Best SocialPilot Alternatives: 9 Competitor Social Media Management Tools to Consider in 2024

Finding the perfect social media management tool isn’t easy. And while SocialPilot has much to offer, it might be lacking some key features for your team’s social media strategy.

In this article, you’ll find the nine best SocialPilot alternatives and how they compare.

Why should you consider SocialPilot alternatives?

SocialPilot is a social media management tool that supports social media managers to efficiently handle multiple accounts in one place. The platform allows you to group different social media accounts together, which comes in handy when you’re managing multiple clients.

With SocialPilot, you can schedule social media posts and view them in a visual calendar format, providing a clear and organized way to map out your social media presence over weeks or months. SocialPilot supports nine major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google My Business.

Despite offering strong key features, SocialPilot has several significant downsides that might have you looking for alternatives. First, let’s see how it works in the three key features you need for smooth social media management: calendar, collaboration, and approvals.

Calendar

In SocialPilot’s dashboard, you can find the Calendar under “Posts.” There are a few functions SocialPilot’s Calendar view offers:

• Four ways to view the calendar: list, day, week, and month.
• Search a post using a keyword used in it.
• Filter posts by platform.
• Select the exact day, week, or month you want to review.
• Drag and drop a specific post across different days to quickly reschedule it.

SocialPilot calendar takeaway: Overall, SocialPilot offers a robust content management calendar. However, the calendar view is buried in the posts menu, which doesn’t make it easy to get to.

Collaboration

SocialPilot’s collaboration functionality leaves room for improvement. In the critical initial drafting stage, the platform lacks a unified space for different team members to work cohesively on a draft. The post drafts have to be in a queue or already scheduled for the person with Manager role permissions to review.

The feedback system is not up to par either — there’s no option to pinpoint exact areas in the draft for feedback. And the absence of in-app notifications for comments from managers means a potential communication gap that can delay the workflow.

SocialPilot collaboration takeaway: While you can comment with your suggestions, SocialPilot’s collaboration tool lacks critical features like highlighting where those suggestions belong.

Approval

SocialPilot offers the approvals feature for Agency and Agency+ plan subscribers (not available during the free trial). If you’re a solo social media manager or work with a small team, you won’t have access to this feature.

But there’s another catch. The approvals feature is not for team collaboration; it’s for clients to approve the final drafts.

SocialPilot approval takeaway: As a social media manager, you’ll need to use other tools and systems to approve content internally. SocialPilot’s approval feature only allows client approvals.

Here’s why social media managers should consider other social media management tools than SocialPilot in 2024

• High cost: Even the basic plan on SocialPilot can be expensive compared to its alternatives. Plus, the cost for adding extra members can quickly escalate, potentially straining teams that operate on a tight budget.
• Limited collaboration functionality: The platform restricts team collaboration at the initial drafting stage, slowing down the creative process significantly.
• Feedback loop: SocialPilot doesn’t allow team members to highlight specific areas for feedback, limiting detailed and constructive discussions.

1. Planable: best social media management tool for collaboration & approval

When it comes to team collaboration, Planable takes the lead. This robust social media content management tool creates a seamless environment. With Planable, your social media team can easily brainstorm, draft, schedule, and publish all kinds of written content.

Whether you’re working on social media posts, emails, newsletters, blogs, or briefs, Planable accommodates all, allowing a harmonic workflow from inception to publishing.

Here’s what Planable’s social media management capabilities offer:

Calendar

Using the simple calendar view, you can plan and visualize all your upcoming content across different channels. Planable supports post organization and filtering through labels and gives a clear overview of whether each post is approved, scheduled, or still work in progress.

Collaboration

Planable offers a unified place where all your team members can meet to create briefs and fine-tune drafts to make content ready for automated publishing. For each piece of content, you can collaborate with your team and clients through internal notes and clear text suggestions.

Approvals

Planable lets you streamline the review process, making sure each content piece fits just right with your marketing strategy before going live. The tool shines in this aspect, supporting customizable multiple approval levels, ideal for complex social media approval processes where multiple people need to review and green light the content.

Planable supports all major marketing channels: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Pinterest, and Google My Business.

Planable comes with a free version allowing up to 50 posts in total with the full feature set, a great way to get a feel of how the platform can benefit you. When you’re ready to upgrade, Planable offers reasonable pricing starting at $11 per month per user.

While Planable also offers a social media analytics add-on (priced at $9 per workspace), which brings intuitive social insights and reports, it’s worth noting that it doesn’t include social listening or monitoring.

