How we make this list: we compare pricing pages, product documentation and public user reviews. Ratings come from G2, Capterra or Trustpilot, with the date we checked them.
Key takeaways
- Sprout Social is the full social CRM standard: contact views tying conversations to people, plus the deepest reporting and listening, from $79 a seat a month.
- Agorapulse is the inbox-led pick: the strongest moderation queue for comments, messages and reviews, with ROI reporting, at $79 a user a month.
- HubSpot is the answer when the real CRM already exists: social conversations written into the same contact records sales and service use.
- Zoho Social is the budget door into social CRM, from $10 a month, especially inside the wider Zoho suite.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|
 Sprout Social | Social CRM with contact history | From $79/seat/month | No |
 Agorapulse | Inbox-led engagement teams | From $79/user/month | No |
 HubSpot Marketing Hub | Social inside a real CRM | See website | Yes |
 Hootsuite | Enterprise social teams | From $99/user/month | No |
 NapoleonCat | Inbox-heavy teams and agencies | From $89/month | No |
 Statusbrew | Unified engagement at mid price | See website | No |
 Metricool | Analytics-led small teams | From $20/month | Yes |
 Zoho Social | Zoho suite and small budgets | From $10/month | No |
Is your product missing or out of date?
We review this list regularly. Vendors can request a listing, send updated pricing or ask about featured placement.
#1Sprout Social
Best for: Social CRM with contact history4.4/5 on
G2 (6,880 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit sproutsocial.com
Starting priceFrom $79/seat/month
Free planNo
Sprout Social is the closest thing here to a true social CRM sold as one: people, conversations and reporting in one place, with the polish executives actually open. Its contact-centric design is what separates it from schedulers wearing CRM language.
Buy it with the add-on map in hand. The seat price buys the core; listening and premium analytics complete the picture most demos show, and their cost belongs in the first business case, not the renewal surprise.
What we like- The CRM layer is real: contact views gather a person's conversations across networks into one profile, so an agent sees history before replying, the deepest reporting in the category and optional listening and premium analytics for brand level insight, Smart Inbox with assignment, tagging and collision detection for teams, Salesforce and HubSpot integrations connect social records to the system of record, Essentials starts at $79 a seat a month billed annually
- Fuller plans run $199 to $399
Watch out for- Per-seat pricing is the category's steepest at scale: three seats on Professional can run about $1,197 a month on monthly billing in teardown comparisons, listening, premium analytics and advocacy are paid add-ons above the seat price, Essentials limits profiles (5) in ways that push growing teams up tiers, no free plan
- A 30-day trial only
#2Agorapulse
Best for: Inbox-led engagement teams4.5/5 on
G2 (975 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit agorapulse.com
Starting priceFrom $79/user/month
Free planNo
Agorapulse is for teams whose day is answering, not posting: community managers and support-adjacent social teams. Its moderation queue is the best-organised in this list, and its published sync limits are the honesty standard the whole category should copy.
Watch the X add-on line if Twitter matters to you, and model profiles carefully: at 10 included, the eleventh profile is where the bill starts growing quietly.
What we like- The inbox benchmark: comments, messages, mentions and reviews in one moderation queue with saved replies, assignment and labels, it publishes its sync limits honestly (Instagram caps, Facebook's rolling window, active ads only), the transparency rivals omit, social ROI reporting ties engagement to outcomes, a pitch agencies use with clients, Standard at $79 a user a month billed annually with 10 profiles, extra profiles at $10 to $15
Watch out for- Its free plan was retired in July 2026, so evaluation now runs on trials, X (Twitter) coverage costs extra (X Lite or Plus add-ons at $29 to $69 a month) since the platform's API pricing changed, per-user pricing doubles and triples with the team like all seat models, guest and client access costs seats, though its Shared Calendar link is free on Advanced
#3HubSpot Marketing Hub
Best for: Social inside a real CRM4.4/5 on
G2 (15,978 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit hubspot.com
Starting priceSee website
Free planYes
HubSpot wins the record test outright, because the record is the CRM itself. A complaint on Instagram lands on the same timeline as the customer's tickets and deals, which is the entire promise of social CRM, delivered by architecture rather than integration.
Its limit is the mirror image: social specialists will find Sprout and Agorapulse deeper at the social work itself. Decide which side of that trade your team lives on.
