Are you seeking Agorapulse alternatives to step up your social media marketing efforts? Or perhaps, you’re just getting your feet wet and are looking for your first social media management tool.
Either way, there are plenty of social media management tools to choose from. Although Agorapulse is a solid platform, there might be some other alternatives that better suit your needs — that’s what this article is here for!
We’ll go through some of the top Agorapulse alternatives, see what they’re best for, and stack them up against Agorapulse to check whether they’re worth it.
So let’s get to it!
Why you should consider an Agorapulse alternative
Agorapulse is an all-in-one social media management platform that helps marketers publish content, measure performance through customizable reports, and keep in touch with their target audience via its inbox management and social monitoring tools.
The Inbox Assistant can automatically sort and label incoming messages based on particular keywords. Just specify keywords like “who,” “what,” and “when,” and the platform will collect and organize messages containing these terms for you. It can also assign messages to the appropriate team members. Agorapulse also offers social listening tools, but these are only available for Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
However, Agorapulse still has significant drawbacks.
Key functionalities, like collaboration tools, calendar notes, and bulk publishing, are only available from the Professional plan and up. The Professional plan costs $79/user/month (billed annually). Users also report that scheduled content occasionally won’t be posted. Additionally, Agorapulse lacks Pinterest support.
Supported platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business).
Pricing: Agorapulse offers a free version that includes one user and up to three social profiles. Paid plans start at $49/user/month (annually).
Now that we’ve gone over the basics, let’s dive a little deeper into Agorapulse’s calendar, collaboration, and approval functionalities — the essentials for managing your social media accounts.
My take on Agorapulse’s main features: publishing & collaboration
Calendar
Agorapulse’s calendar is straightforward. You can create posts and schedule them to specific platforms directly within the calendar view. Agorapulse allows you to add image and video files from your computer and its built-in content library.
You can also use the platform’s Canva integration to edit or create graphics, and add them to scheduled posts within the calendar view. However, the option to add media files from Agorapulse’s digital library or Canva integration is only available in the Advanced plan, which costs $119/user/month.
Agorapulse allows you to visualize upcoming posts through a list or calendar view (see scheduled posts weekly or monthly). It also offers an Instagram grid view (available in the Advanced plan).
As for filtering options, you can sift through posts by content type (like text, link, or video), or status (like scheduled, published, to be approved, or rejected). Other notable calendar features include the ability to monitor and respond to comments on each published post and organize content through tags.
Overall, I found Agorapulse’s calendar intuitive, but a bit bland. A dash of color or the ability to see a post’s visuals within the calendar would help bring a little more life to the interface.
Collaboration
Agorapulse’s collaboration tools are available from the Professional plan. You get access to team performance reports, comments in context, and team workflows.
Team members can collaborate via internal and external comments. Internal comments are not visible to the client, which is ideal when you leave feedback on a draft before the client sees the final version.
You can also collaborate with external clients via the shared calendar feature (only available from the Advanced plan). You can share content with clients and they have the option to approve, reject, or leave comments. If your client approves the content, it will automatically schedule and go live.
Approvals
Agorapulse’s approvals are part of its team workflow functionality. You can assign posts awaiting approvals to one or multiple team members. Team members can leave comments on the post, and approve or reject it. They can also reassign the post in question to other teammates.
Most notably, there’s the Everyone must approve option, which means a post won’t be published unless every assigned team member reviews and approves it. This functionality is ideal to ensure that your content is in tip-top shape before publishing or reaching the client.
Final Agorapulse takeaway
- Comprehensive feature set for a social media management tool: content scheduling, team collaboration, social inbox, and monitoring
- Collaboration feature may lack depth
- Social monitoring limited to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
- No Pinterest support
- Important features like team collaboration, approvals, calendar notes, bulk scheduling require higher-priced plans
So let’s dive in and see the top Agorapulse alternatives currently available.
1. Planable: best Agorapulse alternative for collaboration & approval
Planable calendar | Planable collaboration | Planable approval | Planable vs Agorapulse takeaway
Planable is a content collaboration and social media management platform that allows creative teams to work on any type of written content — from social posts and ad copy to blog posts, emails, briefs, newsletters, and much more.
