Choosing the right social media platform for your team is crucial. You must invest in a platform that will keep your team agile so they can advance your strategy and grow your business. That starts with doing your research.

In this article, we’ll compare Sprout Social vs. Hootsuite using G2 review data to see what customers have to say*. The comparison data in this article is based on G2 data from 04/17/23, unless stated otherwise.

Feel free to jump ahead to these stand-out Hootsuite vs. Sprout comparisons:

Sprout Social vs. Hootsuite: Overview

It’s hard to compare two platforms without knowing what each has to offer.

Let’s start our Hootsuite or Sprout Social analysis with an introduction to each platform.

Our comparison sources data from reviews of both platforms on G2: a trusted source for over 2 million verified software reviews—which is the most in one destination. For their Best Software Awards, G2 combines Market Presence and Satisfaction scores to rank vendors. Sprout has earned its G2 accolades, and the high scores you’ll see in this article, from customer feedback.

Who is Sprout Social for?

Founded in 2010, Sprout Social has been at the forefront of social media management technology for over 10 years. Our industry-leading, cloud-based software has earned us accolades across the board, including in G2’s Top 100 Software Products in 2023. But our wins in the enterprise space are what truly set us apart.

A graphic featuring Sprout's G2 Enterprise leader badge for spring 2023. The graphic has the title, "number one ranked social media suite for enterprise."

Sprout Social has been chosen as a G2 Enterprise Leader every quarter since 2018 over our competitors—Hootsuite included. And we’re proud to be the only social suite on G2’s Top Enterprise Software Products for 2023.

A graphic featuring five of Sprout's G2 badges including top 50 products for enterprise 2023, top 50 products for mid-market 2023, top 100 software products 2023, top 100 highest satisfaction products 2023 and top 100 global software companies 2023.

Sprout Social has been recognized in many categories beyond enterprise, including Best Software Products, Products for Mid Market, Global Software Products and High Satisfaction Products.

Who is Hootsuite for?

Founded in 2008, Hootsuite has built a recognizable name for itself in the industry.

Like Sprout, Hootsuite has different tools for every step of social media management. They offer solutions for scheduling and publishing content, engagement, customer care, analytics and reporting. They also have add-ons that support advocacy, advanced analytics, social listening and ads management.

But per G2’s comparison page, Sprout was the preferred choice for customers in terms of meeting business needs, product support and where our product is headed.

Sprout Social vs. Hootsuite: Innovation

Social media is constantly evolving, as is the way that marketers work. Social media management platforms must innovate in lockstep with these changes to meet their customers’ needs—or risk losing them.

Let’s compare how reviewers grade Sprout’s innovation and future outlook.

Sprout leads Hootsuite in product direction

Product direction is the outlook of a vendor’s product evolution, including future integrations, frequency of expanding features and functionality, and how well they innovate to continue meeting customers’ needs.

On G2, Sprout is a clear winner, scoring an 8.8 in positive product direction. We need to be the best solution for our customers not just now, but for the long term. With more than 100 material product updates rolled out every year, we constantly improve current offerings, and look ahead to anticipate what our more than 30,000 customers will need to keep up. In contrast, Hootsuite scored a 7.3. Reviews have mentioned that the platform’s UX and UI feels clunky and less streamlined than other scheduling tools.

A graphic featuring Sprout's G2 Momentum leader badge for spring 2023 and two bars indicating that Sprout leads Hootsuite in product direction. Text at the bottom of the graphic reads, the ratings for this article are based on G2 data from 04/17/23

Sprout continues to invest in R&D

Our mantra of “never stop growing” rings true. We prioritize new features and integrations by listening to the customer and maintaining an unrelenting focus on the social space.

Our 2023 acquisition of Repustate will allow us to expand our in-house AI offerings faster. And our recent integration with OpenAI’s GPT will empower customers to create more impactful content and analyses with AI-generated listening query and copy suggestions. These developments build on our existing automation capabilities—like our Optimal Send Times for publishing and our social listening solution.

We’re also always looking for integrations that help our customers to work smarter, without working harder. Our Salesforce Service Cloud integration streamlines Salesforce users’ social media and customer care efforts. And our TikTok integration eliminated inefficient steps for social teams as they started investing more into this channel.

Sprout Social vs. Hootsuite: Ease of Doing Business

The perfect platform must check every functionality box for your team, and should be easy to learn. When it comes to ease of doing business, Sprout leads the way. Let’s compare:

A graphic featuring Sprout's G2 Best usability badge for spring 2023 and a set of bars showing Sprout leading Hootsuite in G2's category for ease of use. Text at the bottom of the graphic reads, the ratings for this article are based on G2 data from 04/17/23

Ease of use

On G2, Sprout’s ease of use scored an 8.9. In Sprout reviews, customers describe our platform as “intuitive and visual,” “easy to navigate,” “user-friendly” and “really easy to use.”

