Sprout Social vs Loomly: Quick Comparison Overview
Sprout Social and Loomly are both designed to help teams plan, publish, and evaluate social media content across multiple networks. They overlap on essentials like scheduling and performance reporting, but they feel different in day-to-day use.
The difference is largely about what your team spends the most time doing. Sprout Social tends to suit teams managing engagement at scale with stronger reporting and listening options, while Loomly is more calendar-led and approval-friendly for teams that run structured content workflows.
What is Sprout Social?
Sprout Social is a social media management platform that combines publishing, message management, and reporting. Its publishing tools support multi-profile scheduling and centralized post creation.
On the engagement side, Sprout includes inbox workflows with features like tagging and engagement reporting that can help teams track response activity and service performance. It also offers social listening as a separate product for teams that need broader trend and conversation analysis.
What is Loomly?
Loomly is a social media management platform focused on content planning through a structured calendar. It emphasizes post creation, scheduling, and publishing with review steps that support team-based workflows.
Loomly also offers approval processes and supports modern content formats (such as Stories and Reels). Ongoing community work, it includes a unified inbox and saved reply options aimed at keeping response handling organized.
Sprout Social vs Loomly Comparison Table
| Category | Sprout Social | Loomly |
|---|---|---|
| Overall focus | Engagement + reporting + listening | Calendar planning + approvals + publishing |
| Best for | Larger teams with heavier inbox needs | Teams with structured content reviews |
| Scheduling & publishing | Centralized publishing tools | Calendar-first planning and publishing |
| Engagement | Tagging and engagement reporting | Unified inbox with saved replies |
| Listening | Dedicated listening product | Not positioned as listening-first |
| Approvals | Available depending on plan/workflow | Multi-step approvals are core |
| Free trial | 30 days | 15 days |
| Starting Price | $249/month | $65/month |
Sprout Social vs Loomly Features Comparison
Sprout Social and Loomly both cover the day-to-day needs of social media management. They help teams manage social media accounts across multiple platforms from a single dashboard.
Where they start to separate is what they center in the workflow. Sprout Social leans into engagement, reporting, and social listening, while Loomly leans into content creation and approvals.
Core Features Overview
For social media marketing teams, both tools support scheduling and publishing across multiple social platforms. That helps digital marketers keep social media efforts consistent without jumping between tabs.
Both also include features for managing social media beyond posting. Loomly highlights community management in a unified inbox, while Sprout focuses on inbox filtering and tagging in its Smart Inbox.
Sprout Social Key Features
Sprout Social offers multi-profile publishing, so social media managers can schedule posts across networks from one compose flow. It also supports multimedia publishing, which helps when posts need video or multiple images. On the engagement side, Sprout’s Smart Inbox supports tagging and filtering so teams can prioritize messages.
Sprout Social also sells social listening features for consumer research and brand health tracking. These listening views can include sentiment analysis, trend signals, and competitor comparison metrics like share of voice.
Loomly Key Features
Loomly is built around a content calendar, with planning tools that help teams fill gaps fast. It highlights daily post ideas, RSS feeds for draft posts, and hashtag suggestions for reach. It also supports content quality checks through a structured planning flow. Calendar reminders and draft management. For creatives, Loomly Media Studio is a standout for quick edits during content creation.
Loomly Studio supports image editing like cropping, filters, and adjustments, and it later added video editing too. On the community side, Loomly provides a unified inbox for comments, replies, and DMs on supported channels. It also supports bulk actions, saved replies, and task assignments through message assignment.
Unique Features: Sprout Social vs Loomly
If your team’s work involves social listening, Sprout has a clearer feature story. It describes competitor benchmarking through side-by-side competitor comparison, including share of voice and sentiment. This can help large organizations that track brand perception across many conversations. It can also help agencies that report on trending topics and competitor movement at a higher level.
Loomly stands out more on the content workflow side. Post Ideas, RSS feeds, and hashtag suggestions are built to keep planning moving when teams need steady output. It also adds creative support through Loomly Studio for fast media edits. That mix works well for small business owners who want fewer steps between idea, design, and scheduling.
Analytics and Reporting Capabilities
Both tools include analytics capabilities that help teams judge what content performs best. Loomly describes real-time performance tracking to refine strategy, which often covers basic analytics needs. Sprout’s positioning leans more toward deep analytics and advanced reporting for teams that need formal reporting.
Sprout Social Analytics Tools
Sprout’s analytics pages describe reporting designed to quantify performance and show ROI from social media activity. It also references tag-based views, which can help break down results by campaign themes.
