Top 9 Small Business Social Media Management Tools

After testing and comparing the top tools on the market, we concluded that the best social media management tool for small businesses is Zoho Social, with paid plans from just $10 per month for 9 social channels. The platform has one of the lowest starting prices available, a solid range of supported social networks, and a wide array of top-tier features including social media monitoring to engagement tools.

If you're a solo user, Hootsuite is another excellent option, with unlimited posts and scheduling – but it's pretty pricey in comparison to Zoho Social, with plans starting from $99 per month. HubSpot is even more expensive, and will only really be suitable for small businesses willing to pay the big bucks to completely transform their digital marketing operations. Most small businesses will prefer Zoho Social, which offers significantly better value for far less money.

If you're looking to schedule and manage your social posts from one convenient platform, there are loads of great solutions available. We’ve ranked the best social media tools on the market to help you make the most informed decision possible. Take a look at our table below to see how the top social media management solutions for small businesses compare at a glance, or scroll down to learn about them in greater detail.

In this guide:

• Best Social Media Management Tools for Small Businesses
• How We Ranked These Providers
• Frequently Asked Questions

In the age of the internet, a social media presence is a must for any business looking to grow its customer base. Juggling all of these accounts can be a monumental task, but using a social media management tool to organize and plan your campaigns can take a substantial load off your shoulders.

However, the software you choose is only one part of the puzzle. To get the most out of your social media campaign, check out our top social media tips for your business.

Best Social Media Management Tools for Small Businesses

Zoho Social

• Best for small businesses
• Prices from: $10 per month

Affordable and capable, Zoho Social is the best option for a small business looking to take full advantage of its social media presence. With a generous free plan and paid plans starting from $10 per month, the main draw of Zoho is that it'll offer you some next-level bang for your buck.

But this thriftiness doesn’t mean you’ll be lacking in features. Even on the free plan, you’ll have unlimited posts and no limit on scheduling across up to nine channels, with multi-channel posting as an option.

However, while Zoho's free tier is great for a smaller business, everything has limits. Except for generous posting limits, Zoho doesn’t offer much else on its lower tiers. For example, if you're after analytics, engagement insights, or organizational tools, you'll need to opt for one of the paid tiers, which are still very reasonably priced at $10, $30, or $40 per month.

Zoho Social pricing

HubSpot

• Best customer support options
• Prices from: $800 per month

We’ll be honest – we’re only including HubSpot on this list because they’re a pretty big name in the world of social media marketing, and it's worth considering if you want a really comprehensive, all-in-one marketing and social media package. But realistically, due to HubSpot's astronomically high entry price, its offering is more suitable for mid-size to large businesses.

The cheapest version of HubSpot that has social media management capabilities costs an eye-watering $800 per month, which is financially unfeasible for most small businesses. However, the solution does offer a broad range of management features, including blogging, email marketing, revenue attribution reporting, and CRM capabilities, and is trusted by industry leaders like Reddit, monday.com, and Casio — making it a sturdy product for those that can afford it.

However, despite the price tag, HubSpot still imposes a limit on things like posts and marketing contacts, which is very rare for software this expensive. What's more, HubSpot used to bypass lots of functions that are offered by other products, including custom reporting and marketing automation – but at least it now provides these features for users.

HubSpot's help and support options are very comprehensive, with the platform offering email, phone, and live chat support, as well as a knowledge center and online courses. However, for the price, we can’t say that HubSpot is the right choice for most small businesses.

HubSpot pricing

Hootsuite

• Best for solo users
• Price from: $99 per month

Most small businesses rely on one person to run their social media. If a single user runs your business's social media, Hootsuite is a serious option. Just like Zoho Social, Hootsuite offers unlimited posts and scheduling. The Professional plan is certainly worth considering since it allows you to schedule posts in bulk, all while providing you with recommended times to publish your content.

