Sprout Social vs Hootsuite: Pricing Compared

Sprout Social and Hootsuite price the same way: per named seat, billed annually, tax excluded. That makes them directly comparable, which is rare in this category. Sprout opens lower, at $79 per seat per month on Essentials against Hootsuite's $99 on Standard. From there the two pages diverge. Hootsuite removes its social account cap at $199 per seat while Sprout keeps five profiles until $299. Hootsuite names the tier where approvals live; Sprout's pricing page does not. Figures below come from both vendors' pricing pages as checked on October 11, 2026.

Sprout opens cheaper, but its cheapest tier is the newest

Sprout Social lists four published tiers: Essentials at $79 per seat per month, Standard at $199, Professional at $299 and Advanced at $399, all on annual billing. Enterprise is quoted as custom.

Essentials is marked NEW on the page and described as "Created for social media professionals focused on simplifying publishing workflows". It includes up to 5 social profiles, optimal send times and profile and post-level reporting.

Hootsuite publishes three seat-priced tiers: Standard at $99, Professional at $199 and Advanced at $399 per user per month, plus a custom Enterprise plan.

Its FAQ restates the same figures: "Paid plans start at $99 for a Standard plan, $199 for a Professional plan, and range up to $399 for an Advanced plan." All three are annual rates with tax excluded.

Only Sprout publishes a monthly alternative, and only on one tier: "$99 per seat/month billed monthly" on Essentials. Hootsuite confirms monthly billing exists but prints no monthly figure, a gap we also note in how to read a social media tool pricing page.

Hootsuite drops the account cap one tier earlier

Hootsuite Standard covers up to 10 social accounts. Professional, at $199 per seat, "Manage unlimited social accounts". Advanced and Enterprise are unlimited as well.

Sprout includes 5 social profiles on both Essentials and Standard. Unlimited profiles arrive only on Professional at $299 per seat per month, with Advanced also unlimited.

So for breadth the ranking inverts. A single operator with 30 profiles pays $199 on Hootsuite Professional and $299 on Sprout Professional. The same operator with 4 profiles pays $79 on Sprout Essentials and $99 on Hootsuite Standard.

Hootsuite's FAQ also clarifies that the cap is shared, not per person: on Standard "you could manage up to 10 different accounts from one dashboard", with team members sharing access. The unit distinction is set out in what counts as a seat.

Approvals are named on Hootsuite and unnamed on Sprout

Hootsuite places collaboration on its third tier. Advanced, at $399 per seat per month, is headed "Streamline approvals and co-work across teams" and lists "Review and approve content with your team" as its first bullet.

Sprout's pricing page does not contain the word approval anywhere in its visible text, as read on October 11, 2026. Its publishing feature page does: "Create workflows to guide internal and external team members through approving messages."

That page names no tier. Sprout's plan comparison keeps its publishing and engagement rows behind collapsed sections that could not be read on October 11, 2026, so we cannot state which Sprout tier includes approvals.

For buyers whose main requirement is a two-step approval, the cheapest published routes sit elsewhere entirely, as set out in which plans include approval workflows.

Sprout gives 30 days to try it, Hootsuite gives 14

Sprout's trial is headed "Try Sprout free for 30 days" with "No credit card required. Annual billing." Hootsuite offers a "Free 14-day trial" on all three seat-priced tiers, and its FAQ confirms no credit card and no automatic charge at the end.

Hootsuite's trial is also narrower than its plans. The pricing footnote states: "Trial accounts have daily posting limits (10-20 posts per organization, depending on plan). Bulk scheduling is not available during trial."

Sprout publishes no equivalent trial restriction on its pricing page. If bulk scheduling is the thing you need to validate, only one of these two trials can show it to you.

What a four-person team pays on each

The totals below are our arithmetic from the published annual per-seat rates on October 11, 2026, for four seats, before tax. Feature differences are ignored.

• Sprout Social Essentials: $316 per month, 5 social profiles.
• Hootsuite Standard: $396 per month, up to 10 social accounts.
• Sprout Social Standard: $796 per month, 5 social profiles.
• Hootsuite Professional: $796 per month, unlimited social accounts.
• Sprout Social Professional: $1,196 per month, unlimited profiles.
• Hootsuite Advanced and Sprout Social Advanced: $1,596 per month each.

The $796 row is the interesting one. At four seats the two vendors cost the same, and Hootsuite Professional buys unlimited accounts where Sprout Standard still caps profiles at five.

Choose on the constraint you actually have

• Choose Sprout Social Essentials if you have few profiles, few people, and want the lowest published seat rate at $79.
• Choose Hootsuite Professional if profile count is your problem, because unlimited accounts arrive at $199 rather than $299.
• Choose Hootsuite Advanced if a published, named approval workflow matters more than the $399 seat price.
• Choose neither if headcount is large and account count is small; channel-priced tools are far cheaper, as shown in Buffer versus Later versus Hootsuite free plans.

Teams that script posting themselves sidestep seat pricing altogether and pay for compute instead, the trade-off in n8n Cloud versus self-hosted. Platform caps still apply either way, as covered in LinkedIn and X API limits.

Frequently asked questions

Which is cheaper, Sprout Social or Hootsuite?

Sprout Social at entry level. Essentials is $79 per seat per month on annual billing against Hootsuite Standard at $99. Above that the ranking flips: Hootsuite Professional at $199 undercuts Sprout Professional at $299.

How much is Sprout Social billed monthly?

Only Essentials publishes a monthly rate, at $99 per seat per month. Standard, Professional and Advanced show annual rates of $199, $299 and $399 per seat with no monthly equivalent printed, as of October 11, 2026.

Does Hootsuite have a minimum number of seats?

No published minimum. Its comparison table lists user seats as 1+ on Standard, Professional and Advanced, and its FAQ says plans are sold per user so you can add as many as your organization needs.

Which tier includes approval workflows?

Hootsuite Advanced at $399 per seat per month states "Review and approve content with your team". Sprout Social describes message approval workflows on its publishing feature page but names no tier, so we cannot confirm the Sprout tier.

How long are the free trials?

Sprout Social offers 30 days with no credit card. Hootsuite offers 14 days with no credit card, but caps trial accounts at 10 to 20 posts per organization per day and disables bulk scheduling during the trial.

Do either include unlimited social accounts at entry level?

No. Hootsuite Standard caps social accounts at 10 and Sprout Essentials and Standard include 5 profiles. Unlimited arrives at $199 per seat on Hootsuite and $299 per seat on Sprout.

Bottom line

At four or fewer profiles, Sprout Essentials is the cheaper published entry point. At any real profile count, Hootsuite Professional is the cheaper route to unlimited accounts.

Both bill by headcount, so neither suits a large team sharing a handful of accounts. All figures reflect the vendors' pricing pages on October 11, 2026, exclude tax, and can change without notice.