Sprout Social Pros and Cons: A Complete Breakdown

Managing social media platforms has become one of the key priorities for companies seeking to improve their customer communication. The growing reliance on digital channels has fueled the demand for tools that simplify online marketing and deliver practical data. Sprout Social is a versatile and accessible social media instrument that has responded to this gap. With its revenue growing from $102 million in 2019 to $392 million in 2024, it has gained thousands of users worldwide. Businesses relying on social media and community engagement might want to join the trend and get ahead of their competitors.

Want to know if Sprout Social is the right fit for your company? Don’t know the pros and cons of Sprout Social and its functionality? Let’s dive right in.

Sprout Social is a social media management tool that operates across multiple platforms and helps its users handle their interactions with clients and improve customer communication services. Founded in 2010, this company has remained at the forefront of social media SaaS and has been expanding its functionality together with emerging technologies. 

Sprout Social has gained one of the leading positions in G2’s 

Top 100 Highest Satisfaction Products, 2024, Top 50 Products for Enterprise, 2024, and other ratings. According to its official data, Sprout Social is used by 30,000 organizations, including Glassdoor, Doordash, and Shopify. 

The company’s functionality targets the main areas of social media management for companies of any size. Sprout Social offers tools to manage various social media platforms and streamline business workflows simultaneously. It enhances data analysis, sales, brand awareness, and personalized customer care. 

Sprout Social’s Features

Before we examine Sprout Social pros and cons, we’ll look at how it works and what instruments it has. It’ll give you a better understanding of this software platform’s functionality and ability to meet your expectations. 

◆ Core Features

• Consolidated Inbox. This software provides an all-in-one inbox with access to all the communications from one place, achieving a smooth transition from one social media channel to another. Such a feature also builds toward team connectivity and an oversight over its processes.
• Review management. Responding quickly to clients, especially if they have negative reviews, can be a game-changer for a company. Sprout Social features real-time feedback from all review websites and apps, allowing one to fully control the brand’s reputation. 
• Social media calendar. The ability to plan one’s publishing dates simplifies the flow, connecting all the separate posts in one long-term content plan. As it supports multiple users, all team members can access and edit it. This aligns with the feature that we’ll cover below. 
• Task assignment. Managers can assign specific responsibilities to different team members based on their expertise. Using such features helps companies centralize team management while gaining insights into individual workloads.
• Asset library. Instead of requiring constant reuploads of the existing materials, Sprout Social has a library that hosts the most used materials for the team to reuse for different platforms or types of content. It supports import from Canva, Adobe, Dropbox, and Google Drive.
• AI and automation. When Sprout Social pros and cons are mentioned, users often emphasize its innovative AI and automation. It refines its operations with automated response generation and AI analytics and offers shortcuts to a top-notch service without overcommitting to routine tasks. 
• Diverse performance reports. Sprout Social analyzes a company’s performance, including its communication, reviews, profile interactions, and competitors’ activity — all to leverage such data to create distinct reports. This covers everything from profile to network and case team activity. Utilizing these features leads to data-driven problem-solving while targeting one’s communication objectives.

★ Premium Features

• Customized analytics. Unlike the analytical processes mentioned above, Sprout Social has personalized metrics that business owners and managers can choose for themselves based on their priorities. This feature includes custom reporting, advanced filtering, and individual comparison frameworks.
• Listening. It covers tracking keywords, tags, and hashtags about the brand on social media and identifies the patterns in online conversations and their tone. Applying AI improves the understanding of emerging trends and provides valuable recommendations for managing image and reputation, whether by highlighting strengths or implementing changes.
• Influencer marketing. With it, businesses can develop their influencer strategy with reports and market overviews. Beyond that, Sprout Social accelerates finding suitable creators with filters and cross-platform comparison of every individual’s presence and effectiveness. 
• Employee advocacy. Sprout Social turns a company’s professionals into brand ambassadors, giving them a voice to preserve authenticity while sharing company-approved but unique and creative content on their social media. This tool is designed to reinforce brand transparency and build rapport with an audience that is increasingly interested in socially responsible companies.

