Three things you need to know about Sprout Social

Sprout Social is costly, whether you are a current customer or considering becoming one.

“The price is almost 200% higher than the other solutions. “The pricing is way too high.” (Kevin M., President).

Sprout Social is a great platform for managing social media. However, spending a lot of money on it is not necessarily an issue.

If it is worth the extra cost, some people will be willing to pay a little more. If it offers good value for money. If it makes our job easier and more efficient.

If we don’t know why we are paying the amount we are, it becomes an issue.

What is the Sprout Social Charge?

You might skip this section if you are already using Sprout Social. It’s not difficult to see how much it costs to use this tool.

But what if you are seriously considering Sprout Social but have not yet made a commitment to it? You’ll need to find out how much it is compared to other social media management tools.

Hootsuite, Agorapulse and Sprout Social have similar features. We’ll be comparing Sprout Social pricing to theirs.

Pricing for Sprout Social vs Hootsuite

Here is a look at Sprout Social pricing:

Pricing for Sprout Social

Here’s a look at Hootsuite’s pricing plans:

Pricing plan for Hootsuite

Hootsuite is more expensive per user than Sprout Social. Hootsuite allows you to have a fixed number of users for each pricing tier.

We’ll make it easy by comparing their lowest pricing plans. Both plans allow you to have one user.

Hootsuite will charge $107 per user on a professional plan. This is their lowest tier. Sprout Social will cost $249 per user on a standard plan.

Already, you can see $147 per month more for Sprout Social.

What about the features?

Are there more features and functionality available with Sprout Social vs Hootsuite

Sprout Social looks more expensive than Hootsuite at first glance. Sprout Social’s feature set is much longer.

However, this is not true. But it’s not true.

Hootsuite chose to list fewer features in order to convince you to select a more expensive plan. They’ve done it before.

Scroll down Hootsuite’s pricing page to see that it does offer access to a content calendar, just like Sprout Social. On their lowest-tier plan, you can create reports and have access to their mobile application.

All features listed by Sprout Social on their entry-level plan, with the exception of a few Hootsuite offers. For the ability to monitor reviews, monitor keywords and locates better, you’d pay $107 more per month.

Are you willing to pay an additional $107?

You might not need these extras if the entry-level plan is your choice.

Hootsuite also gives you 10 social media profiles. Sprout Social offers only five.

Agorapulse Pricing vs Sprout Pricing

Sprout Social

gorapulse



Pricing of Agorapulse vs Sprout Social

Agorapulse charges per user just like Sprout Social. However, we will still compare the two entry level plans to find out how much more expensive Sprout Social.

It doesn’t take too long to figure out how much more Sprout Social costs each month: $249 vs. $52 = $197.

Sprout Social is almost 200 dollars more expensive than Agorapulse.

What? What are you getting with Sprout Social?

Are you getting more functionality and features with Sprout Social vs Agorapulse

With Agorapulse, you get a lot for your money.

Both platforms offer:

Management of their inboxesA social calendarAccess to mobile appsReporting functionality on the lowest tier.

Agorapulse has more advanced analytics and reporting capabilities. You get twice the number of social media profiles (10 vs. 5), as well as access to the Social Media ROI Tool.

Agorapulse’s Social Media ROI tool, is by far the best social media management tool, especially if you have a tight budget. Let’s face the facts, there is no budget that isn’t under scrutiny in this economy.

Sprout Social charges $199 per month to add an additional user to your account. Agorapulse costs only $15 per month.

We now understand why Sprout Social is known for being costly.

They feel that they can charge so much for their services when the most expensive competitors charge a fair price.

Here’s what you need to know about Sprout Social’s sky-high prices

1. Investor pressure

Sprout Social received over $11 million from investors when it was launched in 2009. It has raised more than $250 million since then and is listed on the Nasdaq every year since 2019.

It is great to have some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent VCs behind you. They will put their money where their mouth is. It increases share prices and customer trust. You can spend more on marketing and R&D.

All that cash that is game-changing means that more money needs to be returned. Your business is not being invested in by investors out of kindness. Investors are investing in your company because they believe you can make more money. They expect to see a substantial return on the money they have invested. This return is in the form of many customers and many dollars.

Sprout Social is under tremendous pressure to provide a return on their investors’ investment. They are taking the pressure off their shoulders by giving it to customers. They must charge you a fortune to make a fortune.

2. Legacy plans that are misleading

You may wonder why people pay such high prices for Sprout Social, when there are many more affordable but equally comprehensive social media management options.

Sprout Social is loved by many. However, their loyal customers pay $39 per month for the entry-level plan.

Sprout Social was very generous to its legacy customers, keeping their plan prices the exact same. However, this will only last so long. They will have to end their legacy plans, and the price jump from $39 up to $249 is quite significant.

Sprout Social is not for everyone. Will these customers be loyal Sprout Social users if they have to pay $210 more each month for the same social management features?

It’s not my opinion.

Sprout Social must compensate for the loss of legacy plan customers’ money. Who do you think will pick up the slack?

3. Innovative features require rising overheads

I know, I know. All companies, including ours, have to pay overheads. To make profits, your prices must reflect overheads.

Sprout Social will likely have higher overheads than others. They will have a large marketing budget, high monthly server costs, big staff with large salaries, and significant research and development costs. All driven by investor demands.

It takes a lot to build a comprehensive set of industry-first social media management tools. But what innovative features has Sprout Social launched that are industry-first?

Agorapulse was first to launch the social inbox and build a social media management platform. Agorapulse was also first platform to allow you to report and prove Social Media ROI.

Agorapulse, the only tool that connects with Google Analytics, adds UTMs automatically to every link you post on your social media networks. This allows you track how users interact with your content throughout the funnel. It also lets you determine where your return on investment is.

Sprout Social does not have something like this.

What are Sprout Social’s research and development staff paid for? And why is it so expensive for customers to pay them so much? I find the overheads required to maintain and build basic integrations with social media networks, an email, approval workflows and publishing queues to be minimal.

They have recently bought Repustate, an AI-powered natural language processing company that models sentiment analysis and provides search solutions. Perhaps we will soon see some new features?

Although I think new features are great, I expect another price hike. What other way will they be able to pay for the acquisition cost and any new features that they create?

Conclusion

Take a look at the features offered by Sprout Social. These features are worth the extra money each month.

You have the option to choose, but I do know where and who I would rather spend my social media budget on: Agorapulse.

Ask for a demo of Agorapulse and talk to the sales team about pricing options and features available to meet your social media budget.

 

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