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Planable is the best client-facing social media tool we've ever used and we've used a lot.
AI is the marketer’s dream assistant to remove writer’s block and put out content faster. So I bet you’ve tried at least one AI tool by now. But why waste time switching between tools and teaching general AIs about social, when you can have it all in one integrated...
Oct 10, 2025
Hopper is a social media management tool that lets you schedule social media posts through a super straightforward calendar. But after testing the platform, I found a few talkworthy drawbacks, which most other Hopper alternatives don’t have.
The software lacks native Google Business Profile support and Canva integrations. Plus, it’s quite tricky to scale. You’ll have to pay for each individual social account, while its content collaboration tools are only available in the top-tier plan (but are quite limited).
That said, let me show you more of what Hopper is about, its drawbacks, and whether there are any better options for your particular needs.
Hopper is a small-business-focused social media management solution that stands out through its simplicity and ease of use.
The platform’s drag-and-drop social calendar and auto-publishing features help busy business owners enhance their social accounts, while its AI caption generation and editing tools help streamline the content creation process. But the platform does have its drawbacks.
Here’s a brief rundown covering some of Hopper’s main disadvantages:
Still, let me walk you through Hopper’s calendar, content collaboration, and content approval features to see more about the platform’s benefits and how it holds up against other similar software.
Hopper’s social media calendar is clean and straightforward.
Here’s what you can do with it:
The platform also offers a separate Planner view, where you can visualize all your scheduled content and drafts or filter through posts by approval status.
As for drawbacks, the platform lacks color-coded labels, which would’ve been handy to better distinguish between different post ideas.
Hopper’s filter set is also quite limited. You can only filter through scheduled posts, drafts, or approval status.
Hopper lets you add team members and clients. You can then assign custom user roles and permissions, and collaborate through notes and comments. Teams can request approvals, while dedicated reviewers can either approve or reject posts.
But there’s not much more to it than that. No annotations, messaging inboxes, or multi-layered approvals. Given that the platform’s collaboration tools are only available in its top-tier package, the price hike may not justify the value for larger teams.
Hopper’s AI features let you generate captions and hashtags for your social posts.
The platform’s AI image upscaler is also handy to ensure that otherwise small image files look crisp and optimized when posted.
Its strategy planner is what I found to be unique. Hopper tracks your existing content’s performance and history and leverages social media best practices to generate a content strategy from scratch, complete with campaign goals and content instructions.
However, this feature is still in Beta.
Here’s a brief rundown of where other similar software can fill in Hopper’s gaps:
Let me walk you through some of the best alternatives to Hopper currently available. I’ll talk about each software solution’s key features and drawbacks and what it’s best for.
Planable is one of the best alternatives to Hopper if you’re looking for a social media management solution with excellent collaboration features.
Share visual feedback and suggest creative changes using Planable’s in-line commenting system.
The platform’s direct text annotations, suggestions, internal comments, and version control allow for extra-precise feedback loops. Plus, Planable offers custom approval workflows, with multi-level approvals being the highlight.
You can set up multi-step review processes, with each step including as many team members as you wish. Content has to go through each layer before the final thumbs up, which is particularly useful for larger teams that want to set up detailed review processes involving multiple departments.
Planable includes loads of other features, too. Here’s a brief rundown of some of its top features:
Let’s get into more details and talk about similar features that both Planable and Hopper cover to see how they compare.
Planable’s social media calendar is just as intuitive as Hopper’s. Scheduling and rescheduling posts is only a matter of dragging and dropping content across the calendar, while you can also jot down ideas or leave feedback via notes.
Social media calendar dashboard in Planable
Still, Planable brings the following extra features to the table:
You can also approve posts directly in the calendar through a single click. Plus, you can use Planable’s other planning views to work on content across other formats. For example, the grid view is specially made for Instagram, while the feed view is great for blogs and newsletters.
Planable’s collaboration and approval features are among the platform’s hallmarks. The comments, direct suggestions, annotations, and version history work just like Google Docs, but better.
Planable makes team collaboration easy with real-time feedback, approvals, and post scheduling.
You can also collaborate through Planable’s mobile app (ioS and Android), leave internal notes, and view a post’s entire activity history to see whether feedback was implemented correctly.
Planable’s comments also extend to visuals. You can edit and leave feedback on videos and images, as well as save content in the platform’s built-in media library.
As for approvals, you can pick between 4 workflow types depending on your needs: none, optional, required, and multi-level. Multi-level approvals are excellent for large teams, while optional approvals work well for smaller teams.
Planable’s AI feature set is much more content-oriented. You can use it to repurpose texts, generate captions from scratch, and ensure your writing style is on-brand. Unlike Hopper, Planable’s AI can generate captions from standalone visuals.