For teams that need more than standard dashboards, Sprout’s Premium Analytics is positioned as an add-on with deeper reporting. This is usually where advanced analytics and advanced reporting needs show up for larger enterprises. Sprout also supports connecting Google Analytics inside its integrations area.
Loomly Analytics Tools
Loomly’s analytics content focuses on post performance and campaign impact in near real time. It frames analytics as a way to spot top posts and adjust future scheduling. Loomly also offers analytics for posts published via Loomly and for some posts published outside Loomly. That can help social media managers keep a fuller view of activity across social media accounts.
User Interface and Ease of Use: Sprout Social vs Loomly
For managing social media across multiple platforms, the interface matters because it shapes how quickly teams can create, review, and respond. Sprout Social leans toward inbox-driven workflows, while Loomly keeps most actions anchored in a calendar-first experience.
Interface Design Comparison
Sprout Social is designed around a workbench feel: publishing, a Smart Inbox, and reporting live in a unified product layout. The Smart Inbox is positioned as a central stream for messages across major networks, which can suit social media managers who spend a lot of time in engagement and response management.
Loomly’s layout is more visibly content-led, with the calendar acting as the main “home” for planning and scheduling. Loomly frames itself as easy-to-use and collaborative, which typically appeals to teams that prioritize content creation and approvals over heavy inbox triage.
Learning Curve and User Experience
Sprout’s learning curve often depends on how much of the platform a team adopts beyond scheduling. Features like Smart Inbox views (including split-pane and conversation-style layouts) add helpful structure, but they can require a bit of setup and habit-building for new users.
Loomly generally feels faster for first-time users because the steps mirror how many marketers already plan: draft → optimize → approve → schedule posts. Its emphasis on content approval workflow and collaboration can make onboarding smoother for small business owners, agencies, and teams that need clarity on who does what.
Mobile App Functionality
Sprout’s mobile apps focus on keeping work moving when you are away from the desk. It allows scheduling, drafting, and publishing from mobile, and it also highlights a mobile inbox so teams do not miss messages useful when multiple users share responsibility for social accounts.
Loomly also offers iOS and Android apps, positioning them around calendar access and streamlined planning. The Loomly app experience is framed as a cleaner, smoother interface for on-the-go scheduling and collaboration, which supports teams juggling multiple social media accounts across multiple platforms.
Team Collaboration Features
Team collaboration can make or break day-to-day social media management, especially when multiple users share publishing and inbox responsibilities. Sprout Social leans into structured approvals and governed access, while Loomly keeps collaboration tightly connected to the content calendar and review flow.
Workflow Management and Approval Processes
Sprout Social includes an approval workflow designed for teams that need reviews before posts go live. This is often useful for agencies and larger enterprises that route drafts through compliance, legal, or brand checks before they schedule posts.
Loomly’s workflow is built around a calendar-first approval experience, with collaboration workflows that define how a post moves from draft to published. Loomly also highlights assignment rules and safeguards to reduce accidental posting, which can be helpful for small business teams running many posts across multiple platforms.
Role-Based Permissions and User Management
Sprout Social supports role-based publishing permissions and user permission settings that control who can approve posts and which Smart Inbox features someone can access. This approach fits teams that want governance over social media accounts without giving every teammate the same level of access.
Loomly also emphasizes controlled access, including custom user permissions and role-based setup to match how digital marketers split responsibilities. If your team is comparing plan limits like unlimited users or unlimited social accounts, it helps to check each tier closely since collaboration depth and user controls can vary by plan in social media management tools.
Team Communication Tools
Sprout Social supports internal collaboration through features like conversations and case collaboration, which let social media managers leave internal notes around specific messages or items. That can reduce back-and-forth when several people are managing social media engagement in a shared inbox.
Loomly positions collaboration around real-time commenting on posts, with notifications that can extend to tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. This kind of feedback loop is different from vendor chat support, but it still helps teams keep reviews organized and move content forward without losing context.
Sprout Social vs Loomly for Content Management
Content management is where social media management tools either feel effortless or exhausting, especially when you’re handling multiple platforms and many posts at once. Sprout Social focuses on structured publishing with approvals and an asset hub, while Loomly keeps content creation and planning anchored in a calendar and content library.
Content Scheduling and Publishing
Sprout Social offers a Social Media Calendar designed to plan and schedule multiple social media posts across different profiles and networks, with queuing to line up content in advance. It also supports message approval workflows, which helps when scheduling needs a review step before you schedule posts.
Loomly’s scheduling experience is strongly calendar-first, with drag-and-drop planning, previewing posts before publishing, and options like duplicating posts or using placeholders. Teams comparing Loomly vs Sprout Social often find Loomly’s calendar flow more intuitive for day-to-day planning, especially when trying to keep cadence steady across multiple social platforms.