Planable vs SocialPilot

When evaluating SocialPilot and the best social media management tool alternatives, it’s critical to consider how they stack up against each other in real-world usage. Let’s take a look:

• Free trial

While both offer a taste before you buy, Planable pulls ahead with a free version that supports up to 50 posts. On the other hand, SocialPilot offers a 14-day free trial.

• Pricing

Planable takes an edge with a starter package that is more budget-friendly at $11 per month per user with unlimited posts, compared to SocialPilot’s starting rate of $25.50 per month for one user.

• Multiple platforms

Both tools support managing content across multiple social media accounts, making it easier to handle your marketing campaigns from a unified interface. They cover all the major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more, ensuring you can reach your audience wherever they are.

• Collaboration tool

SocialPilot’s collaboration tool, although present, lacks depth in functionality. It misses out on providing a streamlined process for team collaboration. In contrast, Planable champions in this domain, offering a collaborative space that fosters creativity and efficiency in drafting and finalizing content for marketing campaigns.

Takeaway: Planable is the best of the alternatives to SocialPilot when team collaboration is your priority.

2. Hootsuite: best social media marketing tool for analytics

Hootsuite presents itself as the go-to platform for in-depth social media analytics. With its Advanced Analytics feature, you can view paid, organic, and web metrics side by side, providing clarity at every stage of the customer journey.

Here are other key features Hootsuite offers:

• All-in-one dashboard: Manage all your social media channels in a unified tab, streamlining tasks such as scheduling, posting, and message management.
• Built-in AI integration: You can generate captions, discover content ideas, and even curate hashtags with AI.
• Content creation: Speed up your content generation process with unique tools like built-in Canva templates.

Hootsuite offers a 30-day free trial to take the platform for a test run. If you decide it meets your needs, the pricing starts at $99 per month for a single user, billed annually. You can expect to pay $249 per month for a team of three.

While Hootsuite offers robust features and supports most social media platforms, it might be expensive for many – especially for small businesses and agencies that run on tight budgets. On the other hand, it might be a great fit for enterprise-level businesses and digital agencies whose priority is social media analytics.

For those who’ve tested Hootsuite, here’s a comprehensive rundown of alternatives to Hootsuite to explore.

Hootsuite vs SocialPilot

Takeaway: Hootsuite is a better social media management tool than SocialPilot for detailed social media analytics.

3. Sprout Social: best for social listening

Sprout Social, standing out among the best alternatives to SocialPilot, offers the unique feature of social listening. Using its robust tools, you can tap into what your audience is truly passionate about, turning social media conversations into actionable business insights.

For example, you can effortlessly track particular discussions, such as those revolving around “espresso” for a coffee company.

Sprout Social offers a 30-day free trial for you to test the platform. The standard plan is $249 per month, with an additional $199 per month for each extra user, allowing up to five social media profiles. The next tier is available for unlimited profiles at $399 per month, plus $299 per month for each additional user.

Due to its high price, Sprout Social might not be a good fit for social media marketing agencies or teams with limited budgets.

Sprout Social vs SocialPilot

Takeaway: Sprout Social is better than SocialPilot for social listening.

4. Buffer: best low-budget social media publishing tool

Buffer is a social media marketing software that helps you plan, collaborate, and publish engaging content.

With Buffer, you can also swiftly navigate and engage with your audience’s comments and analyze your social media performance to create detailed reports. Buffer’s AI assistant helps generate ideas, repurpose posts, and rewrite copy with just a click. It also allows you to build a customized landing page in a matter of minutes.

Buffer offers a tiered pricing structure to cater to businesses and teams of all sizes:

• The free version includes planning and automated publishing tools and supports up to three channels. It also includes a landing page builder and AI assistant.
• The Essentials plan, at $5/month per channel, introduces engagement tools and analytics reports.
• The Team plan, at $10/month per channel, facilitates collaboration with unlimited team members and includes draft collaboration tools.
• The Agency plan, at $100/month for 10 channels, extends the Team plan features with custom access and permissions.

Given that pricing is contingent on the number of channels linked, costs can accumulate quickly if you’re overseeing multiple social media marketing platforms.

Buffer vs SocialPilot

Takeaway: Buffer is among the best SocialPilot alternatives for social media marketing teams with tight budgets.

5. Agorapulse: best for unified inbox feature

Agorapulse is a social media management tool that centralizes incoming messages from multiple accounts into a unified social inbox. With its Inbox Assistant, you can keep your inbox clean and organized.

