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Home › Categories › Social Media Management

Social Media Management Tools, Compared: Verified 2026 Pricing

Bill BelcaminoBy Bill Belcamino · Last updated September 19, 2026 · Our methodologyResearched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team

Side-by-side pricing for Hootsuite, Buffer and Sprout Social: entry price, free plan, how each vendor bills for AI, and the date we last checked each figure against the vendor’s own pricing page.

Social Media Management Tools, ComparedVerified Sep 19, 2026

Quick answer

  • Lowest published entry price: Buffer — Free for 3 channels; Essentials $5/channel/mo (annual). Entry prices use different billing units (per seat vs per account), so compare at your team size.
  • Free plans: Buffer (Yes — 3 channels, 1 user).

Social Media Management pricing at a glance

Every row links to the comparison where the figure was verified and to the vendor’s pricing page.

ToolEntry priceFree planAI billingG2 ratingVerifiedSource
HootsuiteStandard $99/user/mo (annual; 10 social accounts)No — 14-day free trial—4.3 / 57,452 reviewsSeptember 19, 2026in Hootsuite vs BufferVendor pricing ↗
BufferFree for 3 channels; Essentials $5/channel/mo (annual)Yes — 3 channels, 1 user—4.3 / 51,041 reviewsSeptember 19, 2026in Hootsuite vs BufferVendor pricing ↗
Sprout SocialEssentials $79/seat/mo (annual; 5 profiles)No — 30-day free trial—4.4 / 56,874 reviewsSeptember 19, 2026in Hootsuite vs Sprout SocialVendor pricing ↗

Head-to-head comparisons

Buffer vs Sprout SocialUpdated September 19, 2026Hootsuite vs BufferUpdated September 19, 2026Hootsuite vs Sprout SocialUpdated September 19, 2026

Switching guides

Buffer to HootsuiteSwitching guideBuffer to Sprout SocialSwitching guideHootsuite to BufferSwitching guideHootsuite to Sprout SocialSwitching guideSprout Social to BufferSwitching guideSprout Social to HootsuiteSwitching guide
Verified data

Social Media Management: security, offline & remote work

The social media management tools we track, side by side on compliance, single sign-on, offline access and remote or office controls. Every value links to the vendor page it came from.

What we checkedHootsuiteBufferSprout Social
Security & compliance
SOC 2 reportSOC 2 Type IIsourceNot publishedSOC 2 Type IIsource
ISO/IEC 27001CertifiedsourceNot publishedCertifiedsource
Other certificationsISO/IEC 27017, ISO/IEC 27018, ISO/IEC 27701, FedRAMP Li-SaaS, CSA STAR Level 1, UK Cyber Essentials, TX-RAMP, SOC 3sourceNot publishedISO/IEC 27701, CSA STAR Level 1, PCI DSSsource
HIPAA (BAA)Not publishedNot publishedBAA availableGuardian (add-on) for PHI collection via Secure Formssource
GDPR data processing agreementDPA offeredsourceDPA offeredsourceDPA offeredsource
Single sign-on (SAML/OIDC)YesEnterprisesourceNot publishedYessource
SCIM user provisioningNot publishedNot publishedYessource
Two-factor authenticationYessourceYesEnforcement: TeamsourceYesEnforcement: All plans (email two-step verification is enforced by default)source
Admin audit logNot publishedNot publishedYessource
Data residency choicesNot publishedUS onlysourceUS onlysource
EncryptionCustomer information encrypted at rest and in transit; TLS 1.2 or abovesourceNot publishedAES-256 or greater at rest (including backups); TLS 1.2+ in transitsource
Self-hosting optionNot publishedNot publishedNot published
Offline access
Offline modeNot documentedNot documentedNot documented
Desktop appsNot publishedNot publishedNot published
Mobile appsiOS, AndroidsourceiOS, AndroidsourceiOS, Androidsource
Remote, hybrid & in-office
IP allowlistingNot publishedNot publishedYesAdvancedsource
Device & session controlsNot publishedNot publishedNot published
Editorial assessment

