Get ready to cultivate your social media presence because we’re about to dig deep into Sprout Social, a blossoming powerhouse in the digital garden of 2025. This social media management tool has been growing strong for over a decade, but does it still have the roots to support your brand’s online ecosystem?

Whether you’re a seasoned social media marketer tending to a forest of accounts or a small business owner just planting the seeds of your digital presence, this review will point out everything from its budding features to any potential thorns.

So grab your favorite herbal tea, settle into your favorite sunny spot, and let’s see if Sprout Social has what it takes to help your brand flourish—if not, carefully review the best social media management tools of 2025.

Sprout Social Review (2025 edition)

Why choose Sprout Social?

Sprout Social provides a complete solution for managing social media, blending strong features with an easy-to-use interface. The Smart inbox brings together engagement from various platforms, and the scheduling tools help with effective content planning. The platform’s analytics crunches useful insights, featuring attractive reports that impress clients and stakeholders. Sprout Social shines in team collaboration, perfect for agencies and bigger organizations. And I must admit that it’s got a sleek, modern design.

Though it might cost more than other options, many users believe the simple interface and time-saving benefits make it worth it. The platform’s high customer retention and great user reviews show how effective it is. Sprout Social is a great option for businesses looking for a comprehensive social media management tool.

Sprout Social’s Pros and Cons

Strong points

Sprout Social is a solid social media management platform with many advantages. The user-friendly interface is well-liked, featuring a clean and simple design that allows for easy navigation and task completion. The platform stands out with its detailed analytics and reporting tools, offering valuable insights into social media performance to help inform strategic choices. Sprout Social stands out with its social listening features, providing great tools to track brand mentions, industry trends, and competitor actions on different social platforms. The reporting module is powerful, as expected:

One major benefit is Sprout Social’s strong engagement tools, like a Smart Inbox that gathers messages from various social networks, making communication easier to manage. The platform excels in team collaboration features, providing task assignments and approval workflows that boost productivity for bigger teams. Sprout Social offers extensive integration options, linking with many third-party apps and all major social networks, enhancing its versatility.

Sprout Social provides a thorough onboarding process to help new users make the most of the platform quickly. It usually starts by assigning an onboarding specialist or account manager to help users with the initial setup. This involves linking social media accounts, setting up user roles, and personalizing reporting templates. I liked how they clarified usage intent:

There’s also training with guided tutorials, detailed documentation, and maybe live sessions or webinars. The onboarding team collaborates with clients to customize the platform for their unique needs, making the transition seamless. Sprout has adjusted nicely to remote work, providing reliable onboarding experiences no matter where you are. The process goes beyond just the initial setup, including continuous support and follow-ups to ensure customers get the most value. Though specifics can differ by package and company size, Sprout Social’s onboarding is often commended for being comprehensive and effective, helping users quickly master the platform’s features.

Weaknesses

Still, Sprout Social has some drawbacks. The main downside is its pricing, which many users consider too high, particularly for small businesses or individuals. The platform charges per user, leading to higher costs for teams needing several accounts.

Another drawback is the limited number of social profiles permitted on the lower-tier plans, which pushes users to upgrade to pricier options for more profiles.

Some users find the platform’s many features can be a bit overwhelming for those new to social media management. Others have experienced occasional technical problems, like input lag while writing posts and trouble tagging profiles on certain social networks.

Although Sprout Social has many features, some users point out that it lacks certain functions, such as post variants or the easy option to re-queue posts, which can be found in other platforms.

Sprout Social’s use cases

Sprout Social caters to a wide range of users—first, individuals. Social media managers, content creators, and freelancers can use Sprout Social to manage multiple social accounts.

Sprout Social also has collaboration features that allow marketing teams to collaborate on social media strategies, content creation, and customer engagement.

If you leave it to professionals and marketing agencies, then yes, digital marketing agencies and social media management firms use Sprout Social to handle multiple client accounts from a single dashboard.

Similarly, companies of various sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises, that understand the value of social media utilize Sprout Social to manage their social media presence, engage with customers, and analyze performance.

Sprout Social is well-suited for medium & large businesses that manage multiple social media accounts and require advanced features like in-depth analytics, team collaboration tools, and social listening capabilities. The tool’s robust feature set and scalability make it popular for organizations looking to streamline their social media management processes and gain actionable insights from their social data.

Sprout Social’s top 3 features

1. Social Listening

Sprout Social offers a comprehensive social listening tool that helps businesses monitor and analyze social media and web conversations. Users are buzzing about this feature, making it one of the highest-rated features.

