It also provides you with advanced analytics to track engagement with your followers and has the ability to schedule up to 350 posts at once. One of Hootsuite’s most notable features is its data-driven insights. This feature helps you make social media marketing decisions based on real data to grow your business’s social media influence and footprint to drive engagement and conversion.
That being said, even Hootsuite’s most expensive plans have limited users and accounts. Therefore, it’s really only useful for businesses that focus all of their efforts on a few social media channels.
Pros
Free 30-day trial
Option to skip the trial for 60% off the first year’s premium
Access to messages across all platforms under one inbox
Cons:
Discontinued free account
Only one user with the starting plan
No marketing campaign planning in the bottom two plans
Sprout Social
Superlative: Best for Influencer Marketing Management
Sprout Social has some impressive features, which is part of why it’s so expensive. Pricing starts at $249 per month, with each additional user varying from $199 to $349 per month. At this price point, Sprout Social is geared toward mid-sized and big businesses with large social media budgets.
Sprout Social offers what you might expect from a platform priced at this level. It has workflows to track customers via social sales. It provides data on the best time to schedule posts. And it helps with paid as well as organic social media. They also offer features to manage your influencer marketing campaigns seamlessly with the rest of your social media campaigns in one place.
If you just want a tool to help you schedule content, Sprout Social is not for you.
Pros:
Responsive customer support
Unlimited social channels starting with the Professional plan
Built-in tools for influencer marketing, employee advocacy and social listening
Cons:
Hundreds of dollars per month
Only five social channels allowed with the entry-level plan
SocialPilot
Superlative: Best for Small Businesses
SocialPilot doesn’t have the same notability as popular social media tools like Monday.com Sprout Social and Hootsuite, but it offers extensive functionality for a fraction of the cost. Starting at $30 for 10 channels, SocialPilot offers the most bang for your buck, making it a great option for small businesses with a small social media marketing budget.
This lower cost comes with a couple of sacrifices, though. First, you won’t find an integration for X, formerly known as Twitter. The second limitation is that you don’t get a calendar view of all your posts across all your accounts.
However, you do get access to some unique add-on features, such as an AI assistant for drafting posts and bulk scheduling for up to 500 posts at once.
Pros:
Affordable pricing
White label service available
Cons:
Basic analytics dashboard
No calendar view
Loomly
Superlative: Best for Content Creation
Loomly offers the highest number of “potential” social channel integrations. This “potential” category exists because the company has nine native ones and a series of custom ones.
Another unique feature of Loomly is its daily inspiration. Every day, it gives you some ideas for what you could post about. For example, it might call out an upcoming holiday. What makes Loomly stand out is its media studio feature. It allows you to create custom media and content for social media in the platform to keep your process in the same place from creation to posting and analyzing.
Loomly isn’t for everyone, though. Its analytics capabilities are limited. And while it starts off affordable at $32 per month, its high-tier plans quickly escalate in price, ending at $277 a month.
Pros:
Native and custom integrations
Post ideas
15-day free trial
Cons:
Expensive high-tier plans
Limit of 10 social accounts for the cheapest subscription
Limited reporting capabilities
Buffer
Superlative: Easiest To Use Best for a Free Plan
Buffer is a simple alternative to complex social media tools. You won’t find a lot of integrations or customizations, but it makes it easy to schedule social media posts.
Buffer’s pricing structure is unique in that you only pay for what you need. In other words, you pay for the exact number of channels you have. For instance, the Essentials plan is $6 per month for one channel and another $6 for each additional channel you add. The other special thing about Buffer pricing is that there’s a free plan with basic functions for up to three channels.
Aside from price, Buffer is worthwhile for its features. There’s an AI assistant, a landing page builder and a browser extension.
Pros:
Integrations for nine popular social media channels, including YouTube
Unlimited users in the top two plans
Integrations for other common business tools, such as Google, OneDrive, Dropbox and Canva
Cons:
No analytics in bottom plan
One user in the bottom two plans
Free plan limited to 10 scheduled posts at a time
Social media management software manages multiple social media pages simultaneously. These tools typically focus on word-based platforms, such as X and Facebook, though some support video content on TikTok and YouTube.