Pros and Cons of Sprout Social

Despite Sprout Social’s reputation and appeal, every business has its priorities, which affect the final choice. We have compiled a list of Sprout Social pros and cons for you to make your own objective decision.

✅ Advantages of Sprout Social

Let’s explore the reasons for Sprout Social’s popularity on the market. 

• Massive network of partnerships. Tools with a limited range of social media channels are hardly an option for businesses looking to advertise and connect with their clients where it’s most suitable. Sprout Social is effective with X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and others. This extensive network ensures companies can centralize their efforts and streamline workflows without juggling multiple standalone tools. Plus, it ensures a better customer reach and boosts customer satisfaction as they see their favorite companies on the same platform. 
• Variety of features. Those seeking a universal instrument to manage the majority of necessary functions regarding social media can efficiently utilize Sprout Social — it doesn’t limit itself to communication features alone. It covers everything from inbox to analytics, eliminating the need to look for additional instruments for most tasks. It’s a brilliant response to the era of digital clutter. Businesses can choose between core and premium functions depending on their budget and priorities 
• Simple interface. One of the most troubling aspects that typically causes delays in performance and team adaptation is the complexity of the interface, which may lead to a steep learning curve. Even though Sprout Socials has many features, they are packed in an easy-to-use design with prompts that simplify the adjustment process and don’t require much time to figure out. 
• Scheduling and organization. The ability to schedule posts on social media platforms makes it easy to have a long-term plan for content without focusing on details every day. Plus, Sprout Social makes assigning tasks to team members easy, contributing to better organization and responsibility delegation. 
• Data insights. Social media remains one of the leading sources of information for client-centric companies, and Sprout Social emphasizes this advantage. Its instruments allow for a regular overview of up-to-date social media analytics, achieving an in-depth understanding of its metrics and key trends affecting its sales and popularity. 

⛔️ Disadvantages of Sprout Social

Like any other service, Sprout Social isn’t for everyone — and here’s why. 

• Pricing. Although reviews on Sprout Social pros and cons rarely list the latter, pricing is a sore spot for many potential clients. Users complain that the company’s pricing is too high compared to its rivals, especially since the standard prices are already too high and have limitations absent in other social media management services. Sprout Social has several pricing plans, with the Standard option costing between $199 and $249 per seat/month. Its Professional starts from $299 per seat/month, and the Advanced model — from $399 per seat/month. Even the most affordable of these variants can be too high for small and medium businesses. 
• Limited social profiles. Continuing the previous disadvantage, we want to highlight that the Standard pricing plan supports only 5 profiles max, which creates additional limitations for companies trying to use this platform on a budget. 
• Slow customer support. Surprisingly, Sprout Social’s customer service has room for improvement. Customers notice delayed responses and poor management even despite the addition of the phone as another contact channel, which reportedly was missing before. This feature is yet to be developed to its full capacity.
• Delayed input. While not all users experienced this issue, several reported that Sprout Social processed their text and content inputs more slowly than expected. This can be an occasional error caused by possible bugs, but being aware of a possible downtime is vital if you’re time-limited. 

Sprout Social’s pros significantly outweigh its cons, but pricing models and the existing limitations can be deal-breakers for companies operating on a budget. 

Is Sprout Social Worth It? 

What is our final verdict, then? You’ve explored the pros and cons of Sprout Social and its features. You’re familiar with the pricing and the platforms it covers. 

In short, Sprout Social is worth it: its unparalleled number of social media channels in the network and rich functionality make it a practical and reliable option. If you plan to diversify your digital channel reach, using a service like Sprout Social is your best bet without switching to cheaper but less flexible tools.

However, smaller companies with limited budgets may want to hold off on this one. If you intend to expand across the most popular social media platforms, like X, Instagram, or TikTok, other options will be much more affordable. 

If you’re still hesitant, the company offers a month-long trial to help you finalize your decision. Try it out — only you know what your business and clients need.

PS: Did you know that SupportYourApp provides outsourced social media customer support services? Check it out here.

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