Hootsuite vs Sprout Social vs Agorapulse: who each one suits

Three ways of counting the same person

The three suites have shared the same shortlists for years and all three arrive with the same label, "per user". That label hides three models that behave very differently as soon as the team or the roster shifts a little, and that is the only comparison that helps a decision.

The white label row deserves a pause, because it surprises most people arriving from the agency world. None of the three lists it on any tier of its pricing page, read on 8 September 2026, and none of them describes a portal with its own login for an external client. These are brand team suites, not tools for handing a dashboard to a third party. That does not make them worse: it makes them a different category, and confusing the two categories is the most expensive mistake made when buying in this market.

The published tiers, and a warning about Hootsuite

Before the table, it matters where each figure comes from, because they do not all carry the same backing. The Sprout Social and Agorapulse figures were read directly from their pricing pages. The Hootsuite ones were not: its cards are drawn with JavaScript and could not be extracted, so the Hootsuite figures are from a secondary source, taken from the text of a frequently asked questions section on its own page, which gives them per user per month with annual billing.

Prices checked on 8 September 2026: Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Agorapulse.

Two qualifiers the table cannot hold. In Sprout Social only the entry tier showed both a monthly and an annual price; the three above it appeared with the annually billed amount only, spread across months, so anyone wanting to pay month by month will have to ask. In Agorapulse the amounts above are the monthly ones, and annual billing brings them down to 79, 119 and 149 dollars per user respectively.

The detail that decides: how many profiles come with the seat

This is the trap in comparing three per person prices as though they were the same thing. In Sprout Social the first two tiers stop at five social profiles, and unlimited profiles do not arrive until the third. A brand with Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube and a Google Business listing is already at six, so the jump to the third tier is triggered by the account inventory rather than by the team.

In Agorapulse every tier carries 10 profiles, and any beyond that cost between 10 and 15 dollars a month each according to its own page. It is a model that absorbs spikes well: 15 profiles do not force a plan change, they just add five small lines to the invoice. Its page, however, does not clarify how many users are included in the base price of each tier, which is an uncomfortable omission in a product sold per user.

In Hootsuite the entry tier carries 10 accounts and one user, and accounts become unlimited on the middle one. Additional seats are paid for, though the exact cost could not be confirmed because that part of the page did not render in the reading either. That gap matters more than it looks: in a product sold per seat, the price of the second seat is half the pricing model, and a buyer cannot forecast a year without it.

Where each one puts its best effort

All three are good at different things, and comparing them across the full feature list leads nowhere because almost everything appears on all three.

Hootsuite includes AI generation of posts and images on the most basic tier already, not as a reward on the expensive plan, and adds 90 day trend forecasting on the middle one. It is the suite betting hardest on the tool helping you decide what to publish. Its 14 day trial asks for no card, with the small print that it carries daily posting limits and no bulk scheduling.

Sprout Social is the one that lives on measurement. Its upper tier adds sentiment analysis in the inbox and in reviews, helpdesk integrations and its own API, and its custom plan brings accompanied implementation and dedicated single sign on setup. It gives 30 days of trial, the longest alongside Agorapulse, and AI credits per seat from the first tier.

Agorapulse treats whoever lives in the inbox best: automated moderation rules, saved replies, tags and bulk actions on its upper tier. And it publishes two things almost nobody publishes, a support response commitment that improves tier by tier down to under 30 minutes on the custom plan, and a transparently declared historical data retention window of 6, 12 or 24 months depending on the plan.

How the invoice moves when the team moves

Two scenarios are enough to show why the "per user" label does not mean the same thing in all three.

Two people and 25 social profiles. Sprout Social needs its third tier because of the profiles, so that is two seats at 299 dollars a month, around 598 dollars. Agorapulse is two entry users plus 15 extra profiles, around 198 dollars plus the loose profiles. Hootsuite needs the middle tier for unlimited accounts, and with the secondary figure in hand that would be around 398 dollars a month for two users.

Six people and eight profiles. Now it half turns over. Agorapulse is six entry users, around 594 dollars, with the eight profiles inside the included allowance. Sprout Social still needs the third tier, because eight profiles do not fit into five, and six seats at 299 dollars is close to 1,800 a month. Hootsuite covers 10 accounts on its entry tier, so the sum comes down to the six users.

The reading is that the number moving the invoice most is not the same in the three. In Sprout Social the profile inventory rules until you reach unlimited; in Agorapulse the people rule, with profiles as a minor line; in Hootsuite both rule, at different points of the ladder.

There is a side effect none of the three pages mentions and it is worth anticipating. When a seat costs what a seat costs here, teams start sharing credentials so the junior can look at the calendar without adding a licence. That saves money and destroys exactly what was bought: the record of who approved what and when. Before choosing on price it is worth counting how many people on your team genuinely need to work inside the tool and how many only need to look, because in a per person model those two numbers add up and in other models they do not.

How to choose, and what falls outside the three

If your problem is listening to and measuring a large brand well, Sprout Social justifies the seat and its custom plan is built for exactly that. If your problem is an inbox that overflows every Monday, Agorapulse is built around that moment. If your problem is a team that does not know what to publish, Hootsuite puts the most tools into that phase. Those are three different problems and no single tool is the best answer to all three.

All three share a limitation worth holding in mind before signing: none publishes white label or a portal an external client walks into, and all three charge per person, which punishes teams where a lot of people log in only to look. If that is what is stopping you, the conversation is not among these three but in a different category of product. Each has its own list of substitutes in the Hootsuite alternatives, the Sprout Social alternatives and the Agorapulse alternatives.

To be transparent: this site belongs to GoFeed, which bills per workspace rather than per person and does carry a client portal, and which competes on social listening with none of the three above and does not pretend to. If a per workspace model fits you better, the structure is explained on the pricing page. If what you need is listening, sentiment and industry benchmarking, the honest answer is further up this same page, and it does not carry our name.