Beyond streamlined communications, it offers intuitive publishing, social listening to track brand and competitor trends, actionable analytics, and a distinct feature to measure social media ROI without deep diving into Google Analytics. The tool is best for businesses aiming to consolidate their social interactions and gauge direct returns from their efforts.

Agorapulse offers various pricing options to cater to different business needs. It provides a free plan that supports three social profiles and one user, with allowances for 10 scheduled posts, basic social inbox functionality, and basic reporting. If you’re looking to explore more features, paid plans start at $49 per user per month (billed annually), accommodating 10 social profiles with the option to add more at $10/month each. All paid plans come with a 30-day free trial.

A notable drawback is that collaboration tools are not available in the Free and Standard plans. To access these key features, you need to upgrade to the Professional plan, which is priced at $79 per user per month.

Agorapulse vs SocialPilot

Takeaway: Agorapulse is one of the best alternatives to SocialPilot if you’re looking to manage social media inboxes in one place.

6. Social Champ: best for startups and entrepreneurs

Social Champ is a go-to social media marketing software tailored for startups, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and entrepreneurs. It streamlines content marketing, allowing you to efficiently publish, schedule, and analyze content across multiple social platforms.

What’s unique about the platform is that it offers VistaCreate, Wave, and Canva integrations that enable users to set up content for automated publishing seamlessly.

The free plan supports three social accounts, allows for unlimited scheduling, and accommodates one user. Paid plans start at $26 per month for 12 social accounts for two users.

Social Champ vs SocialPilot

Takeaway: Social Champ is better social media tool than SocialPilot for startups and entrepreneurs seeking to affordably schedule posts across multiple social media accounts.

7. Sendible: best for content discovery and bulk scheduling

Sendible stands out as the go-to platform for content discovery and bulk scheduling. It empowers you to efficiently find engaging content and plan a month’s worth of posts in minutes. You can leverage the platform’s dashboard holiday calendar and Google Alerts for a treasure trove of post ideas.

The marketing software now also comes with a built-in image editor to tailor visuals from GIPHY, Pexels, or Canva for each platform. The service facilitates a more streamlined workflow, helping you reach your social media goals without missing a beat.

You can try Sendible with a 14-day free trial. After that, Sendible pricing starts at $25 per month for one user, allowing you to manage up to six social profiles. You’d be paying $76 per month for a team of four with up to 24 social profiles to manage.

Sendible vs SocialPilot

Takeaway: Sendible is among the best alternatives to SocialPilot, especially if you’re focused on discovering fresh content ideas and scheduling posts in bulk.

8. Loomly: best for creative content generation

Loomly is a social media management software designed to save time through a range of key features throughout, including a centralized content library where you can manage all your assets and create posts. It stands out with its Post Ideas feature, providing inspiration when you’re stuck on post creation. Additionally, the social media management platform also fosters teamwork through collaboration tools, ensuring smooth workflow and cohesive content output.

Loomly’s base pricing starts at $26/month, accommodating two users and allowing management of up to 10 social media accounts.

Loomly vs SocialPilot

Takeaway: Loomly is better than SocialPilot for creative post content generation and collaboration.

9. Later: best for driving followers to your website

Later provides an all-in-one solution to streamline your social media management process. It stands out for brands looking to convert followers into customers through key features like Linkin.bio. This feature helps you drive direct traffic from your Instagram and TikTok bios to your website or online store.

Later’s pricing begins at $20.83 per month when billed yearly. It includes one full social media tool set that encompasses various platforms – Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, and LinkedIn. This starter plan allows one user to manage the account, with a limit of 30 posts per social profile each month.

Later vs SocialPilot

Takeaway: Later is better than SocialPilot for small businesses focused on converting Instagram and TikTok followers into customers through direct traffic tools like Linkin.bio.

FAQs about SocialPilot

What is better than SocialPilot?

Planable is better than SocialPilot in terms of collaboration features. If social listening is your priority, consider Sprout Social; Agorapulse is a strong alternative for centralized inbox and contact management too.

Is there a free alternative to SocialPilot?

Yes. Planable offers a free plan that includes 50 total posts and unlimited experience with no time limit. After exhausting the 50-post allowance, plans start as low as $11/month.

Is Hootsuite better than SocialPilot?

Yes and no. Hootsuite offers better integration options and has been a reliable option in the industry for a longer time, providing robust analytics and reporting features. However, SocialPilot is generally more affordable and offers a user-friendly interface, which might be better suited for smaller businesses or startups.