Sendible vs Hootsuite 2023: Which is better? (My Hands-on review)

Struggling to choose between Sendible vs Hootsuite for your social media management?

It’s a tough decision…and you’re certainly not alone if you’re not sure which service to pick.

To help, I created this detailed Sendible vs Hootsuite comparison (I’ve used both, so you can trust me on that)…

… to give you a better look at how each service approaches features like dashboards, scheduling posts and curating content, monitoring social media, creating reports, and pricing, too!

So what can you expect at the end? Well…

In general, I recommend Hootsuite for solo bloggers and Sendible for teams and agencies. But you might have specific needs that push you in one direction or the other.

And after reading this whole post, I hope you understand why that is and have all the information that you need to make your decision.

Let’s dig in…

I just want to cover the high-level feature differences between Sendible and Hootsuite. Then, in the next several sections, I’ll actually go hands-on and take the comparison deeper.

Sendible

Sendible is an all-in-one social media management tool, which means that it can handle:

• Scheduling and managing content for all your social media accounts
• Finding quality content to curate
• Monitoring social media keywords or accounts (social media listening)
• Creating reports and viewing social media analytics

Beyond those core functions, you also get:

• A “priority inbox” to help you view the most important information from a single dashboard
• Easy account switching to help you manage different clients, including separate priority inboxes for each different account/team
• A basic social CRM to help you manage potential contacts
• White-labeled reports to give to your clients
• Sentiment analysis to see whether people are positive, negative, or neutral
• Mobile apps to help you work when you’re away from your computer
• Team workflows like the option to submit a new post for approval before adding it to the queue

Sendible supports these social networks/websites:

• Facebook (including Facebook Ads)
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Tumblr
• Google+ (including Google My Business)
• YouTube
• Blogger
• WordPress blogs

Get Sendible Now ››

Hootsuite

Like Sendible, Hootsuite is also a full-service social media management tool. You get the same core features. That is, you’ll be able to:

• Schedule posts in advance for all your connected accounts
• Curate content so that you always have great stuff to share
• View reports and analytics to monitor how your social efforts are doing
• Engage in social listening for keywords, hashtags, or locations to see what people are saying

On a more detailed level, Hootsuite also gives you:

• A productivity-boosting tabbed-interface with a lot of flexibility
• Team functions that let you assign tasks to different team members
• Third-party apps that can add lots of different functions (for a fee)
• A contest tool to help you run various social contests

Hootsuite currently supports these social networks and websites:

• Twitter
• Facebook profiles, pages, and groups
• Google+
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Pinterest
• WordPress blogs

So you lose some sites like Blogger and Tumblr, but you gain support for Pinterest with Hootsuite.

Get Hootsuite Now ››

Sendible vs Hootsuite: The Dashboard

Both Sendible and Hootsuite include helpful core dashboards to help you manage most important actions from a single area.

While both tools have some advantages, I prefer Hootsuite’s main dashboard because it gives you a little bit more flexibility (you’ll see why in a second).

Sendible

Sendible’s main dashboard is its Priority Inbox. The Priority Inbox tries to make your job easier by letting you see the most important information first. You can also use the options on the right to switch between different inboxes – like a specific Twitter keyword or all your mentions.

And you can use the options on the left to view:

• Upcoming posts, as either a list or a calendar
• Assigned tasks (this is especially helpful for teams, but it can also help you organize your own work)

You can add new streams to the main dashboard by clicking the New Stream button:

I like the idea of a single Priority Inbox because it can save you time. But if you prefer to monitor individual streams, you won’t find a ton of difference between Hootsuite and Sendible beyond the different layouts.

For any item in any of your streams, you can:

• Respond
• Like
• Assign to a specific team member

To access other areas, you use the tabs at the top. I’ll dig into these other areas in a second…

Recommended Reading: How to get 500 Facebook likes (without ads) Over the weekend.

Hootsuite

Rather than a single priority inbox, The main Hootsuite dashboard consists of a series of Streams, divided into different tabs:

You can create your own tabs/streams by clicking the + icon. When you create a new tab, Hootsuite gives you a handy interface to help you choose what content to display:

And like Sendible, you can interact with any post in your streams, including options to:

• Respond
• Like
• Assign to a specific team member

What I find helpful about these tabs is that you can add multiple streams to a single tab, which I think lets you create a more customized dashboard.

So:

• You lose Sendible’s convenient Priority Inbox feature
• You gain the ability to create a more customized dashboard because you can add multiple streams to a single tab, whereas Sendible forces you to click between different streams

Sendible vs Hootsuite: Scheduling Posts And Curating Content

Both Sendible and Hootsuite include detailed functionality to help you schedule your content and curate content to share.