You can collaborate with team members through internal notes and comments in context. You can also leave attachments and mention team members to notify them of urgent changes.
Planable stands out through its custom approval process. You can select between multiple types of approvals: none, optional, required, and multi-level. Multi-level approvals ensure that your posts go through multiple team members before they reach the client. And you can create separate calendars for each client and plan upcoming content by simply dragging and dropping it on the social media calendar.
Moreover, Planable includes all the publishing-specific functionalities you could expect. You can schedule content in bulk, organize posts through color-coded labels, leave calendar notes, and more.
The platform also offers a clean and intuitive social media analytics tool, which allows you to monitor content performance and easily generate reports for clients or stakeholders. However, note that it doesn’t come with social listening or monitoring.
Supported platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Business Profile, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest (plus blogs and newsletters).
Pricing: Planable’s free version gives you access to all the platform’s features (except Twitter publishing) and allows you to schedule up to 50 posts. Paid plans start at $11/user/month (annually). Pricing is flexible based on the number of workspaces and users you wish to include. You can sign up here.
Planable vs Agorapulse
Calendar
I found Planable’s social media calendar as intuitive as Agorapulse’s. However, the splashes of color and the ability to preview each post’s visuals within the interface make the calendar more pleasant to look at.
Like with Agorapulse, you can view upcoming posts weekly or monthly and you have the option to visualize posts under grid or list views. Unlike Agorapulse, Planable offers a feed view, where you can see posts exactly as they would look on platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn before publishing them.
Planable also covers more filtering options. You can filter posts by labels, feedback, and authors, for instance. Additionally, you can preview posts to see how they look on desktops and mobiles. Other notable features include the ability to leave comments and approve posts directly within the calendar.
Collaboration
You can use Planable to leave comments in context and notify team members on any type of posts (including newsletters and blogs). You can also leave annotations to give feedback on specific fragments of text.
Like Agorapulse, Planable includes version control, internal notes, and the option to collaborate with external stakeholders. However, Planable’s collaboration tools are available at a more affordable price.
Approvals
Both Agorapulse and Planable allow you to set up in-depth approval processes when the same post needs to be approved by multiple team members before publication. However, after experimenting with both platforms, I noticed that Planable’s approval workflows are more intuitive and easier to track.
Its multi-level approval workflow builder is highly visual. You can easily set up multiple levels (like content team, design team, and client) and then simply drag-and-drop team members on their corresponding levels. As such, you get an easy-to-grasp overview of your approval process and its stages.
In contrast, Agorapulse is a little more rudimentary. Assigning to-be-approved content to multiple team members works by selecting each teammate from a drop-down menu, or by typing in their names—similar to how you would send an email to a group of people.
Planable vs. Agorapulse final takeaway: best alternative for content scheduling & team collaboration
Planable is the best Agorapulse alternatives for handling collaboration and approvals. Planable’s collaboration features are also available at a much more affordable price. Its approval system is better structured and provides a complete visual overview of your workflows.
Before using Planable, I had tried Hootsuite, Sendible, Sprout Social, AgoraPulse, and a couple others to schedule our clients’ content. None of those schedulers have simplified our approvals and scheduling process the way the Planable has.
Rachel G, CEO & Senior Strategist, G2 verified review
2. Hootsuite: best all-in-one Agorapulse alternative for large agencies
Hootsuite is among the first social media management platforms in the market, and it has grown to include a bunch of social media marketing tools, forming a comprehensive all-in-one solution.
With it, marketers can handle anything from content publishing to social monitoring, social ad campaign management, and more.
This solution supports the following social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
However, Hootsuite could do with some quality-of-life improvements. For instance, Hootsuite’s upload size limit may prevent users from scheduling larger files, like animations. For this, people may need to login into their social media accounts and upload their files directly, which is quite an inconvenience.
Additionally, users report that the platform’s UI can get clunky, while some features don’t work as they should (some users mentioned its content suggestion tool offers generic ideas unrelated to a company’s brand).
