# Sprout Social

> Social media management with a shared inbox, listening and reports

Sprout Social is a social media management platform sold per seat. It schedules posts to a dozen networks from a shared calendar, gathers messages, comments and reviews into one Smart Inbox, and reports on profiles, posts and competitors. Its AI agent, Trellis, comes with every plan, and listening, premium analytics and employee advocacy are sold as add-ons.

- **Category:** Social Media Schedulers
- **Made by:** Sprout Social, Inc. (since 2010)
- **Website:** https://sproutsocial.com
- **Runs on:** Web, iOS, Android
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 17, 2026

## Pricing

Sprout Social is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $79 per seat / month, billed annually ($99 billed monthly).

- **Pricing model:** Free trial
- **Free plan:** None.
- **Free trial:** 30-day free trial, no credit card required.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Essentials | $79 per seat / month, billed annually ($99 billed monthly) | Publishing for up to 5 social profiles, optimal send times, profile and post reports, and 100 Trellis AI credits a month. |
| Standard | $199 per seat / month, billed annually ($249 billed monthly) | 5 social profiles, the consolidated inbox, collaboration tools, keyword and location monitoring, and review management. |
| Professional | $299 per seat / month, billed annually ($399 billed monthly) | Unlimited social profiles, message tagging, competitor, tag and paid insights, and AI post enhancement. |
| Advanced | $399 per seat / month, billed annually ($499 billed monthly) | AI reply help, inbox sentiment, the Sprout API, help desk integrations, team productivity and customer care reports, and spike alerts. |
| Enterprise | Custom | A tailored plan with white-glove onboarding, single sign-on setup and priority support. |

Read from https://sproutsocial.com/pricing/ on Oct 17, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Sprout Social before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **About 20% off with annual billing** (Annual discount): Paying for a year up front brings Standard to $199 a seat a month from $249, Professional to $299 from $399 and Advanced to $399 from $499. Source: https://sproutsocial.com/pricing/
- **Nonprofit pricing on Professional and Advanced** (Nonprofit): US nonprofits that commit to at least two seats on an annual plan pay $239 a seat a month for Professional and $299 for Advanced. Source: https://sproutsocial.com/pricing/nonprofit-pricing/

## Key features

- **Publishing calendar:** Posts for Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Pinterest, Bluesky, Reddit and Snapchat are planned on one calendar, with optimal send times.
- **Smart Inbox:** Messages, comments, Messenger and WhatsApp conversations and reviews arrive in one inbox, with tagging from Professional and sentiment on Advanced.
- **Approvals and collaboration:** Message approval workflows, calendar notes and a shared asset library, with calendars that can be shared with people outside the account for sign-off.
- **Reports and competitor insights:** Profile and post reports on every plan; competitor, tag and paid reports from Professional; team productivity and customer care reports on Advanced.
- **Trellis AI agent:** Each seat gets 100 Trellis credits a month for questions about social data. Trellis Plus costs $28 per user a month billed annually ($35 monthly).
- **Add-ons:** Listening, Premium Analytics and Employee Advocacy are sold separately on Standard and up, and influencer marketing is a separate product.

## Good for

- Marketing teams that handle social customer care in the same tool
- Brands that want competitor and paid reporting beside publishing
- Companies connecting social to Salesforce, Zendesk or HubSpot

## Worth knowing

- There is no free plan, and every seat is charged at the plan's full rate, from $79 a month on Essentials to $399 on Advanced, billed annually.
- Essentials and Standard stop at 5 social profiles; unlimited profiles start at Professional.
- The Sprout API and help desk integrations need Advanced at $399 per seat / month, billed annually.
- Listening and Premium Analytics are paid add-ons on top of the plan price, available from Standard.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 2.2 out of 4**, graded Oct 17, 2026. Sprout Social is the polished end of the market: a Smart Inbox that takes reviews and WhatsApp, competitor and paid reports, and links to Salesforce and Zendesk. But it's priced per seat, and the inbox starts on Standard at $199 a seat a month billed yearly. Most small teams will struggle to justify that.

- **Value for money: D.** Essentials is $79 a seat a month billed yearly and covers 5 profiles, so two people pay $158 a month and three $237. That's in this category's dearest tenth, from $99. And that plan has no inbox: Standard, which does, is $199 a seat.
- **Free plan and trial: C.** No free plan, but a 30-day trial with no card needed, twice the usual 14 days here. That's time to run a whole month of posts through it.
- **Features: B.** Publishing to 11 networks including Reddit and Snapchat, an inbox that pulls in messages, reviews and WhatsApp, approvals, competitor and paid reports, and an API. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core job; listening is an add-on.
- **Ease of use: C.** Its iPhone and iPad app averages 4.2 from about 1,300 ratings, and the full suite takes some setting up across profiles, inbox rules and reports.
- **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, iPhone and Android, with Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot, Canva, Slack, Shopify and Tableau, and the Sprout API on Advanced. No desktop app, which an A needs.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Sprout Social's own pages on 17 October 2026, and its App Store rating. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among social media schedulers

- Sprout Social's GPA of 2.2 is higher than 2 of the 19 other social media schedulers we grade, and level with 7.
- It stands best on features (B, above 11 of 19) and worst on value for money (D, above 0).
- Its paid plans start at $79 a month for each person, against a middle price of $27.25 for the category: 16 of the 19 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. 3 tools score higher and cost less.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/social-media

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Keep it.** To replace Sprout Social you would be making one mailbox that several people work at once. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 10 of the 19 other social media schedulers grade higher. It costs $948 a year.

- You could make: Calendar and reports: an app builder makes these well.
- You could not: One mailbox that several people work at once.
- You could not: A real app for iOS and Android. Something home-made would be a web page.
- You could not: It is priced for each person, which means accounts and billing for a team.
- You could not: It plugs into other products, Salesforce, Zendesk and HubSpot among them, and has an API.
- You could not: AI features, unless you pay a model provider for each request yourself.
- You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## What people say

- **App Store rating of the iPhone and iPad app:** 4.2 out of 5 from 1,284 ratings in the United States, read Oct 17, 2026. This is the store's rating of the app, not a score from ToolGPA. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id475307859

## Works with

Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot, Canva, Slack, Shopify, Tableau, Google Drive

**Tags:** Calendar, Shared inbox, Reports, AI features, Public API

## Alternatives

- [Hootsuite](https://toolgpa.com/tools/hootsuite): Social media suite for publishing, inbox, listening and reports. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/hootsuite-vs-sprout-social)
- [Agorapulse](https://toolgpa.com/tools/agorapulse): Social media inbox, publishing and ROI reports, priced per user. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/agorapulse-vs-sprout-social)
- [Sendible](https://toolgpa.com/tools/sendible): Social media management for agencies, with unlimited users. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/sendible-vs-sprout-social)
- [Vista Social](https://toolgpa.com/tools/vista-social): Social media management with inbox, DM automations and reviews. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/sprout-social-vs-vista-social)
- [SocialPilot](https://toolgpa.com/tools/socialpilot): Social media scheduler for agencies and small teams, priced by plan. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/socialpilot-vs-sprout-social)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 17, 2026:

- https://sproutsocial.com/pricing/
- https://sproutsocial.com/pricing/nonprofit-pricing/
- https://sproutsocial.com/features/social-media-publishing/
- https://sproutsocial.com/integrations/
- https://sproutsocial.com/about/
- https://sproutsocial.com/features/social-media-engagement/

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/sprout-social
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).