


Need to up your social media game but feeling lost in a sea of analytics?
You’re not alone! Figuring out which platform gives you the best bang for your buck can be tricky.
In this corner, we have Zoho Social, the budget-friendly contender. And in the other, the heavyweight champion, Sprout Social.
Both promise to unlock the secrets hidden within your social media data, but which one comes out on top?
Let’s dive deep into the advanced analytics offered by these two popular platforms, Zoho Social vs Sprout Social, and see which one comes out on top in 2024.
Overview
To give you the most accurate comparison, we’ve spent weeks testing both Zoho Social and Sprout Social.
We dug deep into their features, explored their analytics dashboards, and even ran some of our own social media campaigns to see how they performed.
Now, we’re sharing our findings to help you make the best decision for your needs.
Want a simple yet powerful CRM to organize your customer relationships? You can experience its benefits risk-free!
Pricing: It has a free plan. The premium plan starts at $14/month.
Key Features:
- Contact Management
- Sales Force Automation
- Analytics & Reporting
Want a simple yet powerful CRM to organize your customer relationships? You can experience its benefits risk-free!
Pricing: It has a free plan. The premium plan starts at $14/month.
Key Features:
- Contact Management
- Sales Force Automation
- Analytics & Reporting
What is Zoho Social?
Ever wished managing your social media was, well, easier?
That’s where Zoho Social comes in. It’s a tool designed to simplify your life. Think of it as your all-in-one command center for social media.
You can schedule posts, track performance, and engage with your audience all in one place. Pretty neat?
Also, explore our favorite Zoho Social alternatives…
Our Take
Elevate your social media strategy with Zoho Social. From smart scheduling and social listening to in-depth analytics, Discover the power of Zoho Social today!
Key Benefits
- Customization is king: Tailor Zoho CRM to fit your exact workflow.
- Affordable for everyone: Starts with a free plan for up to 3 users.
- Mobile app access: Manage your CRM on the go, anytime, anywhere.
- Built-in analytics: Track critical metrics and gain valuable insights.
Pricing
- Standard: $14/user/month.
- Professional: $23/user/month.
- Enterprise:$40 /user/month.
- Ultimate: $52/user/month.
Pros
Cons
What is Sprout Social?
Want to take your social media to the next level? Sprout Social is your go-to platform.
It’s a powerful tool used by businesses of all sizes. Think of it as your social media control center but with extra muscle.
Sprout Social helps you manage everything from scheduling and engagement to in-depth analytics and social listening.
It’s a bit pricier than some other options, but it packs a serious punch.
Also, explore our favorite Sprout Social alternatives…
Key Benefits
- Features: It’s a comprehensive platform with tools for publishing, engagement, and analytics. It also includes social listening and influencer marketing features.
- Supported social networks: It connects with over 20 networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as Google Business Profile and TikTok.
- Ease of use: The interface is clean and user-friendly, making it easy to navigate.
- Customer support: Sprout Social offers 24/5 customer support via phone, email, and live chat, along with a robust knowledge base.
- Integrations: It integrates with many other popular tools, such as Canva, Zendesk, and Salesforce.
- Scalability: It offers different plans to fit the needs of small businesses and large enterprises.
- Warranty: Sprout Social’s terms of service outline its liability limitations, but it doesn’t offer a specific product warranty.
Pricing
- Standard: $199/month
- Professional: $299/month
- Advanced: $399/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing.
Pros
Cons
Feature Comparison
Navigating the world of social media management tools can be a challenge.
This comparison of Zoho Social vs Sprout Social will help you understand their core differences, so you can choose the right platform for your social media accounts.
1. Pricing and Scalability
- Zoho Social: Zoho Social is a significantly more affordable social alternative. Its pricing is transparent and a great solution for a small business or freelancer, with plans that allow you to manage multiple social accounts and add posts for a reasonable cost. Its pricing model is a major standout features in many reviews.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social is an expensive platform with a per-user social pricing model that can feel “bit annoying” as you add additional users. A professional plan is billed annually and can be a significant investment for a business. A Sprout Social review often highlights this as a major con.
