Sprout Social Pricing: Is It Affordable for All?

As the name indicates, today, I’ll be spilling beans about the pricing of the much-known social media management tool in the market, Sprout Social.

Sprout Social is not only a management tool, but indeed it rose to fame through its legacy customers over the period of time since birth.

Sprout Social is a Chicago-based company founded by four co-founders back in 2009. This tool came into being out of mere frustration when connecting with customers was a hassle.

Sprout Social grew over a period of time with respect to its features, functionality, and of course, it’s pricing. Growth is indeed a sign of success but increasing basic pricing cannot be justified as one – especially for Sprout Social pricing.

With seven major social media platform integrations, Sprout Social has a strong standing among the social media management tools. But brand image serves no purpose if it is hard to reach and get hold of.

Affordability and ease of use are major selling points for an online service, and we found Sprout disappointing here.

So I decided to pen down my research on how Sprout rose to the limelight and eventually became a question for the masses, wondering, is Sprout Social affordable for all?

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Short Summary

• Sprout Social’s pricing is prohibitively expensive, especially for teams, since each additional user requires paying the full plan price again — making it nearly impossible for growing businesses to scale affordably.
• Essential features like Social Listening aren’t included in standard plans and cost an extra $999 for just five active topics, with unclear limits and minimal transparency.
• Users only get 5 social profiles for $99/month, with each extra profile costing $25/month, regardless of business size — whether you’re a small team or an enterprise.
• Even basic access to Sprout Social’s product roadmap and better support requires a $500/month add-on, pushing total monthly costs for teams into the thousands.
• Over the years, Sprout Social has reduced value while increasing costs — slashing included profiles and phasing out multi-user access from all plans.
• In comparison, Social Champ offers far more affordable and transparent pricing, with free and low-cost plans that support teams, unlimited users (in higher tiers), and customer-friendly add-on pricing.
• Feature-wise, Social Champ includes broader social media integrations, human-first customer support, and built-in tools for content curation, making it a more accessible and scalable alternative.

Sprout Social Pricing Plans Explained

Sprout Social offers a suite of social media management tools designed for various business needs.

However, it’s important to note that Sprout Social’s pricing structure is generally considered to be on the higher end, and it may not be the most suitable option for individuals or very small startups with limited budgets.

All plans are billed per user, per month.

Here’s a breakdown of their main pricing tiers, keeping in mind how they might suit different user types:

 Individuals

Sprout Social does not offer a plan specifically tailored for individual users or solopreneurs. The starting price point is generally too high for this category.

Small Businesses

Suitable Plan: Standard Plan
Pricing: $249 per user/month (when billed monthly). Often a lower price is available if billed annually.
Features Included:

• Manage up to 5 social profiles.
• All-in-one Smart Inbox for streamlined engagement across connected profiles.
• Tools for publishing, scheduling, drafting, and queuing posts.
• Social content calendar for organized content planning.
• Basic review management for platforms like Facebook and Google My Business.
• Monitoring of profiles, brand keywords (up to 10), and locations.
• Tasking and basic social CRM tools for assigning messages.
• Group, profile, and post-level reporting for performance analysis.
• Paid promotion tools for boosting Facebook posts.
• Access to iOS and Android mobile apps for on-the-go management.

Missing Features: Features available in higher-tier plans, such as unlimited social profiles, competitive reports, advanced scheduling with optimal send times, custom workflows, saved and suggested replies, more in-depth analytics, social listening, and automation tools.

Agencies

Suitable Plans: Professional Plan and Advanced Plan are generally more suitable for agencies due to their expanded features and ability to manage a larger number of social profiles. Agencies might also explore the Enterprise Plan for highly customized needs.
Professional Plan:
Pricing: $399 per user/month (when billed monthly). Often a lower price is available if billed annually.

Features Included (in addition to most Standard Plan features):

• Unlimited social profiles.
• Competitive reports for Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter).
• Incoming and outgoing message content tagging for better organization.
• Custom workflows for multiple approvers and steps, enhancing team collaboration.
• Scheduling for optimal send times based on engagement data.
• Response rate and time analysis reports for customer service performance.
• Trend analysis for X keywords and hashtags.
• Paid social reporting for Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn.
• Helpdesk, CRM, and social commerce integrations.
• Automated publishing of content from RSS feeds.

Missing Features: The Advanced and Enterprise plans offer more advanced features, such as message spike alerts, chatbots with automation tools, sentiment analysis, automated link tracking, and premium analytics.

