12 Best Hootsuite Alternatives For 2024 (Top Picks)
Are you looking for an alternative to Hootsuite?
The best social media management tool depends on your needs.
Maybe you’re looking for a tool with better pricing, more features or both. Either way, you’re in the right place.
In this post, we’re comparing the best Hootsuite alternatives so you can decide which platform is right for you.
Let’s get started.
Top picks for the best Hootsuite alternatives
- Sendible is our top Hootsuite alternative thanks to its deep social media feature set, excellent user interface, team functionality, and affordable pricing.
- Pallyy is a great option for those on a budget. It’s easy to use and has all the features you’ll need. Free plan & affordable paid plans.
- SocialBee is best for those who need the best social media scheduling tool. Entry-level plans are affordable and they offer ‘done-for-you’ social media services.
- Iconosquare is best for those who need advanced analytics and reporting.
- NapoleonCat offers a Hootsuite alternative designed for customer service teams. It includes a social inbox, scheduling, reporting, automation, and team workflows.
1. Sendible
Sendible is our top pick for the best Hootsuite alternative. It offers a deep feature set and is quite affordable by comparison.
You get access to both a social inbox and social streams. And a full suite of analytics and reporting tools. Including a report builder. Automated client reporting is available on higher plans.
There’s unlimited scheduling available but there are limits on the number of daily sends per user.
You get a social calendar and you can tailor each post to specific social networks. You can create content queues to recycle your content or schedule at a specific time & date. Canva is integrated into the tool as well.
Sendible is well-suited to teams and agencies thanks to approval workflows, advanced user management, and custom approval flows. However, the latter is only available on higher plans.
White labelling is available for larger teams and agencies. However, the low entry-level price point makes Sendible a good all-round tool for most users.
This platform also has an app for iOS and Android so you can continue working while on the go.
Pricing: Plans start from $29/month. Free trials are available.
Learn more in our Sendible review.
2. Pallyy
Pallyy is a budget-friendly Hootsuite alternative with a great UI and deep set of features. You’ll find as well as the essential scheduling & publishing functionality, you’ll find a social inbox, analytics, and reporting. There’s also a free plan.
The scheduling functionality is particularly well suited for visual content. And it supports a significant number of social networks. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and more.
Just upload your media content into the media library. Then, let’s say, if you want to schedule an image, just drag and drop it onto the calendar. From there, you’ll be prompted to enter captions, hashtags, and all that good stuff.
What’s particularly unique about the social calendar is that you can change the view. So, instead of the traditional calendar, you can view it as a Kanban board instead.
There’s also a social inbox. Which, like the rest of the platform, includes an excellent user interface. You can monitor messages and comments from popular platforms – including TikTok. This is great for your social media productivity. You can reply and mark messages as resolved. You can also assign them to other team members.
Analytics is available for several popular social networks. There’s also a flexible report builder and team accounts – great for agencies and in-house teams.
In addition, there’s other helpful features such as hashtag lists, post templates, an Instagram feed planner, and an entire bio link tool included.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans are $18/month per social set and unlocks all features, annual discounts available. Add-ons available for team member accounts. A 14-day free trial is also available.
Read our Pallyy review.
3. SocialBee
SocialBee is the best alternative for those who are wanting to replace Hootsuite’s post publishing & scheduling functionality.
This is the best social media scheduler we’ve tested. And what’s particularly nice is that it’s 100% focused on that.
SocialBee is designed to make it easy to re-share your evergreen content. First, you’ll set up a workspace for your brand and add your social accounts.
The real power of this tool is within their content categories. Pre-made categories are waiting for you but you can change them according to the needs of your social strategy. This allows you to ensure you have a diverse range of social media posts.
We especially liked the post editor – this allows you to select which networks your post will be published to. You can choose variations for each network. You can publish as a one off, add to a category, or run the post until it’s been published a particular number of times or a particular date is reached.
You can also choose for posts to be re-queued once they’re published via your chosen content category. This will ensure you can make the most of your evergreen content.
A wide range of social networks are supported including Instagram and TikTok. There’s also profile analytics available for your social networks.
You’ll also find integrations with content curation platforms such as Quuu and Pocket. Team accounts with content approval workflows are available should you need them.
Pricing: Plans start from $29/month, save 16% when billed annually. Get started with a 14-day free trial.
Read our SocialBee review.
4. Iconosquare
Iconosquare is an industry-leading social media analytics tool with some useful publishing & social listening features.
It’s an ideal Hootsuite alternative for those that are focused on data & reporting. And also want a solid tool for publishing content.