Content Library and Asset Management
Sprout’s Asset Library is positioned as a centralized place to create or import assets, including imports from tools like Canva, Bynder, Dropbox, and Google Drive, then edit and publish from one location. That structure can help social media managers maintain content quality when multiple users are pulling from shared creative files.
Loomly’s Content Library focuses on keeping creation, inspiration, and storage in one workflow, including Post Ideas, relevant hashtag suggestions, and calendar reminders. It also highlights pulling visuals from Canva, Unsplash, and Google Drive, plus Loomly Studio for trimming/cropping images and videos to match channel specs useful when you want quick optimization tips built into the creation flow.
Multi-Platform Support
Both tools support publishing to social media platforms like BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Threads, TikTok, X (Twitter), and YouTube. But Sprout Social has a wider integration ecosystem across major platforms and partner tools. It also offers URL tracking to identify social traffic in Google Analytics, which can be helpful when managing social media with measurable campaign outcomes.
Social Media Management Capabilities
Social media management capabilities go beyond scheduling; they’re about how well you handle conversations, monitor signals, and keep social media accounts organized across multiple platforms.
Social Listening and Monitoring Tools
Social listening tracks broader conversations, not just direct messages or mentions. It can surface sentiment analysis and trending topics around your brand.
Monitoring is usually narrower and more action-driven for social media managers. It centers on keywords, hashtags, and location-based discovery tied to daily engagement.
Sprout Social Listening Features
Sprout Social’s listening setup is oriented toward a competitive context, including competitor benchmarking views that can track share of voice and sentiment patterns over time. That can help digital marketers explain performance shifts beyond basic analytics.
It also fits teams that want listening insights to feed planning, not just reporting, so content and engagement choices can react to what audiences are discussing. For larger enterprises and agencies, that “why it moved” layer often pairs naturally with advanced analytics and advanced reporting needs.
Loomly Listening Features
Loomly is less centered on building an in-platform listening suite and more centered on managing what comes directly into your workflow. Teams that need ongoing sentiment analysis or competitor benchmarking often pair Loomly with separate social listening tools.
Loomly’s strength is keeping day-to-day work tidy, especially when you are managing social media across multiple platforms with a smaller team. The focus stays on execution signals and organization, rather than deep analytics.
Engagement and Response Management
Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox is built for handling a steady volume of engagement across social accounts, with structures like tagging, filtering, and shared visibility for teams. It also supports monitoring streams tied to keywords, hashtags, and locations, which helps when you want to join conversations beyond direct mentions.
Loomly’s unified inbox leans into speed and clarity, with organization tools that support task assignments and routing messages to the right teammate. For small business owners and growing teams, this can make managing social media feel less scattered without turning the workflow into a reporting project.
Social Media Management Tools Compared
If your workflow depends on insights-first decisions like tracking sentiment, spotting trending topics early, and running competitor benchmarking, Sprout Social is usually the stronger fit. It’s better aligned with teams that need social listening plus deeper analytics to guide strategy across multiple platforms.
If your workflow is more execution-first, keeping replies organized in a unified inbox while your calendar stays on track, Loomly can be the better match. It works well when you want straightforward engagement handling and publishing control, and you’re comfortable using a separate tool if you ever need deeper listening.
Marketing and Automation Features
Marketing features matter when your social media marketing team needs repeatable campaigns across multiple platforms without rebuilding every workflow from scratch.
Campaign Management Tools
Sprout Social is a solid fit when campaigns need to be tracked consistently across many social media accounts, especially in larger enterprises or agencies. Tag-based organization makes it easier for social media managers to group related posts and evaluate campaign impact without losing context across multiple social platforms.
Loomly works well when campaign execution lives inside a calendar, where content approval workflow and task assignments are part of the same loop. For small business owners and lean teams, the structure feels practical because you can keep scheduling, reviews, and publishing aligned without turning campaign setup into a separate project.
Marketing Analytics
Sprout Social tends to appeal to digital marketers who want deep analytics and advanced analytics beyond basic engagement numbers. Its analytics capabilities are usually most valuable when you need advanced reporting that helps explain outcomes across teams, channels, and longer time windows, including tying social media efforts into broader measurement like Google Analytics.
Loomly’s reporting is often enough when the goal is fast feedback on social media content performance and consistent updates for stakeholders. It’s a good fit for teams that want basic analytics that are easy to act on, especially when managing social media across multiple platforms and prioritizing speed over analysis depth.
Automation Capabilities
Sprout Social offers more “set it and steer it” automation for teams handling a high volume of posts and engagement. That includes smarter scheduling support and rules-based organization that helps larger teams manage conversations and publishing with fewer manual steps.