Hootsuite key features
- Publishing/scheduling: Easily schedule a post for multiple social media profiles or publish multiple posts simultaneously through bulk scheduling. Use the calendar to manage all upcoming posts within a single place. Get automated suggestions regarding the best publishing times.
- Reports and analytics: Measure performance through Hootsuite’s various customizable report templates. See how you stack up against competitors via the Social Score feature and track metrics from multiple social media accounts side-by-side.
- Social media listening: Learn what people think about your brand by tracking keywords, conversations, and hashtags from multiple social networks.
In terms of pricing, Hootsuite starts at $99/month (annually, for one user), with a 30-day free trial available.
Hootsuite vs Agorapulse
- Pricing: Hootsuite has a user limit for all of its up-front pricing plans (from one to a maximum of five, over which you’d need the custom enterprise plan). With a minimum price of $99/month for one user, Hootsuite is significantly more expensive.
- Supported platforms: Agorapulse lacks support for Pinterest, while Hootsuite doesn’t include Google Business Profile. Other than that, both platforms integrate with the same social media platforms.
- Functionalities: Hootsuite allows you to create and manage complete content campaigns as well as run social ads on up-tier pricing plans, unlike Agorapulse. However, Hootsuite lacks the ability to leave calendar notes and set up content queues.
Takeaway
Overall, Hootsuite is an excellent Agorapulse alternative for larger agencies seeking a solid all-in-one social media platform. It covers everything, including publishing, curation, ad campaign management, and even customer service tools.
If Hootsuite didn’t quite fit the bill, consider perusing this thorough list of Hootsuite alternatives for a better match.
3. Sprout Social: best Agorapulse alternative for community management
Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management platform that emphasizes communicating with your followers and keeping them engaged — perfect for community management!
Aside from social media scheduling and analytics, Sprout Social offers a built-in CRM, a unified message inbox, and review management tools. Additionally, you can boost your social media presence via the platform’s employee advocacy tools (extra add-on).
Sprout Social supports the following social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube.
However, all of this comes at a steep price tag — one of Sprout Social’s biggest drawbacks.
The platform starts at a whopping $249/month for a single user, while each additional user costs an extra $199, $249, and $349/month, depending on the selected pricing plan. There’s a 30-day free trial available, though.
Sprout Social key features
- Social media listening: Put all of your social media channels under one roof and easily monitor conversations about your brand via its Smart Inbox feature. Leverage the platform’s AI-powered capabilities to uncover consumer sentiment, trending topics for reaching new audiences, and more.
- Relationship management: Use the social CRM to track conversation history and contact information. Add internal notes for each contact so team members have all the necessary data of a prospect before jumping into the conversation. Turn messages into tasks and assign them to team members for streamlined follow-ups.
- Reports and analytics: Generate reports across all of your social media profiles to see the big picture or view your performance on an individual network to get more granular. Compare yourself against competitors, analyze content, campaign, advertising performance, and more.
Sprout Social vs Agorapulse
- Pricing: Sprout Social is the most expensive out of the two by far. Although it’s packed with features, the platform might only be suitable for corporate companies or marketing agencies with larger budgets. Agorapulse is the better option for medium-sized organizations.
- Ease of use: Due to Sprout Social’s extensive feature set, the platform is rather complex and requires a bit of time to get used to. In contrast, Agorapulse has a clean, easy-to-navigate interface.
- Functionalities: Sprout Social takes the cake here. The platform’s listening tools and reports are more in-depth.
Takeaway
Sprout Social is among the best Agorapulse alternatives for large companies whose social media strategy relies on audience communication.
4. Buffer: best Agorapulse alternative for content publishing
Buffer is a social media publishing tool built with simplicity and affordability in mind — ideal for small businesses and solopreneurs. The platform allows social media marketers to easily create content for various social media platforms and schedule posts.
It also comes with a handy AI assistant which helps brainstorm ideas, generate content, and repurpose existing social media posts for other networks. Moreover, social media managers can reply to comments, prioritize conversations, and even build landing pages directly within the platform.
As for supported channels, Buffer handles the following: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, Google Business Profile, Mastodon, and Shopify.