Advanced Plan:
Pricing: $499 per user/month (when billed monthly). Often a lower price is available if billed annually.
Features Included (in addition to Professional Plan features):

• Message Spike Alerts for increased message activity.
• Digital asset and content library for efficient content management.
• Chatbots with automation tools for initial customer interactions.
• Saved and suggested replies powered by AI for quicker responses.
• Inbox Rule Builder for automating actions based on message content.
• Automated Link Tracking for campaign performance measurement.
• Twitter surveys for gathering CSAT or NPS feedback.
• External approvals for content review processes.
• Enhanced by AI Assist features for content creation and analysis.
• Real-time message spike alerts.
• Automated link tracking.
• Scheduled report delivery.

  Enterprise Plan:
  Pricing: Custom pricing based on specific needs.
  Features Included: Tailored solutions with all features of the Advanced plan and additional premium add-ons like Social Listening, Premium Analytics with custom report builders and interactive dashboards, and Employee Advocacy solutions. It offers personalized implementation, premier consulting services, and 24/5 prioritized customer support.

Why Sprout Social Affordability Is a Question?

With many social media management tools in the market, the platforms with all the features and functionalities still need to be budget-friendly. Sprout Social, for several reasons, is just beyond affordability, and it just gets more challenging to grab a deal the more you want from it.

Four main reasons for the Sprout Social pricing to be a definitely a question are:

1. Unbelievably Expensive – Impossible for Teams

   The major flaw in the pricing format is that even if you spend $279 on the biggest Sprout Social plan available, you still be the ONLY user of that plan and offered features.

   To have a team member on board, you must pay the entire plan price to make the purchase.

   Imagine if you were a team of 3? You’ll be paying $837 per month!!

   

   With the ‘per user’ pricing format, Sprout Social pricing indeed doesn’t sound growth-friendly.

   But not all social media management tools are this expensive like Social Champ, a team-friendly platform where the biggest pricing plan has the lowest cost for an add-on team member.

   

2. Social Listening is $999 Add-on

   One awe-inspiring feature Sprout Social came out with was a well-detailed Social Listening.

   But this feature and a few more are not even a part of the main pricing plans. Apart from a few Twitter keywords and hashtag analysis, the entire feature is an add-on.

   Yes!! So you pay a hefty amount and then add team members, thinking that you now have it all to get started – but not yet. Instead, to avail yourself of the maximum of this feature, Social Listening will cost you a whopping $999 to unlock just 5 active topics – that’s it!

   As a growing company, you might need to enable listening on more than 5 active topics, and for that, you have to purchase them for another $999. Eh!

   

   The most difficult part is that the limits are not mentioned anywhere in the public view.

3. Minimal Social Profiles With High-Cost Add-Ons

   5 social profiles for $99 per month. So if I have my Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest connected, then I have no idea how to add my Google Business Profile. Until I am ready to pay an additional $25 for each social profile add-on.

   Sprout Social pricing doesn’t treat a small business, an agency, or an enterprise any different regarding pricing. Because if you even chose the biggest plan hoping to get treated like an enterprise, you still will end up with just 10 social profiles at $279 per month.

   On a bigger picture, Social Champ offers 3 social accounts in their Free Social Media Scheduler and a maximum of unlimited social accounts. An add-on price decreases with the increasing plan sizes.

   

4. Want to Visit the Roadmap? Pay Now!

   A customer-driven platform’s first initiative is always to keep its users and target customers fully aware of what’s cooking in the headquarters. A fully satisfied customer is the one:

   • Who feels welcomed to the platform.
   • Who make their feature requests or can leave feedback in complete hope of being listened to.
   • Who can keep an eye on what features are in consideration, in progress, and are about to be launched.

   At Sprout Social, to access a fundamental customer requirement, you would need to pay another $500 per month to access their product roadmap, along with decent customer support as an add-on.

   If you are an agency with a minimum of 20 social profiles and 3 team members on board. Then further you opt for social listening and basic product roadmap access as well – so on a Professional plan, you are looking at $2425 per month!!

Social Champ vs. Sprout Social: A Detailed Comparison

When choosing a social media management tool, it’s essential to consider both features and affordability. Here’s how Social Champ and Sprout Social stack up:

Pricing Overview

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Sprout Social Pricing – Before and After

Sprout Social has been cautious with their pricing plans. Unlike the Agorapulse pricing, the time gap between the change in pricing plans over the period of years is evident.

Careful pricing changes are definitely well sought and well researched, making us ask the big question: Why an insane pricing format?

To bring forth a clearer picture of what I am talking about and why it hit us hard, I’ll go down the lane over a few years where Sprout Social pricing made some major changes.

In 2016, Sprout Social had three pricing plans, with the smallest Deluxe Plan being $59 per user per month. This plan suddenly fell from offering 10 social profiles to 5 social accounts. Meanwhile, their Premium Plan with increasing features reduced its number of social profiles from 20 to 10 as well.

