Sprout Social Review 2025: The Best Tool for Advanced Social Management?

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One thing that comes up often when people discuss Sprout Social is the cost.

Is it worth the cost?

Here’s the truth: Sprout Social is not for everyone.

But is it for you?

That’s what you’ll discover in this Sprout Social review.

I’ve explored the features in detail, so this is a long review. Use the blog menu if you only want to know about a specific feature.

Let’s dive into the review.

Who is Sprout Social for?

Sprout Social is best suited for people who manage many social accounts and need to add more in the future. 

For example, marketing agencies, social media managers, and businesses with many customers.

Since three of four Sprout Social plans offer unlimited social accounts, you’ll have little worry about adding 30 more social accounts.

In addition to this, you get robust analytics and reporting for these social accounts. And even if you run paid social campaigns, Sprout Social brings the performance numbers to your dashboard.

So, you can track detailed analytics of your social media posts that native platforms won’t give you. This lets you learn what’s working and what to change.

If you provide customer support on social media, you’ll love the social listening and smart inbox features. These help you track what people say about your brand (and competitors) and reply to customer inquiries in one place.

On top of these, I find Sprout Social easy to use when performing social media tasks. 

Overall, Sprout Social is best if you need advanced social management features that are user-friendly.

Have fewer needs and want to explore a robust alternative? Check out Vista Social.

I’ve tested Sprout Social’s Professional plan for this review. So, the features I’ve explored here may be different from what you get depending on the plan you go for.

Sprout Social key features

Dashboard

The Dashboard provides an overview of your account activities.

For example, you’ll see your recent posts, the number of scheduled posts, and more. 

These metrics are for your selected social group. These social groups let you organize social profiles if you work with clients.

But beyond that, Sprout Social uses the dashboard to onboard users.

You’ll see an array of features and what they help users achieve.

Sprout Social organized the dashboard to give you a summary of your performance without going into individual sections.

Publishing

This section houses the social media calendar and other publishing features. Here, you’ll see published and scheduled posts.

In the calendar, you have the list, week, and month view. But beyond that, you can filter posts according to profiles, post types, and tags.

Sprout Social lets you create a social post from this page too. Once you hover on a date, you’ll see the options to schedule a post or start a draft.

If you need to schedule many posts at a time, all you need to do is select the Bulk Post Import at the top right corner of the calendar and import your CSV file.

Another interesting feature here is the AI Assist, which can write social media captions when you enter a prompt. Sprout Social also lets you select a social profile to use its voice.

In turn, Sprout Social will generate posts with a structure similar to the profile’s past posts. If you like the captions, you can edit and schedule them in the post composer.

I tried a few prompts, and the summary? It produced better results for simple prompts than for complex prompts.

For example, a post about clarity in written content produced a better result than a post about competitive analysis for software companies. So, don’t expect great captions about complex topics.

Beyond these, you can access drafts, Instagram grid planner, mobile reminders, and the SproutLink in bio at the left sidebar.

Another interesting feature is the approval workflow. If you work with a client (or a boss) who needs to approve posts before they go live, approval workflow lets you set up approval steps and approvers.

Approvers can edit, reschedule, start a team conversation, reject, or approve the post.

Overall, Sprout Social Publishing has a simple interface and provides important features for social publishing.

Post composer

One thing that stands out is its simplicity. While the post composer offers more features than the native social platforms, it’s just as easy to use.

Post composer lets you create and schedule posts on:

• Facebook pages
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• X (Twitter)
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Pinterest
• Threads

It’s easy to select a profile and write your captions. Then, you can upload media from your computer, Dropbox, Google Drive, or even design it in Canva.

If you’ve selected Instagram, you can add the first comment, a SproutLink, and invite collaborators. There’s also an option to connect your ad manager to boost posts.

Below the caption box, you can select an approval workflow.

Then, add labels and select a campaign for your post.

Another useful feature here is the optimal time, which shows you the best times to publish your posts based on star ratings. There’s also an option to schedule a post at multiple time slots.

However, one little inconvenience I found here is that you can’t edit a post for each social network in the post composer. So, the general caption and media apply to all selected profiles.

I reached out to customer support about it just to be sure, and it was confirmed.

This means if you want to adjust a post for each social network, you’d have to duplicate it for a new post.

