10 Best Tools for Social Media CRM in 2026 (Free and Paid, Compared)

Quick comparison

The best tools for social media CRM

#1

Sprout Social

Best for: Mid-size teams that want the deepest social CRM, with contact views, listening and reporting in one suite

★★★★★★★★★★4.4/5 on G2 (6,877 reviews, checked Nov 2026)

Visit sproutsocial.com

Starting price$99/seat/month (Essentials, billed monthly; $79/seat/month billed annually)

Free planNo — 30-day free trial

Sprout Social is the full social CRM standard: contact views tie every conversation to a person, so a complaint on Instagram and a question on X show up as one history, not two strangers. Essentials costs $99 a seat a month billed monthly, or $79 billed annually, for five profiles, publishing, reporting and 100 AI agent credits a month. The suite covers publishing, inbox, reviews and analytics, with listening as an add-on.

The catch is the seat maths: a five-person team on Essentials costs $495 a month billed monthly, and the inbox and reviews that make it a CRM wait for Standard at $199 a seat a month billed annually. Buy Sprout Social when the team needs the deepest reporting and listening and the budget covers seats; buy Agorapulse when the inbox is the job and the team is small.

What we like

• Contact views tie every conversation to a person, with history across networks
• The deepest reporting and listening in this list, with 100 AI agent credits per seat a month
• Publishing, inbox, reviews and analytics in one suite with approval workflows
• The largest review base here, with a 4.4/5 G2 score from 6,877 reviews

Watch out for

• Every extra seat pays the full price, so a five-person team costs five times the headline figure
• The Smart Inbox and review management wait for Standard at $199/seat/month billed annually
• Listening is a paid add-on that needs at least the Standard plan

#2

Agorapulse

Best for: Community and support-adjacent teams whose day is answering comments, messages and reviews

★★★★★★★★★★4.5/5 on G2 (974 reviews, checked Nov 2026)

Visit agorapulse.com

Starting price$99/user/month (Standard, billed monthly; $79/user/month billed annually)

Free planYes — free Archie plan (AI-created posts only, no inbox)

Agorapulse is for teams whose day is answering, not posting: community managers and support-adjacent social teams. Its moderation queue is the best-organised in this list, pulling comments, messages, mentions and reviews into one place with saved replies, assignment and labels. Standard costs $99 a user a month billed monthly, or $79 billed annually, for one user and ten social profiles, with ROI reporting that ties engagement to outcomes.

The honesty standard is the other reason to pick it: Agorapulse publishes its sync limits, including Instagram caps, Facebook's rolling window and active-ads-only sync, where rivals stay quiet. The free plan was retired on July 6, 2026, so evaluation now runs on a 30-day trial, and X coverage costs extra. Buy Agorapulse when the inbox is the product; buy Sprout Social when the board wants listening and attribution.

What we like

• The strongest moderation queue here: comments, messages, mentions and reviews in one inbox
• Publishes its sync limits honestly, including Instagram caps and active-ads-only sync
• Social ROI reporting ties engagement to outcomes, a pitch agencies use with clients
• Rated 4.5/5 on G2 from 974 reviews, with support reviewers praise most

Watch out for

• Per-user pricing doubles and triples with the team, like every seat model here
• X (Twitter) coverage costs extra through X Lite or Plus add-ons at $29 to $69 a month
• The paid plans include only one user each, so every teammate is a new bill

#3

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Best for: Businesses whose CRM already is HubSpot and want social conversations on the same contact record

★★★★★★★★★★4.4/5 on G2 (14,917 reviews, checked Nov 2026)

Visit hubspot.com

Starting price$20/seat/month (Marketing Hub Starter; $7/seat/month annual promo for new customers)

Free planYes — free CRM plan (social tools need a paid Marketing Hub plan)

HubSpot wins the record test outright, because the record is the CRM itself. A complaint on Instagram lands on the same timeline as the customer's tickets and deals, which is the entire promise of social CRM, delivered by architecture rather than integration. Marketing Hub Starter costs $20 a seat a month, with a $7-a-seat annual promo for new customers, and includes 1,000 marketing contacts, social publishing and monitoring.