2. User Interface
- Zoho Social: Zoho Social is praised for its clean and intuitive user interface, making it easy for anyone to manage multiple platforms and start an active social media presence on a daily basis. It is very user-friendly for a new user.
- Sprout Social: While Sprout Social has a polished user interface, it has a steeper learning curve due to its many features and robust reporting. It’s a powerful tool, but it may take more time to master and get a clear picture of all the functionality.
3. Publishing and Scheduling
- Zoho Social: Zoho Social has robust scheduling features. You can add posts to a publishing queue, use a content library, and even have posts instantly publish posts at optimal times using its SmartQ feature. The ability to manage scheduled posts for multiple social channels from one platform is a great feature.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social also offers powerful scheduling features with its own “Optimal Send Times” and a visual social media calendar. It provides an asset library to store the best pictures and other content, which is a pretty handy feature for a social media manager.
4. Social Inbox
- Zoho Social: Zoho Social’s social inbox is designed to help you manage all your messages and comments from various social channels in one place. It helps you stay on top of your engagement and respond to your audience.
- Sprout Social: The “Smart Inbox” is a game changer for many businesses. It is one of Sprout Social’s standout features and goes beyond basic messaging by offering a comprehensive view of all incoming communication and allowing users to manage reviews and assign tasks.
5. Social Listening
- Zoho Social: Zoho Social allows you to monitor mentions and monitor hashtags. It helps you keep track of your brand’s presence, but its capabilities are more basic compared to its competitor.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social is a powerful social listening tool that offers in-depth trend analysis and competitive reporting. Its social listening feature is designed to help businesses monitor mentions, track keywords, and identify new leads.
6. Analytics and Reporting
- Zoho Social: Zoho Social offers pre-built reports that give you a clear picture of your social media performance. It provides metrics and insights on followers, reach, and engagement for each social network. You can also create custom reports for specific metrics.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social is known for its advanced analytics. It offers a wide range of paid social reporting, competitive reporting, and custom views, which makes it a great tool for proving social media ROI to your business.
7. Social CRM
- Zoho Social: As a core part of its ecosystem, Zoho Social’s integration with other Zoho apps like Zoho CRM is one of its most powerful features. This integration helps you create a profile for new leads and track your customer interactions from a single platform.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social has powerful social crm tools that are built into the platform. It helps you manage relationships with customers by allowing you to view and interact with their history of messages, making it easy to create a genuine connection.
8. Mobile App
- Zoho Social: The zoho social mobile app provides full access to many features, allowing you to manage your social media accounts on the move.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social’s mobile app, available on the Apple App Store, is also very powerful and offers nearly all the features of the web-based software, including the Smart Inbox.
9. Integrations
- Zoho Social: Zoho Social offers seamless integration with other Zoho apps, which is a game-changer for businesses that are already using the Zoho ecosystem.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social also has a number of integrations, including a content library, but it doesn’t offer the deep, native integration across a full suite of business tools that Zoho does.
10. Customer Support
- Zoho Social: A Zoho Social review often mentions its reliable customer support team. Support tickets are handled efficiently and the team is known for being responsive.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social’s customer care is widely praised in a Sprout Social review. Many users consider it to be one of the best in the industry, making it a great solution for any business that relies on quick support.
11. Publishing to Specific Channels
- Zoho Social: Zoho Social allows you to instantly publish posts to various social channels, including Facebook pages and LinkedIn pages. It also has features that help you boost engagement on specific platforms like Facebook.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social is also excellent for publishing to multiple social media accounts and channels, and it also offers the ability to boost facebook posts directly from the platform. It is a social media management tool that provides a robust publishing solution.
What to Look For When Choosing Between Zoho Social and Sprout Social?
- Pricing and Features: Compare the social pricing and plans, keeping in mind that the per-user pricing model of Sprout Social can get expensive for additional users. Look for social alternatives with a standard plan that offers the basic features you need, and be aware that “extra features” like automated link tracking or competitive reporting are often found in top-tier plans.
- Content and Publishing: The platform should make it easy to publish content to all your social media channels, including a content library and social media calendars. Look for a tool that allows you to schedule posts in advance and provides a post ready status. The ability to automatically sync content or drafts can be a great help for collaboration.