Iconosquare provides a detailed analytics dashboard for your connected social accounts. If you want to use this data to create manual reports for clients, you can export data from each charge as a PNG or CSV document.
But what if you want to see different metrics or customize those analytics? You can create a custom dashboard with the metrics you want to see, and you can combine metrics from different social accounts in the same dashboard. This is great for those that need to report on specific KPIs.
You also get powerful reporting functionality. You can create reports from the default social profile analytics dashboards, your custom dashboards, hashtags, or competitors. Reports can be sent as XLS or PDF reports, depending on your plan.
Reports can be generated as you need them, scheduled at specific dates, and you can choose to send them via email.
Post scheduling is handled on a per-profile basis. This keeps everything separate. You can add time-slots for preferred posting times or even share your social media calendar via a link. A media library and saved captions & hashtag lists are also available.
Additional features are available for Facebook and Instagram such as a social inbox and social listening.
Pricing: Plans start from $59/month and scale depending on the number of social profiles you need. A 14-day free trial is available, save 22% with annual billing.
Read our Iconosquare review.
5. ContentStudio
ContentStudio is another popular alternative to Hootsuite. It’s an all-in-one social media management tool that has all the features you’ll need.
It offers a solid social inbox, an excellent UI that’s easy to navigate, powerful social media scheduling functionality, and in-depth analytics & reporting functionality.
In the social inbox, you can reply to messages, mentions, and comments. Mark them as resolved or assign them to a team member if needed.
In your content library, you’ll be able to save post drafts, media assets, and create your social sharing queues. When using the post composer, you’ll be able to share content directly, schedule for a later date, or add them to one of your social queues.
There’s a handy social media calendar that includes a grid view for your Instagram content. You can click on any of your posts from the calendar that have gone live and you’ll get analytics on that specific post. No need to dig through other analytics elsewhere in the platform.
Analytics and reporting features within ContentStudio are extremely well throughout. A great option for consultants, agencies, and in-house teams.
You’ll also find a suite of AI tools to help your social media campaigns.
Pricing: A free trial is available. Paid plans start at $29/month. Yearly discounts available.
6. NapoleonCat
NapoleonCat offers a space where you could respond to all social media responses including those from Facebook, Twitter, Messenger, Google Business, LinkedIn, and Instagram. This is great especially if your social media marketing strategy includes online reputation management.
The platform includes all of the features you’d expect from an all-in-one social media tool – and some you wouldn’t expect.
You get the usual social inbox, publishing, analytics, and reporting features.
What sets NapoleonCat apart is its automation functionality. You can create automation rules to assist you with replying to comments on social. This is particularly useful if you receive a lot of similar questions.
The upshot is that you can reply faster, improve your brand’s reputation, and save your team’s time.
In addition, you can also automate Facebook and Instagram comment moderation.
Given the features on offer, NapoleonCat is a great fit for customer service teams.
You’ll also find team collaboration and workflows built right into the tool.
Pricing: Price based on how many social media profiles you need and how many users you want to give access to. Plans start at $27 per month (3 social media profiles and 1 user).
Learn more in our NapoleonCat review.
7. Crowdfire
Crowdfire is a tool that not only helps you schedule posts but also curates content so you could always have a strong social media presence. It gathers articles and images from all over the internet so you’d always have something to show to your Facebook and Twitter audience.
You only need to provide Crowdfire topics that relate to your business and it will do most of the heavy lifting for you. This makes the platform particularly well suited to those with a focus on content curation.
There’s post publishing with a content calendar included. The tool will also calculate the best times for you to publish content.
It also has analytics features that will enable you to track your progress. It can even do social media competitor analysis so you could see what works for other businesses in your niche.
Pricing: A free plan is available. Paid plans start at $9.99/month.
8. Metricool
Metricool has one of the most unique feature sets on this list. It offers a unique combination of social media management and advertising management. All within one tool.
This makes it ideal for social media managers that want to incorporate paid advertising management & reporting into their offering. There’s even integration with Google Data Studio.
At its core, is a powerful social media scheduler, inbox, and analytics suite.
The post planner window is where you’ll be able to schedule your posts. What’s unique about this is the deep integration with the analytics side of the tool.
Some social media tools provide data on the best times to post. What Metricool has done is to overlay that data into the post planner window so you can see the exact times you get the most social media engagement.
The post editor is excellent. It supports Twitter Threads and various Instagram post types such as Reels and Stories.