The limit is the mirror image: social specialists will find Sprout Social and Agorapulse deeper at the social work itself, and the step to Professional is $800 a month with a $3,000 onboarding fee. Contact overages add $50 a month per 1,000 marketing contacts. Buy HubSpot when the CRM already exists and social belongs on the same record; buy a specialist when social is the team's whole job.

What we like

• The only entry here where the CRM is not a metaphor: social interactions land on the same contact timeline sales and service use
• Lists and segments can be built from people who engaged with social posts
• Reporting unifies social with campaigns, deals and revenue in one dashboard
• The free CRM tier lets a team test the data model before paying anything

Watch out for

• Social depth trails the specialists: inbox coverage and listening are competent, not class leading
• Marketing Hub Professional jumps to $800 a month, a steep step from Starter
• Contact overages add $50 a month per 1,000 marketing contacts past the first 1,000

#4

Hootsuite

Best for: Large, regulated organisations that need governance, approvals and a vendor procurement trusts

★★★★★★★★★★4.3/5 on G2 (7,413 reviews, checked Nov 2026)

Visit hootsuite.com

Starting price$99/user/month (Standard, billed annually; $149/user/month billed monthly)

Free planNo — 14-day free trial

Hootsuite remains the default of large, risk-averse organisations: it covers the networks, passes the security review and has always been there. For a regulated enterprise, those are features no startup's elegance replaces. Standard costs $99 a user a month billed annually for up to ten social accounts, with unlimited scheduled posts, one inbox, AI drafting and brand and competitor monitoring.

Smaller teams pay enterprise prices for that safety. There is no monthly-billed price published, no free plan, and approvals and message assignment wait for Advanced at $399 a user a month. If your governance needs are ordinary, Sprout Social does more per seat at the same money, and the tools below do the core job for far less. Buy Hootsuite when procurement and governance decide the shortlist.

What we like

• Covers every major network with publishing, inbox, monitoring and analytics in one place
• Governance that large organisations require: permissions, approvals and audit trails
• The longest track record in this list, with procurement-friendly credentials
• Rated 4.3/5 on G2 from 7,413 reviews, the second-largest review base here

Watch out for

• Per-seat pricing at enterprise levels: $99 to $399 a user across tiers
• No free plan, only a 14-day trial, and no monthly-billed price is published
• Advanced features such as approvals and message assignment wait for Advanced at $399 a user

#5

NapoleonCat

Best for: Inbox-heavy teams and agencies that moderate ad comments as much as they publish

★★★★★★★★★★4.7/5 on G2 (149 reviews, checked Nov 2026)

Visit napoleoncat.com

Starting price$89/month (Standard, billed monthly; $79/month billed annually; 2 users, 5 profiles)

Free planNo — 14-day free trial

NapoleonCat is the value pick for conversation-heavy work: it treats the inbox as the product, prices transparently, and undercuts the giants on identical team sizes by multiples. Plans move in fixed steps of users and profiles together, starting at $89 a month billed monthly, or $79 billed annually, for two users and five profiles. Agencies drowning in ad comments will find its automation rules pay for it.

Read the tier table before you buy: Standard has publishing, analytics and reports but no social inbox at all, so the CRM job starts on Pro at $89 a month billed annually, and auto-moderation waits for Expert at $119. A client also occupies a paid user slot. Buy NapoleonCat when comments and messages are a real part of the job and the team wants the queue cleared by lunch.

What we like

• Built around the inbox: moderation for comments and messages, including ad comments
• Automation rules delete, hide or assign by keyword and sentiment on Expert
• Google review management sits inside the same inbox, which local businesses feel daily
• Rated 4.7/5 on G2 from 149 reviews, with support reviewers praise most

Watch out for

• Standard at $79 a month billed annually has no social inbox; the inbox starts on Pro at $89
• Auto-moderation rules wait for Expert at $119 a month billed annually
• A client occupies a paid user slot, so agency seating maths needs care

#6

Statusbrew

Best for: Mid-market teams that want moderation at volume with real audit trails and approval workflows

★★★★★★★★★★4.8/5 on G2 (264 reviews, checked Nov 2026)

Visit statusbrew.com

Starting price$89/month (Lite, billed monthly; $69/month billed annually; 1 user, 5 profiles)

Free planNo — 14-day free trial

Statusbrew is the steady mid-market compromise: more engagement structure than the budget tools, less bill than the giants, with link-based client review that quietly removes the per-seat tax agencies hate. Lite costs $89 a month billed monthly, or $69 billed annually, for one user and five profiles, and includes publishing, the social inbox and comment hiding. Standard at $129 a month billed annually adds the Rule Engine for automated comment management.