What we like- The only entry here where the CRM is not a metaphor: social posts, inbox conversations and contacts live in the same HubSpot record your sales and service teams already use, social publishing and monitoring inside Marketing Hub, with interactions logged on contact timelines and lists buildable from engagers, a free CRM tier exists (social tools sit in paid Marketing Hub tiers), so the data model can be tested cheaply, reporting unifies social with campaigns, deals and revenue in one dashboard stack
Watch out for- Social depth trails the specialists: inbox coverage and listening are competent, not class leading, Marketing Hub's tier pricing climbs steeply with contacts and seats, you are buying a platform, not a tool, if your CRM is Salesforce or anything else, this entry does not apply
#4Hootsuite
Best for: Enterprise social teams4.3/5 on
G2 (7,433 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit hootsuite.com
Starting priceFrom $99/user/month
Free planNo
Hootsuite remains the default of large, risk-averse organisations: it covers the networks, passes the security review and has always been there. For a regulated enterprise, those are features no startup's elegance replaces.
Smaller teams pay enterprise prices for that safety. If your governance needs are ordinary, Sprout does more per seat at the same money, and the tools below do the core job for far less.
What we like- The enterprise incumbent: publishing, inbox, monitoring and analytics across every major network, with governance (permissions, approvals) big organisations require, Standard at $99 a user a month billed annually for 10 accounts
- Professional at $199 removes the account limit, deep integrations and an app directory extend it into CRM and support stacks, the longest track record in the category, with procurement friendly credentials
Watch out for- Per-seat pricing at enterprise levels: $99 to $399 a user across tiers, no free plan, a 14-day trial in current comparisons, interface and innovation pace draw criticism against newer rivals, features many teams want (advanced listening, certain analytics) live in upper tiers or add-ons
Starting priceFrom $89/month
Free planNo
NapoleonCat is the value pick for conversation-heavy work: it treats the inbox as the product, prices transparently, and undercuts the giants on identical team sizes by multiples. Agencies drowning in ad comments will find its automation rules pay for it.
Its ceiling is strategic insight: if the board wants listening and attribution, Sprout or HubSpot answer better. If the team wants the queue cleared by lunch, NapoleonCat is the honest buy.
What we like- Built around the inbox: moderation for comments and messages including ad comments, with automation rules that delete, hide or assign by keyword and sentiment, pricing is published in clear steps: from $89 a month for 2 users and 5 profiles, scaling by users and profiles together, strong value in head-to-head team costings (an eight-person setup costed at $249 against four figures at the giants), Google review management sits inside the same inbox, which local businesses feel daily
Watch out for- A client occupies a paid user slot, so agency seating maths needs care, reporting and listening depth trail Sprout, smaller brand outside Europe, though its comparison content is everywhere, profile and user steps mean costs jump in increments, not smoothly
Starting priceSee website
Free planNo
Statusbrew is the steady mid-market compromise: more engagement structure than the budget tools, less bill than the giants, with link-based client review that quietly removes the per-seat tax agencies hate.
It rarely wins a single category outright and often wins the total. Teams replacing a giant at renewal should demo it against their actual last quarter of work, which is the comparison its pricing is built to survive.
What we like- A unified platform for publishing, engagement and reporting with a genuinely shared team inbox and approval workflows, client and stakeholder review by shared link rather than paid seats, a cost structure agencies praise, CRM-adjacent contact context on conversations, positioned below the giants on price, covers the major networks including review sources in the engagement stream
Watch out for- Published headline pricing is less prominent than rivals'
- Expect a pricing page visit and plan comparison before budgeting, listening and analytics depth sit mid pack, smaller integration ecosystem than Hootsuite or Sprout, less review volume to diligence against than the leaders
#7Metricool
Best for: Analytics-led small teams4.5/5 on
G2 (98 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit metricool.com
Starting priceFrom $20/month
Free planYes
Metricool belongs in this guide as the measurement end of social CRM: it will tell you who your audience is in aggregate and what worked, better than tools three times its price, while doing less with individual relationships.
Pair it with a real CRM discipline (even HubSpot's free tier) and a small team covers both halves of social CRM for under $50 a month. That combination embarrasses several enterprise invoices.
What we like- The analyst of the budget tier: strong cross-network analytics and reporting, competitor tracking and a link-in-bio tool, with publishing and a social inbox attached, flat pricing by brand count (Starter around $20 a month for 5 brands in current comparisons) with unlimited team members on Advanced and reviewers free by link, a free plan exists for a single brand, the cheapest route here to respectable reporting
Watch out for- CRM functions are the lightest in this list: contact level history is not its design centre, inbox is present but shallower than Agorapulse or NapoleonCat, X data carries a $10 a month add-on in teardown comparisons, per-brand pricing suits agencies
- Single brands with many profiles should check the fit
#8Zoho Social
Best for: Zoho suite and small budgets4.6/5 on
G2 (2,976 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit zoho.com
Starting priceFrom $10/month
Free planNo
Zoho Social is the ecosystem pick: inside Zoho, social conversations attach to the CRM your business already runs, at a price that is nearly a rounding error. For the millions of small businesses on Zoho, that is the correct social CRM decision, full stop.