The only downside to Hootsuite's Professional tier is that it costs $99 per month, almost ten times the price of Zoho Social's first paid plan. It supports just a single user, but you can manage 10 social accounts compared to Zoho Social's 9, which should be more than enough to cover a small business’s needs. With Hootsuite, you’ll also be able to analyze your demographics, look at a calendar of your pipeline, view a compiled inbox, and use its Canva integration to create image assets for your social posts.

You’ll have to opt for Hootsuite's higher tiers – such as the $249 per month Team plan – to access a lot of the engagement and campaign management features, as well as expand your social account and user limit. For a solo user starting out and looking to get to grips with the basics, however, Hootsuite's Professional plan will be the best choice.

Hootsuite pricing

Sendible

• Best for functionality
• Prices from: $29 per month

If you're looking for a versatile social media management tool, Sendible is the solution for you. The platform has a $29 per month tier that offers some pretty useful functions, like send-time optimization, inbox message tagging, and listening for Facebook and Twitter – but it's three times more expensive than Zoho Social.

If you’re looking for a platform that will supercharge your marketing and support rapid expansion, Sendible’s Scale tier is what you need. It’s not cheap at $199 per month, but on top of the limitless scheduling (which comes with every plan) and 300 posts per day, you also get the following features:

• Profile and post analytics and audience demographics
• Pre-made and custom reports
• Listening for both Twitter and Facebook, as well as brand mention reports and sentiment analysis
• Fully enabled organization, letting you create calendars and dashboards to control your pipeline
• Compiled social media inbox with message tagging
• Content library, image editor, send time optimization, and more

We’ll cut the list there, but there are a lot more features on offer. A lot of Sendible's functions are not offered by other competitors on this list, so if you’re looking for a kitted-out platform, Sendible is the one for you.

Sendible pricing

Loomly

• Best for Snapchat and TikTok
• Prices from: $26 per month 

If you’re looking to reach a younger audience, you can’t neglect Snapchat and TikTok, two of the hippest apps in town. TikTok experienced 100% audience growth between 2020 and 2022, while Snapchat grew its user base by 45.81% across the same period.

To maximize your impact on these apps, you might want to look at Loomly. The platform offered Snapchat and TikTok integrations long before some of the other providers on this list did.

Obviously, Loomly doesn’t stop at those two though, covering the basics a small business should need.  Its organization functions are great, allowing you to stay on top of your team and project pipelines.

However it doesn't offer social listening, and the engagement features could do with some beefing up. What's more, some of the analytics functions are locked behind higher tiers, which can be frustrating for businesses looking to get a wider scope of their campaigns’ impacts. Similarly, you'll only be able to access advanced features like custom branding, custom workflows, and custom roles on the Advanced plan upwards – but not every small business will consider these things essential.

Loomly doesn't offer a free plan, but there is a free trial. Plus, with the Base plan only costing $26 per month, it’s not the priciest tool on this list, and only slightly more expensive than Zoho Social's $10 per month Standard plan. On Loomly's cheapest plan, however, you can control 10 social profiles (compared to Zoho's 9) with no posting or scheduling limits, so you’ll be able to snap and tik as much as you want. There's also a user limit of 2 compared to Zoho's single-user Standard plan.

Loomly pricing

Sprout Social

• Best for mid-sized businesses 
• Prices from: $249 per month (1 user)

One of the reasons our small business winner, Zoho Social, earned its spot was due to its lower price point. However, if you’re a business with a bit more capital to throw around, you might want to consider Sprout Social.

Sprout Social is one of the pricier providers on this list, with its lowest tier costing $249 per month and no free plan in sight. As you would hope with a price like this, there is no posting limit. However, Sprout Social does have a pretty restrictive limit on the number of social profiles you can manage, only offering 5 on this plan (the most expensive plan with public pricing, available for $449 per month, has no limit).

That being said, there are some good features that come with this steep price point, on top of standard post scheduling and analytics. You’ll also get an image editor, send time optimization, a taggable inbox, and all the organization options you’d want, like a task dashboard and management functionality.