Loomly’s automation shows up more in the production line: bulk scheduling, RSS feeds for idea inputs, and optimization tips that help improve content quality before you schedule posts. Paired with Loomly Media Studio and an intuitive interface, it supports a workflow where teams can create quickly, stay organized, and keep publishing steadily without overcomplicating the process.
Integrations and Platform Compatibility
Integrations decide whether your social media management tool fits cleanly into the rest of your stack or creates extra manual steps.
Native Integrations Comparison
Native integrations matter most for the actions you repeat every day: pulling assets into content creation, sharing approvals with your team, and tracking results without switching tools. Sprout Social and Loomly both support multiple platforms, but they optimize for different “home bases” in your workflow.
Sprout Social Integrations
Sprout Social supports a wide integration mix across categories like Business Intelligence (BI), Help Desk, Lead Generation & CRM, Website & Link Tracking, and Workflow & DAM. For teams managing social media accounts at scale, that range makes it easier to connect social work to sales, support, and reporting without rebuilding processes in separate tools. On measurement, Sprout supports Google Analytics connectivity and GA4-oriented link tracking, so social media efforts can be tied back to sessions and traffic sources.
Loomly Integrations
Loomly’s native integrations skew toward helping teams create and ship content faster across multiple social platforms. It supports tools like Canva, Giphy, Google Drive, and Unsplash, which fit marketers who want a smooth path from content creation to scheduling in a single dashboard. For teams, it supports Slack notifications, which helps to keep approvals and task assignments moving without everyone living inside the app all day. It also supports Google Business Profile posting, which matters for small business owners managing local visibility alongside social media content.
Third-Party Apps and API Access
Sprout Social offers both a Public API and a broader Sprout API that can be used to access owned social profiles and post data for dashboards and reporting automation. The API route is typically a fit for larger teams with data, engineering, or IT support, especially when advanced reporting needs require custom pipelines into BI tools.
Loomly’s most flexible “connector layer” is commonly Zapier, which expands integration coverage far beyond the native set and can link Loomly to tools like Google Analytics 4 or team systems. For many businesses and agencies, that approach is more practical than building custom integrations, especially when the goal is to automate routine handoffs rather than build a full developer workflow.
Sprout Social vs Loomly Pricing and Plans
Pricing affects how easily your social media management scales as you add social media accounts, users, and workflows across multiple platforms.
Sprout Social Pricing Tiers
Sprout Social uses a per-seat model, which can feel straightforward for teams that budget per role (social media managers, community leads, analysts). Its Standard plan starts at $249 per seat/month, followed by Professional at $399 per seat/month and Advanced at $499 per seat/month. That structure often suits larger teams because you can scale access gradually, but it can add up as more digital marketers need logins.
Loomly Pricing Tiers
Loomly has four plans: Free, Starter ($65/month), Beyond ($332/month), and Enterprise (quote). Free includes 1 user/3 accounts and 5 posts/month, while paid tiers add unlimited posts/calendars; Beyond includes unlimited users and 60 social accounts.
Free Trial and Free Plans
Sprout Social offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card required, which gives teams enough runway to test scheduling, inbox workflows, and reporting before committing.
Loomly offers a 15-day free trial (also no credit card required) for evaluating full workflow fit, and it also has a Free plan for lighter needs. The Free plan is capped at 1 user, 3 social media accounts, and 5 posts per month, which can work for small business owners experimenting with managing social media before moving into paid tiers.
Value for Money: Which Offers Better ROI?
Sprout Social can deliver a strong ROI when your workflow needs social listening, deep analytics, and advanced reporting that stakeholders actually use. In those cases, the per-seat pricing starts to feel more justified because the platform replaces several “patchwork” tools for managing social media and reporting across multiple platforms.
Loomly often feels like a better value when the priority is consistent scheduling, content approval workflow, and team collaboration without paying per seat as quickly. If your day-to-day is mostly content creation, calendar execution, and keeping a unified inbox organized, Loomly’s tiered capacity can be a budget-friendly way to keep social media efforts moving, especially for small business owners and agencies
Customer Support and Resources
When scheduling breaks or an account disconnects, fast support keeps social media efforts on track.
Sprout Social offers more direct support paths, while Loomly keeps support centered on chat, email, and tickets.
Support Options and Response Times
Sprout Social gives customers multiple ways to reach support, including live chat, ticket support, and phone support during weekdays. For teams that need tighter response expectations, Sprout also has a Premier Success option with a guaranteed two-hour first reply time.
Loomly’s support flow is more streamlined, with a Help Center request form as the main entry point.
