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Planable is the best client-facing social media tool we've ever used and we've used a lot.
Social CRM is your ticket to high-quality real-time engagement with customers, on the platforms where they already hang out. You'll get solid data on behavior and sentiment with unprecedented granularity. Social CRM tools empower sales and marketing teams to deliver a...
Jun 26, 2025
Posting content is just one part of social media marketing. Social media managers must also listen to what their audiences say, get actively involved, and respond to feedback — that’s what makes brands stand out and worth connecting with. Still, managing comments is not so easy without dedicated social inbox tools, especially if you manage multiple social media accounts.
That’s why I’ll walk you through some of the best inbox tools currently available.
The new Engagement feature in Planable makes managing multi-channel comments just as easy as handling content on the platform. So keep on reading to see how it works.
A social inbox tool unifies cross-channel social interactions by pulling comments, reviews, brand mentions, and DMs from multiple channels and displaying them within a unified inbox. Social media managers can then respond to and moderate these messages.
This helps identify and address feedback and ensure a healthy presence across multiple platforms via continuous audience interactions.
The social inboxes I’m about to cover are part of larger social media management tools, allowing you to schedule social media posts, collaborate on content, and track performance across multiple accounts.
Still, each social media tool is designed for particular use cases. That said, I’ll show you what each platform’s inbox is best for and how it contributes to more efficient social media management workflows across the board.
Planable’s social media engagement tools let you reply, react, and delete comments across Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn from a single inbox.
It’s all available in the exact same place where you plan and create your posts.
Keep the conversation flowing by replying to social comments right inside Planable’s platform.
That means you can manage content and respond to incoming comments under each particular post without going back and forth between tabs. This is ideal for maintaining focus and preventing brain fatigue from continuous context switching.
Plus, you can view open, ongoing, and resolved messages through dedicated status tabs to get more granular.
Track and respond to customer feedback in real-time with Planable’s organized social inbox view.
For faster responses, the Reply with AI feature generates instant draft replies you can either customize or post immediately, making it possible to engage with your audience in seconds.
And with built-in sentiment analysis, comments are automatically categorized into Negative, Questions, and Positive tabs, helping you prioritize critical feedback or unanswered questions first.
Coupled with the platform’s content planning, approval, and collaboration features, Planable makes workloads shrink and speeds up social media management processes.
You can schedule one post, approve and roll out the other, and respond to comments from published content while you’re at it — all in the same interface.
Here are Planable’s other core features:
Planable lets you set up workspaces dedicated to each client, brand, or project. This is where you can plan, create, and manage content, as well as view your incoming comments.
You can also add team members and external stakeholders and assign custom roles and permissions.
Assign custom roles and control access for your team within your Planable social inbox workspace.
In Planable, you can collaborate on posts and social messages and leave precise feedback through in-context comments, clear text suggestions, and annotations.
You can also hide feedback (or entire posts) from clients through internal notes and posts.
Collaborate on content and gather team feedback before publishing directly from your social inbox.
These features ensure your content is as polished as possible before reaching the client.
If you really want to step up content quality, however, you can set up custom approval workflows — multi-level approvals being the highlight here.
Manage content approvals with Planable’s multi-level workflow built directly into the social inbox.
In short, this feature spreads the review process across multiple levels. Content must pass through each layer before reaching the client.
Consistent engagement is a must if you want to build a loyal social media community, and with Planable’s mobile app, you can maintain it on the go.
Manage posts and respond to feedback on the go with Planable’s mobile-friendly social inbox.
You can create, approve, and schedule posts, leave feedback, and reply to social comments directly from your iOS or Android device. It’s perfect for keeping the wheel spinning even when you’re out of the office or outside office hours.
Planable’s calendar dashboard lets you view all your planned and already-published posts.
Organize your publishing strategy with Planable’s calendar view integrated into your social inbox.
This is also where you have access to the platform’s unified inbox. Simply zoom in on a particular post to see all of its comments and spot content that needs extra engagement.
As for planning, the platform’s drag-and-drop interface, color-coded labels, and multi-network scheduling make the process straightforward and fast.
Last but not least, with Planable’s Universal Content tool, you create and plan content outside social media networks — blogs, newsletters, ad copy, you name it.
You can also use the Campaigns feature to organize and track multi-channel marketing campaigns.
You can schedule your first 50 posts free of charge. After that, paid plans start at $33 per user per month (billed annually).
Drawbacks: Planable’s engagement tools only handle comments — the platform doesn’t currently support brand mentions and reviews.
Hootsuite is a unified social media management software with solid inbox management capabilities.
The platform’s automated DMs send canned responses to users who include particular keywords when commenting on your social posts.
Automate Instagram replies and boost engagement using Hootsuite’s social inbox automation.
This feature is handy for addressing common pricing or product-related questions. It also helps turn leads into qualified prospects by allowing you to message them directly.
Hootsuite also automates:
Plus, the platform’s social media inboxes include internal contact notes, agent collision detection, and cross-channel conversation history.
Coupled with Hootsuite’s automation features, the platform is perfect for social customer support teams managing large numbers of conversations.
Pricing: Hootsuite’s inbox management features are available starting from the Standard plan — $99 per user per month (annual billing). There’s also a 30-day free trial available.
Drawbacks: Hootsuite’s Standard plan is limited to five social accounts.
Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox pulls in brand mentions, comments, and DMs from multiple social media accounts and displays them under a unified dashboard.