Standalone buyers get a competent, cheap scheduler with an inbox, which may still be enough. Just buy it for the suite logic or not at all.
What we like- The price floor with real function: from $10 a month billed annually ($15 monthly) for publishing, monitoring and a team inbox, native integration with Zoho CRM: social leads and interactions flow into the suite's contact records, its reason to exist in this guide, client logins are documented as free, unusual generosity in this category, part of the wider Zoho suite, so a small business can run CRM, books and social under one vendor
Watch out for- Outside the Zoho ecosystem its CRM advantage evaporates, social depth (listening, ad comment handling) is basic next to the specialists, brand based pricing and member limits need reading at scale, enterprise governance is not its segment
How we chose
Tools were included if they combine a social inbox with contact or CRM functions (conversation history on people, CRM sync or a native CRM), not scheduling alone. Prices are from the vendors' own pricing pages as compiled in October 2026 comparisons (NapoleonCat's 18-tool guide reading every vendor's pricing page, an October 2026 starting-price ranking, AmpliFire's Agorapulse and Sprout comparison, and a September 2026 per-seat teardown): Sprout Essentials $79 a seat billed annually with plans to $399, Agorapulse Standard $79 a user annually (free plan retired July 2026), Hootsuite Standard $99 a user annually, NapoleonCat from $89 a month, Zoho Social $10 billed annually, Metricool from about $20. HubSpot and Statusbrew pricing depends on tier and bundle and is recorded qualitatively. No tool was subscribed to first-hand for this guide; team-cost examples are the comparisons' worked figures.
The three tests, applied
Run the inbox test in the trial with your real accounts: connect the ad account, not just the page, and watch whether dark post comments arrive. NapoleonCat and Agorapulse describe their coverage in detail; make every vendor answer the question in writing.
Run the record test with a known customer: find their last three interactions across two networks and check whether the tool shows them as one person with history, and whether that history reaches your CRM (native in HubSpot and Zoho, integration in Sprout). If it does not, you are buying a scheduler with good marketing.
Run the bill test at your real team size for three years, including add-ons (listening, X access, extra profiles) and the seats your clients and approvers consume. Social tools are renewed by inertia more than any category in this project; the three-year number is the decision.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a tool a social CRM rather than a scheduler?
A contact record with memory. A scheduler manages posts and times; a social CRM attaches every interaction to a person or account, keeps the history across networks, lets a team assign and note conversations, and syncs with the business CRM so sales and support see the same customer. Sprout's contact views, HubSpot's native records and Zoho's CRM flow are the pattern; a calendar with an inbox bolted on is not.
Why do the same features cost $10 at one vendor and $399 at another?
Different billing models and different buyers. Zoho prices by brand inside a suite it monetises elsewhere; Metricool prices flat by brand; the giants price per seat for enterprises that expense seats without blinking, then charge again for listening and analytics add-ons. The 2026 team costings in our sources put an identical eight-person workload between $33 and over $2,000 a month across vendors. The features overlap heavily; the invoices do not.
Does the unified inbox really cover ad comments?
Often not completely, and it is the question to ask. Dark ads never appear on your page, so their comments only surface if the tool syncs the ad account, and sync has limits: Agorapulse, the one vendor publishing them, caps Instagram history and syncs only active ads. Boosted posts can generate ten times the comments of organic posts, so an inbox missing ads is missing most of the conversation a paid team creates.
Which tool is best for agencies?
NapoleonCat and Agorapulse for inbox-heavy client work, Statusbrew where client review by link saves seats, and Metricool for reporting across many brands at flat prices. The agency trap is per-seat pricing multiplied by clients and approvers; model your full roster (every client login, every approver) before signing, because that is where Sprout and Hootsuite bills reach the figures quoted in the introduction.
Can social CRM replace our main CRM?
No, and it should not try. The social layer captures conversations where they happen; the main CRM remains the system of record for deals, tickets and billing. The strongest setups here acknowledge that: HubSpot and Zoho make the social tool part of the CRM itself, and Sprout integrates with Salesforce and HubSpot. Buy the join, not a second silo.
Sources we checked (0)
Is your product missing or out of date?
We review this list regularly. Vendors can request a listing, send updated pricing or ask about featured placement.
Shihab Mia · Founder, Rankite
Shihab has 5+ years in B2B and SaaS SEO. He writes Rankite's software buying guides from pricing pages, documentation and public user reviews. More about Shihab.