Are you on the hunt for the best Hootsuite alternatives that won’t dig deeper into your pockets & will help you save time while managing your social media marketing efforts? Here’s all you need to know about the ‘what & whys’ of social media management tools and the best you can find as alternatives to Hootsuite.

Managing all social networks all on your own isn’t an easy task. If you’re a social media manager or a digital marketer, you know the daily struggles of brainstorming, crafting, designing, & posting content on different social networks. And the cycle doesn’t end there! Then comes the tracking, engaging & reporting numbers. Each of these tasks requires a lot of time, energy & effort. Whether you’re a team of one or part of a larger team, managing social accounts can be a little tricky.

What Skills Do You Need To Be A Social Media Manager?

One of the greatest challenges working in social marketing is that you’re never done learning. With the recent changes in their field, social media managers need to evolve continuously. They have to adapt to the latest trends, develop the strategies according to different social networks, post the content at the perfect timings, manage organic & paid campaigns, engage with the community, and everything in between.

Communication, creativity, writing, organizing & management skills are critical features required in a social media person.

He needs to be a copywriter and designer. He also can be a strategist, and marketer, analyst, or customer service representative at times. Sometimes, all in just one day.

And with all these tasks, the two things that keep the person sane are coffee & a social media management tool.

If you’re a part of a larger team, you might be introduced to a lot of tools by your supervisor that can help you manage & prioritize your daily tasks. But what if all you need is just one tool?

The Best Friend Any Social Media Manager Can Ever Ask For

Welcome to the life of a social media manager, where you struggle daily on how to break up your day to get the most out of your day and social media.

Jake is a social media manager at a retail company. He manages the social media accounts of his companies. He’s responsible for creating, curating, and posting content on the company’s social accounts. Jake also has to monitor the engagement on the posts and report it weekly to his boss.

If there’s a comment, reply, or message on any social network, that’s his job too.

He is the researcher, creator, strategist, marketer & customer advocate.

If you only take his posting schedule, this is what it looks like:

He has to post content daily on all social networks but at different times. His Facebook page is most active from 4 pm to 5 pm. The Instagram post goes live from 8 pm to 10 pm. LinkedIn updates are for lunch, & tweets are served with dinner.

Can you imagine the browser tabs opened on his laptop? Now you know the reason he’s glued to his phone all time.

Post Content. Check all the social accounts. Post again.

Welcome to the life of a social media manager!

If you’re managing multiple social media accounts with or without scheduling tools, you can relate to a schedule like Jake’s. Perhaps you do more than what he does. Or maybe your daily tasks are different. That’s the beauty of being in digital marketing!

A social media scheduling tool maximizes the powers of a social media manager. If you’re already using a social media tool like Hootsuite or Buffer (the most common one in the industry), you know how they can help you manage socials.

While starting the hunt for a perfect social media tool, managers or marketers usually find Hootsuite or Buffer first. Some might consider Hootsuite as the Michael Jordan of social media management tools and stick to it. Sure, everyone knows Hootsuite, but there are dozens of Hootsuite alternative tools with more features, less pricey & improved UI that can make your life easier. There was a time when Buffer or Hootsuite were the only two options available in the market; now you can get more than that!

But before you invest in a tool, let’s see a few things you should consider:

What Should You Consider Before Investing In a Social Media Management Tool?

Social media management isn’t just about posting content three times a week & replying to the comments. It’s more of art and science than that. If companies were driving leads or making money just by curating two or three posts per week, it would be much easier. We didn’t need to write this, & you won’t be here searching for Hootsuite alternatives.

If you’re a marketing manager or social media specialist, your job description is much more than posting & replying on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter.

A good social media management tool can simplify your life, while a bad one can make it more frustrating. The crucial question here is, how can you be sure that the tool you’ve picked is the right tool for your business?

Featured Article:Instagram Reels vs TikTok – The Battle for Videos Supremacy 2023

What Should You Look For In A Social Media Management Tool?

Here are four significant questions you should ask yourself or your client before buying a social media management tool:

• What features do you need?
• How many people are going to use this tool?
• What’s your budget to invest in a social media tool?
• Will you get customer support with this tool?

What Features Do You Need?

1.  Connecting Your Social Networks

The most important feature is to connect the specific social networks. The core of any social media management tool is to publish your content to multiple networks. So you don’t need to switch tabs & login and out repeatedly daily. Not all tools post to all networks. Pinterest or Google Business Profile is mostly the problem child. Also, it’s good to know how many social accounts per network the tool allows.