Here are the four basic features you should expect from social media management software:
Scheduling and publishing content
Monitoring brand mentions and hashtags
Managing multiple social accounts
Tracking performance and engagement
Social media managers cost anywhere from $0 to $1,000 per month. This large price range comes from differences in the number of users, social accounts and features.
Free plans work for small teams that only have one or two social media profiles to worry about. Enterprise-level plans are built for large marketing agencies as well as other businesses that have huge followings and frequent posts across numerous channels.
Is There Free Social Media Management Software?
A few social media management providers offer free plans. For instance, we mentioned Buffer and Freshworks earlier. That being said, the capabilities on these free plans are limited.
You could also opt for a free trial. Many software solutions offer free trials for a few weeks so that you can test them out before committing to one.
Social media management solutions vary widely in the features they offer. Here are some features to keep in mind:
Analytics: Informs you of the views, likes, comments and other engagement results of your posts
Scheduling: Schedules your posts several days or weeks in advance
Social monitoring/listening: Monitors mentions of your brand across social platforms
Integrations: Integrates with common social media platforms as well as business tools
Digital assets: Gives you access to content templates, photo libraries and other digital assets to use as a starting point for your posts
Also be on the lookout for the number of allowed:
Users: Number of team members who can log into the software at the same time
Channels: Number of social media channels that the software can connect to at the same time
Accounts: Number of accounts for those channels that the software can connect to at the same time
The Bottom Line
The social media management market is rife with software solutions. Our review gives you a range of options from the comprehensive, premium HootSuite to the basic, affordable Buffer. As you shop for a tool, think about what would fit your needs and budget best.
Frequently Asked Questions About Social Media Management Software
What is the difference between social media management and social media scheduling tools?
Social media scheduling tools usually only help with scheduling for one channel, whereas management tools do scheduling and more for several channels at once. However, these two terms are often used interchangeably, so it’s important to check the specs of the tool before committing to it.
What social media platforms can you manage with social media management software?
The most common platforms that social media software can manage are X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Some less common ones are YouTube and TikTok, as only select tools can do video content.
Can social media management tools help grow my audience?
A social media management tool can help you grow your social media presence if you implement it correctly. Use it to regularly post on your social media accounts. Then, track the performance of these posts to see what optimizations to make to your social media strategy.
What analytics can I get from social media management platforms?
Each management platform collects different social media analytics. However, some of the more common metrics include views, click-through rate, impressions, likes, comments, shares and followers.
Our Methodology
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools help businesses bring in new customers and nurture current ones. With different businesses come different business goals and CRM needs. So, the MarketWatch Guides team spent over 100 hours evaluating 13 providers to determine who each CRM is best for. We looked at big names, such as Salesforce and monday.com, as well as small providers, including Liondesk and Less Annoying CRM.
Our Rating System for CRM Software
To create our CRM rating methodology, we reviewed company websites, user forums, customer reviews and platform demos/free trials to get a better understanding of what the CRM category looks like as a whole as well as what each provider offers.
We also conducted a survey in 2024 of 200 professionals who were currently using CRM or had used CRM within the past year. We analyzed the results of this survey to determine that the most important criteria for CRM are:
User Experience
Features
Pricing
Customer Support
Reputation and Credibility
We also used the survey to determine how to weight each of these factors.
Factors We Use To Score CRM Software Companies
We scored each provider out of 100 points based on the following key factors. We then divided the company’s total points to get a final score on a five-star scale.
User Experience (15%)
CRM software providers could have earned a total of 15% in this category. The first 5% was for the app experience. Companies got 2.5% for a five-star rating on the Apple App Store and another 2.5% for a five-star rating on the Google Play Store.