What this means for your team

  • Audit reports: Hootsuite and Sprout Social state a SOC 2 report on their own site; we found no SOC 2 statement for Buffer. If your security team requires SOC 2, ask Buffer directly before shortlisting.
  • Single sign-on: Hootsuite includes it on Enterprise; Sprout Social includes it. Buffer doesn’t document single sign-on with your own identity provider. If your team signs in through Okta, Microsoft Entra ID or Google, price the plan that includes SSO, not the entry plan.
  • Health data: Sprout Social will sign a HIPAA business associate agreement (Sprout Social: Guardian (add-on) for PHI collection via Secure Forms). We found no BAA offer for Hootsuite and Buffer, so keep protected health information out of it.
  • Working offline: Hootsuite, Buffer and Sprout Social don’t document an offline mode. Details are in the Offline mode row above.
  • Office-only access: Sprout Social can restrict sign-ins to approved IP ranges on Advanced. That suits an office network or a company VPN; fully remote teams need a VPN for it to work.

Hootsuite: worth knowing

  • RemoteStandard, Professional and Advanced customers get support via help center tickets and X/Facebook, Monday to Friday business hours in several regional time zones; languages are English, Spanish and French. source

Buffer: worth knowing

  • SecurityBuffer says it is SOC 2 compliant (on a Buffer-owned blog post), without stating the report type. source
  • RemoteTeam owners and admins can require every team member to turn on two-factor authentication before using Buffer; the 2FA article says this is on the web for Team and Essentials users with Beta features enabled. source
  • RemoteBuffer recommends an authenticator app over SMS codes for people working without cell reception, for example on a plane. source
  • RemoteSupport is by email on every plan, including Free; the pricing page does not list phone or live chat. source

Sprout Social: worth knowing

  • RemoteLive phone and live chat support run 24/5 on every plan, which covers teams working across time zones on weekdays. source
  • SecurityAdmins can restrict app and API access to specific IP ranges, such as an office or VPN. source
  • RemoteIn a crisis, one button pauses all scheduled and queued messages, and it works from both the web and mobile apps. source
  • SecurityAll data is hosted in the US (AWS us-east-1 primary, us-west-2 secondary, GCP us-central1 for disaster recovery); no other region is offered. source

Checked September 19, 2026 against each vendor’s own trust center, help docs and app pages. Hover or tap “source” to see the exact wording we relied on. “Not published” means we could not find the vendor saying it on its own site — it doesn’t mean the feature is missing. Plan names are the lowest plan the vendor says includes the feature. Security · Offline · Remote vs office · Download the data

Frequently asked questions

Which social media management tool is cheapest?

Of the 3 social media management tools HelpCompare tracks, the lowest published entry price belongs to Buffer (Free for 3 channels; Essentials $5/channel/mo (annual), verified September 19, 2026). Entry prices are the cheapest paid tier each vendor publishes; the right answer at your team size depends on seat minimums and add-ons, which each head-to-head comparison breaks down.

Which social media management tools have a free plan?

Free plans: Buffer (Yes — 3 channels, 1 user).

Where does this pricing data come from?

Every figure was recorded from the vendor's own pricing page during research for a HelpCompare comparison, and is dated. The most recent check in this category was September 19, 2026. Nothing is estimated: where a vendor publishes no price, we say so. The full dataset is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 at helpcompare.com/data/.

Sources

Figures come from each vendor’s pricing page, recorded on the date shown. Download the full dataset from Open Data (JSON and CSV, CC BY 4.0).

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Bill Belcamino, founder of HelpCompare
About the author

Bill Belcamino

Founder and author, HelpCompare

Bill has worked in software and digital marketing for more than 20 years. He spent nine years as an engineer at HP, served as COO scaling a platform past 200,000 users, and ran Google’s $70M/year search syndication partnership at Alot.com. He has bought, trialled, integrated and cancelled more SaaS tools than he can count, and started HelpCompare because the real cost of switching tools is the part nobody covers.

“I’ve sat on both sides of the table: the agency recommending the tool and the client paying for it.”

Researched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team. Pricing on this page was last verified on September 19, 2026. No paid sponsorships, no affiliate commissions.

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