Another thing I’d have loved is to have the AI Assist in the post composer in addition to being in the calendar. After all, the captions created in the calendar will be edited in the post composer.

Apart from these, I generally find the post composer easy to use. So, anybody who can publish posts on Facebook should have no problem with the composer. 

Smart inbox

The idea of the smart inbox is not just to reply to messages but also to organize and prioritize messages.

So, you get many features that ease customer support on social media.

This social media inbox tool is available for X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok.

While Sprout Social only supports comments on LinkedIn and TikTok, support for the other platforms includes direct messages and other engagement forms.

But beyond the types of engagements you can see in the inbox, what makes Sprout Social stand out is the tasks you can perform.

For example, you’ll see a message sentiment, message intent, and response recommendation for each message.

Then, you can tag messages to organize them into categories. 

Meanwhile, Sprout Social lets you create a case from a message and assign it to a team member. For example, if a message is about a product inquiry, you can create a case and assign to a sales rep.

There’s also an option to create an internal team conversation about a message.

If you need to revisit a message later, use the save feature for that.

Then, you can filter messages according to sources, message type, tags, sentiment, and message intent. This lets you find messages quickly.

If you provide customer support on social media, the smart inbox can cut response time, help organize messages, and offer customer support reps a helping hand.

Reports

This is one of the strongest features of Sprout Social.

And if tracking the results of various aspects of your social media strategy is vital for your business, I’d recommend you use Sprout Social.

What are the types of reports you get on Sprout Social?

• Strategy and insights: Here, you’ll see metrics of your profile performance. These include audience growth, message volume, impressions, engagement, engagement rate, and video views.
• Content performance: This report covers post metrics, including impressions, engagement, and engagement rate. You also get filters to see the performance of various post categories.
• Competitive analysis: How do competitors perform? Track audience size, audience growth, engagement, engagement per post, and other metrics of your competitors’ pages on X, Facebook, and Instagram.
• Paid reports: This provides metrics for your paid campaigns on X, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
• Customer care and team performance: This report tracks the effectiveness of your customer support. So, you’ll see inbox activity, case management, customer feedback, and bot metrics.

These reports are for each social group. So, you’ll see reports for each group.

If you manage social campaigns for clients, you can organize their social profiles in groups and see their reports.

Frankly, there are so many metrics to track on Sprout Social that if I want to explore every metric, it will take an entire blog post.

Sprout Social reports are so robust that they can stand as a social media analytics tool.

Apart from viewing these reports, you can download them in PDF and CSV formats. Then, schedule weekly or monthly reports to deliver to specified email addresses.

Overall, Sprout Social reports help you track your performance in various aspects of social media management.

Listening

If you need to know what people say about your brand, competitors, and industry, you’ll find value in the listening feature.

Sprout Social lets you listen to terms on X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, and the web.

First, you can pick listening templates depending on your preferred use case.

Then, specify the terms you want to track. The AI Assist also suggests terms similar to what you enter.

And there’s an option to exclude terms from the group.

Sprout Social shows the sentiments of mentions and informs you when there’s a spike in mentions for a particular term.

This feature provides valuable information that helps you understand your brand health and serve customers better.

Keep in mind that social listening is an add-on to the regular plans.

Bots

This bot works best for businesses that receive a lot of inquiries from prospects and customers.

It’s even more suitable if those inquiries need quick responses.

For example, an ecommerce store can use this bot to guide shoppers through their purchases, delivery, or returns.

To make the bot easy to use, Sprout Social has bot templates for popular use cases. You can edit any of these templates to fit your needs.

But you also have an option to build one from scratch.

Bots are available for Facebook and X (Twitter).

So, once your bot is online, test it to ensure it works properly.

Reviews

You’ll likely find the Reviews section useful if you:

• Run a local business
• Have a mobile app for your business
• Track employee reviews

Sprout Social lets you track reviews on sites like Google My Business, Yelp, Trustpilot, Tripadvisor, Glassdoor, Google Play Store, and Apple App Store.

Beyond just seeing reviews, you’ll see sentiment, message intent, and a response recommendation.

Apart from that, you can perform a few tasks.

First, you can reply to customer reviews. Then, create a case from a review and organize reviews with tags.

If your business is on these review platforms, Sprout Social lets you manage reviews in one place.

SproutLink in bio

Sprout Social’s link in bio tool lets you drive traffic from Instagram to important website pages.

