Hootsuite vs. Later: Which One Fits Best For Your Business?

Hootsuite vs. Later: Which One Fits Best For Your Business?

Overview

Hootsuite was one of the first tools to assist businesses with their social media marketing needs. Over time, it has developed into a diverse tool giving all-around services to agencies, businesses, and enterprises to achieve all their strategic objectives.

Hootsuite integrates all of the major platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profile. Its dashboard is chockfull of features, so it takes the users some time to familiarize themselves and use the tool proficiently.

Hootsuite also provides robust analytics and team collaboration workflows, enabling many people to work together seamlessly while dealing with all the social media activities they do.

Later can create and publish posts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok. Users can create posts in the scheduler of the tool and customize each for every platform they’ll be posted on.

Even after scheduling the posts, people can edit and reschedule them as the social media calendar enables them to drag and drop their posts to change their publishing times. It even gives the best time to post so users can schedule their posts to get optimum results.

Later has a very aesthetic, intuitive, and user-friendly interface that never requires a learning period to master the tool. It is handy for generating posts for Instagram, even providing AI-assisted captions for the platform and landing page maker for Instagram profiles. Along with all this, Later offers insightful analytical data to guide a business’s marketing strategy in the right direction.

Best Suitable for

Hootsuite

Hootsuite

Start with $149

Professional Teams, Small business, Enterprises

Later

Later

Start with $25

Influencers, Small Business

SocialPilot

SocialPilot

Start with $30

SMBs, Agencies, Multi-Location Brands

At a Glance

We’ll weigh both tools based on user reviews and the scores they gave. These scores on the criteria involved in defining the user experience they provided.

One look at the scores, and it’s apparent that Later takes a hefty lead on the user-opinion front. Be it in the process of getting started, the ease of use, or the quality of assistance it gives in case of problems and queries, Hootsuite is constantly rated lower than Later despite being crowned the industry leader.

Note: Despite being a famed and diverse social media management platform, Hootsuite has been rated especially low concerning its quality of customer support. Whereas the much more cost-effective Hootsuite alternative, SocialPilot has commendable customer support, being available through email, chat, phone, and social media.

Here’s an overview of all the average scores Hootsuite and Later got from their users, and along with them, we have SocialPilot, a user-favorite.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite

Later

Later

SocialPilot

SocialPilot

Number of Reviews 3781 283 741
Overall Star Rating
Ease of Use
Quality of Support
Ease of Setup
Learn More Learn More 14 Days Trial

Quick Comparison

In this section, we will compare Later vs. Hootsuite for all the most basic but vital capabilities of social media management tools. These qualities can’t be overlooked while making the right choice for your business.

Hootsuite is a high-priced social media marketing tool which is why it is a better fit for larger organizations; meanwhile, Later is at a much lower price point, preferred by startups, growing brands, and solo marketers. However, both tools provide a similar number of account access and team member onboarding in their agency-level plans.

Hootsuite supports all the social platforms Later has under its belt, but YouTube and Google Business Profile are unique to Hootsuite. Users can schedule an unlimited number of posts on these platforms from the respective tool.

Comparing the basic features of Hootsuite vs. Later, their offerings include scheduling and publishing, analytics, inboxing, and collaboration. We’ll dive deeper into each segment in the later sections.

However, some vital features Later lacks but are present in Hootsuite. One is a content library where users can store content for future reference, and the other is white-label solutions, which is an important one for businesses to customize their experience with the tool.

Note: SocialPilot, a tool in a similar price range to Later, provides both content library and white label features. This makes the former tool one of the most fitting Later alternatives.

Here are all the features listed for Later vs. Hootsuite to go over and compare effectively. We have also included SocialPilot in the mix for a better perspective.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite

Later

Later

SocialPilot

SocialPilot

Can't Miss to Compare
Minimum Pricing $149/Month $25/Month $30/Month
Number of Accounts 35 7 10
Number of Team Members 5 1 2
Number of Posts that Can Be Scheduled Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Core Capabilities
Scheduling & Publishing check check check
Analytics check check check
Inbox check check check
Collaboration check check check
Competitor Tracking check check check
Whitelabel check check check
Localization English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese German, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Support Email, Chat, Tweet for Support Email & Live Chat Email, Chat, Social Media, Phone
Learn More Learn More 14 Days Trial

Reviews

Positive

  • The tool provides the best time to post on the networks so that your large audience can see your post.
  • Hootsuite is a social publishing tool that is the most user-friendly for any platform, and it makes you feel as if you are making the post on the platform itself.
  • Hootsuite has a content approval workflow through which you can share your post with editors, managers, and clients to get approval for the post.