With that being said, I find Sendible’s curation features to be a little stronger, especially on lower-tier plans (Hootsuite does have a great Content Library feature, but only on the super expensive Business/Enterprise plans).

Additionally, Sendible has some neat time-saving features to help you share unique content on different networks. And in general, I prefer Sreendible’s post composer to Hootsuite’s.

For those two reasons, I found Sendible to have a slightly better content creation experience.

Also Read: How to create a brand on Twitter (Even if you’re a nobody)

Sendible

Sendible includes an omnipresent Compose button that lets you easily create new content from anywhere in the Sendible interface:

Here are the things you’ll love about Sendible’s composer:

• It’s easy to customize your message for each individual network by using the different tabs. Sendible will copy your Original message to each tab. Then, you just need to go in and add some customization, which is really convenient because you might not want to share identical content on every single network.
• The various buttons at the bottom make it easy to add UTM parameters, insert curated content, or access the bulk composer

If you’re working on a team, you can also send a post for approval before adding it to the schedule.

Beyond the composer, Sendible also gives you a dedicated Content tab to help you curate content. Here, you can:

• Search for specific topics
• Subscribe to dedicated RSS feeds for your website or other people’s websites
• Add any content that you find to your queue
• Save content to your own content library to use at a later date

Again, I found this content curation to be significantly stronger than Hootsuite, at least on Hootsuite’s Team tier.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite also offers a composer that you can access from anywhere.

It’s more basic than Sendible, though there are a couple nice features:

Two things that you’ll probably like are:

• The live preview on the right-hand side
• The option to import free CC0 images from the built-in media library (powered by Pixabay)

Despite those high points, you lose the:

• Ability to customize your message for each individual social network
• Option to insert curated content
• Custom UTM parameters

Additionally, the curation options on the Team plan are fairly limited. You can add your own RSS feeds. And you can also re-share content from your streams.

But the most helpful curation feature – the content library – is only available on the Business or Enterprise plans, which start at a cool $599 per month. Sendible, on the other hand, includes the content library feature even on its cheapest plan.

For that reason, Sendible has a much more accessible approach to content curation.

Sendible vs Hootsuite: Social Listening

To help with social listening, Sendible includes a dedicated Monitor tab, whereas Hootsuite wraps it into its tabbed-interface that you saw before.

Even with Sendible’s dedicated Monitor area, I still find Hootsuite’s tabbed approach to be more convenient for social listening.

With that being said, Sendible does have one great feature that Hootsuite lacks:

Easy sentiment analysis.

Essentially, sentiment analysis lets you not just monitor content, but also see whether that content is:

• Positive
• Negative
• Neutral

This helps because it lets you prioritize certain content – like paying special attention to negative mentions of your brand.

While Hootsuite includes basic sentiment filters and you can get sentiment analysis with Hootsuite, the reports are only in the separate Hootsuite Insights service, whereas Sendible gives you those reports in the core product for no added cost.

So in general:

• Hootsuite has a more effective interface for presenting monitoring on multiple terms because you can display multiple streams in a tab
• Sendible has a little more flexibility for monitoring because of its built-in sentiment analysis and more easy-to-use filter options

Sendible

In Sendible’s Monitor tab, you can:

• Search for keywords
• Create new Monitors

Sendible lets you monitor two things:

• Keywords
• Review sites (like Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc.)

The latter is useful, but only for businesses that will receive reviews. Most people will probably rely on the Keyword monitoring, which is quite detailed.

Beyond choosing which keyword to monitor, you can also:

• Exclude certain words, including a dedicated option for swear words
• Filter for location
• Create email notifications for all posts, or only certain posts (like only negative posts)

Once you have a monitor, you can use the filters to drill-down to specific content. And you can also open a chart to quickly see the sentiment analysis for that monitor:

You can also interact directly with any post, or assign it to another team member to deal with.

Compared to Hootsuite, the most unique elements are:

• The built-in sentiment analysis
• The option to monitor review sites, which is especially helpful for services or local businesses.
• More easy-to-use filters

Hootsuite

Hootsuite uses the same tabbed interface for its social listening. Like I showed you before, you can create your own tabs to monitor one or more streams. Streams can be:

• Keyword searches
• Mentions
• Likes
• Etc.

For example, you can set up a stream for any mention of “WordPress” on Twitter.

The actual interface doesn’t give you many options:

But if you look at Hootsuite’s examples, you’re actually able to get a bit more advanced with your monitoring. You can add some basic sentiment filters (again, Hootsuite Insights gives you more advanced analysis). And you can also filter for specific:

• Dates
• URLs
• Hashtags
• Etc.

