SocialPilot Review

SocialPilot’s pricing model is the interesting thing about it. Rather than charging per channel or per seat, it sells bundles that include both, and one of those bundles is the best-value team plan in this directory.

The $34 tier

Standard is $40 a month, or $34 annually, and covers ten social accounts and three users. Included at that price: approval workflow, social inbox, bulk scheduling and white-label reports.

Compare that. Buffer Team for ten channels with colleagues is $120 a month. Hootsuite for three seats is around $297. SchedPilot only reaches team seats at its $79 Enterprise tier. For a three-person agency with ten client accounts, nothing else comes close, and this single plan is why SocialPilot appears in most of our agency recommendations.

The rest of the range

Essentials is $20 a month, $17 annually, for five accounts and one user. Reasonable, though Publer at $21 for five accounts adds cheaper team members and bulk features.

Premium is $100 a month, $85 annually, for twenty accounts and six users. This is where it stops being a value play: twenty accounts on SchedPilot Gold is $35. You are paying $65 a month for the extra seats and the agency tooling, which is only worth it if you use both.

Ultimate is $200 for forty accounts and unlimited users. There is a 14-day trial and no card is required, which is more generous than most. No free plan.

What it is like to use

Functional. The calendar works, bulk CSV takes up to 500 posts, and the approval flow does what it says. Nothing about it is delightful and nothing is broken.

White-label reporting included at $34 is worth flagging, because several competitors treat it as a premium add-on and agencies use it monthly.

Network coverage is slightly behind the leaders on newer platforms, so check the current list against your client roster before committing.

Analytics are adequate. If reporting depth is what you need, run Metricool alongside it.

Who it is for

Small agencies and freelancers with two or three clients, plus in-house teams of three where more than one person publishes. That is a large slice of the market and SocialPilot serves it better than anything else at the price.

It stops being the answer past twenty accounts, where flat-rate pricing wins decisively.

Setup and the first week

SocialPilot is straightforward to set up and slightly tedious, which is a fair description of the whole product. Connecting ten client accounts takes about twenty minutes of permission screens. Once they are in, grouping them by client and assigning team members to those groups is quick and works properly.

The bulk CSV import is the thing to learn first. Five hundred posts per upload, with columns for date, time, account and caption, turns a month of scheduling into one file. Agencies that use this properly get a real hour back every week, and agencies that never open it wonder why they are paying for an agency tool.

The approval workflow in practice

SocialPilot’s approvals are single-tier: a post is either approved or it is not. There is no chain of reviewers and no conditional routing, which is exactly what Loomly charges more for.

For most agencies that is sufficient, because most approval processes are one client saying yes. For a regulated business with a legal reviewer and a brand reviewer, it is not, and this is the most common reason teams outgrow SocialPilot rather than price.

Clients can be given a limited login that shows only their own content, which works well enough. It is less polished than Planable’s shared-link review and considerably cheaper, and for most client relationships that trade is the right one.

Verdict

Thirteenth overall, which undersells the one plan that matters. If your situation is ten accounts and three people, this is the tool to buy and the ranking is beside the point.

It sits here because the tiers either side of that plan are unremarkable, and because a directory ranking has to average across everyone rather than optimise for one shape of team.

Where SocialPilot comes up

Shortlists and comparisons that cover it alongside the alternatives.

• Top 5 Vista Social Alternatives
• Best Social Media Scheduler APIs
• SchedPilot vs Hootsuite
• Hootsuite Alternatives