It rarely wins a single category outright and often wins the total. The ceilings to know: Lite cannot add users or profiles, approval workflows wait for Premium at $229 a month billed annually, and extra users cost $30 to $35 a month each. Buy Statusbrew when a team is replacing a giant at renewal and wants plan-based pricing that does not multiply with headcount.

What we like

• The highest G2 score in this list at 4.8/5 from 264 reviews
• Rule Engine automates comment management from Standard, with AI sentiment on Premium
• The only tool here that publicly commits to retrying failed posts automatically
• Review management covers Google Business, app stores and Trustpilot in the same stream

Watch out for

• Approval workflows do not appear until Premium at $299 a month billed monthly
• Lite cannot grow: 1 user and 5 profiles with no way to add either
• The headline price is not the whole bill: extra users cost $30 to $35 a month each

#7

Sendible

Best for: Agencies and small teams that want one flat price no matter how many people log in

★★★★★★★★★★4.5/5 on G2 (905 reviews, checked Nov 2026)

Visit sendible.com

Starting price$35/month (Core, billed monthly; $29.75/month billed annually; 1 workspace, 6 profiles)

Free planNo — 14-day free trial

Sendible is built for agencies: each client is a workspace with six profiles, and every plan allows unlimited users, so you pay for workspaces rather than seats. Core costs $35 a month billed monthly, or $29.75 billed annually, for one workspace, and includes the social inbox, unlimited scheduling, unlimited AI Assist and pre-built reports. Adding a freelancer or a client costs nothing extra.

What Core leaves out matters more than what it includes: no approvals, no content library and no branded reports, so sign-off work needs Plus at $99 a month. White-label reports wait for Elite at $299 a month plus an add-on. Buy Sendible when the roster keeps changing and per-seat pricing would punish growth; buy Agorapulse when the inbox itself needs to be deeper.

What we like

• Unlimited users on every plan, so the bill follows profiles and workspaces, not headcount
• The social inbox, unlimited scheduling and unlimited AI Assist are included on Core
• Client dashboards can be shared without handing over the keys to every account
• Rated 4.5/5 on G2 from 905 reviews, with ease of use the top-cited strength

Watch out for

• Core has no approvals, no content library and no branded reports; approvals start on Plus at $99 a month
• Each workspace holds only 6 profiles, so a second brand means a second workspace
• White-label reports wait for Elite at $299 a month plus an add-on

#8

SocialPilot

Best for: Small teams and agencies that schedule in bulk and want white-label reports at a low price

★★★★★★★★★★4.5/5 on G2 (847 reviews, checked Nov 2026)

Visit socialpilot.co

Starting price$20/month (Essentials, billed monthly; $17/month billed annually; 5 accounts, 1 user)

Free planNo — 14-day free trial

SocialPilot is the cheapest route here to bulk scheduling across many accounts at one flat price: Essentials costs $20 a month billed monthly, or $17 billed annually, for five social accounts and one user, with 500 AI credits and a content library. Extra accounts cost $4 a month each, so the price grows in small steps rather than jumps, and white-label reports arrive on Premium at $85 a month billed annually.

The catch is that Essentials is a scheduler, not a social CRM: it has no social inbox and no approvals, so the CRM job starts on Standard at $40 a month. Review management is a separate $30-a-month product on top of any plan. Buy SocialPilot when the team schedules in volume and wants cheap white-label reports; buy Sendible when the inbox matters from day one.

