Sprout Social vs Hootsuite (2026): Price per Seat and Which to Choose

Hootsuite is the cheaper seat for most social teams in 2026: Standard is $99 per user a month on annual billing, half of Sprout Social Standard at $199, and it connects 10 accounts against Sprout's 5. Sprout Social wins when posts need an approval step, because Sprout puts approval workflows in Professional at $299 a seat, while Hootsuite holds them back until Advanced at $399.

So the right answer depends on one question: does a manager have to sign off before a post goes live? If not, Hootsuite costs less at every team size on this page. If yes, Sprout is the lower bill.

Prices come from Sprout Social's pricing page and Hootsuite's plans page, read on October 18, 2026.

Toolradar data: Sprout Social is the most compared social media management tool on Toolradar over the last 90 days, with 268 side-by-side comparisons, and Hootsuite is the most cross-shopped one, listed as an alternative to 70 other tools, as of October 18, 2026 (Toolradar social media management ranking). Across the 158 tools Toolradar tracks in the category, the median cheapest paid plan is $20.52 a month, so both of these are premium seats in a cheap category. The comparison is about which premium you need. Directory profiles: Sprout Social on Toolradar and Hootsuite on Toolradar.

At a glance

Plan	Annual billing, per seat a month	Monthly billing	Social profiles	Approvals
Sprout Essentials	$79	$99	5	No
Sprout Standard	$199	$249	5	No
Sprout Professional	$299	$399	Unlimited	Yes, internal
Sprout Advanced	$399	$499	Unlimited	Internal, external and reply approvals
Hootsuite Standard	$99	Higher, rate not listed	10	No
Hootsuite Professional	$199	Higher, rate not listed	Unlimited	No
Hootsuite Advanced	$399	Higher, rate not listed	Unlimited	Yes
Enterprise (both)	Custom	Custom	Unlimited	Yes

Hootsuite says its prices are in USD, on annual billing, and exclude taxes. Its FAQ says monthly billing exists for Standard, Professional and Advanced at a higher per-user rate, but the page does not print that rate. Sprout prints both, and says annual billing is one upfront payment for the whole term.

Trials favor Sprout. It offers 30 days with no credit card, enough to run a full month of content through it, while Hootsuite offers 14 days with no card and caps trial accounts at 10 to 20 posts a day with no bulk scheduling, so a trial there tests the workflow, not your real volume.

What a three-person team pays in a year

Both vendors charge per seat, so team size multiplies every gap in the table above. Here is the same three-person social team on each tool, on annual billing, in three common setups; the totals are our arithmetic from the published seat prices, before tax and add-ons.

Setup	Sprout Social	Hootsuite	Lower bill
Up to 5 profiles, shared inbox	Standard: $597 a month, $7,164 a year	Standard: $297 a month, $3,564 a year	Hootsuite
8 profiles, shared inbox	Professional (Standard caps at 5): $897 a month, $10,764 a year	Standard (cap is 10): $3,564 a year	Hootsuite
Any profile count, posts need approval	Professional: $10,764 a year	Advanced: $1,197 a month, $14,364 a year	Sprout Social

The profile cap is the first trap. A brand with Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, X and YouTube already has six profiles, one more than Sprout Standard allows. On Sprout that pushes every seat to Professional; on Hootsuite the same footprint still fits Standard's 10 accounts.

The approval step is the second. Hootsuite lists content approvals, internal comments and message assignment as Advanced features, so a team that needs sign-off pays the top self-serve seat price. Sprout includes a message approval workflow in Professional, so the same team stays one tier lower. On three seats that is the $3,600 a year gap in the last row, every year the contract renews.

Billing monthly on Sprout raises those totals, because every tier costs more month to month, as the table above shows. Hootsuite does not print its monthly rate, so a team that cannot commit for a year cannot price Hootsuite from the public page.

Profiles and publishing

Hootsuite Standard connects up to 10 social accounts, and its own example is five Facebook pages plus five Instagram profiles; Professional and Advanced remove the cap. Sprout's Essentials and Standard plans stop at 5 profiles, and Professional is where profiles become unlimited, so a multi-brand team reaches Sprout's upgrade point first.

Sprout also holds several publishing tools above Standard: bulk scheduling, Instagram grid planning, campaign tagging, a digital asset library and custom link tracking all start at Professional. What every Sprout plan gets, Essentials included, is the content calendar, the post scheduler, ViralPost send-time optimization, the image editor and Canva import, which covers the daily scheduling job.

For a team that mostly schedules, Sprout Essentials is the cheapest seat on either side. The catch is that the feature table does not list the social inbox or keyword monitoring for Essentials: those start at Standard, so Essentials is a publishing seat, not an engagement seat.

Inbox and customer care

Both tools put a unified inbox in their Standard plan, so the entry engagement seat is comparable. Hootsuite Standard lets you respond to messages from one inbox and monitor your brand and competitors. Sprout Standard adds review management and moderation for Facebook and Instagram ad comments, plus case management and reply collision detection so two people do not answer the same message.

The care tools that matter at volume sit higher on both. Hootsuite Professional adds automated inbox replies and DM workflows, and Advanced adds assignment, skill-based routing and customer satisfaction surveys. Sprout Professional adds message tagging and saved replies, while Advanced adds case routing, chatbots, CSAT and NPS surveys and approvals for replies.

A support-heavy team should compare at the Advanced tier, where both vendors charge the same annual seat price, and decide on the care workflow rather than the price.