Some of the platform’s drawbacks are that it doesn’t offer phone or live chat support and lacks some advanced features, like multi-layered approvals, and may benefit from considering the option to outsource live chat support.
Buffer Key Features
- Content publishing: Plan and post content through a straightforward interface. Create tailored social media posts for each network and view your content lineup through the platform’s calendar. Set up approvals and user permissions, as well as tweak the content with your team for improved collaboration.
- Engagement: Use the platform’s social media engagement tool to respond to audience feedback directly within the dashboard. Set up smart alerts to get notified of follower questions or negative feedback.
- Analytics: Use the platform’s social media analytics tool to create custom reports and monitor engagement for hashtags, posts, and stories. Automatically predict the best time to post on Instagram by analyzing your audience’s activity and previous performance. Use the platform’s data to determine the ideal posting frequency and most effective format.
In terms of pricing, Buffer includes a free version that’s available for one user and up to three social media channels. Paid plans start at $5/channel/month with a 14-day free trial available.
Buffer vs Agorapulse
- Pricing: Buffer is the more affordable option, making it an ideal choice for small teams or freelancers/solopreneurs.
- Supported platforms: Buffer includes more platforms than Agorapulse, topping it with Mastodon, Pinterest, and Shopify (YouTube coming soon). Keep in mind though that you’ll have to pay extra for each additional channel.
- Functionalities: Compared to Agorapulse’s low-tier pricing plans, Buffer offers a more comprehensive feature set. However, Agorapulse outdoes Buffer in its premium packages — especially in the analytics department.
Takeaway
Overall, Buffer is an excellent Agorapulse alternative for small businesses and solopreneurs seeking an affordable social media marketing platform with solid content planning and publishing tools. If you’ve already tried it and it didn’t fit your needs, check out these 9 Buffer alternatives we found useful.
5. Loomly: best Agorapulse alternative for building brand awareness
Loomly is a straightforward, affordable social media management solution with a focus on increasing your social media presence.
The platform supports a wide array of social media networks, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Google Business Profile.
Marketers generally use this platform to engage in social media conversations and schedule content. It offers social media managers the option to create and optimize posts for each specific network, handle media assets, and more.
As for the drawbacks, users complain about Loomly’s inability to schedule Instagram Reels and Stories, while TikTok support is rather limited.
Loomly key features
- Content creation: Use its Post Ideas feature to receive relevant content suggestions depending on criteria like social media best practices, trends, and date-specific events, or create your custom ideas. Build post templates, repurpose content, create visuals, and manage other assets through Loomly’s content library.
- Audience targeting: Improve awareness by reaching targeted audiences on Facebook and LinkedIn. Boost posts through advertisements directly within the platform.
- Publishing/scheduling: Choose one of four types of approval workflows or create customized ones. Use the calendar to view upcoming posts and change their date, edit them, and more. Automatically publish posts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
There are five pricing plans, with the cheapest one costing $26/month (paid annually, for two users). There’s also a 14-day free trial available.
Loomly vs Agorapulse
- Pricing: Loomly is more affordable across the board, appealing more to small businesses.
- Supported platforms: Loomly supports significantly more platforms than Agorapulse. As such, it’s ideal for those seeking to improve their social media presence.
- Functionalities: Unlike Agorapulse, Loomly does not include customizable reports and listening tools. However, Loomly goes more in-depth in terms of content creation.
Takeaway
Due to its large number of supported platforms as well as its content creation, scheduling, and publishing tools, Loomly is an excellent Agorapulse alternative for small organizations looking to boost their brand awareness. If you’ve already given Loomly a shot and are on the lookout for another tool that can meet your needs, check out this list of Loomly alternatives that you can try out.
6. Sendible: best all-in-one Agorapulse alternative for small businesses
Sendible is an all-in-one social media management software solution that brings comprehensive social media reporting, scheduling, publishing, collaboration, and engagement tools under one roof.
Despite its versatility, Sendible is highly easy to use. The platform has a quick setup process, while its interface is clean and the features are easily accessible.
Sendible supports the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Google Business Profile, and WordPress.