The next 5% was for desktop experience. We tested the desktop version of each software and rated the experience as bad, fine or great. A great experience (responsive, intuitive, seamless navigation) earned 5%, a fine experience earned 2.5% and a bad experience earned 0%.
The final 5% in this category was about barrier to entry. The full 5% was given to companies that included all of the relevant pricing and feature information on their websites. Companies that provided the necessary information when contacted earned 2.5%, and companies that did not provide the relevant information earned 0%.
Features (30%)
Below is a list of basic CRM features. The providers that offered all of these features in their base plans received the maximum 30% weighting:
Reports and analytics: 2.5% for having reports and analytics in the base plan, 1.3% for having them in any of the paid plans, 0% for not having them at all
Third-party integrations: 2.5% for having at least 2,500 integrations, 2% for having 1,500 to 2,499 integrations, 1.5% for having 500 to 1,499 integrations, 1% for having 100 to 499 integrations, 0.5% for having less than 100 integrations
Mobile access: 2.5% for having a mobile app, 1.3% for having a mobile-friendly browser version, 0% for having no mobile-friendly access
Contact database: 5.5% for having unlimited contact management in the base plan, 2.75% for having a limited number of contacts in the base plan
Workflow automation: 5% for having automation in the base plan, 0% for not having it in the base plan
Deal tracking: 4% for having unlimited deal tracking in the base plan, 2% for having a limited number of deals in the base plan
Email marketing: 4% for having extensive email marketing features in any plan, 2% for having only email tracking in any plan, 0% for not having any email marketing features in any plan
Calling: 4% for having extensive phone calling features in any plan, 2% for having only call tracking in any plan, 0% for not having any phone calling features in any plan
Pricing (30%)
We awarded up to 20% for the following pricing-related factors:
Free version: 5% for having a free version of the platform, 0% for not having a free version
Free trial: 5% for offering a free trial of any length, 0% for not offering a free trial of any kind
Contract flexibility: 5% for allowing users to cancel at any time for fee, 2.5% for allowing users to cancel at any time for a fee, 0% for having a locked-in contract with no option to cancel
Required implementation cost: 5% for not requiring users to pay a setup fee, 0% for requiring users to pay a setup fee
The last 10% of the pricing category came from value for price. We measured the overall features score against the base plan monthly price. Each provider was awarded between 2% (low value for price) and 10% (great value for price) based on where they fell between the three milestones below:
Great value for price (full 10%): High features score (80% or more of features points awarded) plus low base plan price ($18 or less)
Average value for price (60%): Average features score (70% to 80% of features points awarded) plus average base plan price ($19 to $40)
Low value for price (20%): Low features score (less than 70% of features points awarded) plus high base plan price (more than $40)
Example: Bigin by Zoho was awarded the full 10% for having a low base plan price ($9) plus a features score over 80% (23/30), while HubSpot received 8% for a higher monthly plan ($1,080) combined with a slightly lower features score (21/30).
Customer Support (15%)
We allocated 15% to customer support, looking at the availability of the following channels at any plan level:
Personalized training/onboarding assistance: 3.5% for having free personalized onboarding assistance, 1.8% for having it for a fee, 0% for not having it
Video tutorials: 1.5% for having video tutorials, 0% for not having them
Chat support: 3.5% for having a live chat with a human, 1.8% for having a chatbot, 0% for not having a chat
Phone support: 3.5% for having 24/7 phone support, 1.8% for having phone support with limited hours, 0% for not having phone support
User forums: 1.5% for having user forums, 0% for not having them
Help center: 1.5% for having a help center, 0% for not having it
Reputation and Credibility (10%)
We evaluated customer reviews on Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra. We gave them each a score out of five stars. Each score was weighted 3.3% out of the total 10% for the category.
How To Choose the Right CRM Software
This rating system is intended to give readers a comprehensive overview of CRM providers. We collected comprehensive data on each provider’s features, prices, value, credibility, customer support and user experience to help businesses make an informed selection.
Our data shows that these providers don’t meet the needs of every business. However, businesses can use our information to compare providers and land on the right one for them.
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