Sprout Social’s query builder (called Topic Builder) helps set up complex and relevant queries easily by creating targeted Topics. You may filter options to get relevant answers quickly and search and research topics repeatedly:

2. Content Calendar

The calendar feature is absolutely mandatory for any social media scheduling tool. It lets users visualize all scheduled social campaigns and content in a timeline or calendar format. Based on 1,430 reviews, it has a 91% satisfaction rate—plus a cool design.

3. Sprout Social’s influencer platform Tagger

Tagger aims to streamline influencer marketing efforts by providing tools for influencer discovery, campaign management, performance tracking, and ROI measurement—all within a single integrated system.

The profile discovery tool finds relevant influencers for campaigns using smart filters to quickly identify authentic creators.

Its ROI analysis allows brands to analyze and report ROI from paid influencer campaigns alongside organic content performance to optimize social strategy.

What users say about Sprout Social

Users generally praise Sprout Social for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive social media management tools. Many appreciate the platform’s ability to streamline workflows, particularly the scheduling and publishing features. 

The Smart Inbox consolidates messages from various social networks and is frequently highlighted as a standout feature. Users also commend the detailed analytics and reporting capabilities, which provide actionable insights into social media performance.

However, some users express concerns about the platform’s pricing, especially for small businesses or individuals. There are occasional reports of technical glitches, particularly with Instagram integration. Some users also mention a learning curve due to the platform’s extensive feature set, which can overwhelm newcomers.

Sprout Social vs. the Competition

Sprout Social holds its own against competitors like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Agorapulse. Its strengths lie in its intuitive interface, robust analytics, and comprehensive social listening tools. The platform’s integration capabilities and team collaboration features are often cited as superior to some competitors.

However, Sprout Social’s pricing is generally higher than many of its competitors, which can deter smaller businesses. Some competitors may offer more advanced features in specific areas, such as more extensive content curation tools or more affordable options for multiple users.

Price and cost comparisons

Sprout Social’s pricing structure is tiered, with plans starting at $99 per user per month (billed annually) for the Standard plan, $199 for the Professional plan, and $299 for the Advanced plan. These prices are notably higher than some competitors. For example, Hootsuite’s plans start at $49 monthly (billed annually), while Buffer’s start at $5 monthly per social channel.

Sprout Social’s comprehensive feature set and robust analytics justify the higher price point. However, the cost can escalate quickly for teams requiring multiple users or access to premium features, which may be prohibitive for smaller organizations or freelancers.

Privacy and security

Sprout Social takes privacy and security seriously, employing various technical and organizational measures to safeguard user data. The company uses encryption for data at rest and in transit and follows the principle of least privilege for employee access to systems and data. It also complies with major data protection regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

Sprout Social has appointed a Data Protection Officer and maintains a Privacy Committee. They also require regular privacy training for employees and contractors. 

Caveat: While these measures are commendable, as with any cloud-based service, users should know that no system is entirely impervious to security risks.

Product updates and releases

Sprout Social maintains a steady pace of innovation, typically releasing updates every few weeks. In 2023, the company delivered over 150 material new product enhancements, which was more than 25% greater than each of the prior three years. Recent focus areas include enhancing AI capabilities, improving analytics tools, and expanding integrations with various social media platforms and third-party applications.

The company’s commitment to innovation is evident in its recent launch of new AI-powered features and updates to enhance social customer care capabilities. These updates demonstrate Sprout Social’s responsiveness to evolving market needs and technological advancements.

Company evolution

Started in 2010, Sprout Social has evolved from a basic Twitter management tool into a full-fledged social media management platform. The company went public in 2019 and has been growing its offerings and market presence since then.

Recently, Sprout Social has made key acquisitions to boost its capabilities, such as buying Repustate, a sentiment analysis platform, and Tagger, an influencer marketing platform, in 2023.

The company has shown consistent growth, with its revenue increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 40% since 2017. This growth trajectory, coupled with its expanding feature set and market recognition, positions Sprout Social as a significant player in the social media management space.

Final verdict

Sprout Social is a powerful social media management tool that provides great value for medium—to large businesses and agencies. Its advantages include a wide range of tools, user-friendly design, and strong analytics features. Plus, the platform’s ongoing innovation and smart acquisitions show its dedication to leading in social media management technology.

The high price might be a hurdle for smaller businesses or individual users, and since it has many features, it might make it a bit challenging for new users to learn.

Sprout Social is an excellent option for organizations that can afford it and make the most of its many features to really simplify social media management and offer useful insights. Having said that, smaller businesses or those with basic needs might discover more affordable options elsewhere.

To conclude, as with any software decision, potential users should carefully evaluate their specific needs and budget constraints against Sprout Social’s offerings before making a commitment.