However, Sendible’s support leaves to be desired. There’s no 24/7 support available in none of its pricing packages, while email response times sit at the 5-6 hour mark. The platform makes up for it through an extensive knowledge base, though.
Sendible key features
- Reports and analytics: Automatically generate independent reports for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google Analytics, and more. Also, generate custom branded reports which you can then automatically share with your team/clients via email and live link. Gather in-depth information regarding engagement, demographics, reach, and more.
- Social media listening: Use keywords to monitor conversations, competitors, or influencers related to your brand. Prioritize mentions based on sentiment (positive, negative, or neutral) and respond to comments from various channels within the same dashboard.
- Collaboration: Set up custom approvals workflows, tweak user permissions, and create separate dashboards for your clients to streamline the collaboration process. Assign follower comments or direct messages to specific team members to enhance customer service.
Pricing starts at $25/month (yearly, for one user). The platform is available for either one, four, or seven users, depending on the selected package. There’s a 14-day free trial available.
Sendible vs Agorapulse
- Pricing: Sendible is the more affordable option with dedicated plans for freelancers, startups, and growing social media teams.
- Supported platforms: Both social media management tools lack Pinterest support. Sendible gains the upper hand through its WordPress integration, highly useful for companies leveraging blog posts in their social media marketing strategy.
- Functionalities: Sendible is more in-depth in terms of social listening, while Agorapulse is more versatile in terms of content publishing. Agorapulse also offers boost post scheduling and audience targeting.
Takeaway
All in all, Sendible is a great Agorapulse alternative for small/medium-sized teams seeking a budget-friendly all-in-one social media management solution.
7. Zoho Social: best Agorapulse alternative for affordable social media reporting and analytics
Zoho Social is a social media management software solution that caters to freelancers and small agencies. The platform covers publishing, collaboration, monitoring, and reporting/analytics tools — the latter being the highlight.
Despite its price tag and emphasis on small teams, Zoho Social covers extensive customizable reports that reveal in-depth information across multiple platforms (like ideal posting times, search trends or engagement across different demographics).
Zoho Social supports the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, TikTok, Google Business Profile, and YouTube.
As for drawbacks, Zoho Social’s post customization options across channels are rather limited. For instance, users complain about the platform’s inability to tweak image/video size and its limited Twitter post word count compared to other platforms.
Zoho Social key features
- Social media reporting/analytics: Gather detailed information specific to each channel, like analyzing your LinkedIn followers based on their industry, job title, or seniority levels.
- Social monitoring: Receive real-time updates from your audience, like replies or mentions across all your channels. Create dedicated columns for specific social channels and set filters to easily follow critical updates. Use the message inbox to spark conversations directly within the platform.
- Content publishing: Use the calendar to visualize your posting pipeline, create drafts with your team and leave feedback through discussion threads, set up approvals, handle bulk scheduling, and more.
Zoho offers a free version, while paid plans start at $10/month (annually). There’s also a 15-day free trial available.
Zoho Social vs Agorapulse
- Pricing: Considering its reporting capabilities, Zoho provides excellent value for money. Not to mention that it’s significantly more affordable than Agorapulse.
- Customer support: Agorapulse offers 24/7 email and chat support, while Zoho offers 24/5 email support.
- Functionalities: Agorapulse offers a slightly more comprehensive feature set. For instance, the platform is more flexible in terms of post customization and also covers team performance reports, unlike Zoho.
Takeaway
Zoho Social is the perfect Agorapulse alternative for freelancers or small agencies seeking an affordable social media tool with excellent reporting and analytics capabilities.
Agorapulse Alternatives FAQs
What is better than Agorapulse?
Planable stands out due to its collaboration and approval workflow tools. However, if you seek an all-in-one budget-friendly social media management tool, consider Zoho Social, Sendible, or Loomly.
Is there a free alternative to Agorapulse?
Yes. For instance, Planable offers a fully-featured free plan which allows you to schedule up to 50 posts. After that, you can upgrade to one of the platform’s paid plans, costing as little as $11/month.
Does Agorapulse support Pinterest?
No. Agorapulse currently supports the following: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and Google Business Profile.