- Analytics and Reporting: A great tool provides insights into your social media performance. Look for pre-built reports or the ability to create a custom view to track metrics for a specific date range. An ideal tool helps you understand trends and track how your social posts are reaching the right audience.
- Social Listening: If you need to monitor profiles, look for a social media management tool with social listening capabilities. This can help you monitor trends, track twitter keywords, and understand your audience.
- Scalability: Consider how the tool will grow with your business. Does the paid plan allow for multiple accounts? Will you need to upgrade for unlimited social profiles or more users? A good social review will often highlight this.
- User Interface: The user interface is key. If you are a social media manager, you will be on the platform daily, so it should be intuitive and easy to use.
- Collaboration: A good platform should make collaboration easy for teams. Look for features that allow you to assign tasks and have saved drafts for a new post, which is especially important for small businesses with multiple users.
- Customer Support: When you have a question or an issue, reliable customer care and support tickets are essential. A good social review will often highlight the quality of the support team.
Final Verdict
So, which tool wins? It’s a close call, but we choose Sprout Social. Why? It’s got more features. Think of it like this: Zoho Social is a great bike.
It gets you where you need to go. But Sprout Social? It’s a race car. It’s faster and has more power.
Sprout Social lets you really listen to what people are saying online. It gives you awesome reports. And it makes teamwork easy.
Zoho Social is still good, especially if you have a little money to spend. It’s easy to use and does the basics really well.
Need to plan your posts for the week? Both tools can do that. They both help you create a content pipeline and schedule your posts.
But Sprout Social gives you more control and more information. We’ve spent a lot of time using both tools.
We’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. We want to help you make the best choice for your needs.
More of Zoho Social
Let’s see how it measures up against other options:
- Zoho Social vs Sprout Social: Sprout Social excels with its robust social CRM and advanced, in-depth analytics.
- Zoho Social vs Metricool: Zoho – budget-friendly. Metricool – stronger analytics, competitor focus.
- Zoho Social vs Socialpilot: Zoho – cost-effective. Socialpilot – wider integrations, robust scheduling.
- Zoho Social vs Sendible: Zoho offers affordable basic features. Sendible offers comprehensive listening and reporting (agencies).
- Zoho Social vs Content Studio: Zoho – budget-friendly. Content Studio – content discovery, AI content.
- Zoho Social vs Heropost: Zoho – budget-friendly entry. Heropost – AI content, competitor intel.
- Zoho Social vs Agorapulse: Zoho – more affordable. Agorapulse – robust inbox, listening.
- Zoho Social vs Buffer: Zoho – more features for the price. Buffer – simpler scheduling.
- Zoho Social vs Sprinklr: Zoho – for small/medium biz (Zoho users). Sprinklr – enterprise-level.
- Zoho Social vs Later: Zoho – broader platform support. Later – visual content (Instagram).
- Zoho Social vs Loomly: Zoho – cost-effective content mgmt. Loomly – content calendar, teamwork.
- Zoho Social vs Blaze: (Info limited – Zoho’s affordability/integration are key).
- Zoho Social vs Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a long-standing tool known for its comprehensive, multi-platform dashboard view.
- Zoho Social vs Planable: Planable is a collaboration-first tool with a focus on visual content approval workflows.
More of Sprout Social
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Zoho Social or Sprout Social better for my wallet?
Zoho Social is much easier on your budget. It starts at just $10 per month. Sprout Social is pricier, with plans starting at $249 per month.
Which platform is easier to use if I’m new to social media management tools?
Zoho Social is generally simpler to learn. It has a clean design that’s easy to understand, even for beginners.
How does Zoho Social and Sprout Social compare when it comes to analytics?
Both give you information about how your posts are doing. But Sprout Social offers more detailed reports. You can even compare results from different social media platforms.
Can I schedule posts ahead of time with both Zoho Social and Sprout Social?
Absolutely! Both platforms let you plan your social media posts. This means you can create a content pipeline and schedule your posts to go live at the best times.
Which platform is better at helping me listen to what people are saying online?
Sprout Social has better social listening features. You can track what people are saying about your brand across the internet; It’s not just on your social media pages.