It also supports chat support and email support, which fits small business teams that want quick, simple contact options.
Training, Onboarding, and Documentation
Sprout Social has structured onboarding articles in its Help Center, plus a learning hub that includes courses and certification paths. It also runs webinars, which can help agencies and larger teams roll out shared workflows across users.
Loomly provides step-by-step documentation in its Help Center, with categories that match how social media managers work (calendar, creation, analytics, engagement). Beyond docs, Loomly offers tutorials, webinars, and free courses that focus on planning and managing social media on multiple platforms.
Community and User Resources
Sprout Social has a customer community called The Arboretum, built for peer Q&A and shared best practices. That community angle can be useful when teams want real workflows from other social media managers, not just product docs.
Loomly leans more into self-serve learning through its tutorials, templates, and webinars. It also maintains a public status page, which is handy for teams watching publishing uptime across connected social media accounts.
Sprout Social vs Loomly: Which Should You Choose?
Choosing between these social media management tools usually depends on whether your team needs deeper listening and analytics, or a cleaner planning-and-approval workflow across multiple platforms.
When to Choose Sprout Social
Choose Sprout Social when your social media efforts require deep analytics, advanced reporting, and social listening that can stand up in leadership reviews. It’s typically a stronger fit for digital marketers who need to connect performance across many social media accounts and multiple social platforms into one reporting narrative.
It also makes sense when engagement volume is high, and you need structured workflows in a unified inbox, especially if multiple users handle replies. For large organizations, the combination of inbox management and analytics capabilities reduces the number of separate tools needed to manage conversations and insights.
When to Choose Loomly
Choose Loomly when your workflow is content-first, and you want an intuitive interface that makes it easy to create, review, and schedule posts across multiple platforms. Loomly works well for teams that value content creation support, like Loomly Media Studio, optimization tips, and hashtag suggestions as part of the daily process.
It’s also a strong option for small business owners and lean teams who want clarity in approvals and task assignments without heavy setup. If your main need is reliable scheduling and steady publishing across multiple social media accounts, Loomly keeps things simple while still covering core analytics.
Key Decision Factors for Your Business
If your top priority is listening depth, like sentiment analysis, competitor benchmarking, and trending topics that inform strategy, Sprout Social is usually the better match. This matters most when social media marketing is tied to brand monitoring, and you need more than basic analytics to guide decisions.
If your priority is predictable execution calendar planning, content approval workflow, and quick scheduling across multiple social platforms, Loomly can be the better fit. Loomly stands out when the team wants a single dashboard for planning and publishing that combines affordability with practical collaboration.
Better Alternatives to Consider
If you want a simpler way to manage social media without paying enterprise-style costs, RecurPost is often a smarter alternative. It’s especially useful when your strategy depends on evergreen posting, recurring queues, and consistent scheduling across social accounts without turning day-to-day work into a reporting-heavy process.
RecurPost also tends to work well for agencies and small business teams that need team collaboration, approvals, publishing across multiple social media accounts, paid ads, and Instagram DM automation, while staying budget-friendly. If Sprout feels built for larger enterprises and Loomly feels more calendar-centric than you need, RecurPost can be a balanced middle ground that keeps workflows efficient and scalable.
Sprout Social vs Loomly FAQs
1. Is Sprout Social or Loomly better for small businesses?
Loomly suits small business owners who want a clean way to manage social media across multiple platforms without extra complexity. The calendar, content approval workflow, and task assignments keep social media content moving when one person wears many hats. It also works well when basic analytics are enough, and the main goal is to schedule posts consistently across multiple social platforms.
2. Which social media management tool is more affordable?
Loomly is the more budget-friendly choice for many teams because pricing starts with a Free plan, then moves to Starter at $65/month, Beyond at $332/month, and Enterprise via quote. The Beyond tier also includes unlimited users and up to 60 social accounts, which can matter for agencies managing many social media accounts.
3. Can I switch from Sprout Social to Loomly?
Loomly can be a smooth switch when you treat it like a workflow reset, not a one-click migration. Start by exporting your planned posts from your current tool, reconnecting social media accounts, and rebuilding your main calendars, so your team can keep managing social media across multiple platforms without gaps.
4. Which has better customer support?
Sprout Social is the stronger pick if you want more ways to reach a real person when something breaks mid-campaign. It has phone access along with chat and ticket options, which suits larger teams that need faster escalation paths.
Sprout also runs its support team Monday to Friday on a 24-hour basis.
5. Do Sprout Social and Loomly offer free trials?
Yes. Sprout Social offers a 30-day free trial, and Loomly offers a 15-day free trial on their paid plans.





