Buffer vs. Hootsuite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Buffer
Score 8.4 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Buffer is a social sharing tool. When browsing content, clicking on the Buffer icon automatically stores the content and schedules posts to social media channels throughout the day.
$0
Hootsuite
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Hootsuite is a social media management platform for building brand awareness, engaging with customers, and driving business results. Users can schedule posts across multiple social networks (including Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube ), manage organic and paid social content together, keep track of customer conversations, integrate with over 200+ applications, and gain actionable real-time insights from social media to make critical business decisions from…
$99
per month (billed annually) Starts at 1 user, 10 social accounts
Pricing
BufferHootsuite
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Essentials
$6
per month per channel
Team
$12
per month per channel
Standard
$99
per month (billed annually) Starts at 1 user, 10 social accounts
Advanced
$249
per month (billed annually) Starts at 1 user, unlimited social accounts
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BufferHootsuite
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsA discount is offered for annual billing.Plans can be paid monthly or annually, with a discount for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BufferHootsuite
Features
BufferHootsuite
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.6
Ratings
7% above category average
Hootsuite
7.6
Ratings
6% below category average
Content planning and scheduling9.00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Content optimization8.00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Workflow management8.80 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Audience targeting00 Ratings6.60 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.3
Ratings
5% above category average
Hootsuite
8.0
Ratings
1% above category average
Campaign success analytics8.30 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Real-time tracking00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Competitor analysis00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
9.0
Ratings
12% above category average
Hootsuite
7.7
Ratings
4% below category average
Role-based user permissions & privileges9.00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Mobile access9.00 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Hootsuite
6.6
Ratings
16% below category average
Boolean keyword searches00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam00 Ratings5.80 Ratings
Sentiment analysis00 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Broad channel coverage00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Hootsuite
7.7
Ratings
3% below category average
Automated routing and prioritization00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Customer interaction histories00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Bulk actions00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Hootsuite
7.5
Ratings
3% below category average
Lead generation00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Content marketing00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Paid media management00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Hootsuite
9.2
Ratings
9% above category average
Twitter00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Facebook00 Ratings9.70 Ratings
LinkedIn00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Google+00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Instagram00 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Pinterest00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
YouTube00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BufferHootsuite
Small Businesses
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.4 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BufferHootsuite
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(0 ratings)
9.8
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.8
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.1
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
7.2
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BufferHootsuite
Likelihood to Recommend
It is a very interesting tool for entrepreneurs or CEOs of startups who do not have much time to manage social media communication and also have few resources at the beginning of their venture. It can also be convenient for small companies that do not have specific personnel with training in community management and require easy-to-use tools to carry out the basic actions of scheduled publication on social media.
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Hootsuite is a great tool and we prefer it to some of the others out there. The only negative is the price point and the fact that it keeps going up with no regard to the small non-profits that have been using it for years. After mentioning that the system is great and the fact that we can integrate and customize the posting for each social media site without having to be jumping from one system to the other makes it ideal for a small team doing multiple projects or things at the same time.
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Pros
  • I can plan and publish content on social channels.
  • Buffer's interface is quite tidy and generates the necessary facilities to save us time in publishing consistent content.
  • It has a special price; it is pretty affordable.
  • It has the possibility of integrating with other tools to improve its functions.
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  • The product has a really interactive media library which is very helpful even when we are out of images.
  • Customer support of this tool is also very understandable and interactive due to which the experience goes very smoothly.
  • It would not be wrong to say that the usability of this product is one of the greatest strengths of Hootsuite.
  • With this tool modification of scheduled posts is just so simple and easy to do which yields great results as well.
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Cons
  • Analytics-- The analytics on the Pro plan are limited at best. You can simply review your posts from the past 30 days, but you can't access any analysis (or even simple tallying of Likes, Shares, etc.) without upgrading to the Premium or Business plans, which are otherwise more than we need at the moment.
  • Publish+Reply+Analyze-- It's a bit tedious to have these basic social media functions/tools separated out as three distinct products, as well as overkill for a small nonprofit without a dedicated social media team. I imagine each tool is good at its job if you need 'em.
  • Linking to Accounts-- Buffer seems to lose touch with Facebook and LinkedIn somewhat frequently. It's vaguely annoying but very simple to fix, so I just roll with it.
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  • Because of the way algorithms works, we would have loved to be able to automate making a post with no link and posting the first comment with a link (hello LinkedIn)
  • We would have loved an easy way to post from a main account and repost the post for other accounts we administrate, for instance a corporate post reposted by individuals for LinkedIn, or retweets from one main account by child accounts
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Likelihood to Renew
Ease of use, affordability, time saved and just love for the app and the team. It's not a miracle tool that will suddenly increase your company's value or leads, you still need to put in quality posts, thoughts and content but when used regularly and with thought, you'll be happy in the long run
