20+ Social Analytics Tools in 2024: Free And Paid

Social analytics tools make tracking and analyzing your clients’ content performance easier than ever. 

The right tools help ensure your social media analytics processes are seamless, allowing you to gather insights and make strategic decisions effortlessly. 

But with so many options, how do you choose the right platforms?

This guide can help. 

We’ll cover the top free and paid social analytics tools, highlighting key features, pricing, and more. 

Ready? Let’s dive in. 

What you will learn

• What are social analytics tools?
• What are the top 21 free and paid social analytics tools? 
• Social analytics tools: What are the insights from marketing leaders and influencers?
• What are the social analytics tools FAQs?
• Which social analytics tools are for you?

What are social analytics tools?

Social analytics tools are software or apps that track and analyze your clients’ content performance across various platforms. 

The tools collect follower growth, engagement rates, audience demographics, and more. 

The data gives you access to a treasure trove of insights, allowing you to refine your strategies, tweak your clients’ content for maximum impact, and make informed decisions. 

Social analytics tools turn your clients’ raw data into actionable information, helping you determine what works, what needs improvement, and how to optimize your efforts. 

What are the top 21 free and paid social analytics tools? 

To help you find the best tool, we’ve narrowed down the top 21 social analytics tools below. 

1. Vista Social

If you’re looking for a comprehensive dashboard and robust social analytics tools, Vista Social can be your solution. 

The social media management platform offers seamless data analysis and interactive reports, including the following:

• Social Media Performance Report
• Post Performance Report
• Competitor Analysis Report
• Review Performance Report
• Sentiment Analysis Report
• Industry Benchmark Report

Must read: Social Media Sentiment Analysis: A Comprehensive Guide

Essential social analytics features

Vista Social’s social media analytics feature lets you schedule reports to run and share automatically with your team members and clients. 

Go to Reports on the Vista Social menu (left side), select the social media profiles from which you want to pull data, and click Run Report.

Next, select Schedule report. 

You can also click Run report to generate a report immediately or select the Report Builder to create custom templates (more on this later).

Choose a report type and set your schedule. 

Include other details, such as the number of times you want to run the report and the email addresses of the people you share the reports with.

If you’re generating the report instantly, choose the report type and select the date range and period of comparison. 

Then, click the download icon on the right.

You can export your reports as PDF or CSV files, or to make things easier, download a shareable link to the reports and send them to your team and clients.

The platform’s Social Media Performance report now includes a grid view, which makes it easy to compare key statistics across your clients’ selected profiles.

To create custom report templates, go to the Report Builder, customize the sections, texts, metrics, cover page, and other elements, and save your template.

The feature allows you to easily white-label your reports by adding custom logos, descriptions, and titles.  

Vista Social is more than a social analytics tool—it is an all-in-one social media management platform with features that include the following:

• A social media publishing feature that lets you schedule your clients’ posts to auto-publish across their connected profiles
• A collaborative content calendar for efficient content planning, development, and management
• A social media engagement feature that unifies all your clients’ comments, messages, mentions, and reviews in one smart Social Inbox 
•  An automated post approval workflow for seamless content review and approval
• An AI Assistant that can generate and refine post descriptions and message replies with one click
• An option to boost your clients’ scheduled, unscheduled, and previously published posts to increase their visibility and reach
• A social media listening tool that pulls mentions of your clients’ brands or conversations around specific keywords you can set up for your Listeners
•  Hashtag and username (handle) generators

Must read: Social Media Handles: How to Pick And Create One

The platform’s other features include review management, a Link in bio tool with Vista Page (customizable landing pages), and employee advocacy. 

Is Vista Social free or paid?

Vista Social offers a free version of its platform for users just starting to manage their social media. 

The free version includes access to essential features like publishing, reporting, and reviews. 

You can get more features with Vista Social’s cost-effective paid plans below:

• Standard: $39/month
• Professional: $79/month
• Advanced: $149/month
• Enterprise: $379/month

2. Sprout Social

Image source: sproutsocial.com

Sprout Social is a popular social media management and monitoring tool with enterprise-level features for marketing campaigns. 

The platform’s cross-channel social listening tools help you qualitatively contextualize and analyze hashtags, keywords, and topics. 

