Best Social Media Management Tools For Agencies 

This is not your average social media tools list. 

This list is for agencies, by agencies. 

Across our teams, we’ve used 22 different social media scheduling and analytics tools. We’ve also spent hours reading through Reddit to find genuine insights into what tools work best for agencies and their unique scenarios. 

Below is a list of the best social media scheduling and analytics tools for specific agency scenarios. 

Tips for choosing the best social media management tools

Don’t get distracted by features you don’t need

There is no shortage of social media management tools. They all have amazing features and are constantly evolving. However, of the features that they offer, 20% of the tool’s features will likely deliver 80% of the value you need. 

The first step in choosing the right tool is to identify your core needs.

Prioritise tools that excel in meeting these needs. For example, that could include scheduling, analytics, and content planning.

Because these features will have the greatest impact on your productivity and results, they should be part of the non-negotiables that influence your decision. By focusing on the key tasks that drive the most value, you can avoid wasting time and resources on unnecessary extras that don’t contribute to your agency’s overall goals. 

If these features are included, it means that the tool is “Good Enough”. We’ll touch on this next.

However, for larger agencies or agencies offering a more bespoke offering, there are specific social media tools that outperform their competitors. In the list below, we’ve highlighted four social media tools that we have personally used and the unique use cases that apply best to them. 

Don’t be afraid of good enough.

The “good enough” decision-making principle is relevant for agencies choosing a social media management tool because it allows them to avoid wasting time searching for the perfect solution. 

Instead, they can select a tool that meets their core needs so they can start improving workflows right away. With deadlines, multiple clients, and limited resources, spending too much time on evaluation can hinder productivity. 

A “good enough” choice ensures the agency can focus on execution rather than getting bogged down in decision-making. 

This approach balances effectiveness with efficiency. 

Prioritise Tools With Responsive Support and Development Teams

Whether there is a small bug preventing your scheduled posts from going out or Meta decides to launch a LinkedIn clone tomorrow, your clients expect you to act fast. A tool with support and development teams that prioritise and tackle issues efficiently is important.

Think back to when Threads launched. Your clients probably wanted to know if their posts would be published there too, and your regular process would have been thrown out the window. Until your tool of choice works to integrate new changes, you’re stuck manually publishing. 

The same can be said for new features that are made within the social media platforms. For example, when Twitter (sorry, “X”) increased their character limit, how soon after that was released could you take advantage of it from your tool of choice? 

Best Social Media Management Tools For Agencies 

Agorapulse

Best overall social media scheduling and analytics tool for agencies.

For years, Agorapulse has focussed on being a tool for agencies and enterprise teams. 

Technically, most social media management software could work for agencies, but few focus on offering these features with agencies and large teams in mind. 

Agorapulse has always focused on delivering superior reporting, workflow management and great customer support. While you may be able to create and schedule content for clients in a native social media platform, it would be difficult to find a tool that can do this as seamlessly and efficiently as Agorapulse.

When using Agorapulse, if we experienced any issues we never had to wait more than 30 minutes for a response. When new platforms open their APIs, and issues do come up, knowing that you will get the support you need is critical for large social media accounts.

While many competitors offer community management features, Agorapulse takes it to the next level by increasing the efficiency at which you can manage client inboxes through feature sets like one-click translations, pre-saved responses (a personal favourite of ours) and the ability to filter and label items.

Emplifi 

Best all-in-one solution for large-scale social media management agencies

While tools like Agorapulse and Buffer focus on ease of social media scheduling, reporting and team collaboration, Emplifi provides deeper audience insights and sentiment analysis through AI. 

Over the past few years, Emplifi has consistently won awards for innovation in its industry, namely, “Best Customer Experience Management Platform” by the MarTech Breakthrough Awards Program and Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud across all three awards categories; Best Value for Price, Best Feature Set, and Best Relationship. 

This tool offers features that only large-scale social media accounts would need or could justify the cost of. 

For example, Benefit Cosmetics uses Emplifi to facilitate its decentralised social media approach easily, leveraging both local and global content strategies. As an agency owner reading this, you know how important client reporting is in extracting insights from the data and showing value to the client. 

With its API and over 70 integrations, Emplifi allows agencies to easily integrate reporting into clients’ internal tools and workflows.

Buffer

Best for smaller agencies who value simplicity and a clean UI and don’t manage a lot of accounts

Few tools can compete with Buffer in terms of its simplicity, ease of use and manageable UI. But it not only looks good, it is also always innovating. 

Buffer is known worldwide for its incredible team culture and work policies that focus on innovation and creativity. This means that Buffer has always been ahead of the curve with its features and is a reliable software that continues to perform year after year. You can learn more about how they’re building a better product and their insights on social media in their podcast, The Science Of Social Media. (If you’re looking for great podcasts for agencies, we wrote a blog for you, 4 Best Digital Marketing Podcasts for Agency Owners.)

Free for the first three channels; thereafter, you’ll pay between $6-$12 a month per channel. Buffer is affordable while still offering you a high-quality tool. The issue comes in when managing a large volume of accounts. 

For example, if you were to manage 12 accounts, you would pay $26 with Social Champ and $72 with Buffer (Or realistically $132 because with that many accounts, you’ll probably require features on the agency plan). 

Social Champ

Best low-cost social media tool for agencies on a budget.

For most agencies, you only need the core functionality the majority of social media scheduling tools offer. If you fall into this category, then Social Champ is a great choice. 

While its UI leaves a bit to be desired, it is reliable, has a solid set of core features and is very affordable. 

Although it is one of the cheaper tools, it does include some more advanced features (which only matter if they matter to you), like approval workflows, bulk uploading and team collaboration features, which some of the other more affordable tools don’t have. 

A quick comparison: if you’re an agency with only two people on your team who require access to the social media management tool and you manage four platforms for each of your five clients (20 total accounts), then your costs would look a little like this:

Social Champ: $89/mBusiness Plan – their middle tier	Buffer: $180/m Agency Plan – their highest tier	Agorapulse: $288/mStandard Plan – their lowest tier $69 * 2 users + $15 * 10 additional profiles

Choosing the right social media management tool can significantly impact your agency’s productivity and success. Focus on the features that matter most, stay flexible, and remember that “good enough” can be the best decision for efficient workflow management. 

If you’re looking to improve your agency’s reporting take a look at our social media dashboard templates, Looker studio templates and our PPC templates.