Sendible vs Hootsuite:  Analytics & Reports

Both Sendible and Hootsuite offer detailed reporting and analytics options.

In general, I found Hootsuite’s reports a little easier to use. But Sendible has one huge advantage for agencies:

White-labeled reports.

Currently, Hootsuite doesn’t let you white-label reports for your clients, whereas Sendible makes it easy to create your own white-labeled reports.

Sendible

In its Measure tab, Sendible includes a variety of pre-built reports, as well as a Report Builder tool to help you create your own reports.

For example, you can use the pre-built reports to quickly generate a report on a specific monitoring keyword:

But if you want to create something truly custom, you can use the Report builder and its various modules to create your own reports:

And again – if you’re working with clients, one of Sendible’s big differentiators is the option to white-label the reports that you create with your own logo and information.

Hootsuite

While Hootsuite lacks white-labeling, I found its reports interface quite easy to use and think it’s a great option for solo users.

To access your reports, you can create your own “boards”. You can either choose from Hootsuite’s pre-built board templates, or you can create your own custom boards:

When you create a custom board, you use a simple widget system to add the information that you want to display.

I found Hootsuite’s reports interface easier to use – I just wish they would add an option for white-labeling.

Sendible vs Hootsuite: Pricing

Depending on your needs, each service can come out a little cheaper. In general, Hootsuite is more affordable for solopreneurs and bloggers, whereas Sendible can be the cheaper option for teams or agencies.

But before I get into actual numbers, let me explain a key difference in how each service creates its billing tiers:

• Hootsuite charges per “social profile”. For example, one Twitter account is always one social profile.
• Sendible charges per “service”. A service is “an interaction with any social network account”. Depending on what your exact needs are, you may need to use multiple services for a single social account. This isn’t inherently a bad thing because it can work to your advantage in some situations. But it’s important to remember when looking at the different plans.

Now, let’s dig in, starting with the plans for solopreneurs or bloggers…

For all these prices, I’m referring to annual billing.

On the lowest tier, Hootsuite is a little more accessible with plans starting at just $19 per month for 10 social profiles. Sendible’s cheapest tier is $24 per month for 12 services. The difference isn’t huge – but that’s an extra $60 per year for Sendible.

Hootsuite also has a limited free plan that supports 3 social profiles and 30 scheduled messages. Sendible doesn’t have any free plan, which is another thing that makes Hootsuite a better option for bloggers on a budget.

On the first team tier, Sendible is actually a little bit more affordable, coming in at $84 per month for 48 services, compared to Hootsuite’s $99 per month for 20 social profiles. Both of those plans support 3 users.

If you jump up to the next enterprise/agency tier, Hootsuite costs a whopping $599 per month for 35 profiles and a bevy of new features, whereas Sendible has two plans for $199 per month (105 services) or $299 per month (192 services).

So in a nutshell:

• Hootsuite is probably more affordable for bloggers or solo users.
• Sendible will likely be more affordable for larger teams or agencies.

Should You Choose Sendible or Hootsuite?

As you can probably guess, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach and each service has its own pros and cons.

Let’s recap some of each service’s high points:

Sendible provides you…

• A top-class composer tool that makes it really easy to customize your content, even for different networks. I found it superior to Hootsuite’s.
• Better content curation, especially on lower-tier plans.
• More affordable plans for agencies and teams.
• White-labeled reports, which is something Hootsuite lacks.

Get Sendible Now ››

And, Hootsuite has a:

• Better approach to its dashboard…at least in my opinion. I love the tabbed approach and the ability to add multiple streams to each tab.
• Free plan, as well as a more affordable plan for solo bloggers.
• Slightly more user-friendly reports interface.

Get Hootsuite Now ››

It’s also important to remember that each tool uses different metrics for billing – “services” versus “social profiles”. Depending on how you intend to use the tool, one of those approaches might be more affordable. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you which that is for you because it really does depend on your uses:

• If you just want to monitor or schedule posts for lots of different accounts (but not both), Sendible might be a better deal.
• If you want to monitor and schedule posts, Hootsuite might be a bit cheaper.

Putting all that together, I found:

• Sendible to be a great option for teams and agencies because of its great composer tool, affordability, and white-labeling.
• Hootsuite to be the option for solo bloggers and individuals because it’s more affordable on that tier, has a free plan to get you started, and is a bit more user-friendly (at least in my opinion).

Both tools offer a 30-day free trial, so you can get started without any risk and find out which one you prefer!

Now over to you – have you used both of these tools? If so which, would one do you recommend and why?