Must read: Hashtag Analytics Guide: With Tips, Tools, and Strategies

Sprout Social’s visual and intuitive reports help you determine how your client’s content performs across social media channels.

Essential social analytics features

Sprout Social’s key analytics features include the following:

• Paid campaign performance analysis across social media platforms
• Group reports of your clients’ social media profiles
• Team performance analysis based on task performance, response rates, and other factors

Is Sprout Social free or paid?

Sprout Social offers a 30-day free trial with Standard, Professional, and Advanced plans. 

The tool’s paid plans are:

• Standard: $249 per seat/month
• Professional: $399 per seat/month
• Advanced: $499 per seat/month
• Enterprise: Contact Sprout Social to get a custom quote

3. Buffer

Image source: buffer.com

Buffer is another popular social media management tool that helps you plan, create, and share your clients’ content across social networks. 

Must read: Social Media Management Tools for Churches

The tool’s analytics feature can track impressions, engagement, follower growth, and hashtag performance (among others). 

Essential social analytics features

Buffer’s core social media analytics features include the following:

• One dashboard that shows your clients’ key data and metrics  from across their connected social channels
• Recommendations based on the performance of your clients’ content
• Downloadable custom reports that you can white-label

Must read: Mastering Social Media Analytics: How to Create Custom Reports

Is Buffer free or paid?

Buffer offers a free plan that allows you to connect a maximum of three social channels and access basic features. 

All of Buffer’s paid plans include a 14-day free trial. 

• Essentials: Starts at $5/month for one channel
• Team: Starts at $10/month for one channel
• Agency: Starts at $100/month for ten channels

4. Zoho Social

Image source: zoho.com

Zoho Social is a social media management tool that helps you manage your clients’ social media presence like a boss. 

The tool’s analytics feature allows you to understand better social media audiences and how they engage with your clients’ brands. 

The tool can monitor your clients’ multiple social channels in real time and analyze each post to measure reach and engagement. 

Essential social analytics features

Zoho Social’s standout analytics features include the following. 

• Intuitive, custom reports that you can build from predefined segments based on the demographics of your clients’ fans, people reached, and influencers they collaborated with
• A breakdown of content formats your clients’ audiences engage with, which you can compare with your clients’ published posts
• An option to compare your clients’ fans with other people reached for each post

Is Zoho Social free or paid?

Zoho Social includes a 15-day free trial for the following paid plans (for Businesses):

• Standard: Starts at $15
• Professional: Starts at $40
• Premium: Starts at $65

The tool’s Agency plan starts at $320 and Agency Plus at $460. 

5. Hootsuite

Image source: hootsuite.com

Hootsuite is a social media management platform with publishing, social listening, content management, and analytics features. 

The tool’s analytics feature helps you determine what content works for your clients and their audiences. 

It also helps you gain insights to refine your strategies for boosting the reach of your clients’ posts, improving their social ads’ effectiveness, and working seamlessly with your team. 

Essential social analytics features

Hootsuite’s analytics features help you with the following tasks.

• Customizing reports by selecting from over 200 metrics and exporting the reports into Excel, PDF, or PowerPoint formats
• Tracking and measuring the response and resolution time of your clients’ customer care team on Facebook and X (Twitter)
• Monitoring brand mentions better via integrations with Talkwalker and Brandwatch

Is Hootsuite free or paid?

Hootsuite’s Professional and Team paid plans include a free 30-day trial.

• Professional: $99/month
• Team: $249/month
• Enterprise: Contact Hootsuite to get a custom quote

6. Keyhole

Image source: keyhole.co

Keyhole includes various trackers to help you monitor your clients’ campaigns, events, brand mentions, influencer activities, and industry-specific social media conversations. 

The tool allows you to track keywords, hashtags, and accounts, giving you data and insights into your clients’ top posts, reach, and share of voice (among others). 

Essential social analytics features

Keyhole offers the following main social media analytics features.

• A functionality that can predict the performance of your clients’ campaigns via machine learning for on-the-fly adjustment and optimization
• Sentiment analysis based on their engagement with your clients’ posts
• Influencer account and permission management, including tracking their performance all from one platform
• Real time social media data tracking

Is Keyhole free or paid?

Keyhole offers a flexible campaign-based pricing structure that starts at $100 per campaign. 

You can contact Keyhole to get a more precise and custom quote. 

