The Main Differences Between Later vs Smintly vs Sprout Social

Later vs Smintly vs Sprout Social
Later vs Smintly vs Sprout Social

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Most small and medium-sized businesses (and big enterprises) use social media as one of their crucial marketing platforms alongside SEM and SEO. Leading platforms like Meta (formerly Facebook), Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest have great market potential.

These platforms have billions of users combined. Managing all these platforms simultaneously can be an absolute nightmare. Just imagine how long it’ll take to upload a single post to all social media platforms (assuming you’ll do it without any errors).

Beyond management, you need to know whether you are crushing your social media goals. It’s practically only possible to proceed with using social media management tools. However, settling for the proper social media management tool takes work – many of them are available today.

Luckily, we’ve prepared a comprehensive comparison of three of the most popular social media management tools – Later vs. Smintly vs. Sprout Social. Let’s dive right in!

Later vs Smintly vs Sprout Social

Later Social Media Management

Later allows you to manage leading social media platforms like Meta, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. Later is an ideal social media management tool for freelancers, SMBs, and big enterprises. Later claims that it has seven million active users.

Later’s developers have worked extra hard to ensure you can monitor your social network’s progress anywhere at any time. You can access the platform through its web version or download its mobile apps, which are available for Android and iOS.

Later makes its mission clear when you visit its website, “Social Media Management Made Easy.” The platform helps you grow your business by enabling you to save a lot of time (and energy) on multi-account management.

It helps you schedule posts across your social media accounts on different platforms. It also gives you good hashtag suggestions and the best times to post content to help you get more organic traffic.

Core Features:

Social networking service

  • Schedule Instagram Reels – you already know by now that Instagram is a compelling visual storyteller. Later allows you to schedule Instagram reels and post them later when your target audience is most likely active. This ingenious design also enables you to moderate and engage with your audience.
  • Auto-publish content – you can also auto-publish content to different social media platforms using Later. You’ll only need to schedule the post for auto-posting and then set the time you’d want the system to auto-publish.
  • Analytics – Using the analytics tool, you can measure the level of engagement your post has received. It gives you accurate insights and reports to understand what works best for your business and which content your target audience resonates with the most.
  • Multi-user collaboration – Multi-user collaboration is essential in helping you achieve an objective when working with a team. You can delegate work to different team members and monitor their activities to enable you to achieve the same goal.
  • Calendar management – Proper planning helps you execute your goals more efficiently. Later allows you to plan and auto-publish content from a central calendar. The best part is that you can schedule content for auto-posting across different social media platforms and time zones.

Pricing

Being a SaaS platform, Later has three main pricing options. It is, however, essential to note that Later offers a free version with basic features. The free version allows you to test the platform, which is vital before settling for a paid plan. Check out the three paid options:

  • Starter – The Starter option is ideal for people or businesses just starting on social media. It comes with a 14-day free trial period and allows a maximum of one user and one social set.
  • Growth – The Growth option is ideal for upcoming brands and businesses requiring team collaboration. This option also comes with a 14-day free trial period, allowing a maximum of three users and three social sets.
  • Advanced – the Advanced option is the most expensive and ideal for managing multiple brands or businesses. Like Starter and Growth, it also comes with a 14-day free trial period, allowing a maximum of six users and six social sets.

Note: Later has a special affiliation with Instagram, as the platform was recently accepted into the Instagram Partner Program. This means Later has some additional features that work best with Instagram.

Smintly Social Media Management

Smintly is another SaaS social media management platform enabling you to manage your social media accounts. Smintly makes its mission clear when you visit its website; “Manage all Social Media Accounts in One Place“.

This platform allows you to streamline your social media activities to enable you to grow your business. Smintly has excellent features, some of which allow you to trace your brand mentions on popular social platforms.

Businesswoman working on a laptop in a car

It is ideal for businesses that want to grow their organic traffic on popular search engines and track their position on SERPs. Smintly is additionally suitable for businesses that want growth in sales. Beyond tracking brand mentions, Smintly allows you to engage with your customers.

It is an ingenious design that helps you grow your brand or business. Remember, potential leads and existing customers feel cared for and comfortable when their queries or complaints get answered quickly.