What we like

• The cheapest route here to bulk scheduling across many accounts at one flat price
• White-label reports from Premium at $85 a month billed annually, far below the giants
• Extra accounts cost $4 a month each, so the price grows in small steps
• Rated 4.5/5 on G2 from 847 reviews, with affordability the top-cited strength

Watch out for

• Essentials has no social inbox or approvals; the inbox starts on Standard at $40 a month
• Review management is a separate $30-a-month product, not part of any plan
• Bulk scheduling and white-label reports wait for Premium at $100 a month

#9

Metricool

Best for: Analytics-led small teams that want strong reporting and competitor tracking for very little money

Visit metricool.com

Starting price$25/month (Starter, billed monthly; $20/month billed annually)

Free planYes — free plan (1 brand)

Metricool belongs in this guide as the measurement end of social CRM: it will tell you who your audience is in aggregate and what worked, better than tools three times its price, while doing less with individual relationships. The free plan covers one brand, and Starter costs $22 a month billed monthly, or $18 billed annually, with unlimited publishing, a social inbox, analytics and competitor tracking.

Pair it with a real CRM discipline, even HubSpot's free tier, and a small team covers both halves of social CRM for under $50 a month. The gaps to know: X costs $10 a month per connected account on top of every plan, and the free plan does not support LinkedIn publishing. Buy Metricool when reporting decides the purchase; buy Agorapulse when individual conversation history does.

What we like

• The analyst of the budget tier: strong cross-network analytics, competitor tracking and ads reporting
• Flat pricing by brand count, with a free plan that covers a single brand
• A link-in-bio tool and hashtag suggestions are included from Starter
• The cheapest route here to respectable reporting, paired well with a free CRM

Watch out for

• CRM functions are the lightest in this list: contact-level history is not its design centre
• X (Twitter) is never included and costs $10 a month per connected account
• The free plan does not support LinkedIn publishing and is limited to 20 posts a month

#10

Zoho Social

Best for: Small businesses already on Zoho that want the cheapest social tool that talks to their CRM

★★★★★★★★★★4.6/5 on G2 (2,959 reviews, checked Nov 2026)

Visit zoho.com

Starting price$15/month (Standard, billed monthly; $10/month billed annually; 1 brand, 1 user)

Free planYes — free plan (1 brand, 1 user)

Zoho Social is the budget door into social CRM, from $15 a month billed monthly, or $10 billed annually, for one brand and one user, with a free plan underneath it. It is the social arm of the Zoho suite: a publishing calendar, a monitoring dashboard, reports and integrations with Zoho CRM and Desk, across 13 networks including WhatsApp Business, Telegram, Threads and Bluesky.

The price is low because the suite monetises elsewhere, and the trade is scope: monitoring and listening depth trail the specialists, and agency plans start at $320 a month. Extra team members cost $10 a month each billed annually. Buy Zoho Social when the business already lives in Zoho and wants the cheapest social tool that talks to its CRM; buy Metricool when analytics matter more than the suite.

What we like

• The cheapest paid entry in this list at $10 a month billed annually, with a real free plan
• Integrates with Zoho CRM and Desk, so social conversations reach the wider customer record
• Covers 13 networks including WhatsApp Business, Telegram, Threads and Bluesky
• Rated 4.6/5 on G2 from 2,959 reviews, the largest review base of the budget tools

Watch out for

• Standard covers one brand and one user; extra team members cost $10 a month each billed annually
• Monitoring and listening depth trail the specialists in this list
• Agency plans start at $320 a month, a steep jump from Premium at $65

The best tools for social media CRM do one thing a scheduler cannot: they attach every comment, message and mention to a person, keep the history across networks, and hand it to sales and support as a customer record. We ranked the ten tools below by fit for the most common buyer — a team that answers customers on social every day — starting with the deepest CRM suites and ending with the cheapest budget doors, and every price was checked on November 6, 2026.

How to choose the best tools for social media CRM

• Run the record test. Pick a known customer and find their last three interactions across two networks. If the tool shows one person with a history, it is a social CRM; if it shows three separate messages, it is a scheduler.
• Count seats, not plans. Sprout Social, Agorapulse and Hootsuite charge per seat, so three teammates cost three times the headline price. Sendible and NapoleonCat charge per plan, so the same three people cost far less.
• Check which tier holds the inbox. NapoleonCat Standard and SocialPilot Essentials have no inbox at all, and Sprout Social keeps its Smart Inbox for Standard. The CRM features start a tier above the entry price on all three.
• Count profiles, not just people. Sprout Social Essentials caps at five profiles, Agorapulse Standard at ten, and extra profiles cost $10 to $15 a month each. A brand on six networks needs the next tier, not the entry one.
• Check the add-ons before you budget. X (Twitter) costs extra on Agorapulse and Metricool, listening is an add-on on Sprout Social, and review management is a separate product on SocialPilot.