2.  Scheduling Content

The second important feature you’ll need in a tool is scheduling your content. It will save your time & help you be more strategic with content posting. You need a tool that can directly schedule all your content on multiple networks without any complex process. Further, depending on your needs, you might also want more robust features like queuing content, repeating posts, recycling your content, or creating campaigns.

3.  Monitoring & Engaging

Doesn’t it feel good when you ask a question to any business page on Facebook, and they get back to you within a few minutes? If that’s the kind of responsiveness you want for your clients, too, then you should trust a tool that gives you an all-in-one social inbox. As a social media manager, you’re responsible for responding to all the comments, replies & customer queries. Look for a tool that offers you help in monitoring, sorting, replying & engaging with customers on different social networks in a single window.

4.  Analyzing & Reporting

What goals have you set to achieve from social media? And to achieve those goals, what kind of metrics would you like to monitor weekly, monthly, or yearly? Are you getting the reports you want? To generate results & make strategic decisions, you need more informed data. Choose a social media tool that has easy reporting. The number of posts on each social network, visibility & reach, likes, reactions, or comments are the basics. If you need more detailed analysis & graphs in the reports, look for a tool that can generate detailed white labeled reports. So, all you have to do is download the report at the end of each week or month, add your client’s logo, and present it to your boss.

If you’re too busy to consider, test each tool, and find the perfect one for you, we’re here to help.

Why Should You Look For Alternatives to Hootsuite?

Hootsuite is among the most popular social media tools. Sure, it has some cutting-edge features like

• It connects many social networks like Facebook (groups & pages), Twitter, LinkedIn (profiles & pages), Instagram, YouTube, & Pinterest
• They give you a free plan for almost 90 days
• You can schedule your content, upload it via CSV file & preview it
• You can also collaborate with your team
• Hootsuite App Directory has a lot of apps that you can integrate with the tool
• They also offer analytics & reporting features

But, then there are some significant downsides too. For example

• Doesn’t support Google Business Profile
• The free plan has a lot of limitations (2 social accounts & can schedule 5 posts only)

• You can’t pause the content scheduled in bulk
• The team collaboration feature is too expensive (starting from $1,548 per year)
• The user interface is dull & complicated
• Customer support isn’t available on all plans
• You need to purchase most of the apps in the Hootsuite App Directory

How Much Does Hootsuite Cost?

Here’s the biggest shocker! Hootsuite has been playing around with their pricing plans for quite a while.

Hootsuite pricing page is showing the annual pricing of all plans. It doesn’t show the price if you want to get billed monthly. And guess what?

Their monthly pricing is 30% more expensive!

Confused? Here’s the Truth About Hootsuite Pricing

Hootsuite offers four pricing plans. Professional, Team, Business, & Enterprise. This is how they show it on their website.

The twist in the story is in the asterisk, which refers to the fact that “All the prices displayed are in USD, based on annual billing.”

You’re getting a false impression that the professional plan costs $19, & the team is for $99 per month. If you want to pay monthly, the professional plan is billed for US$49 & the team is for US$129. They’re hiding the actual monthly pricing on the website. No toggle or action button on the pricing page will tell you the monthly price of these plans. It will be shown once you create an account and ask for an upgrade.

The professional plan supports only 1 user & 10 social accounts, & team collaboration & customer support is also unavailable on this plan. So, if you need more than 10 social accounts and team members on board, you’ll need to upgrade to the team plan, which is:

How Much Does a Hootsuite Business Plan Cost?

Many active marketing agencies & businesses need to manage more than 20 social accounts with more than 3 users. If that’s your case, too, you’ll need Hootsuite’s business plan, which, as shown on their website, is $599. But that’s not how it actually costs!

There is no month-to-month payment option for a Business plan. Once you decide to upgrade to Hootsuite’s business plan, you’ll have to commit to the annual plan & pay US$7,200 up-front.

What Should You Use Instead of Hootsuite?

The market is overcrowded with so many social media management tools that claim to do the same. And all of them claim to be the best. Yes, it can be confusing to find the best Hootsuite alternative for your business. And that’s why we’re here to help.

We’ve compiled a list of the best alternative tools you can use to replace Hootsuite. Have a look at these and decide what suits you the best.

1. Hootsuite Alternative – Social Champ

You can’t blame us for taking up Social Champ first, can you? 😉

While there are so many Hootsuite alternatives available, you’d be surprised to know how many of our customers switched from Hootsuite & became a part of the Champ community.

Social Champ is a social media management platform for individuals, businesses & agencies that want to manage & grow their social presence.

Social Champ has support for Facebook (groups and pages), LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Google Business Profile and integrations of some of the most useful social media management features, including a royalty-free visual library, bit.ly, and Canva.