SproutLink in bio achieves this by allowing you to assign web links to Instagram posts.

Although I can mirror my Instagram grid, I didn’t see design options that are available in other tools.

Mobile app

Based on my experience reviewing social media management tools, Sprout Social has one of the best mobile apps.

Why?

Its mobile app has a lot of features. So, you can schedule posts, view your calendar, see limited reports, and perform other tasks.

One thing I love about the app is that you can add media from your phone to the asset library. This lets you keep media for future posts.

Then, the tasks section lets you approve posts if you work with team members.

And if you run a local business, you’ll see customer reviews right in the app.

While the interface is inferior to the desktop version, the app lets you perform tasks quickly when you’re out of the office.

So, if you have a subscription, I’d recommend you also download the mobile app. 

The Sprout Social mobile app is available for Android and iOS users.

Try Sprout Social for Free

How to create and schedule a social media post with Sprout Social

To create a social media post, click on the pen icon at the top right corner. This icon is obvious in most sections of Sprout Social.

If you’re in the calendar section, hover on a date and click Schedule Post or Start a Draft.

Taking any of the two steps will open up the post composer.

At the top of the composer, select the social profiles you want to schedule posts for.

Then, enter your caption. Below that, select media from your computer, Dropbox, Bynder, and Google Drive.

You also have the option to design an image in Canva.

Once done with this, you’ll see post previews at the right side of your composer. 

Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, you can’t customize a post for each social platform in the composer. To do that, you’d have to duplicate the post and edit it separately.

If your social media post looks good, move on to the settings below the caption box.

One is to add the post to an approval workflow. If you work with team members, approval workflows ensure the necessary people approve the post before it goes live.

Another setting here is the tag. Tags help you organize posts for various purposes.

And with the tag performance reports, you can compare how different types of posts perform.

After picking a tag, use one of the publishing options. Sprout Social lets you save the post as a draft, publish it immediately, or schedule it.

If you’re scheduling the post, use the ViralPost feature to find the best times to publish your post. You’ll see time recommendations and star ratings of how good each time is.

You can also select multiple times to publish your posts.

After selecting your publishing option, click Schedule to complete your post.

Sprout Social customer support

Sprout Social offers customer support through:

• Help Center
• Contact form
• Live chat
• Learning portal

Through these channels, I found answers to most of the questions I had.

When I started a live chat, I got a reply from a human rep within five minutes even though it was outside working hours. So, I think you’ll get your questions answered through any of the channels.

Sprout Social pros and cons

Sprout Social pros

• Easy to use
• Extensive scheduling options
• Robust reporting capabilities
• Extensive social media customer support features
• Social listening features
• Responsive customer support

Sprout Social cons

• Expensive for regular users
• Unable to customize posts for each social network in the post composer

Sprout Social pricing

Sprout Social has four pricing plans, including:

• Standard: This plan comes with 5 social profiles, keyword and location monitoring, group, profile, and post-level reporting, and review management. It costs $249 per seat/month ($199 on an annual plan).
• Professional: The Professional plan comes with unlimited social profiles, unlimited competitor, keyword, and paid insights, optimal send times, suggestions by AI Assist, and message tagging. It costs $399 per seat/month ($299 on an annual plan).
• Advanced: This plan comes with helpdesk integrations, enhance by AI Assist, sentiment in the Smart Inbox and Reviews, team productivity and social customer care reports, and message spike alerts. It costs $499 per seat/month ($399 on an annual plan).
• Enterprise: With this, you get a plan tailored to your enterprise business, white-glove onboarding and implementation, and more. Reach out to the Sprout Social team with your needs to know the cost.

Apart from the regular pricing plans, Sprout Social also offers add-ons, such as social insights, listening, and employee advocacy.

Sprout Social offers a 30-day free trial for the plans. So, visit the Sprout Social pricing page to see more details about each plan.

See Sprout Social Plans

Conclusion

We’ve come to the end of this Sprout Social review.

While Sprout Social is a great social media management tool, it won’t work for everyone.

If you only need to schedule posts on a few social accounts, you’ll find capable tools at lower prices.

However, if you manage 50 or 100 social profiles, need to provide performance data, and provide social media customer support, Sprout Social will be a worthy investment for you.

Does Sprout Social looks like a tool that fits your needs?

Take on the 30-day free trial to see how it performs.