Social CRM is one system in your stack, not the whole stack. If the social work is sorted but new customers are not finding you, our monthly SEO service handles the visibility side — or compare providers in our guide to CRM and email marketing software. And before you publish new pages for the services you sell, run your titles through the free SERP snippet preview tool — it shows exactly how the title and description will look in Google.

Whatever you shortlist, try it with real accounts before you pay. The trials in this list run 14 to 30 days, which is long enough to run one genuine week of real conversations — your ad comments, your angry customers, your repeat buyers — and that week tells you more than any review can. Check two things in the trial: that dark-post comments arrive in the inbox, and that a known customer shows up as one person with a history.

Social media CRM pricing: what you will actually pay

Take a three-person team running five profiles for one brand, billed annually. On list prices, the subscription costs $29.75 a month on Sendible Core, $30 on Zoho Social Standard with two extra members at $10 each, $42.50 on SocialPilot Standard, $45 on Metricool Advanced, $60 on HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter, $129 on Statusbrew Standard, $159 on NapoleonCat Pro, $237 on Sprout Social Essentials or Agorapulse Standard, and $297 on Hootsuite Standard.

Over a year, that is $357 on Sendible Core, $360 on Zoho Social, $408 on SocialPilot Standard, $540 on Metricool Advanced, $720 on HubSpot Starter, $1,548 on Statusbrew Standard, $1,908 on NapoleonCat Pro, $2,844 on Sprout Social Essentials or Agorapulse Standard, and $3,564 on Hootsuite Standard. The same three people and the same five profiles cost $357 a year at the cheap end and $3,564 at the dear end — a $3,207 gap that comes entirely from the billing model, not from features.

Three costs sit outside every number above. First, the add-ons: X coverage costs $10 a month per account on Metricool and $29 to $69 a month on Agorapulse, listening is a paid add-on on Sprout Social, and SocialPilot review management is a separate $30-a-month product. Second, the contact overages on HubSpot: $50 a month per 1,000 marketing contacts past the first 1,000. Third, the profile overages: a sixth profile on Sprout Social Essentials means Standard at $199 a seat a month billed annually, and extra profiles cost $10 to $15 a month each on Agorapulse.

Annual billing cuts the bill on most tools here: Sprout Social Essentials drops from $99 to $79 a seat a month, Agorapulse Standard from $99 to $79 a user, Sendible Core from $35 to $29.75, and SocialPilot Essentials from $20 to $17. Hootsuite's $99 figure is the annual rate; the monthly-billed rate is $149 a user. One more cost to check before you commit: a second brand is a second workspace or subscription on Sendible, Zoho Social and Statusbrew Lite, so an agency with ten clients pays for ten workspaces, not one.

Know the difference: social CRM vs a social scheduler

The confusion in this category is between a calendar and a customer record. A scheduler manages posts and times; a social CRM attaches every interaction to a person, keeps the history across networks, lets a team assign and note conversations, and syncs with the business CRM so sales and support see the same customer. Sprout Social's contact views, HubSpot's native records and Zoho's CRM flow are the pattern; a calendar with an inbox bolted on is not social CRM.

There is a second, quieter confusion: social CRM is not your main CRM. The social layer captures conversations where they happen; the main CRM remains the system of record for deals, tickets and billing. The strongest setups in this list acknowledge that: HubSpot and Zoho make the social tool part of the CRM itself, and Sprout Social integrates with Salesforce and HubSpot. If a vendor promises to replace your CRM, ask what happens to your deals, your tickets and your invoices — the answer is usually nothing, because the tool never held them.

A third distinction worth knowing is the inbox versus the feed. A unified inbox pulls comments, messages, mentions and reviews into one queue with assignment, labels and saved replies; a feed just shows the latest posts. Agorapulse, NapoleonCat and Statusbrew are built around the inbox, which is why they lead this list for teams that answer customers. Metricool and Zoho Social have an inbox, but it is shallower, and their strength is analytics and price instead.