7. Sendible

Image source: sendible.com

Sendible is a social media management platform with solid listening, monitoring, and reporting features. 

The tool can provide ready-to-use insights into your clients’ post engagement, audience profiles, and mentions across online channels. 

Essential social analytics features

Sendible’s core social media analytics features include:

• A drag-and-drop builder that lets you easily create professional-looking and custom social media reports
• Tools to track team performance and measure response times 
• Notifications of user reactions and features to engage with multiple social media profiles across social media channels from one dashboard

Is Sendible free or paid?

Sendible’s Creator, Traction, and Scale plans include a 14-day trial.

• Creator: $29/month
• Traction: $89/month
• Scale: $199/month
• Advanced: $299/month
• Enterprise: $750/month

8. Emplifi

Image source: emplifi.io

Emplifi is a social media management platform with a suite of analytics tools that include tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), multiple profiles, automated reports, and competitive intelligence. 

Emplifi analytics offers enterprise-ready and easy-to-use tools with collaboration features. 

Essential social analytics features

The platform’s core social analytics features include the following. 

• Audience sentiment analysis toward your clients’ campaigns based on their interactions and reactions

Must read: Social Media Interaction Post Ideas This 2022

• Options to boost your clients’ Facebook posts based on predictive analysis
• Competitor performance comparison of your clients’ Facebook and Instagram accounts for the last 90 days
• One dashboard to track all your clients’ key metrics across their social media channels

Is Emplifi free or paid?

Emplifi offers Essential, Standard, Business, and Enterprise plans. You can get the pricing after booking a demo. 

9. Rival IQ

Image source: rivaliq.com

Rival IQ allows you to monitor and compare social media performances. 

The tool can also analyze your clients’ Instagram and Facebook ads and includes historical data (up to 24 months). 

Essential social analytics features

The Rival IQ social media analytics tool includes the following features.

• Google Analytics integration to help you understand the customer journey 
• Compare profiles to others in your clients’ industries based on key metrics, content quality, and hashtags
• Automated insights to help improve your clients’ Instagram and Facebook ad performances

Must read: How to Create Automated Social Media Reports

Is Rival IQ free or paid?

Rival IQ’s paid plans are:

• Drive: $239/month
• Engage: $349/month
• Engage Pro: $559/month

10. Iconosquare

Image source: iconosquare.com

Iconosquare is a social media management and marketing tool with analytics features that allow you to monitor, grow, and report on your clients’ social media performances. 

The tool includes competitor tracking and benchmarking features to help you compare your clients’ social media performances with other brands in their industries. 

Essential social analytics features

• Engagement tracking of competitor profiles
• Community analytics to help you gain demographic insights
• Tools to create custom and presentation-ready reports

Is Iconosquare free or paid?

Iconosquare offers the following plans:

• Single: $59/month 
• Teams: $99/month 
• Custom: Get a custom quote

The Single and Teams plans include a 14-day free trial.

11. Talkwalker

Image source: talkwalker.com

Talkwalker is a social media listening and analytics tool that helps you track and analyze your clients’ brand presence. 

It provides various social data, including sentiment, mentions, top posts, conversation distribution, etc.

Essential social analytics features

Talkwalker offers the following social media analytics features.

• Real-time monitoring to measure brand performance 
• Social benchmarking 
• Audience insights based on demographic information

Is Talkwalker free or paid?

You must contact Talkwalker to get the packages’ pricing. 

12. Sparktoro

Image source: sparktoro.com

Sparktoro is an audience intelligence software that analyzes web pages and social media profiles to help you better understand your clients’ target audiences. 

The tool can track and analyze data such as the content your clients’ audiences listen to, watch, share, follow, and discuss online. 

Essential social analytics features

Below are Sparktoro’s core social media analytics features.

• Follower audit to spot which ones are fake
• A SparkScore that is based on the influence of your client’s content performance 
• Uncover the social networks and web pages that your clients’ audiences visit

Is Sparktoro free or paid?

Sparktoro offers a free plan with basic features. Its paid plans include the following:

• Personal: $50/month
• Business: $150/month
• Agency: $300/month 

13. Cyfe

Image source: cyfe.com

Cyfe is a one-stop shop for creating dashboards, simplifying tracking, and visualizing your clients’ KPIs in real time. 

The dashboard tool can integrate data from marketing and sales tools, Google Analytics, and social media platforms. 