Social media moves fast, and social media teams must keep up to be proactive. Sprout’s enterprise-level sophistication combined with intuitive design enables your team to easily execute on, and grow, every level of your strategy.

A graphic featuring Sprout's G2 Easiest Setup badge for spring 2023 and a set of bars showing Sprout leading Hootsuite in G2's category for ease of setup. Text at the bottom of the graphic reads, the ratings for this article are based on G2 data from 04/17/23

Ease of setup

As your social team expands, it’s imperative that your tools are easy to learn and start using quickly.

Sprout scored an 8.8 for ease of setup on G2. And in spring 2023, we were recognized with G2’s “Best Usability” and “Most Implementable” awards.

Your team can test how Sprout enhances their workflow before you commit. Start your 30-day free trial so your team can try before you buy.

Start your free Sprout trial

Ease of admin

For ease of admin, Sprout earned an 8.8. Centralized management is crucial for your day-to-day operations and team collaboration. On the back end, Sprout makes it easy to manage different channels and different brands from a central hub. Our Message Approval Workflow streamlines collaboration and approval processes—even for external reviewers who aren’t in the platform.

A graphic featuring Sprout's G2 Most implementable badge for spring 2023 and a set of bars showing Sprout leading Hootsuite in G2's category for ease of admin. Text at the bottom of the graphic reads, the ratings for this article are based on G2 data from 04/17/23

Sprout’s Smart Inbox alleviates the administrative burden of always-on customer care and social management efforts. The inbox unifies multiple incoming message types across your channels in one view, so you never miss a chance to engage. And keywords you set, like your brand name or common misspellings, uncover unique opportunities to interact with audiences, even when you’re not tagged.

Enterprise and mid-market reviewers have called it “the best available out of the competitors,” “excellent for community management” and “a life-saver.”

Sprout’s team was incredibly helpful in allowing us to run a pilot so we understood how to use the tool, onboarding our 100’s of social accounts and ensuring we knew how to use all of the most relevant features for our small team to accomplish our social goals. The software is also social first—their roadmap has some great features we’re looking forward to using.

– Holly S., Mid-Market

Sprout Social vs. Hootsuite: Customer Support

When it comes to customer support, speed and quality are everything. Marketing teams shouldn’t be hindered by the platforms meant to help.

On G2, Sprout scored an 8.8 in quality of support. We pride ourselves on being a joy to work with. And reviews reflect that our service “exceeds expectations” and is “always quick to help.”

Our platform is designed with our users in mind, so all feedback is taken seriously. When we noticed customers increasingly asking for a dark mode, for example, we added this capability to provide a better experience.

A graphic featuring Sprout's G2 Best support for enterprise leader badge for spring 2023 and two bars indicating that Sprout leads Hootsuite in quality of support. Text at the bottom of the graphic reads, the ratings for this article are based on G2 data from 04/17/23

Sprout offers 24/5 phone support

Social media doesn’t have an off button. That’s why Sprout offers 24/5 phone support, where Hootsuite’s support is limited to business hours on certain channels.

Sprout offers multiple ways to get in touch with us, including:

  • Live chat directly in Sprout (where you can talk to a real person—not a bot)
  • Live phone support
  • Ticket support for less urgent issues
  • A Premier Success option, which guarantees a two-hour response time
  • Self-service training to get up to speed on the platform

We also offer a breadth of resources, including our Insights blog, Help Center and Learning Portal for video learning. Support can also be found from us, or other Sprout customers in our peer networking community, The Arboretum.

On G2, Hootsuite scored a 7.9 for quality of support compared to Sprout’s 8.8. Reviews call out that their customer service is not always easy to contact, and can be slow to respond.

When it comes to live, immediate support, Sprout’s expansive service is a stand-out.

A review of Sprout's platform from an enterprise reviewer with the title, "customer friendly and responsive."

Sprout Social vs. Hootsuite: Competitor Analysis

There’s a reason why 40% of brands use social data for competitive insights. Analyzing your competitors’ social performance informs your strategy by assessing how you stack up and how your strategy needs to evolve.

This type of analysis is crucial if you want a proactive edge over your competitors. To do this efficiently, you need a tool that provides greater visibility into their performance.

Let’s compare Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social in the competitor analysis category.