Core Features:

  • Tracking brand mentions – this feature is essential, especially for growing businesses. Seeing where and how your brand is being mentioned is crucial because it helps you know how to engage with potential leads and existing customers. The best part about using this feature is how well it connects and monitors your brand’s or business’s reviews on Google Analytics.
  • Social Media Management – Smintly allows you to manage your social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Google+). You can also craft the ideal social media posts for these platforms and automatically respond to tweets.
  • Audience engagement – Smintly’s auto-reply feature helps you engage with your leads and existing customers. This feature also allows you to track your leads’ activities which helps you know when to post a compelling post that will close the deal. It additionally enables you to make more sales by tracking your existing customers’ activities.
  • Schedule and post content remotelyYou can easily schedule when you want to post pre-written content to your multiple social media accounts. You can further track the performance of your posts by using the Analytics and Reporting tool.
  • The most outstanding feature is contact management which enables you to save your customers’ names, addresses, and social media handles.

Serious puzzled young manager working on contemporary laptop

Pricing

Like Later, Smintly has three paid plans – Basic, Standard, and Enterprise. It also has a free version that allows you to explore the platform before settling for a paid plan.

  • Basic – This is the cheapest paid plan that allows a maximum of one user account. It also allows a maximum brand reputation monitoring of three keywords. This plan has limited features – it lacks Twitter marketing tools, multi-account management, and team collaboration.
  • Standard – This plan is a bit more expensive than the Basic plan. It has an additional feature – Twitter marketing tools. Unfortunately, it does not have multi-account management and team collaboration.
  • Enterprise – This is the most expensive plan with unlimited features. It is ideal for almost everyone – the pricing is a bit fair. You can use this plan to grow your business as it supports multi-account management and team collaboration. It also has unlimited brand reputation monitoring.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is, yet again, another powerful social media management tool. Beyond social media management, this platform provides marketing, customer care, employee advocacy, and data & intelligence.

Sprout Social’s development team has put a lot of work into ensuring this tool is suitable for SMBs and large enterprise businesses. It is designed to help you streamline social media management activities on popular social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Core Features:

  • Scheduling and publishing – This all-in-one platform allows you to schedule pre-written content for publishing at the time of your choice.
  • Team collaboration – team collaboration is an essential feature, especially for digital marketing teams. This feature will enable you to coordinate with your team and achieve your online engagement goals.
  • Analytics – Knowing how well your posted content performs on different social platforms is essential. Sprout Social’s analytics tool provides accurate results, enabling you to make decisions based on the data you receive.
  • Competitor comparisonAnalyzing your competitors enables you to identify industry gaps and understand evolving customer needs. This feature also helps you make solid marketing decisions. As a result, you grow your business by making more sales.

Pricing

Sprout Social has four paid plans. Similar to Later and Smintly, it also has a free trial version, enabling you to explore the platform before settling for a paid plan.

  • Standard – this is the cheapest paid platform that allows a maximum of five social profiles. It also has the necessary tools ideal for basic social media management. This plan is ideal for businesses just starting on social media.
  • Professional – This paid plan has all the features included in the Standard plan and additional features, e.g., unlimited social profiles. It is the most popular plan, and Sprout recommends it for growing businesses.
  • Advanced – This plan has all the features included in the Professional plan with additional features, e.g., automated chatbots, automated link tracking, etc. This plan is ideal for growing businesses seeking to become large enterprises.
  • Enterprise – This plan has unlimited features that are ideal for large enterprises. You can also have customized features such as premium analytics to help you measure success, employee advocacy solutions allowing you to enhance your organic campaign, etc.

Chatbot conversation on smartphone screen app interface

Later vs Smintly vs Sprout Social: Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureLaterSmintlySprout Social
PricingFree trial with three paid plansFree trial with three paid plansFree trial with four paid plans
Social media platforms supportedInstagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, and PinterestFacebook, Twitter & Google+Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, and Reddit
Calendar Management
Automated Publishing
Real-time analytics
Analytics and Reporting
Customer engagement
Engagement tracking
Team collaborationAvailable on the Enterprise plan only
Multi-account management𝙭
Brand tracking𝙭
Content management and library
Data import and export
Ecommerce integration𝙭𝙭𝙭
Customized features𝙭𝙭

Wrap Up on Later vs Smintly vs Sprout Social

Later vs. Smintly vs. Sprout Social – all these platforms are suitable for social media management and business growth. However, each platform has unique benefits which will enable you to grow your social media audience.

Consider a platform’s features before settling for any. Doing so will enable you to determine the ideal pricing that will help you streamline your social media activities.