The platform’s Real-Time Activity Chart and ample filter set help social media teams synchronize and organize their workflows.
Prioritize, tag, and manage social inbox interactions across platforms with Sprout Social.
Sprout Social provides a real-time overview of all incoming and resolved messages.
Its advanced filters let you sort and address messages by channel, message type, language, and more.
Plus, Sprout Social helps social customer care teams:
Track individual customer profiles along with notes, extra contact details, and conversation histories via the Customer Profile View. Support teams can interact with customers under each particular profile.
Manage customer support cases through a built-in case management system. Prioritize cases by type, urgency, or custom tags, and set up routing workflows to distribute cases among team members.
Keep track of mentions cross multiple social media accounts and review platforms like Yelp and Google Business Profile, and identify critical feedback through the platform’s sentiment analysis and social listening tools.
Other notable features include chatbot builders, automated CSAT and NPS surveys, and Message Spike Alerts, which notify team members whenever there’s a surge in social mentions.
Pricing: Sprout Social has a starting price tag of $199 per user per month (billed annually). You can also try the platform for free for up to 30 days.
Drawbacks: Otherwise basic features like message tagging and saved replies are locked behind upper-tier packages.
Buffer is simple yet effective. The platform pulls in comments across Facebook pages and Instagram and displays them under a unified inbox.
Its Smart Alerts feature automatically detects and prioritizes comments that include questions or negative sentiment.
Quickly respond to customer comments and concerns with Buffer’s real-time social inboxing tools.
Buffer’s social media management tools also help small businesses:
Plus, Buffer is handy for content curation — its native Pocket, Feedly, and WordPress integrations let you share posts from these platforms to your social networks.
Pricing: Buffer’s inbox tools are available in the entry-level paid plan — $5 per channel per month (annual billing). There’s also a free plan that allows you to schedule up to 10 posts at a time.
Drawbacks: Buffer’s inbox management tools are only available for Facebook and Instagram. Unlike other tools in this list, Buffer only tracks comments, and not social mentions.
Sprinklr offers an enterprise-grade social media management platform with highly capable social media listening and engagement tools.
Its omnichannel inbox monitors comments, mentions, and DMs across all popular social networks, as well as review sites like Yelp and TrustPilot.
Personalize your social inbox responses using customer history and previous interactions with Sprinklr.
Sprinklr is an excellent option for large-scale companies looking to step up their reputation management workflows. Coupled with its AI-powered sentiment analysis and cross-channel CSAT surveys, it offers powerful tools for monitoring and improving brand perception.
As for social inbox-specific features, Sprinklr helps:
On top of this, Sprinklr’s higher-tier pricing packages also include extra reputation management-specific features, like crisis prediction and cross-channel brand monitoring.
Pricing: Subscription packages start at $199 per user per month (billed annually). You can also try Sprinklr for free for up to 30 days.
Drawbacks: The platform is quite complex — team members may require extensive training.
Agorapulse tracks reviews, DMs, and comments across all popular social networks. The platform stands out through its Inbox Assistant.
It keeps your comments section and internal inbox clean through a straightforward rule-based automation builder.
Monitor and manage all your brand mentions and messages from a centralized social inbox.
You can have it delete spam comments containing links across your socials, or prioritize question-based messages in your inbox, for example.
Agorapulse’s inbox management tools are also super handy to:
Besides messages from organic posts, Agorapulse also tracks ad comments across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Pricing: Agorapulse’s inbox management tools are available in the platform’s paid entry-level plan, which starts at $79 per user per month (annual billing). You can also try it for free for up to 30 days.
Drawbacks: Although the platform does integrate with HubSpot CRM and Salesforce, this feature is strictly available in custom pricing packages.
Pallyy’s social media tools let you schedule posts, track owned and competitor accounts, and monitor comments within a straightforward interface.
Alongside comments and DMs, Pallyy’s centralized social inbox also tracks Instagram Story mentions, as well as Facebook and Google Business Profile reviews.
Simplify social media management by replying to all messages in one unified social inbox with Pallyy.
The platform’s pay-as-you-go model also makes it a cost-effective solution for micro-businesses and solopreneurs. You can pay per social set.
It includes one social profile for each network, while the social inbox integrates with Instagram, Facebook, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
Plus, Pallyy helps:
The platform also lets you collaborate on social content through comments and approvals.
Pricing: Pallyy’s social inbox is available in the platform’s paid package — it starts at $20 per social set per month (billed annually), with a 14-day free trial available.
Drawbacks: Pallyy doesn’t include any other integrations outside social networks. Although the Platform also supports YouTube, X, Threads, and Pinterest, the social inbox is not compatible with these networks.
And there you have it — Pallyy and Buffer are excellent social media tools for small businesses and solopreneurs thanks to their affordable pricing.
On the other hand, Sprinklr and Sprout Social are solid choices for larger companies that prioritize social customer care.
Hootsuite’s automation tools make inbox management easy, and Agorapulse’s workflows are perfect for cross-network moderation.
Planable, however, fully integrates inbox management into your day-to-day social media efforts.
The platform’s inbox is readily available through the dashboard, with no separate tabs needed — moderating and responding to comments feels a lot more natural and productive.
Plus, Planable’s message status tags help keep track of ongoing conversations and reply just in time. So why not give it a spin and see for yourself? Try Planable for free!
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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