Head to head
Hootsuite vs Zoho Social
Last updated 4 June 2026
vs
Hootsuite does more than schedule: listening, a shared inbox, and deep reporting sit in one dashboard, and you pay for the breadth. It starts at $99 a user each month and there's no longer a free plan.
- From
- $99 per user / mo
- Free plan
Zoho Social is the scheduler inside Zoho's wider business suite: capable publishing, a monitoring dashboard, and reporting that plugs straight into Zoho CRM. Pricing splits into single-brand business plans, billed per brand per member, and flat agency plans for managing many brands.
- From
- $10 /mo
- Free plan
Bottom line
Hootsuite and Zoho Social both cover the basics; the right one comes down to how you post. Hootsuite is the stronger pick for Small teams that need listening and reporting in one place; choose Zoho Social for Businesses already using Zoho CRM or the wider Zoho suite.
Features compared
| Feature | Hootsuite | Zoho Social |
|---|---|---|
| AI captions | Yes | Yes |
| Basic analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Advanced reports | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk upload | Yes | Yes |
| Evergreen recycling | No | Partial |
| Team roles | Yes | Yes |
| Approvals | Yes | Yes |
| Link in bio | Yes | Yes |
Platforms compared
| Network | Hootsuite | Zoho Social |
|---|---|---|
| Auto | Auto | |
| Auto | Auto | |
| X (Twitter) | Auto | Auto |
| Auto | Auto | |
| TikTok | Auto | Auto |
| Auto | Auto | |
| YouTube | Auto | Auto |
| Threads | Auto | Auto |
| Bluesky | Auto | Auto |
| Google Business | No | Auto |
| Mastodon | No | Auto |
| Telegram | No | Auto |
Pricing
Hootsuite
Standard
$149 per user / mo
$99/mo billed annually
- Seats
- 1
- Accounts
- 10
- Scheduled posts
- Unlimited
- $99 per user/mo on annual, $149 monthly
- Up to 10 social accounts
- Unlimited scheduling, AI assistant, one inbox
- 7-day mention search, benchmark vs 5 competitors
Advanced
Popular$399 per user / mo
$249/mo billed annually
- Seats
- 1
- Accounts
- Unlimited
- Scheduled posts
- Unlimited
- $249 per user/mo on annual, $399 monthly
- Unlimited social accounts
- Bulk schedule up to 350 posts at once
- Custom reports, approval workflows, 30-day listening
Enterprise
Custom
- Accounts
- Unlimited
- Custom pricing, 5+ users, unlimited accounts
- SSO, employee advocacy (Amplify), premium listening
- Salesforce, review management, compliance integrations
- Priced per user/seat: the headline $99 / $249 is for one seat and multiplies by how many people you add.
- No free plan. There's a 30-day trial, and the 25% trial-skip discount only applies on annual billing.
- Annual billing is much cheaper than monthly: Standard is $99 vs $149 a seat, Advanced $249 vs $399.
- Prices are USD list. Hootsuite renders prices client-side in local currency by region, so the annual figures were read off the live plans page and the monthly figures corroborated against current third-party listings.
Zoho Social
Free
Free
- Seats
- 1
- Accounts
- 6
- 1 brand, 6 channels (Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn profile and page, Google Business), 1 member
- Home dashboard, drafts, basic publishing, 5 AI credits
- Forever free after the 15-day all-access trial
Standard
$15 /mo
$10/mo billed annually
- Seats
- 1
- Accounts
- 12
- $15/mo, $10 on annual (per brand, per member)
- 1 brand, 12 channels (adds YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky), 1 member
- Publishing calendar, multi-channel publishing, zurl shortener, summary reports, 40 AI credits
Professional
$40 /mo
$30/mo billed annually
- Seats
- 1
- Accounts
- 12
- $40/mo, $30 on annual (per brand, per member)
- 1 brand, 12 channels, 1 member
- Adds bulk scheduling, repeat posting, post insights, monitoring dashboard, media library, RSS, messages, first comment
Premium
Popular$65 /mo
$40/mo billed annually
- Seats
- 3
- Accounts
- 14
- $65/mo, $40 on annual (per brand)
- 1 brand, 14 channels (adds WhatsApp Business and Telegram Business), 3 members
- Adds SmartQ, unified Inbox, content approvals and workflow, custom reports, UTM, Zoho CRM and Desk integration, 80 AI credits
Agency
$320 /mo
$230/mo billed annually
- Seats
- 5
- Accounts
- 140
- $320/mo, $230 on annual
- 10 brands, up to 140 channels, 5 members
- Client invite, customizable client portal, agency-branded reports, all Premium features
Agency Plus
$460 /mo
$330/mo billed annually
- Seats
- 5
- Accounts
- 280
- $460/mo, $330 on annual
- 20 brands, up to 280 channels, 5 members
- All Agency features, with 10 more brands available as add-ons
- Zoho splits into business plans (one brand) and agency plans (many brands). The business tiers (Standard, Professional, Premium) are billed per brand per team member, so the headline is for a single brand with the bundled members; the agency tiers bundle 10 or 20 brands at a flat price.
- Extra brands and members are add-ons: roughly $19.50 a brand each month and $10 a member each month on annual billing (a little more monthly, and the brand rate varies by plan), so a single-brand business with a few people climbs past the sticker price.
- Annual billing is up to about 33% cheaper: Standard $10 vs $15, Professional $30 vs $40, Premium $40 vs $65 a month.
- There's a forever-free plan (1 brand, 6 channels, 1 member) that kicks in after the 15-day all-access trial, no card required.
- Records are USD. The live pricing page geo-locates and showed Australian dollars including GST here, so the USD list figures were taken from Zoho's US pricing and current third-party listings, then cross-checked by stripping the 10% GST from the AUD and converting (for example Premium A$66.91, less GST, times about 0.66, lands near $40).
Pros and cons
Hootsuite
- Broad by design: scheduling, listening, inbox, and reporting together
- Deep analytics and competitor benchmarking
- Publishes to nine networks, including Bluesky and Threads
- Strong approval workflows on Advanced and up
- Expensive, and per-seat pricing climbs quickly
- No free plan, and the entry price is $99 a month
- Monthly billing costs far more than annual
- The depth is overkill if you only schedule a few accounts
Zoho Social
- Deep Zoho CRM and Desk integration, a genuine differentiator
- Direct publishing to a dozen channels, with monitoring and a unified inbox
- Forever-free plan and a clear annual discount
- Flat agency plans for managing many brands
- Per-brand-per-member pricing plus add-ons gets fiddly
- WhatsApp and Telegram are Premium-only
- No evergreen recycling queue or visual feed planner
- Listed business-plan prices are before brand and member add-ons
Hootsuite vs Zoho Social: FAQ
- Is Hootsuite or Zoho Social cheaper?
- Zoho Social is cheaper to start, from $10 against $99 for Hootsuite. The unit each one charges by differs, so the real bill depends on how many channels or seats you run.
- Does Hootsuite or Zoho Social have a free plan?
- Zoho Social has a free plan; Hootsuite does not, though it offers a 30-day trial.
- Which is better, Hootsuite or Zoho Social?
- Hootsuite is the stronger pick for small teams that need listening and reporting in one place, while Zoho Social is the better fit for businesses already using Zoho CRM or the wider Zoho suite. We don't score them; the right call comes down to how you post.