Zoho Social vs. Hootsuite vs. Vista Social: Which is the Best?

Can’t decide between Zoho Social vs Hootsuite vs Vista Social?

It’s time for the clash of the titans. 

If you’re looking for the top-of-the-line, absolute best social media management software for your marketing agency, look no further. We’ll run a comprehensive comparison on Zoho Social, Hootsuite, and—last but definitely not least—Vista Social. 

Let’s take a look at how each social media management platform can blast your marketing agency’s overall performance through the roof. 

TL;DR: Vista Social is the BEST platform for SMEs

If you need a modern, powerful, and affordable social media marketing platform, Vista Social is the best tool for your agency.

Vista Social includes features you need to boost your or your client’s social media presence. You can build an automated publishing calendar, monitor conversations across multiple social media accounts, track social media analytics, and more.

Best of all, it costs the same—if not, so much cheaper—than other SMM platforms since Vista Social charges per social media profile you add, and not per user.

Vista Social can be the best fit for the smallest businesses to the largest enterprises with its flexible and scalable pricing structure.

Whether you’re looking for Instagram tools, Facebook automation software, among other functionalities to optimize and increase the efficiency of your social media marketing campaigns, you can rely on Vista Social.

Overview: Zoho Social vs Hootsuite vs Vista Social

In terms of features, there are lots of overlaps between Zoho Social, Hootsuite, and Vista Social. But there are significant differences in terms of usability, number of users, and pricing. 

1. Zoho Social 

Zoho Social is a social media management platform offered by the Zoho Cloud Software Suite for businesses. It allows you to schedule posts, monitor social media analytics, use social listening to track and engage brand mentions, and so on. 

Zoho Social Supported Platforms

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Google My Business
• YouTube
• Pinterest

2. Hootsuite

Both Zoho Social and Hootsuite are included in countless listicles of social media management tools. Just like Zoho Social, Hootsuite is armed to the teeth with features that can help with a variety of social media activities, like bulk and advanced scheduling, team collaboration tools, managing conversations, and generating custom reports.

Hootsuite Supported Platforms

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest

3. Vista Social

Vista Social is a modern social media management platform set to disrupt the entire industry and social media landscape with its super affordable pricing despite its comprehensive features. It is loaded with functionalities that can rev up your social media marketing results, including a few bonuses like review management and a built-in image editor.

Vista Social Supported Platforms

• Facebook
• Google Business Profile
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Reddit
• Twitter
• TikTok
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• Bitly
• TrustPilot
• Yelp
• TripAdvisor
• OpenTable

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Feature comparison of Zoho Social, Hootsuite, and Vista Social

Cool—it looks like Zoho Social, Hootsuite, and Vista Social are equipped for the same tasks. 

The question is, which one should you pick? 

Here is a detailed comparison of the three social media management software.

Zoho Social pros and cons

Zoho Social is built to cover every aspect of a social media strategy. It actually offers a few more features that put it slightly ahead of Hootsuite. Its strongest suit is the social media listening feature, which lets you track mentions, respond to messages, and track user engagement in real-time.

Zoho Social pros

• Listening dashboard: Create listening columns to organize your social media listening efforts. 
• Different user roles and permissions: Zoho Social lets you manage each team member on a granular level by assigning specific roles with different access permissions.
• Social platform ads integrations: Take advantage of a social media integration for the website of your choice, like LinkedIn or Facebook, to consolidate your marketing initiatives.
• More integrations: Zoho Social can also seamlessly integrate with other cloud-based TikTok tools like Canva and Zoho’s other business apps, like the Zoho CRM integration.

Zoho Social cons

• Tricky pricing structure: Zoho’s basic plan lacks in-depth reporting capabilities—signing up for an adequate plan for agencies gets extremely pricey real quick. 

Hootsuite

Plenty of social media brands and agencies use Hootsuite since it has features that fit specific business needs. But since these features are added incrementally over the years, their implementation isn’t the most seamless. 

On the plus side, that doesn’t negate the fact that Hootsuite has a lot of noteworthy features. 

Hootsuite pros

• Tools for employee advocacy: You can use Hootsuite Amplify to streamline the employee advocacy campaign of your agency or brand. 
• Reliable customer support: Hootsuite is one of the very few social platforms that can be contacted by phone—among other customer service channels.
• Wide range of integrations: Hootsuite’s popularity attracted third-party developers into creating integrations that bump up the platform’s functionality. 

Hootsuite cons

• Too expensive for small businesses: Hootsuite’s entry-level plan offers less features than other social media marketing tools, but it still costs more. 

