Top 9 Small Business Social Media Management Tools

According to our research, Zoho Social is the best small business social media management tool. The platform has the lowest price on the market, a solid range of supported social networks, and a wide array of top-tier features from social media monitoring to engagement tools. If you're a solo user, Hootsuite is another excellent option, with the platform unlimited posts and scheduling at an affordable monthly price.

If you're looking to schedule and manage your social posts from one convenient platform, there are loads of great solutions available. We’ve researched and 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 Rated 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 some 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

According to our in-house research, 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 its paid plans starting from $10 per month, the main draw of Zoho is that it offers 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 seven profiles.

However, while this generosity on the 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, or organization tools, you'll need to opt for higher tiers, which are still very reasonably priced at $10, $30, or $40 per month.

Zoho Social Pricing

Hootsuite

• Best for solo users
• Price from: $49 per month

Most small businesses rely on one person to run their social media. If your business social media is run by a single user, Hootsuite may be your strongest option. Just like Zoho, Hootsuite offers unlimited posts and scheduling, all for a very fair price. The free plan is certainly worth considering since it allows you to queue up to 30 posts at a time, which should be suitable for most small operations.

If you're after a slightly more versatile package, however, we recommend the professional tier at $49 per month. While it only supports a single user, the scheduling limit is removed, and the number of social profiles is raised from three to ten – which should be more than enough to cover a small business’s needs. You’ll also be able to analyze your demographics, look at a calendar of your pipeline, and see a compiled inbox.

You’ll have to reach for higher tiers to make the most of the engagement or analytic functions (of which there are many), but for a solo user starting out and looking to get a grip on the basics, Hootsuite is a great option.

Hootsuite Pricing

Sendible

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

If you're looking for a versatile and highly social media management tools, Sendible is the solution for you. The platform has a $29 per month tier that offers you some pretty useful functions, like send-time optimization, inbox message tagging, and listening for Facebook and Twitter.

If you’re looking for a platform that will supercharge your marketing and support rapid expansion, Sendible’s Growth 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 their functions are not offered by other competitors on this list, so if you’re looking for the most kitted-out platform, Sendible is the one for you.

Sendible Pricing

Loomly

• Best for Snapchat and TikTok
• Prices from: $29 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. And to maximize your impact on these apps, you might want to look at Loomly – the only platform on this list that can be implemented with both Snapchat and TikTok.

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 use some beefing up. And some of the analytics are locked behind higher tiers, which can be frustrating for businesses looking to get a wider scope of their campaigns’ impacts.

Loomly doesn't offer a free plan, but there is a free trial – and with the Base plan only costing $26 per month, it’s not the priciest tool on this list. On this lowest plan, you can control 10 social profiles with no posting or scheduling limits, so you’ll be able to snap and tik as much as you want.

Loomly Pricing

Sprout Social

• Best for mid-sized businesses 
• Prices from: $89 per user, per month

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 plans on this list, with its lowest tier at $89 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, only offering 5 on this plan and capping out at only 10 on its most expensive plan ($249 per month).

That 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 is a pricey option, but if you’re growing beyond a small business you could benefit from these more expensive plans.

Sprout Social Pricing

Constant Contact

• Great for email marketing
• Prices from: $20 per month

If you’re looking for something that controls 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 the main event. Since it's a package deal, this platform will only be suitable for you if you're also using 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 a number of features.

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: $15 per monthsafe 

With prices starting from $15 per month and an excellent free version available, Buffer is the most affordable social media management tool we've tested, making it ideal for small teams on a budget.

This small 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 and users (2,000 scheduled posts and 6 users), and the amount of social profiles you can connect to is pretty slim (a max of 8, unless you spring for the highest tier). The solution 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 tools, competitive analytics, and is able to integrate into a wide range of software options. Its cheapest paid plan, Buffes Pro, 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 organization 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

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. But realistically, due to HubSpot's astronomically high entry price, its offering is more suitable for mid-size to large businesses.

At its cheapest, the software costs $800 per month, which is simply 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 this price point, HubSpot still imposes a limit on posts which is very rare for software this expensive. What's more, the tool bypasses lots of functions that are offered by other products, including an ad builder, sentiment analysis, custom reports for its analytics, or any automation in its engagement

HubSpot's support lines are decent though, 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 a small business.

HubSpot Pricing

Methodology: How We Rate Providers

We don't make product recommendations on a whim at Tech.co. Working alongside our diligent insights team, we've created a unique research process for reviewing social media management tools. This process focuses on a number of key metrics, which we break down below:

• 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?

After we've monitored how the social media tools perform across these key categories, we award them a rating out of ten. We then weigh these traits based on importance (for instance, publishing is more crucial than organization) to ensure our ratings are as useful as possible to small businesses.

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

Frequently Asked Questions