Quick comparison: tool type by need

Mistakes to avoid

• Budgeting on the entry price when the inbox lives a tier up. NapoleonCat Standard and SocialPilot Essentials have no inbox, and Sprout Social keeps its Smart Inbox for Standard. The CRM job starts a tier above the headline on all three.
• Counting seats as if they were free. Three seats on Sprout Social, Agorapulse or Hootsuite cost three times the headline price, and a client login counts as a seat on NapoleonCat. Model the full roster, including approvers, before you sign.
• Ignoring the profile cap. Five profiles is the Essentials limit on Sprout Social and ten on Agorapulse Standard. A sixth profile means a tier jump on Sprout Social or $10 to $15 a month per extra profile on Agorapulse.
• Assuming the free plan is the product. Agorapulse's free Archie plan creates AI posts only and has no inbox, and the free plans on Zoho Social and Metricool cover one brand and one user. A team that answers customers daily needs a paid inbox.
• Forgetting the X add-on. X (Twitter) costs $10 a month per account on Metricool and $29 to $69 a month on Agorapulse, and it is never included in the headline price. If X matters, add it to the bill before you compare.

How we chose

We checked each vendor's own pricing page on November 6, 2026 and recorded the starting price exactly as shown, including the annual-billing figure where the page lists one, and we ranked the tools by fit for the most common buyer — a team that answers customers on social every day — not by brand size. Metricool's price is third-party-sourced: its pricing page did not load on November 6, 2026, so the $25 a month monthly and $20 a month annual Starter figures come from 2026 reads of the vendor's page. Ratings come from G2 pages, checked November 6, 2026; Metricool carries no rating here because October 2026 reads of its G2 page disagreed on the score, 4.4 versus 4.5, and we would rather show no rating than a disputed one. No vendor paid for a place in this list, and none of the links here are affiliate links.

What to do next

Start with the trial or free plan of your top pick and run one real week of conversations through it: connect the ad account, not just the page, and watch whether dark-post comments arrive. Check that a known customer shows up as one person with a history, and that the history reaches your CRM. If the social work is sorted but new customers are not finding you, our monthly SEO service handles the visibility side — or compare providers in our guide to CRM and email marketing software. Once your tools are in place, find out what's holding your rankings back.

Sources we checked (19)

• Sprout Social pricing — sproutsocial.com/pricing (checked November 6, 2026)
• Agorapulse pricing — agorapulse.com/pricing (checked November 6, 2026)
• HubSpot Marketing Hub pricing — hubspot.com/pricing/marketing (checked November 6, 2026)
• Hootsuite plans — hootsuite.com/plans (checked November 6, 2026)
• NapoleonCat pricing — napoleoncat.com/pricing (checked November 6, 2026)
• Statusbrew pricing — statusbrew.com/pricing (checked November 6, 2026)
• Sendible pricing — sendible.com/pricing (checked November 6, 2026)
• SocialPilot plans — socialpilot.co/plans (checked November 6, 2026)
• Metricool pricing — metricool.com/pricing (checked November 6, 2026)
• Zoho Social pricing — zoho.com/social/pricing.html (checked November 6, 2026)
• Sprout Social reviews — g2.com/products/sprout-social/reviews (checked November 6, 2026)
• Agorapulse reviews — g2.com/products/agorapulse/reviews (checked November 6, 2026)
• HubSpot Marketing Hub reviews — g2.com/products/hubspot-marketing-hub/reviews (checked November 6, 2026)
• Hootsuite reviews — g2.com/products/hootsuite/reviews (checked November 6, 2026)
• NapoleonCat reviews — g2.com/products/napoleoncat-com/reviews (checked November 6, 2026)
• Statusbrew reviews — g2.com/products/statusbrew-inc/reviews (checked November 6, 2026)
• Sendible reviews — g2.com/products/sendible/reviews (checked November 6, 2026)
• SocialPilot reviews — g2.com/products/socialpilot/reviews (checked November 6, 2026)
• Zoho Social reviews — g2.com/products/zoho-social/reviews (checked November 6, 2026)