We’ve come a long way since managing our social media profiles on Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. In a little over a decade, we have seen hundreds of social media monitoring platforms arrive and find their place in different industries, making the lives of social media managers everywhere much easier.
With all of the options available out there, how do you choose the best platform for your brand? For us, it was all about choosing the right tools for our social listening efforts, giving us immediate access to what people were saying about our clients. We also took into consideration the type of API access that the platforms had. API access is the way for these social media monitoring platforms to pull information from the social media accounts you’re monitoring. Many social media platforms have exposed their APIs, allowing developers to easily integrate their features into social media management tools.
The cost of social media monitoring tools vary depending on the type of features available. We’ve rounded up some social media monitoring tools with listening and API access capabilities to fit every budget and help you make your decision.
Buffer
Buffer is an affordable, social media content scheduling platform that helps manage multiple social media profiles. With Buffer, social media managers can schedule content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Buffer’s organized dashboard allows users to engage with replies from a shared inbox, and to easily filter through the important conversations. Some of Buffer’s benefits include API Access, creating a custom schedule for each platform, planning content ahead of schedule, sharing articles through the Buffer browser extension, native video and GIF support,scheduling retweets, and more.
Buffer’s Publish platform has three pricing structures, Pro at $15 per month, Premium at $65 per month, and Business at $99 per month. As the price increases, so does the number of scheduled posts, social accounts, and users. Additionally, Buffer’s Analyze platform which provides social analytics has two plans to choose from, the Pro at $35 per month, and Premium at $50 per month. Users can test Buffer’s Publish and Analyze tools for 14 days at no cost before signing up.
AgoraPulse
Psst! You hear that? That is the sound of AgoraPulse’s social listening capabilities! The social media management tool combines social monitoring with listening, notifying you of every brand mention. Currently, AgoraPulse supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. The platform’s features seem endless in addition to scheduling and publishing, from the ability to invite teammates and leave internal notes for them, to unlimited listening searches, to tracking customer history. As of March of this year, AgoraPulse has the capability to post directly to Instagram, just like they’ve been able to do with Facebook and Twitter content.
Additionally, AgoraPulse offers free social media marketing tools and can assist in helping you find influencers. The platform’s Medium plan costs $79 per month if you set up an annual and can support 10 social profiles and two users. If you choose to pay in monthly installments, the same plan costs $99 per month. For those not convinced yet, there is a 28-day trial available.
Sprout Social
Now we’re really getting to the crème de la crème. One of our favorites, Sprout Social is a social media monitoring, marketing and analytics platform that supports Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google My Business reviews, and TripAdvisor reviews. It’s powerful listening tool tracks brand-relevant conversations and monitors consumer sentiment, to help users guide future actions.
Sprout Social comes equipped with an all-in-one social Smart Inbox that is populated with messages and comments from a company’s multiple social media profiles. Using this platform allows users to generate reports, assign tasks to your colleagues, and schedule future posts. The Standard plan costs $99 per month and includes 5 social media profiles, one user, social content calendars, review management, keyword monitoring, paid promotion tools, and more. Similar to its competitors, Sprout Social is offering a 30-day free trial.
TrueSocialMetrics
While TrueSocialMetrics’ basic plan can only monitor three Facebook accounts, three Twitter accounts, and three YouTube accounts, it more than makes up for it by allowing clients three user accounts and competitive analyses. Users can compare the performance and economic value for all social media accounts, analyze visitor trends, review engagement rates, generate reports and compare your social media performance with industry standards.
TrueSocialMetrics’ most popular plan, perfect for small agencies and mid-sized companies, is Medium at $100 per month. This plan includes 10 Twitter accounts, 10 Facebook accounts, 10 blogs, 10 YouTube accounts, 10 LinkedIn accounts, 10 Tumblr accounts, 10 SlideShare accounts, 10 Vimeo accounts, and 10 Pinterest pages. The basic account sets users back $30 per month. TrueSocialMetrics is offering a 30-day free trial.
Quintly
Trusted by companies like Fender, Adobe, Coca-Cola and T-Mobile, it is hard to imagine why you wouldn’t choose Quintly. The platform provides analytics for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, and blogs, and extensive API access. Quintly’s minimalist interface allows users to easily navigate the platform and enjoy its many features including social media benchmarking tools, allowing them to review their analytics reports and compare them to their competitors.
Quintly’s custom plans start at $300 a month and include access to advanced analytics, reporting, customization, dedicated support, API integrations, and more. Every plan includes a free trial and access to all core features.
Socialbakers
Socialbakers is ready to step up to the challenge. The AI-powered social media platform is set up to cover every imaginable need your marketing team should encounter from discovering your marketing personas, where to invest your money for best results, content strategy, listening to trends, influencer marketing, social media management, reporting, extract data from the API, and more.
The $200 per month essential plan, designed for teams of up to five, comes with 10 profiles. The essential plan with 20 profiles is priced at $400 per month. Both plans come with the same features, so essentially you’re paying for the additional 10 profiles. There are also custom solutions available, no matter the size of your team. If you’re interested in taking this baby out for a spin, you can request a consultation before purchasing.
Brandwatch
Hey yo, rich boy check! Brandwatch is one of the leading tools for social media analytics, tracking conversations on social media and across the web everyday. It isn’t a platform for scheduling and posting. Brandwatch offers four separate platforms, including Consumer Research, Audiences, Vizia for data visualization, and Qriously, for market research. Brandwatch crawls the internet, while archiving and gathering data from 100 million sources in 27 languages, making sure every mention of your brand is accounted for.
If you have to ask what the cost is, you can’t afford it. Pricing for Brandwatch is available upon request, however, according to a 2019 article on PCMag.com, the social media tool’s monthly fee begins at $1,000 smackaroos for 10,000 mentions. The company wouldn’t provide them with exact pricing but said that costs go up in relation to volume. We’re not even sure if you can take this baby out for a test drive, but you can certainly book a demonstration.
