What Is Social Listening? (And 5 Questions You Can Answer With it)
Published by Sprout SocialWatch on YouTube
Updated Oct 5, 2026
Social Media Management
Sprout Social
Social media management with a shared Smart Inbox, priced per seat
From $79/mofree trial
Sprout Social at a glance
from our research
Social media platform for in-house teams: publishing, a shared Smart Inbox, review management and reports
Smart Inbox turns messages into cases assigned to teammates, starting on the Standard plan
Essentials and Standard allow 5 social profiles; listening is a separate add-on sold by quote
Professional: $299 per seat a month billed yearly, or $399 month to month, with unlimited profiles
Overview
What is Sprout Social?
Sprout Social is a social media management platform from Sprout Social, Inc., a Chicago company founded in 2010. It combines publishing, a shared inbox called the Smart Inbox, review management and reporting, and it sells listening, premium analytics, employee advocacy and influencer marketing as separate products.
Work starts by connecting social profiles, which sit in groups that users are invited to. In Compose, you pick profiles and write the post, then schedule it, send it at once, add it to the Sprout Queue or let Sprout pick an optimal send time. The publishing calendar shows posts by list, week or month, and a post can be dragged to a new time. Reels and Stories publish directly to Instagram Business profiles, and videos to TikTok Business accounts. The Smart Inbox collects messages from connected profiles, and from the Standard plan up a message can be assigned to a teammate as a case. Brand keywords, which are saved X searches, feed their results into the same inbox, and reports export as CSV or PDF files.
Sprout runs in the browser and on iOS and Android. It connects to X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Bluesky, Threads, WhatsApp and Trustpilot, and pulls in reviews from Google, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Glassdoor and app stores. Compose links to Canva, Google Drive, Dropbox, Bynder and Adobe Express, while Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot and the API need Advanced. Every plan is billed per seat, for each person invited to the account.
Our verdict on Sprout Social
Updated Oct 5, 2026Pricing checked Oct 5, 2026
Sprout Social is built for in-house teams that treat social as a shared queue of customer conversations. From Standard up, the Smart Inbox gathers messages from every connected profile and turns any of them into a case for a named teammate. It sits beside review management for Google, Yelp, Tripadvisor and the app stores, so a support-minded team works from one list. Reporting covers groups, profiles and posts on every plan, and Professional adds competitor, tag and paid reports. For a security review, Sprout points to SOC 2 certification, ISO 27001 compliance and no-training agreements with its AI vendors.
Much of that sits above the entry plans. Essentials has no Smart Inbox, and both Essentials and Standard stop at five social profiles; Sprout sends teams that need more to Professional and publishes no price for extra profiles. A team that wants approval steps, saved replies, bulk scheduling or the Instagram grid planner has to buy Professional. Scheduled PDF reports, chatbots, inbox rules and the API need Advanced, and listening isn't in any plan at all.
Every person invited to the account takes a seat at the plan's full rate. Essentials costs $79 per seat a month billed yearly or $99 month to month, Standard $199 or $249, Professional $299 or $399, and Advanced $399 or $499. Annual billing is one upfront payment for the whole term, and a cancelled plan runs to the end of the term with no refund. A three-person team on Professional pays $897 a month on annual billing, or $1,197 paying monthly. Renewal increases are capped at 7% unless Sprout gives 60 days' notice, and the 30-day trial needs no card.
Choose Sprout Social when several people answer customers on social and the inbox, reviews and reporting are worth a per-seat bill. Smaller teams have cheaper routes. Hootsuite's Standard plan costs $99 per user a month billed yearly, or $149 month to month, and includes an inbox, ad tools and 7-day listening for up to 10 accounts. Metricool prices by brand instead of seat: Advanced costs $67 a month, or $53 billed yearly, for 15 brands and unlimited team members.