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At this time we are satisfied that Hootsuite offers the most of what we are looking for at the most reasonable price point. As the social media landscape and monitoring/scheduling software changes, so do our needs. We re-evaluate our tools semi-annually or as new tools emerge onto the market. If we find at any point that we aren't gaining an advantage, then we are open to switching products.
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Usability
Easy enough to use even my boss got it right away. It helps to off-set the workload to less active times, and we can preschedule way in advance, which also helps to keep the team on track as we know what we have planned and want to reach our milestones before posts go online.
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Hootsuite is probably the easiest to use social media scheduler of all the ones that I've used. It's been easy to teach clients how to use the software themselves and it can be accessed easily on anyone's phone through their mobile app. Highly recommend for anyone that wants a software that is easy to learn!
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Reliability and Availability
Buffer is always on hand and very reliable, their software suite rarely has outages
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Gliches have made it a bit of a bind, particularly when you just want to 'click and send' a web article after you have read it - and then you have to deal with support (a great team but not always able to solve the problems with the gliches). Gliches with it loading properly, gliches with 'double ups in FB on the posts (the personal page and the business page if both clicked will lead to 2 lots of postings to each page!)
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Performance
Buffer performs well on both desktop and mobile platforms. The one area as I have stated before is that it does not always want to automatically push to Instagram and the user will have to go do it manually. Buffer works very well pushing to other platforms. The instagram issue is the only reason buffer does not get a 10 on this section
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HootSuite does everything it is designed to do very well: the product's performance is very reliable and efficient. Like other tools, there is always a room for new developments and updates, and the HootSuite team recognizes this and focuses on new development as well.
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Support Rating
  1. It really helped to my business to grow online.
  2. I was able to take actions mindfully as the analytics are damn good.
  3. Also used for managing clients social media accounts and it proved to be a best resource.
  4. Clients were really happy as they got high demand and growth on internet and the secret is Buffer.
  5. The user interface is really easy to understand and manage. Support is 24/7 available to help.
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I can manage all of my accounts on one site! It's absolutely amazing!
The dashboard is helpful to see how you are doing as well. Still
getting to understand the analytics and may need to reach out for help
on this
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
Very easy to teach and learn
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
Would rate it a 10. We received two hours of online training and it was of very high-quality. HootSuite also offers HootSuite University which is an extremely comprehensive training portal with self-paced quizzes, training webinars and videos, best-practice papers, product certification, and access to a network of external experts. This is a fantastic resource.
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Implementation Rating
We were very satisfied with the implementation of Buffer. We had no issues switching from the platform that we were using over to buffer. Our staff did not even miss a beat when it came to posting content. It was an easy transition and I feel that is something that buffer has really done well. They have an "out of the box" usability platform
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Simple and easy to use, and have never had any issues. We like how it saves me time and allows me to plan in advance. I plan on using this for as long as I can and will encourage others to use it too. If you haven't tried it you should. I hope my review is helpful to everyone.
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Alternatives Considered
Both of them are great at their own levels but I find Buffer quite easy to go and the way they perform every task is quite like my way of work so I personally like Buffer more, it has helped me save my most of the time hence improved my work efficiency and also the creativity they put into my work is outstanding. The support I get whenever I run into problems they provide a quick response every time.
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Hootsuite offers a wide range of tools at a somewhat steeper cost. If you manage multiple platforms and want to survey the content being shared and interacted with across all of them, Hootsuite seems to have an easier platform to do that with. HubSpot CRM allows us to integrate our social platforms into our existing CRM, which is a cost saver, but Hootsuite is social media-focused, so the set-up is easier.
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Scalability
Buffer does what it say on tin as they say! you can always count on Buffer. Buffer can be scale to 25 social account with 2,000 scheduled post which is enough for most agencies or businesses
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It does more than I need.
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Return on Investment
  • It has saved money by allowing us to automate our social using one person
  • It allows us to connect one channel at a time instead of wasting money on larger account management tools
  • We are making money, because it has already delivered several clients
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  • Hootsuite has positively improved our overall engagement of our accounts. We went from an average of a 5% engagement rate across all accounts to a 12% engagement.
  • Hootsuite has positively improved our ability to target certain demographics on social media advertising through their analytics. We have seen CTR increase of 2% which is impressive for our industry.
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ScreenShots

Buffer Screenshots

Screenshot of The Buffer dashboardScreenshot of Customizable posting scheduleScreenshot of Tailored PostsScreenshot of List or calendar view of scheduled postsScreenshot of Browser extensionScreenshot of Social media analytics

Hootsuite Screenshots

Screenshot of Monitoring: Monitors social media profiles and tracks the topics that matter to the brand.Screenshot of Publishing: Create, publish and schedule engaging posts across social channels.Screenshot of Customer Engagement: A consolidated stream of messages across networks that can be triaged and assigned to respond to customers faster. Provides optional chatbot handover for automated responses.Screenshot of Scheduling: Social content can be planned as a team with a shared calendar that features collaborative post drafts and built-in approval workflows.Screenshot of Analytics & Reporting: Measures the effectiveness of a social media strategy to help turn strategy into execution with meaningful and actionable insights. Reports can be customized and shared according to unique business goals and objectives.