The Premium Plan then was $99 per user per month.

This year Sprout Social introduced basic social listening, which everyone was excited about, BUT the majority couldn’t make the most of it.

Moving into 2017, Sprout Social pricing entirely ate up the Deluxe plan!!

Customers were now left with three plans as they introduced a new Enterprise Plan standing tall at $1500 per month with 50 social profiles and 10 users.

Now the smallest pricing plan was the Premium, starting at $99 per user per month with 10 social accounts. The only plan doing well so far was the Team Plan which was getting stronger with features yet was still at $500 per month for 3 users and 30 social profiles.

Indeed legacy users were making the most of the features at a reasonable price but it started getting difficult for the new ones until they came on the Team Plan.

Midway 2017, when Sprout Social pricing went upside down!

Except for the Premium Plan, everything changed.

In a few months, they not only changed the name of the Team Plan to Corporate but discontinued multiple users from all of their pricing plans. This means that even with how biggest of the plans, you still are the only user of it!!

The new Corporate Plan was now at $149 with only 15 social profiles and no team members.

The Enterprise Plan, which was still very new, got 61% more expensive. The new price was $249 for only 20 social profiles and no team members.

Fast forward to 2022, after an ample attempt to reshape plans, the current Sprout Social pricing stands with three pricing plans:

• The previous Premium Plan as Standard at $99 per user per month.
• The previous Corporate Plan as Professional at $169 per user per month.
• The previous Enterprise Plan as Advanced at $279 per user per month.

Sprout Social Pricing vs Social Champ Pricing

Social Champ is a one-stop solution for all social media marketing and management problems. It is a growing platform, one of the much talked about social media management tools in current times, founded in 2016.

Compared to Sprout Social, Social Champ is evidently much newer, resulting in both platforms having very different pricing plans.

Sprout Social’s smallest plan is 30% more expensive than Social Champ – How?

Let’s keep their monthly plans side by side for a quick comparative overview.

Social Champ has a total of 4 pricing plans, including a Free one.

The unique point about its pricing is that all four are equally feature-rich, with every plan enjoying the same perks of features and integrations.

Free Plan offers 3 social accounts with 1 user on board.

The other three pricing plans are Starter at $4/month for 1 social account and 1 user, Unlimited at $8/month for 1 social account and unlimited users, and Enterprise with custom pricing.

Social Champ’s pricing caters to all kinds of businesses with various plans, whether you are a small to medium-sized business, an agency, or an enterprise.

In contrast, Sprout Social has a total of 3 pricing plans with no Free Plan to offer.

All pricing plans have different sets of features to offer, making sure that the bigger plans have more features than the smallest plan on the list.

The Standard is $199/month with 5 social profiles and 1 user. The Professional is for $299/month with unlimited social profiles. The Advanced is for $399/month again with unlimited social profiles.

In case you end up with a need for social accounts or user add-ons, then both the platforms are poles apart.

As discussed before, with Sprout Social pricing, 1 user add-on is equivalent to the price of an entire plan offered. While a social profile add-on will cost $25 per month for all plans.

Meanwhile, with Social Champ, the bigger the pricing plan you opt for, the less you pay for an add-on.

• Starter Plan: $4/account/month.
• Unlimited Plan: $8/account/month.

Feature Comparison – Sprout Social and Social Champ

Since we are yet not exhausted from looking into Sprout Social and its pricing formats, why not get down to some more complexities there. Let’s quickly compare the feature sets you get concerning the amount spent on either of the platforms.

• Social Media Networks

Sprout Social integrates seven social media networks as a whole. Whereas Social Champ supports all of them with Google Business Profile as an exceptional eighth addition.

Social media networks include Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok.

If a user adds one account to each social media platform offered, Sprout Social will still be 17% more pricey, including add-ons, compared to Social Champ’s $29 plan per month.

Social Champ offers Instagram Stories, unlike Sprout Social pricing.

• Social Media Integrations

Both platforms have their fair share of social media integrations on board. It is on customers which integrations they find the most useful and helpful while managing their social media presence.

If we look into media integrations, Sprout Social supports Dropbox, Google Drive, and Canva (Images and Videos) only.

Meanwhile, Social Champ supports Dropbox, Google Drive, Canva (Images, Videos, GIFs), Flickr, Imgur, Vistacreate, Wave.video, Stock Media, and direct links too.

Both platforms support bit.ly for link-shortening purposes.

Social Champ integrates a WordPress plugin as well to ease the content flow.