Sprout leads Hootsuite in competitor analysis

On G2, Sprout outranked Hootsuite in competitor analysis in all categories. Sprout scored an 8.0 for competitor analysis in the Social Analytics for Social Media Analytics Software category, and an 8.1 in competitor analysis under the Social Monitoring & Listening category. Compare this to Hootsuite’s score of 7.6 for both.

A graphic featuring Sprout's G2 enterprise leader badge for spring 2023 and two bars indicating that Sprout leads Hootsuite in competitor analysis. Text at the bottom of the graphic reads, the ratings for this article are based on G2 data from 04/17/23

To strengthen your brand’s market position, your competitive analysis efforts have to be agile and scalable. Sprout’s suite of competitor analytics tools and reports uncovers high-sophistication, clearly-presented insights that have business-wide impact.

Uncover competitor insights with Sprout’s competitive analysis reports

Comparing your performance to your competitors’ side-by-side gives you a sense of where your brand excels and where there’s room to improve. Sprout offers multiple ways for you to hone in on and present the data that matters.

Sprout’s customizable reports enable social teams to populate reports with preferred metrics, including competitor data. On G2, our report customizability stood out against the competition, scoring an 8.0 against Hootsuite’s 7.8.

Our automated competitor reports give you a holistic view of your competitor performance. Sprout’s Cross-Network Competitor Performance and Competitor Posts reports provide a broad view of your competitors’ channel and content data.

A screenshot of Sprout's competitor performance report.

If your team is focused on certain priority specific channels, our Competitors by Network reports enable you to dig into competitor performance on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Screenshot of Sprout's Instagram competitors report featuring a line graph showing audience growth over time.

Finally, if you want a qualitative, high-level comparison, tap into social listening. Run a competitor listening analysis to uncover your share of voice against your competitors, sentiment comparison and more to share with leadership.

A screenshot of Sprout's performance graphics in the listening solution showing a brand's share of voice, engagemetns, sentiment, impressions and authors vs their competitors.

Sprout Social vs. Hootsuite: ROI

Social media management platforms are a key investment. The quicker you see that investment pay off for your team, the better equipped they’ll be to collaborate and uncover valuable data that grows your business.

Let’s see how quick that return is for Sprout.

Sprout Social has a faster ROI vs. Hootsuite

Sprout customers see their return on investment (ROI) faster than our competitors’ customers. According to a G2 report from Summer 2022, Sprout customers’ months to payback after adopting the platform is about 14 months for enterprise users.

Compare that to the 18 months it takes for Hootsuite’s enterprise customers to see ROI. It’s clear that with Sprout, you and your team will see the value from your investment faster.

Sprout Social is the winner for helping teams prove their impact

Proving ROI is one of the top challenges for social teams, according to The Sprout Social Index™. But it’s one of the most direct ways to prove the business impact of social.

Proving ROI starts with best-in-class social media analytics. In this G2 category, Sprout Social scored a high 8.7. Our Analytics tools are designed to make reporting social data and proving ROI easier. Our portfolio of ready-made reports present your key data in clear visuals. And our publishing tool enables UTM tracking within the scheduling workflow, making it easier to attribute wins to your social efforts.

A Sprout review by a mid-market reviewer with the title, "changed my work life."

What’s best for your brand: Sprout Social or Hootsuite?

When picking the right social media platform for your brand, you need a proven industry partner. And when it comes to Sprout vs. Hootsuite, the reviews and G2 data don’t lie. Sprout is a leader in the industry, and for social teams across the board. We’re constantly innovating to remain leaders in our space, so that customers can be leaders in theirs.

Now that we’ve compared Hootsuite vs. Sprout Social, it’s up to you.

Maintaining a more sophisticated social strategy and team means you need a more sophisticated alternative to Hootsuite. If you’re ready to see what Sprout can do for your team, social strategy and your entire business, start your free 30-day trial or request a personalized demo and let the platform speak for itself.

*The comparison data in this article is based on G2 data from 04/17/23, unless stated otherwise.

Sprout Social vs Hootsuite: FAQs

Which platform is better: Sprout Social or Hootsuite?

You are the expert in your brand and what will meet your social team’s needs. But we’re confident in our platform’s ability to deliver deeper value, more impactful data and more streamlined workflows to our satisfied customer base of more than 30,000 innovative brands. The reviews and our G2 accolades are proof.

Does Sprout Social offer a free trial?

Yes, we believe in our platform. But we’ve also always believed that customers should try before they buy. Try Sprout Social free for 30 days to see what it can bring to your team’s workflows, strategies and insights. And if you have questions, a customer support rep is just a phone call, chat or email away—24/5.