Enhance your social copy using Planable’s AI-powered tools to rewrite, shorten, or rephrase post content effortlessly.
Most notably, the platform’s AI features are readily available all throughout the platform, and in the right place. No need to dig through separate tabs or menus. Plus, users commonly report that Planable’s AI is actually useful and time-saving.
It’s also worth noting that if you opt for Planable’s Engagement add-on, the platform’s inbox management feature set, you can use AI to draft quick replies and analyze incoming message sentiment.
Example of how easy it is to reply to Facebook comments in Planable
Pricing: Planable’s pricing plans start at $33/workspace/month (billed yearly). There’s also a free plan that lets you schedule up to 50 posts.
Drawbacks: Although you can use Planable to work on blogs, the software doesn’t integrate with any CMSs for website publishing.
Takeaway
Planable is one of the best overall Hopper alternatives for larger teams. Users love how well-thought-through the interface is, while the platform’s team collaboration and review features help unify content creation processes involving multiple teams (copywriters, visual designers, editors, and so on).
Onlypult is one of the best alternatives to Hopper if your content strategy goes beyond social media networks. Besides all popular social networks, Onlypult handles content scheduling for WordPress, Medium, and Telegram.
Plus, you can take your omnichannel strategy up a notch through the following features:
Pricing: Onlypult starts at $17.5/month (billed yearly) with up to 2 users and 5 channels included.
Drawbacks: Onlypult currently lacks ideal posting time suggestions. This feature is in the works, but it will only be available for Instagram.
Plann That is an Instagram-centric alternative with loads of dedicated features. For example, its grid planner lets you plan and organize your posts, Stories, and Reels through a drag-and-drop interface.
Its Strategy planner also helps you draft future campaigns with placeholders covering various content types, like educational or promotional posts. The software also works with other social media networks—TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.
Here are some other standouts:
Pricing: Plann That starts at $12.5/user/month (billed yearly). There’s also an Instagram-only free plan available.
Drawbacks: Plann That lacks native X and Google Business Profile support, while its inbox management features are only available for Instagram.
Hootsuite is a unified social media management software with particularly powerful competitor analytics tools—something Hopper lacks.
You can benchmark yourself against multiple competitors simultaneously, and Hootsuite provides side-by-side comparisons across various metrics, including account growth and engagement, posting frequency, top posts, and more.
Hootsuite also covers the following:
Pricing: Hootsuite starts at $99/user/month (billed yearly), with a 30-day free trial available.
Drawbacks: Its high price makes Hootsuite out of reach for small businesses on a tighter budget and primarily suitable for large-scale enterprises.
Metricool, on the other hand, is a solid alternative if you’re looking to measure your marketing efforts across the web.
It pulls performance data from your social accounts, streaming networks, websites, and online advertising channels, and displays them under visual dashboards you can customize based on your needs. Plus, Metricool’s native Looker Studio lets you expand and visualize your data pool to hundreds of other sources.
Metricool also offers the following features:
Pricing: Metricool starts at $18/month (billed yearly) with a free forever version available.
Drawbacks: X integration is only possible through a paid add-on, which costs an extra $5/month.
Zoho Social is part of the Zoho ecosystem. That means you can integrate the social media management software with other solutions, like Zoho Desk for social customer support or Zoho CRM for unified sales and marketing strategies.
Plus, Zoho Social is a capable alternative on its own. Here are some of its benefits:
Pricing: Zoho’s pricing starts at $10/month (billed yearly), with a free version available.
Drawbacks: Users report that Zoho’s analytics capabilities are rather surface-level.
SocialBee’s built-in engagement tools and ample set of supported networks make it an excellent alternative if you prioritize community interactions.
The software lets you review and respond to comments, mentions, and DMs across Threads and all major networks. Plus, SocialBee’s Universal Posting feature also schedules content for networks like Reddit, Quora, and Telegram.
Here are some other handy features:
Pricing: SocialBee starts at $24/month (billed yearly), with a 14-day free trial available.
Drawbacks: SocialBee’s message inbox management tools lack sentiment analysis filtering.
Summing up, here’s a brief rundown of what each alternative is best for:
I’d say consider giving Planable a shot first. Besides top-notch content collaboration and review tools, the software offers a little bit of everything—any form of written content support, a dedicated Instagram grid planner, analytics, engagement tools, excellent customer support, you name it. Schedule your first 50 posts for free right here!
Digital marketing enthusiast, language nerd, and content writer. Horea loves writing about SaaS and anything that involves boosting online presence – from SEO to social media, web design, and more. His content is allergic to fluff and eats research for breakfast.
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