Planoly vs Sprout Social Comparison 2026
Both cover social media management. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
At a glance
- Planoly starts cheaper, at $14.
- Only Planoly has a free tier.
Side by side
Planoly | Sprout Social | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $14 | From $99 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free plan, paid tiers | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier (they differ) | Yes | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial (they differ) | 14 days | 30 days |
| API | Not stated |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Planoly
Plan the grid before anything is posted
Planoly started as a visual planner for Instagram and still leads with the thing that made it: drag posts around a mock grid until the feed looks right, then schedule from there. Pinterest and TikTok came later and the link in bio is included rather than sold separately. Pricing is by social set and by user, both of which can be added one at a time, which suits somebody running two accounts rather than twenty.
Our note
Count your social sets and users before comparing tiers, since the per-unit add-ons are where this quietly gets expensive. If the grid preview is not the thing you want, a general scheduler will cover the rest for less.
Only on this side
- Covers link in bio
Sprout Social
The heavyweight, priced per seat
Sprout Social is what a social team buys when the job has stopped being scheduling and become inbox triage, approvals, listening and reporting somebody outside the team will read. The consolidated inbox and the review management are the parts creators with a manager tend to notice first. Everything is priced per seat, which is the fact that decides whether it belongs in a one-person setup: a second person doubles the bill.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.