Written by Lokesh Kapoor
Pros & cons
Sprout Social pros and cons
What it does well
- Review management on Standard and up covers Google, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Glassdoor and app stores
- 30-day free trial needs no credit card, and Sprout asks for payment details when it ends
- Sprout says its AI partners have signed agreements not to train public models on your data
- Bulk scheduling imports up to 350 posts from a CSV file on Professional and above
Where it falls short
- Each teammate needs a seat at the full plan rate, and yearly billing is paid up front
- Listening, Premium Analytics and extra profiles are sold separately without public prices
- Essentials has no inbox; approvals, saved replies and bulk scheduling need Professional
Editor's assessment from vendor documentation and published pricing
Pricing
Sprout Social pricing
Sprout Social's paid plans start at $79/user/month, above the $20 median across the 5 tools in our Social Media Management ranking. You can test it on a 30-day free trial.
Essentials
$79/mo
per seat, per month
or $99/mo billed monthly
- Up to 5 social profiles
- Optimal send times
- Collaborative content calendar
- Profile and post-level reporting
- Trellis AI agent, 100 credits a month
Usage: Sold per seat: every team member invited to the account is charged a seat. $79 a seat a month on annual billing, paid upfront ($948 a seat a year), or $99 a seat paid monthly. Up to 5 social profiles.
Standard
$199/mo
per seat, per month
or $249/mo billed monthly
- 5 social profiles
- All-in-one social inbox and case management
- Keyword and location monitoring
- Review management
- Trellis AI agent, 100 credits a month
Usage: Sold per seat: every team member invited to the account is charged a seat. $199 a seat a month on annual billing, paid upfront ($2,388 a seat a year), or $249 a seat paid monthly. Up to 5 social profiles; more need Professional or an extra-profile add-on that Sprout doesn't price publicly.
Professional
$299/mo
per seat, per month
or $399/mo billed monthly
- Unlimited social profiles
- Competitor, tag and paid insights
- Message approval workflow
- Bulk scheduling and Instagram grid planning
- Message tagging and saved replies
Usage: Sold per seat: every team member invited to the account is charged a seat. $299 a seat a month on annual billing, paid upfront ($3,588 a seat a year), or $399 a seat paid monthly. No cap on social profiles.
Advanced
$399/mo
per seat, per month
or $499/mo billed monthly
- Enhance Reply by AI Assist
- Sentiment in the Smart Inbox and Reviews
- Sprout API and helpdesk integrations
- Team productivity and customer care reports
- Message Spike Alerts
Usage: Sold per seat: every team member invited to the account is charged a seat. $399 a seat a month on annual billing, paid upfront ($4,788 a seat a year), or $499 a seat paid monthly. No cap on social profiles.
Enterprise
Custom
Tailored pricing for larger teams
- Everything in Advanced
- Onboarding and implementation service
- SSO setup service
- Priority customer support
- Plan tailored to the organization
Usage: Priced by quote after a sales demo. The plan table lists AI credits, brand keywords and queue limits as custom for this plan.
Checked against Sprout Social, Inc.'s pricing page on October 5, 2026 · see the full breakdown
Capabilities
Sprout Social features
Checked against the same feature list as every other tool in its category.
Publishing
- Included:Approval workflowsRoute posts for internal or client sign-off before they publish.Professional plan and up
- Included:Bulk schedulingUpload many posts at once from a spreadsheet or media batch.Professional plan and up
- Included:Instagram first commentAutomatically posts hashtags or links as the first comment.
- Included:Link-in-bio pageHosted landing page linking profile traffic to your content and products.
- Included:Multi-network schedulingQueue posts across every connected network from one calendar.
- Included:Reels & TikTok publishingDirect publishing of short-form video rather than a push notification reminder.
- Included:Visual content calendarDrag-and-drop calendar showing the published grid as followers will see it.Grid planner on Professional plan and up
Engagement
- Included:Saved replies & automationCanned responses and rules for routine comment and message handling.Professional plan and up
- Included:Social listeningMonitors mentions and keywords beyond your own accounts.Paid add-on
- Included:Unified inboxComments and messages from every network in one queue with assignment.