With Social Champ, you can post or schedule your content across multiple social networks, check the performance of your posts, engage with your audiences – all through a single platform. We don’t have any hidden charges. No matter what plan you’re in, you can always talk to our customer representatives if you need any assistance.

Social Champ also offers Bulk Scheduling, Auto RSS, Content Suggestion, Social Media Calendar to plan & view all your posts, & a lot more.

But really, Why is Social Champ the Best?

Why is Social Champ the Best Alternative to Hootsuite? Glad you asked.

How About A More User-Friendly Interface?

Are you having any difficulty working with the Hootsuite dashboard? Do you feel lost in the streams of posts? Social Champ’s dashboard is sleek and clean, and you’ll only see a queue of the social posts you’ve scheduled. Social Champ’s simple, easy-to-use interface makes your social management less stressful and uncomplicated.

As said by Guy Kawasaki, “The cleanest and most efficient tool I’ve found.“

Why Pay More, When You Can Have It In Less

When looking for a tool to manage your social accounts, one of the considerations is staying on budget. Hootsuite allows you to connect 35 accounts at $599 per month. If you don’t want to go broke and to look for a pocket-friendly alternative to Hootsuite, we would recommend Social Champ. $89 for 40 social media profiles doesn’t sound too bad, right?

Teaming Up to Share the Workload

For a small business, a team plan that costs $1,188 per year & allows only 3 users doesn’t make sense. You can only manage 20 networks, but Hootsuite’s team plan gives very few team management features. You can’t even assign user roles or view the performance of the team member. With Social Champ, you can assign your team members specific social accounts, manage the permissions, approve the workflow & posts, revoke access & a lot more. You can add up to 6 team members & 40 social networks for just $89. If you wish to add more social networks, you don’t have to upgrade your plan. You can more simply get an add-on by paying $5 per month.

Humans Give Better Support Than Owls

According to most Hootsuite customers, the app is outdated. They don’t add new features, upgrade UI, or listen to customer’s feedback. That’s what happens when your customer support isn’t human. Also, Hootsuite doesn’t provide “24/7 priority support by real live humans” on professional & team plans. It is only served to elite class customers who pay at least $599 per month. While at Social Champ, our customers are everything for us. We won’t let you down. We provide Live Chat Support, Email Support, Social Media Support & Onboarding Training on all plans.

Hootsuite vs. Social Champ: Who Is Better?

Still not convinced? We can’t force you to decide in our favor. But, we want the best for you. Here’s a comparison of the key features of both tools. Let’s see if you can find what’s best for you.

For a full comparison table, click here!

2. Hootsuite Alternative – Keyhole

Keyhole is another competing Hootsuite alternative, known for its social listening capabilities. The tool is a comprehensive suite of features like profile tracking, competitor analysis, campaign tracking and more.

It supports top social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube. The best part is you can find your best time to post and schedule unlimited posts as well.

Keyhole also helps you elevate your online presence by helping you monitor your brand growth and identify trends. It comes with a free trial and paid plans start at just $79/month.

3. Hootsuite Alternative – Buffer

Much like Hootsuite, Buffer has been around for quite some time and is one of the oldest Hootsuite alternatives. Buffer is a scheduling tool for Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Buffer has quite a lot of functionalities compared to Hootsuite; for example, they provide a comprehensive feed for each network, offer repeat, and have a visual calendar.

They also offer a social inbox, which helps reply to messages and comments. Analytics is also one of their best-selling features as it tracks and creates reports on published posts. However, all good things come at a price; Buffer’s pricing plans start from $6/month and are more expensive than other alternatives to Hootsuite above this listing.

If you would like a detailed comparison of Social Champ and Buffer, we have an in-depth comparison.

Unlike all the Hootsuite alternatives, Buffer does not combine all of its features in one tool.

4. Hootsuite Alternative – Agorapulse

Agorapulse is a social media publishing tool rather than a management tool and is another one of the Hootsuite alternatives. Agorapulse offers a social inbox to reply to all conversations, messages, and comments and supports Google+, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

They also provide a hashtag manager like Social Champ and offer a social media calendar.

Agorapulse is on the pricier side of the spectrum with plans starting from $99/month, whereas Hootsuite is $49, and Social Champ is $29/month.

Social Champ is an excellent alternative to agora pulse as well. You can read a detailed comparison of Social Champ vs. Agorapulse here.

5. Hootsuite Alternative – Sprout Social

Sprout Social is another one of Hootsuite alternatives with comparable plans, both in terms of features and pricing. With Sprout Social, you get access to a few powerful features, such as a social inbox, scheduling, and team collaboration. The CRM feature is the most famous one with sub-tasks, such as approvals.

