· Reviewed by Sergio Verdugo, co-founder of Quetzal
If you are paying Sprout Social per user and the posts are still the bottleneck, Quetzal makes and publishes them for you, priced per brand. If you need a like-for-like suite with listening and a shared inbox, Hootsuite is the other per-user option; for reporting across many brands at a lower entry price, Metricool.
If you are a large team with dedicated creators and you rely on Sprout's listening, governance and reporting, stay with Sprout Social: nothing here replaces all of it for less.
14 days free. Card required, nothing charged today.
Ranked first by how much of the posting work the tool does for you (making the posts, then publishing and approving them), then by how much of Sprout's inbox, listening and reporting you keep, then by entry price. We make Quetzal, and it sits first because under this criterion it does the most of the work: it plans, writes, designs and publishes. It does not replace Sprout's listening; judge that against the table below.
| Best for | From | Free plan or trial | Main trade-off | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Quetzal | Teams whose bottleneck is making the posts | Starter: $116 a month per brand ($89 a month billed yearly), before tax | 14-day trial, card required; no free plan | No listening or shared inbox like Sprout's, and no free plan |
| 2. SocialBee | AI-drafted plans on a small budget | Bootstrap: $29 a month per workspace ($24.17 a month billed yearly) | 14-day trial, no card | No AI video on its pricing page |
| 3. Hootsuite | A like-for-like suite with listening | Standard: $149 a month per user ($99 a month billed yearly) | 14-day trial, no card | Also per user, from $149 a month, with no refund on cancelling |
| 4. Metricool | Reporting across many brands | Starter (up to 5 brands): $25 a month per account ($20 a month billed yearly) | Free plan | AI is limited to writing help; no AI video |
| 5. Buffer | A simple queue for a few channels | Essentials: $6 a month per channel ($5 a month billed yearly) | Free plan and 14-day trial, no card | Its web app is in English only |
| 6. Planable | Approval-heavy teams that write their own posts | Basic: $39 a month per workspace ($33 a month billed yearly) | Free plan, no card | All sales are final: no refunds |
1. Quetzal
2. SocialBee
3. Hootsuite
4. Metricool
5. Buffer
6. Planable
An AI social media autopilot: it plans, writes, designs and publishes your posts, and learns from the results.
Quetzal plans the week from your brand and website, writes and designs posts and carousels, and publishes them to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, X and YouTube after your approval or on autopilot, then changes the next week from what each post did. AI reels start on Pro. It is priced per brand, not per user: Starter is $116 a month ($89 billed yearly), with a 14-day trial that takes a card.
One of the original social media management suites: scheduling, inbox, listening and reporting for teams, priced per user.
Hootsuite offers scheduling, an inbox several people work from, approval routing, listening and reporting, with broad integrations. Its trial runs 14 days without a card. Its AI helps with text when you ask.
A planning and analytics platform priced by number of brands, popular with agencies and community managers.
Metricool plans, publishes and measures, with detailed and competitor reporting, an inbox and approvals. It is priced by brand count from $25 a month per account rather than per user, has a free plan, and its app is available in Spanish among seven languages.
A simple scheduler for individuals and small teams, priced per connected channel, with an AI assistant for post text.
Buffer charges per channel from $6 a month, with a free plan for up to three channels and a 14-day trial without a card. It has an inbox and approvals, publishes to 13 networks and refunds monthly plans within 7 days and annual plans within 30.
A collaboration and approval tool for planning social posts, with unlimited users and an AI writer for captions.
Planable is built around collaboration and approval, with unlimited users on every paid workspace from $39 a month per workspace and a free tier of 50 posts with no time limit. Its AI writer helps with captions.
For a team whose bottleneck is making the posts, Quetzal plans, writes, designs and publishes them. For a like-for-like suite with listening and a shared inbox, Hootsuite. For reporting across many brands at a lower entry price, Metricool.
Buffer and Metricool have free plans, and Planable has a free tier of 50 posts. Sprout offers a 30-day trial, not a free plan. Quetzal has no free plan; it has a 14-day trial with a card.
Sprout charges per user from $99 a month. Tools priced per channel, per brand or per workspace, such as Buffer, Metricool, SocialBee and Quetzal, usually cost less once more than one person uses them.
Quetzal plans and makes the week's posts on its own, then publishes them after your approval or on autopilot. SocialBee's copilot drafts a plan, captions and images for you to approve. The others help with text when you ask.
If your team relies on Sprout's listening and inbox, keep it and add a tool that makes the posts. If you mainly use it to publish, you can replace it and stop paying per user.
Start the new tool's trial, connect the same accounts, move the posts still scheduled and cancel before your next payment date. Sprout does not refund prepaid fees, and access runs to that date.
The quickest way to compare is to see a week of posts made with your brand and put it next to what you use today.
14 days free. Card required, nothing charged today.
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