Measurement
- Included:Competitor benchmarkingCompare your performance against named competitor accounts.Professional plan and up
- Included:Cross-network analyticsPerformance across every network in one comparable view.
- Included:Paid & organic togetherAd performance alongside organic in the same reporting view.Paid reports on Professional plan and up
- Included:Scheduled client reportsBranded reports generated and emailed on a schedule.Scheduled delivery on Advanced plan and up
Ecosystem
Sprout Social integrations
- Salesforce
- HubSpot
- Zendesk
- Slack
- Canva
- Google Analytics
Videos
Watch Sprout Social in action
Product walkthroughs from Sprout Social's own YouTube channel.
How to Use Sprout Social's Service Cloud Integration
Published by Sprout SocialWatch on YouTube
Alternatives
Top Sprout Social alternatives
Tools that do the same job, from the same category.
Hootsuite
Best for marketing teams that manage organic posts and social ads in the same tool
From $99/mo
Metricool
Best for freelancers and small agencies reporting on organic and paid social for several brands
Free plan
Buffer
Best for small businesses and solo marketers publishing to a handful of social accounts
Free plan
Fit check
Will Sprout Social fit your team?
Support
- Email support
- Live chat
- Phone support
- Knowledge base
Training
- Live online
- Webinars
- Documentation
- Video tutorials
Deployment
- Web
- iOS
- Android
Typical users
- Mid-size companies
- Enterprises
FAQs
Sprout Social FAQs
Written by our editorial team.
Does Sprout Social have a free plan?
No. Sprout Social has no free plan, but it offers a 30-day free trial that needs no credit card. When the trial ends, you're asked to choose a plan and enter payment details, and Sprout deletes trial data 30 days after the trial ends. The lowest-priced plan, Essentials, costs $79 per seat a month billed yearly, or $99 per seat month to month, for up to five social profiles. See Sprout Social pricing.
How much does Sprout Social cost per seat?
Every person invited to the account needs a seat at the plan's rate. Billed yearly, a seat costs $79 a month on Essentials, $199 on Standard, $299 on Professional and $399 on Advanced; month to month, the same seats cost $99, $249, $399 and $499. Yearly plans are paid in a single payment up front. A team of three on Standard pays $597 a month on annual billing. Enterprise is priced by quote, and listening and premium analytics are sold separately.
Which Sprout Social plan includes the Smart Inbox?
Standard and above. Essentials covers publishing and reporting for up to five profiles, without the Smart Inbox, cases, review management or approvals. Standard adds the Smart Inbox with case assignment, review management and brand keywords, still for five profiles. Professional removes the profile cap and adds approval workflows, saved replies, bulk scheduling and competitor reports, and Advanced adds chatbots, inbox rules, sentiment, scheduled PDF reports and the API. Listening isn't part of any plan; it's an add-on for Standard and up.
Does Sprout Social use your data to train AI?
Not for public models, according to Sprout. Its AI page says it has signed no-training agreements with its AI partners so customer data is never used to train public models, and that it's SOC 2 certified and GDPR and ISO 27001 compliant. Several generative features use OpenAI and can be switched off. Sprout's terms say you own the content you provide and license it to Sprout only to run the service, though Sprout may use de-identified, aggregated data to improve its products and publish benchmarks.
Can you cancel Sprout Social and get a refund?
You can cancel, but prepaid fees aren't refunded. Under Sprout's terms, a cancelled monthly plan stays active until the next monthly payment date, and a cancelled annual plan until the end of the year you've paid for. Annual plans renew automatically, and renewal price increases are capped at 7% unless Sprout gives at least 60 days' notice. A downgrade starts at the next contract cycle, and data from a closed paid account is deleted after 90 days. See Sprout Social alternatives.
Sources & methodology
Product details come from Sprout Social, Inc.'s public website and documentation (United States). Every plan and price was checked against the vendor's pricing page on October 5, 2026. We haven't tested this product hands-on; the verdict is a desk assessment. How we research and rank tools
- Founded 2010
- 5 languages supported
- sproutsocial.com
Keep researching