Negative

  • Hootsuite price is on the higher end, making it an unaffordable software for smaller businesses and digital marketing agencies. Many other social media management softwares are available at lower prices.
  • While posting from Hootsuite is simple and convenient, the process of deleting a post can be somewhat cumbersome and time-consuming. It requires multiple steps and can be a hassle for users looking to quickly remove a post.
  • While Hootsuite provides valuable reporting capabilities, you are limited in your ability to distribute reports to multiple stakeholders internally unless you are on the highest-level subscription plan.

Positive

  • Later offers budget-friendly plans that provide companies with an affordable way to manage their social media presence, giving them a competitive advantage in their marketing efforts, even with limited funds.
  • The scheduling feature in Later allows for effortless scheduling of posts up to a month in advance, making it convenient for efficient content planning.
  • The availability of analytics in Later, including the ability to view the best posting times and the most engaging posts, offers some valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t.

Negative

  • Carousel posts with multiple images can’t be published directly with this tool. The user must access Later, initiate the post and save the images to their phone before they can be published.
  • The hashtag function in Later has the tendency to suggest hashtags within the topic. However, some of these recommendations can become irrelevant, so the user must be cautious when using the suggested hashtags to avoid any unwanted content.
  • Later does not have a feature to duplicate or clone posts, making it time-consuming to recreate popular posts to reuse, therefore hindering productivity.

Positive

  • SocialPilot allows users and clients to collaborate efficiently and save a great deal of time managing social networks.
  • You can prevent delays and ensure that everything gets published according to schedule. As a result, with SocialPilot, your consistency on social networks remains uninterrupted.
  • SocialPilot offers multiple features at a very affordable price. Different pricing plans make it an excellent choice even for small businesses. And it can upgrade the plans anytime as per requirement.

Negative

  • Some users have reported receiving error messages with scheduled posts. However, they acknowledge that this issue is not unique to SocialPilot and is also present in other social posting platforms. It is simply a minor inconvenience at times.
  • Users have expressed a desire for the ability to add music from platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to their reels. However, this limitation is not exclusive to SocialPilot and is also present in many other scheduling platforms.
  • SocialPilot does not have a free version available, leaving users with only a 14-day free trial option to test the app. The free trial can be accessed without the need for a credit card, making it a risk-free opportunity for those who want to explore the features and capabilities of the app before making a purchase.

Pricing

Now, let’s get into the factor that proves to be a deal-maker or breaker when a marketer selects the perfect tool for their business, i.e., the pricing. So compare the pricing trends of Hootsuite and Later to see which one of them offers a better deal.

It is a well-known fact that Hootsuite is priced extravagantly high. The starting price of Hootsuite is $99, while Later’s costs less than half of that. But we’ll discuss the agency-level plans of both tools as they are the most popular ones.

Hootsuite’s Business plan costs a whopping $739 per month, while Later’s Advanced plan is just $80. For the plans mentioned above, Hootsuite allows up to 5 users to connect 35 accounts at the maximum. The numbers are six users and 36 accounts for Later, respectively. This noticeable gap in their prices makes it perfectly clear that Later is giving a better worth for users’ money.

Here are all the pricing plans laid out side by side for comparison with SocialPilot for a better frame of reference.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite

Later

Later

SocialPilot

SocialPilot

Professional
$149/per month
Starter
$25/per month
Professional
$30/per month
Small Team
$399/per month
Growth
$45/per month
Small Team
$50/per month
Enterprise
Custom
Advanced
$80/per month
Agency
$100/per month
-
Agency
$200/per month
Agency+
$200/per month
30 Days Free Trial
Credit Card Required
14 Days Free Trial
Credit Card Required
14 Days Free Trial
No Credit Card Required
Learn More Learn More Start Your free Trial

In-depth Scheduling and Publishing Capabilities Comparison

Scheduling and publishing are the core compatibilities of any social media marketing tool. Hence, users prioritize these features while choosing the perfect fit for them. So let’s compare Hootsuite vs. Later regarding content automation or scheduling and publishing functions.