Reporting and listening

Both vendors split reporting by tier, which matters most to teams that report to clients or a CMO. Hootsuite Standard benchmarks against up to 5 competitors and Professional against up to 20, with custom and scheduled reports at Professional. Sprout's competitor reports and paid social reports start at Professional, and scheduled report delivery and BI tool integration start at Advanced.

Listening is an add-on story on Sprout. Its Listening and Premium Analytics products are sold separately on Standard and up, and the pricing page prints no price for either. Hootsuite includes listening in its self-serve plans, with 30 days of Quick Search and 90-day trend forecasting from Professional, while Enterprise adds 13 months of history and advanced listening powered by Lumen.

If social listening is the reason you are buying, Hootsuite shows you more of it in the published plans, while Sprout's version needs a demo and a quote.

AI features

Both vendors put an AI assistant in every plan, so AI is not a reason to pick one over the other at entry level. Hootsuite says every plan runs on Wisdom, which drafts, recommends and analyzes, and Standard already generates posts and images with AI.

Sprout gives every user 100 Trellis AI credits a month, and the allowance resets each month. Teams that need more can buy Trellis Plus at $28 per user a month on annual billing or $35 on monthly billing. Sprout's AI writing features are tiered: Enhance Post by AI Assist starts at Professional, and Enhance Reply and conversation summaries start at Advanced.

Integrations and security

CRM integrations are a Sprout Advanced feature. HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Zendesk all start at Advanced, as does the Sprout API. Shopify, WooCommerce and Facebook Shops start at Professional. A sales-led team that wants social conversations in its CRM should budget Advanced on Sprout.

Hootsuite lists the Salesforce integration with its Enterprise customer care tools. Single sign-on is Enterprise on both: Hootsuite lists SSO in Enterprise, and Sprout's Enterprise plan includes a dedicated service for SSO setup.

Sprout Advanced adds IP whitelisting and feature visibility controls, and every Sprout plan includes two-step verification and profile-level access restrictions. Sprout also offers nonprofit pricing on Professional and Advanced for US organizations; Hootsuite's plans page does not mention one.

Which should you choose?

• Choose Hootsuite if nobody signs off on posts and you manage up to 10 profiles. Standard is the lower bill at every team size, and listening is visible in the plan you buy.
• Choose Sprout Social if posts need approval, or you want CRM and helpdesk integrations without going Enterprise. Professional at $299 undercuts Hootsuite Advanced, and Sprout Advanced, priced the same as Hootsuite Advanced, adds the CRM connectors.
• Choose Sprout Essentials if one or two people only schedule posts to 5 profiles and someone else handles replies.
• Look elsewhere if even the entry Hootsuite seat is too much. The cheaper Sprout Social alternatives and Hootsuite alternatives pages cover the lower-priced field, and Hootsuite vs Buffer compares Hootsuite with a per-channel tool.

Before you sign, read the single-vendor reviews: the Sprout Social review and the Hootsuite review. The Hootsuite pricing and Sprout Social pricing breakdowns cover each vendor's plan details, and the best social media management tools ranking lists the wider shortlist, including the Vista Social review. Teams on a budget should read free social media schedulers, and teams shopping mostly for AI drafting should read the AI for social media guide.

MarketingShot covers changes like a vendor's new seat price in its daily brief for marketers. Subscribe here.

How we compared

We read Sprout Social's pricing page, including its plan comparison table and FAQ, and Hootsuite's plans page and FAQ on October 18, 2026. The team totals multiply the printed per-seat annual prices by three seats and twelve months, before tax and add-ons. Toolradar's social media management ranking supplied the tool count, the comparison and cross-shop figures and the median, read the same day. Every feature named here is what the vendors print; MarketingShot did not run either product. Louis Corneloup, founder of Toolradar and Dupple, wrote the page. How products are assessed is on how we rate, corrections go through the editorial policy, and the author note is on about. Both vendors can change their pages, so confirm the price at checkout.

FAQ

Is Sprout Social more expensive than Hootsuite?

Usually, yes. On annual billing, Sprout Standard is $199 a seat a month against Hootsuite Standard at $99, and Sprout Standard connects 5 profiles against Hootsuite's 10. The exception is a team that needs post approvals: Sprout puts them in Professional at $299, while Hootsuite needs Advanced at $399.

Which is better for a small team?

Hootsuite, for most small teams. Three seats on Hootsuite Standard come to $3,564 a year on annual billing, against $7,164 on Sprout Standard. If the small team only publishes and does not answer messages, Sprout Essentials at $79 a seat is the cheapest seat on either side.

Do Sprout Social and Hootsuite offer monthly billing?

Both do. Sprout prints its monthly rates: Essentials $99, Standard $249, Professional $399 and Advanced $499 per seat. Hootsuite says monthly billing costs more per user than annual but does not print the monthly rate on its plans page.

Which has a longer free trial?

Sprout Social. Its trial runs 30 days with no credit card. Hootsuite's trial runs 14 days with no card, and trial accounts are limited to 10 to 20 posts a day and cannot bulk schedule.

Which plan includes approval workflows?

On Sprout, a message approval workflow starts at Professional, and external approvals and approvals for replies start at Advanced. On Hootsuite, content approvals start at Advanced. That is why a team that needs sign-off often pays less on Sprout.

Does either include social listening?

Hootsuite includes listening in its self-serve plans, with 30-day Quick Search and 90-day trend forecasting from Professional and deeper listening on Enterprise. Sprout sells Listening as a separate add-on on Standard and up, with no price on its pricing page.

Cite this: MarketingShot, "Sprout Social vs Hootsuite (2026): Price per Seat and Which to Choose", October 2026.

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