Within Metricool’s analytics suite, you can connect a wide range of platforms. Not just the social media platforms you’d expect (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, etc.) You can also connect TikTok, TikTok Ads, Twitch, Facebook Ads, YouTube, and more.
You can use these analytics to create custom reports. These can be generated as PDF files or PPT (PowerPoint files).
In addition, you’ll find an Instagram bio link tool. But, you can use this for the bio link on any social network.
Pricing: A free plan is available with a decent amount of features. Paid plans start at $22/month (annual discounts available).
Read our Metricool review.
9. Missinglettr
Missinglettr has to be one of the most unique alternatives to Hootsuite in this list. Why? Because unlike other social media tools, this platform can create posts using your content library. It will handle social media activities for you.
Just publish your blog posts and Missinglettr’s AI will schedule them for social media posting. All you have to do is review and approve the content.
The Curate add-on can also find relevant content to share with your audience. That way, you can engage your audience without having to look for posts that you think they’ll love yourself.
However, the best part about Curate is that it doubles as a content promotion tool. Allowing you to get your content shared by other Missinglettr users.
Missinglettr does work with multiple social media channels but the list is limited to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn at this time.
This Hootsuite alternative has a 14-day free trial.
Pricing: A free plan is available. Paid plans start from $19/month.
Learn more in our Missinglettr review.
10. Sprout Social
Sprout Social may not be too high up on our Hootsuite alternatives but it’s certainly no slouch. It does most of the things you’d expect from Hootsuite like scheduling and publishing. But it’s capable of so much more.
You can upload and store your assets on the platform including images and videos. Sprout Social tells you which are the most optimal times to schedule your posts so you get the most engagement. Then you can use its mobile app to track your progress from anywhere.
The analytics features give you a bird’s eye view of what’s going on with your campaigns. You can then compare your performance with your competitors to see if you’re on the same level as them.
Sprout Social’s Listening Tools gives you a better understanding of what works based on your industry and branding. You can track influencers in your field so you can engage them so they become your brand advocates.
It’s got most of the advanced features that users look for in a social media management software.
The only issue is the price – it works out quite expensive for teams.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $249/month, save up to 25% with annual billing. 30-day free trial available.
Learn more in our Sprout Social review.
11. StoryChief
StoryChief focuses on social media marketing. But not only does it have social media management tools, but you can also use it to manage your blogs, employee advocacy, press releases, newsletter digests, and internal columns.
That means you and your team members can manage and schedule all types of content from within StoryChief. It’s one of the best team collaboration tools around. You get a view of everyone’s social media calendar so you can always check if you have scheduled content in your queue or not.
There’s also a built-in SEO copywriting tool which is great for small businesses who can’t afford to hire SEO specialists. No, it won’t write posts for you but it will check your work to see if they are optimized for search engines.
It also has analytics features that social media managers can use to determine what works and what doesn’t.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $90/month (billed annually). Free trial for 14 days is available.
Learn more in our StoryChief review.
12. Buffer
Buffer is the best Hootsuite alternative — well, kind of. What do we mean by that? Buffer doesn’t have all the other fancy features that some of the alternatives offer. What it does have is the key feature that most people use Hootsuite for. It schedules social media posts on different platforms.
What’s even better is that its pricing plans reflect that. It’s so affordable, even small businesses will have no problem paying the monthly fees. Can’t afford to pay? Then just sign up for the free Buffer plan. There’s also a 14-day free trial for those that are interested.
Its automation tools, while simple, are far from basic. Aside from Direct Scheduling where you can plan and schedule posts, Buffer has features like First Comment that includes a first comment when you schedule Instagram posts. There’s also Shop Grid that drives traffic and sales to your shop from your Instagram bio.
You can also reply to social media comments from your desktop. You’ll find it hard to miss a comment when you use Buffer.
Pricing: Free plan is available. Paid plans start at $15/month.
Wrapping it up
Let’s conclude with some final thoughts on the Hootsuite alternatives listed above.
Hootsuite has been around for a long while. It used to have a great free plan and affordable paid plans, but that’s a thing of the past now.
Fortunately, the tools discussed above offer more affordable pricing in most cases and some offer free plans. For example, Pallyy, Metricool, Crowdfire, and others have free plans.
If you’re unsure which tool is right for you, just scroll up to the top of this post and have a read of our top picks. You can’t go wrong with any of these alternatives.
But if you’re still not sure which social media tool would make the most sense, you may want to check out our posts on social media inbox software, and social media management apps.
Disclosure: If you buy through links on our site, we may make a commission. This helps to support the running of Startup Bonsai.