• Customer Support

Sprout Social is mainly bots, while Social Champ is fully operated by humans who can acknowledge and understand their customers to their core emotions.

At Sprout Social, you can find help with their helpdesk, which eventually leads you to book a call for most of its pricing and advanced features. This option is the toughest to get around for someone like me who has social anxiety to talk over a call.

Sprout Social chat is mainly a bot and at maximum, you can send out a request via email to their customer support.

Sprout Social’s simple product roadmap is a paid option that will eventually get you the perks of having a customer representative reach you in a few hours.

In contrast, Social Champ is a customer-driven platform where customers come first. Their Live Chat is operated by real humans who are available 24/7 for any queries. They are decked up with detailed helpdesk guides, YouTube video tutorials, a Contact Us form, email support, and quick Demo Calls to cater to all kinds of customers with ease.

Social Champ also has a free and easy-to-access Customer Roadmap where anyone can create a request. Viewing in-progress and soon-to-be-launched features has never been this easier for the users before.

Content Curation Features

As a social media management tool, the task is just not to schedule away content online. But essential content curation options can definitely play a major role in shaping a tool as a robust platform. But not every platform may understand its core benefit.

Social Champ integrates content curation with its Suggestion feature, which suggests you all in-trend content directly from the web onto your dashboard. The feature Auto RSS is an integration that directly connects an RSS feed link of any website to your social accounts. Auto RSS feature will automatically share the latest blogs and articles from the websites on your pre-decided website to the connected social platforms. Social Champ also helps to repurpose evergreen content as effective campaigns through its Recycle feature.

Meanwhile, Sprout Social pricing supports ‘Find Content’ and RSS feed via outsource integration.

Affordable Sprout Social Alternatives

1. Social Champ

   

   Social Champ is customer-driven social media automation and management tool with 12 social media network integrations – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, YouTube, and TikTok.

   With 4.6 ratings, this platform is worth all your money with a detailed content dashboard, media integrations like Canva, an extensive social inbox, comprehensive analytics and reporting feature, and an all-in-one social media calendar.

   Unlike Sprout Social, Social Champ offers a limitless Free Plan, unlimited scheduling options, and much more. Having a team on board is the easiest with Social Champ.

   Social Champ pricing starts at $4 per month/channel.

2. MeetEdgar

   

   MeetEdgar is a unique social media scheduler that currently supports five social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest.

   Edgar strengthens entrepreneurs, and unlike Sprout Social, they offer top-rated human support immediately. This platform allows you to create innovative content which can be saved up in a limitless library of evergreen content. With Edgar, you always have something to post. The platform offers A/B testing options, link tracking, and much more to give you all the intel you need to see what your audience responds to best.

   MeetEdgar pricing starts at $29.99/month for 5 social accounts and 20 team members, unlike Sprout Social pricing for Premium Plan.

3. Zoho Social

   

   Zoho Social is a flexible social media management platform that supports seven social media networks, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, and YouTube.

   Like Sprout Social, Zoho Social has a strong social listening feature and detailed analytics and scheduling options. Unlike Sprout, Zoho has a separate Agency management to cater to all their extensive needs with up-to-date features and integrations.

   Zoho Social pricing is $15/month for 7 social channels and 1 team member.

4. Buffer

   

   Another solid alternative is Buffer, known for its clean interface and simplicity. It starts at $6/month per social channel and is perfect for small teams, creators, or freelancers who want an easy-to-use tool for scheduling and basic analytics.

   Buffer also includes a handy browser extension for fast content sharing and offers a free plan, making it a great option if you manage just a few accounts.

5. Loomly

    

6.  

   

   A great alternative to Sprout Social is Loomly, especially if you’re managing a team and want a strong visual content calendar.

   Starting at $42/month, Loomly offers features like post ideas, approval workflows, audience targeting, and automated publishing for multiple platforms.

   It also includes basic analytics, a media library, and collaboration tools that make it easy for teams to plan and review content together.

7. Sendible

   

   Another solid alternative to Sprout Social is Sendible. Designed with agencies and large teams in mind, Sendible offers powerful scheduling tools, social media inbox management, client dashboards, and robust reporting features.

   Pricing starts at $29/month, which makes it a more affordable option compared to Sprout Social, especially for businesses that need to manage multiple clients or brands.

   What sets Sendible apart is its deep integrations with tools like Canva, Google Drive, and Slack, allowing for smoother workflows and better content collaboration. It’s a smart pick for agencies looking to scale their social media efforts without breaking the bank.

Conclusion

It can be said without a doubt that Sprout Social pricing is not everyone’s cup of tea. The platform is full of great features, but affordability is a huge question mark when purchasing the most prominent features separately.

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