Sprout Social is a pricey option, but if you’re a rapidly-expanding small business you may benefit from these more expensive, feature-rich plans.

Sprout Social pricing

Constant Contact

• Great for email marketing
• Prices from: $9.99 per month

If you’re looking for an app to control your email marketing campaigns alongside your social media, then Constant Contact is a good place to start.

Constant Contact is primarily an email marketing service, meaning its social media functionality is treated a bit like an add-on rather than a main event. Since it's a package deal, this platform will only be suitable for you if you're also trying to increase your audience with email marketing. Its specialism isn't reflected in its pricing structure too, which starts from $9.99 per month but is dictated by your email list size, rather than the number of features included.

Since Constant Contact isn't a social media management solution first, its toolkit is much more limited than others on this list. However, if you're looking for an email marketing tool with additional Facebook and Instagram ad features and basic social media management capabilities, Constant Constant is a cost-effective way to capture leads and drive traffic to your site.

Constant Contact pricing

Buffer

• Most flexible pricing
• Prices from: $5 per month (1 channel)  

With prices starting from $5 per month and an excellent free version available, Buffer is the most affordable social media management tool we've taken out for a spin, with that first paid plan coming in at $5 per month cheaper than Zoho Social's Standard plan.

This cheaper price tag does come with a few downsides though. Compared with other tools on this list, Buffer's capabilities are slightly limited.

It has a pretty low limit on scheduling (2,000 scheduled posts per channel) and you'll only be able to manage up to 3 social channels without paying anything extra. This means Zoho Social will be a cheaper option if you have a lot of social channels you'd like to manage. Buffer ranks very poorly for listening features too, so if you're looking to understand the public perception of your company, it probably isn't the right tool for you.

Despite Buffer's limitations, if your posting needs aren't exhaustive and you just require a low-key way to engage with your audience, Buffer will be a safe bet. The platform offers stellar engagement and analytics tools, and integrates with a wide range of software options. Plus, there's an AI assistant that can generate responses to your social posts, and you'll get at least 50 AI credits per month, whatever plan you choose.

Buffer's cheapest paid plan, the Essentials plan, contains all the features necessary to manage your social channels too, so unless you're after bells and whistles there's no need to fork out for expensive tiers.  

Buffer pricing

CoSchedule

• Best for teams
• Prices from: $29 per user

If you want to give your whole team access to social media management tools, solutions like CoSchedule, which offer generous user limits — alongside top-tier organization and engagement capabilities — will be a good fit.

CoSchedule is an intuitive, user-friendly platform that offers a max of ten users for $29 per month on their first paid tier, Marketing Calendar. On top of its generous limits, CoSchedule also has great organizational functionality, with task management, team comments, and a task dashboard all included in its plans.

To have this many organizational features at such a low price point is quite rare, making it a great option for small teams looking to scale back costs.

However, despite the advantages of the tool, Coschedule does have its drawbacks. It lacks some pretty basic features like an ad builder, RSS auto-poster, and message tagging for your inbox, and like Buffer, also has very poor listening capabilities. This prevents CoSchedule from appearing any higher up on this list.

CoSchedule pricing

Methodology: How We Ranked Providers

When deciding which social media management service was best for small businesses, we focused on a number of key factors. The core decision-making criteria include:

• Integrations – Does this product offer a wide variety of integrations? How is it to use alongside your existing software?
• Publishing – What publishing tools does the platform offer? Are they high quality?
• Engagement – Is it easy to measure and boost engagement with the tools?
• Organization – Does the software offer a lot of effective tools to help users organize task loads?
• Listening – Does the platform allow users to easily identify and “listen” to what's being said about their company?
• Analytics – What analytic features are available? Is it easy to measure the performance of your channels?
• Value for money – How affordable is the tool's average pricing package? Are free versions available?
• Support – Are the platform's support tools comprehensive? Are they available around the clock?

However, these rankings were specifically intended for small businesses. So if you're a mid-size or large business, check out our guide to the best social media management tools.

Frequently Asked Questions