When taking stock of the basic features related to content scheduling, Hootsuite and Later pretty much have them all covered. These include advanced queuing visual content support, platform-specific post customization, UTM parameters, cloud storage, hashtag suggestions, bulk scheduling of posts, social media content calendar, and more. Both the tools come in browser and mobile app versions for easy access.

But there are specific differences in the capabilities of both Later vs. Hootsuite if we dig a little deeper. After creating a post in the composer, a post preview is generated in most scheduling tools to help users visualize their content on specific social platforms. Later lacks the feature of post-preview generation.

When we compare Hootsuite vs. Later for their Facebook scheduling abilities, they enable users to schedule different forms of posts, including reels, carousels, and album posts. However, Later cannot support boost postings, a significant part of Facebook ads. And also, it does not provide location tagging while scheduling tweets.

Hootsuite, on the other hand, lacks the ability to let users schedule first comments with their posts. This practice has become really popular with netizens to keep their posts uncluttered and provide them with optimum reach. Convenient Hootsuite alternatives like Later and SocialPilot do enable people to schedule Instagram first comments.

Another very prominent gap in the abilities of these tools is the lack of YouTube shorts scheduling. Later does not support YouTube and hence the inability to publish Youtube shorts. Despite integrating the platform, Hootsuite is unable to publish YouTube shorts.

Note: SocialPilot is proficient in YouTube marketing, unlike Hootsuite or Later. The tool enables users to schedule and publish videos and YouTube shorts efficiently. It also allows optimizing these videos, short and long form, with categories and related tags to increase their reach on the platform.

The detailed scheduling and publishing features for Hootsuite vs. Later are listed for an effective comparison. We have also added SocialPilot to the mix, which is a versatile tool with expertise in content automation.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite

Later

Later

SocialPilot

SocialPilot

Smart & Advanced Queueing check check check
Customize Post for Each Platform check check check
Post Preview check check check
Canva Integration check check check
Unsplash Integration check check check
Slack Integration check check check
URL Shortener check check check
Visual Post Support (Image, Video, GIF) check check check
UTM Parameters check check check
Cloud Storage check check check
Hashtag Suggestions check check check
Advance Publishing Capabilities
Save Draft Posts check check check
AI Assistant check check check
Watermark on Images check check check
Bulk Scheduling check check check
Content Curation check check check
Auto publishing from RSS check check check
Social media calendar check check check
Mobile App check check check
Browser Extension check check check
Advance Facebook Publishing Capabilities
Reel Scheduling check check check
Support Album Posts check check check
Support Carousel Posts check check check
Alternate Text on Image check check check
Support Facebook First Comment check check check
Audience Targeting check check check
Boost Post Scheduling check check check
Support Mention and Hashtags check check check
Advance Twitter Publishing Capabilities
Location Tagging check check check
Support Mention and Hashtags check check check
Support Multiple Image Posts check check check
Threads Scheduling check check check
Advance Instagram Publishing Capabilities
Reel Scheduling check check check
Story Scheduling check check check
Tag Profiles on Images check check check
Location Tagging check check check
Support Instagram First Comment check check check
Instagram Grid check check check
Advance LinkedIn Publishing Capabilities
Audience Targeting check check check
Support LinkedIn First Comment check check check
Advance YouTube Publishing Capabilities
#shorts Scheduling check check check
Mention of Other Youtube Accounts check check check
Learn More Learn More 14 Days Trial

In-depth Analytics Capability Comparison

The Analytics of a social media management app acts like a strategic compass, directing it ahead. Marketers depend upon these results, good or bad, to decide on their next move. So in this section, we have brought into light the analytical and reporting capabilities of Hootsuite vs. Later to see which one is doing better in this regard.

When looked at from a broader view, both tools provide adequate data on business pages connected to them. They especially have detailed perspectives on all types of content performances on Instagram, including reels, stories, and image posts. They also provide all of this through a comprehensive dashboard.

The disparity between their abilities is visible when we move on to the reporting features. While both tools generate detailed and downloadable PDF reports, Hootsuite can make them branded under the enterprise plan. But Later can’t generate white-labeled reports for its users. Also, Later lacks a custom report builder to customize the analytics reports according to the user’s requirements, while Hootsuite doesn’t have this gap. The latter tool has surcharges for users to access custom report-building features.

The export of the reports to concerned stakeholders can be easily done by both the softwares, whether it be by email or by scheduling it to be automatically sent to them.