Essential social analytics features

Cyfe offers the following social media analytics features.

• Customizable dashboards
• Automated reports and alerts 
• Shareable dashboards via custom URLs

Must read: When to Automate Social Media

Is Cyfe free or paid?

All of Cyfe’s paid plans include a 14-day free trial. 

• Starter: $19/month
• Standard: $29/month
• Pro: $49/month
• Premier: $89/month

14. Instagram Insights

Accounts with Creator or Instagram Business Profiles can access Instagram Insights, the platform’s native analytic feature. 

The feature can provide comprehensive data on your clients’ posts, Stories, profiles, and ads, including when followers are most active.

Like most in-platform tools, Instagram Insights is free to use. 

Must read: Instagram Reels Analytics Ultimate Guide: Tips & Examples

15. Facebook Analytics

Facebook Analytics is now within the Meta Business Suite. 

The native analytics tool includes a dashboard that measures your client’s content performance on Instagram and Facebook. 

The tool tracks and measures data such as engagement, reach, link clicks, and followers. 

Must read: 10 Facebook Analytics Tools Used by Top Marketing Agencies

16. TikTok Analytics

TikTok can give you a summary of your clients’ profile and content performance for the 60 days. 

The feature tracks follower growth, comments, likes, shares, and views. It also includes performance analysis of your clients’ specific TikTok videos. 

17. X Analytics

X (Twitter) can give you a high-level overview of your client’s content performance within the past week, allowing you to drill down on those numbers and set specific dates. 

The tool can track your clients’ data based on each Tweet’s engagement, new followers, profile visits, link clicks, and more. 

18. LinkedIn Analytics and Tools

LinkedIn’s analytics tools offer post, creator, profile, page, and audience analytics. 

The feature can give you insights into your clients’ post impressions, followers, profile viewers, total subscribers, search appearances, and more. 

19. Pinterest Analytics

Pinterest’s analytics feature allows you to see all the engagement for your clients’ Pins, how users interact with content saved from your clients’ claimed accounts, and your most popular Pins. 

Pinterest Analytics is only available for Business Accounts. 

20. YouTube Analytics

The YouTube Analytics feature gives you insights into the performance of your clients’ channels. 

You can get detailed information on key metrics such as watch time, views, audience demographics, and subscriber growth. 

The feature can also tell you which of your clients’ videos perform well and how viewers find their content. 

21. Snapchat Insights and Analytics

Snapchat’s built-in analytics tool provides detailed metrics such as your clients’ interactions, views, and audience demographics. 

The tool includes Audience Insights to help you understand your clients’ target audiences better. 

Must read: Snapchat Analytics Ultimate Guide: What to Track, FAQs, Etc.

Social analytics tools: What are the insights from marketing leaders and influencers?

Below are some key takeaways on social media analytics and tools from top marketing experts.

• 7 Social Media Metrics You Need to Track by Neil Patel
• 10 Google Analytics Metrics to Zoom Your Social Media Marketing, Blog and Content by Pam Moore
• Are You Measuring the Wrong Thing in Your Social Media Program? by Jay Baer 
• Understanding and Growing Your Audience with Rand Fishkin
• Overwhelmed By Marketing Metrics? Learn Which Ones I Track & Why by Amy Porterfield

What are the social analytics tools FAQs?

What are the best social media analytics tools?

The best tools depend on your and your clients’ social media analytics needs. 

The right tool should meet your unique feature, budget, and integration needs.

What metrics should you track with your social analytics tools?

It depends on your clients’ social media marketing goals and KPIs. 

Must read: Outsourcing Social Media Marketing: A Guide for Agencies

Some of the common social media metrics include the following:

• Engagement rate
• Follower growth
• Reach
• Click-Through Rate (CTR)
• Conversions

How do you choose the right social analytics tools?

Consider factors such as:

• Your client’s business goals
• The tool’s essential and advanced features
• Ease of use 
• Integration capabilities
• Budget

Which social analytics tools are for you?

Finding the right social analytics tools can be daunting, but it’s worth your time and effort. 

Research, read reviews, and try social analytics tools (when available) before choosing one. 

Invest in tools like Vista Social, an all-in-one platform that offers everything from social media scheduling and engagement management to analytics and reporting.

Create your Vista Social account now.