Like other alternatives to Hootsuite, Sprout Social also provides analytics and reporting. Sprout Social allows you to create presentation-ready reports with simplified analytics exported to PDF or a CSV format.

Sprout Social has plans starting from $89/month, whereas Social Champ has plans from $29/month. To read a detailed, in-depth analysis of Social Champ vs. Sprout Social, check out this page.

Featured Article: 100+ Instagram Bio Ideas With Tips & Tricks in 2023

6. Hootsuite Alternative – Meet Edgar

Meet Edgar is our next pick for Hootsuite alternatives, a social media management tool for small businesses and entrepreneurs, as they provide solutions for scheduling and organizing content for automated publishing.

With Meet Edgar, you can schedule posts for multiple networks and recycle old content as well. However, Meet Edgar is a bit more expensive than other alternatives to Hootsuite and has only two pricing options. The Edgar Lite is for $29.99/month, and the other one is $49.99/month.

7. Hootsuite Alternative – PromoRepublic

PromoRepublic is another one of Hootsuite alternatives for social media marketing for small businesses and freelancers. They offer a graphics editor, a collaboration platform, and scheduling features.

PromoRepublic is best for local social media marketing. Their pricing plans start from $59/month and increase based on the additional features you require.

8. Hootsuite Alternative – Statusbrew

If you’re looking for a social media management tool that offers competitor analysis and automations for publishing and engagement, consider Statusbrew. The tool support integration with all the major platforms Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, GMB, and more.

It is a competitive alternative to Hootsuite and includes all the essential features you’ll need, even enterprise-grade security. Their plans start from $129/mo if billed annually, and a 14-day free trial is available.

9. Hootsuite Alternative – Postify

Postify is a social media scheduler, making it an amazing Hootsuite alternative supporting Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Twitter, Vkontakte. They have an easy-to-use and navigate interface with excellent customer support.

However, they do offer limited features as well as social media integrations. Postify has only three pricing plans starting from $14.99/month and going up to $119.99 a month. They do also offer a mobile application for both iOS and Android users.

10. Hootsuite Alternative – Loomly

Loomly is a social media management tool for entrepreneurs and makes for one of the Hootsuite alternatives. Loomly has integrations for Slack and Microsoft Teams, which is a plus. Loomly is basically for branding and content creation. However, they don’t have complete integrations for big businesses, unlike other alternatives to Hootsuite.

Loomly does have a social media calendar as well as content suggestions. They do lack a social inbox. Loomly has plans starting from $35/month and goes up to $249/month!

11. Hootsuite Alternative – SocialOomph

Social Oomph originally started as a Twitter automation and management tool, named as TweetLater. However, after a few years of its launch, they realized that they had the potential to do something much bigger. That is when they widened their services and started offering other social media networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

Social oomph has a pretty straightforward and easy-to-navigate UI and is one of the best free alternatives to Hootsuite. Social Oomph has pricing plans starting from as low as $15/month.

However, Social Oomph has a few shortcomings, such as their lowest-priced plan having only one user and advanced automation features for only Twitter.

12. Hootsuite Alternative – Content Studio

Content studio is another Hootsuite alternative for discovering, creating, scheduling, and tracking posts on social media networks. They offer all this with an easy-to-use interface and a better price than Hootsuite.

Like any other social media management tool, they also provide content suggestions, hashtag managers, queues, post approvals, bit.ly integration, and UTM tracking.

However, Content Studio is also on the steeper side compared to other alternatives of Hootsuite, with plans starting from $25/month and going up to $599/month.

13. Hootsuite Alternative – Hopper HQ

Hopper HQ is a strong Hootsuite alternative. The user-friendly interface saves time and helps you grow your social media presence by easily planning and scheduling content, tracking performance, and managing all your social media accounts from one place; this includes scheduling for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & Pinterest.

Hopper HQ is ideal for creators, influencers, small businesses, and agencies managing one or multiple social media accounts. It offers robust features like social media planning, scheduling, and analytics at a fraction of the cost compared to Hootsuite.

Pricing is ONLY $16/month for 1 social bundle and unlimited users at no extra cost.

Wrapping Up

And there you go! Even though Hootsuite is one of the pioneers in social media marketing, alternatives like Social Champ allow users to have a better experience at competitive prices.

If you want to create a winning social media strategy, you need the right social media management tool at your team’s disposal. With the comprehensive list that we have discussed above, you are bound to find your match.

Related Post:

• 15 Tailwind Alternatives to Boost Your Digital Presence in 2023
• 10 CoSchedule Alternatives for Turbocharging Your Social Media Management