Here are all the analytics and reporting features of Hootsuite and Later compared side by side along with SocialPilot for comparison’s sake.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite

Later

Later

SocialPilot

SocialPilot

Whitelabel Downloadable Report in PDF Format check check check
Email PDF Report to Client check check check
Auto Schedule Report with Team and Client check check check
Custom Report Builder check check check
Learn More Learn More 14 Days Trial

In-depth Inbox/Listening Capability Comparison

Social listening capabilities are invaluable to growing businesses trying to establish themselves as customer-centric brands. Proactively managing communication with followers and potential customers is essential for putting yourself out there as a reliable organization. Hence we must scroll through them to find which one is better among the two.

Hootsuite has more than sufficient social listening and inboxing capabilities, enabling users to reply to direct messages and reviews from platforms like Google, Facebook reviews, Yelp, BBB, Tripadvisor, and OpenTable. It provides very efficient real-time listening for businesses to monitor the audience’s opinion of them.

Later, however, falls short in this regard. Users can only use the inbox in Later to reply to DMs on Instagram and TikTok. They can’t monitor reviews and queries anywhere with this software, forming a gap in its otherwise diverse and accommodating features.

Note: SocialPilot, a go-to alternative to Later, provides active social inboxing for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profile. Users can see and reply to messages and react to customer reviews on multiple platforms from different user accounts from a single integrated dashboard.

All of the social listening features available or lacking in both the tools in question are listed below to provide absolute clarity. An added frame of reference in the form of SocialPilot has also been given.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite

Later

Later

SocialPilot

SocialPilot

Can Reply Message check check check
Can Reply Questions and Reviews check check check
Can Reply on Visitor Posts check check check
Real-Time Social Listening check check check
Learn More Learn More 14 Days Trial

In-depth Social Media Collaboration Capability Comparison

To handle the needs of a social media management team, their preferred tool needs to be well-equipped with team collaboration features. This is what we will look into for Hootsuite and Later.

Both tools can support multiple users as they collaborate on different states of content creation and publishing. Account admins can regulate the access of different team members to the whole process and assign them certain tasks. They even support approval workflow to involve the relevant members and clients in the creation process. This way, each post published is perfect, without any faults, and meets everyone’s expectations.

And speaking of clients, Hootsuite, under its agency plan, allows unlimited client onboarding but Later sets the limit to six. After that, the user has to pay for each client they invite to their account.

Here is a concise view of all the team and client collaboration aspects of both tools, along with SocialPilot.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite

Later

Later

SocialPilot

SocialPilot

Free Unlimited Client Onboarding check check check
Per Post Multi-User Collaboration check check check
Access Management check check check
Content Approval Workflow check check check
Learn More Learn More 14 Days Trial

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between Later and Hootsuite?

The main difference between both tools is the drastic price gap. Later starts at only $18, while Hootsuite charges $99 for the same. On the other hand, Later supports fewer social platforms than Hootsuite. These factors have led to a difference in their target audiences as well. Hootsuite is better suited for large professional teams and enterprises, whereas Later is for solo entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Do people still use Hootsuite?

Millions of people still use Hootsuite as it is one of the most famous social media management tools. However, due to its high prices, smaller businesses and agencies are turning to more affordable and effective Hootsuite alternatives.

Why use Later scheduling?

Later is a social media scheduling and comprehensive management tool which helps marketers reduce the time and effort spent on handling multiple accounts. Scheduling with Later helps centralize the social posting for several social media platforms into one intuitive dashboard. It also has an AI caption writer for Instagram and a link-in-bio tool to strengthen Instagram marketing.

What are the cons of Hootsuite?

The most significant con for Hootsuite is its extravagant prices. The tool is relatively unaffordable for smaller businesses, with its agency plan costing $739 per month. Also, the UI of Hootsuite takes a lot of effort to decipher as it is often described as cluttered and confusing.

Is Later not free anymore?

Later still has a free plan, although with limited features. Under this plan, only one user can operate the tool, and they get a single social set meaning one account from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok. Only 30 posts can be scheduled from each profile at a time.

About the Author

Picture of Jimit Bagadiya

Jimit Bagadiya

  • linkedin
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Manage social media effortlessly.

  • Trial Begins Immediately
  • No CC Required
  • Change Plans Anytime
  • Cancel Anytime

Start Your 14-Day Free Trial