For more information about Hootsuite, check out our comparison of Loomly vs Hootsuite vs Vista Social. 

Vista Social 

Finally, we have Vista Social—a social media management tool that outperforms Zoho Social and Hootsuite, particularly when it comes to cost-effectiveness.

As a business software for social media marketing, it makes key tasks incredibly easy—from scheduling posts to maintaining high audience engagement through content curation.

Vista Social pros

• Supports a wide variety of social platforms: Use Vista Social’s quality of life features for a range of social media networks or channels, including YouTube, Reddit, Vimeo, and Pinterest.
• Polish your reputation: Vista Social comes with a review management feature that makes it easy to highlight positive reviews and address negative reviews. 
• Flexible and easy-to-use collaboration features: Effortlessly leave notes and manage individual tasks, from bulk scheduling posts to brainstorming funny things to comment on Instagram for the “first comment” feature. 

Vista Social cons

• No integrations with third-party marketing and ad management tools: Vista Social is built from the ground up as an all-in-one social media marketing platform. While it’s generally a good thing, established brands and agencies that already use dozens of other tools will have to make minor adjustments to their workflows.

Top Core Features: Zoho Social vs Hootsuite vs Vista Social

Still can’t decide between Zoho Social vs Hootsuite vs Vista Social?

To make it easier for you, here’s a closer look at the highlights of these social media platforms:

1. Zoho Social

Zoho Social is the social media component of the Zoho cloud software suite. 

Here are some of the Zoho Social features that stand out:

Brand health review

On your Zoho Social dashboard, you’re given a compact view of your social media marketing campaign performance over the last 30 days. This gives you a quick look at social media metrics like total followers, new followers, total reach, and engagements. 

Team collaboration board

Zoho Social provides agencies with a unified communication board. Team members can participate in conversations, talk about approvals, discuss reports, and more. 

The board also includes a built-in chat tool where employees can communicate in real-time. 

Funnel leads directly to Zoho CRM

Automatically feed leads you generate from social media ads to your Zoho CRM platform. This allows you to streamline how leads move through your (or your client’s) sales funnel. 

The Zoho CRM includes tools that help you generate and nurture leads through features like email marketing templates, sales automations, and customizable forms.

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a battle-tested social media platform that underwent several changes to improve the user experience. 

Below are some of Hootsuite’s highlights:

Social score

Just like Zoho Social, Hootsuite also grades the performance of your social media campaigns compared to competitors. 

Your social score factors in your client’s follower growth, audience engagement, and posting activities. Use it as a benchmark for tracking and improving your social media marketing activities.

Free social content ideas

Navigate to Hootsuite’s “Inspiration” tab to view content ideas to beef up your social media campaign. 

Content ideas from Hootsuite are sorted according to marketing goals, like generating conversions, educating leads, inspiring action, and providing entertainment. 

Create custom social media data streams

Use the “Streams” feature to monitor specific social media insights using custom data boards. 

You can use streams to analyze your social media posts, find content trends, pull content from RSS feeds, and more.

3. Vista Social

Vista Social is the most affordable and scalable social media marketing tool to date. Plus, the platform offers a user-friendly and intuitive interface.

Despite the low price tag (minimum of $3 per social profile for the Pro plan), Vista Social brings several innovations to the table.

Robust content editor

Vista Social’s proprietary post editor lets you fine-tune everything from fonts, first comments, hashtags, audience targeting, and more. You can also schedule and publish posts directly on TikTok and Instagram Reels.

Use the preview panel to show what your content looks like once published.

Built-in reputation management tools

Link review platforms like TrustPilot, Yelp, and TripAdvisor to your Vista Social account to manage your online reputation and social media presence in one place. 

Quickly find reviews you haven’t responded to yet and track your responses. You can also sort reviews according to their ratings or chronological order.

Powerful content planning

In addition to creating posts from scratch, Vista Social lets you plan posts in bulk via RSS feeds, Instagram hashtags, CSV spreadsheets, and more. 

Vista Social will also help you automate content curation through the “Smart Publisher” tool. 

Simply define your preferred content source, pick a category, specify keywords, and adjust the posting frequently. Everything else will be done on autopilot.

Pricing: Zoho Social vs Hootsuite vs Vista Social

Still haven’t made a decision? 

Let’s take a look at each platform’s pricing to help you pick the right social media platform for your brand or agency.

Zoho Social pricing

The “Standard” plan of Zoho Social costs $15 per month. For agencies with 5 team members, the monthly plan starts at $320 per month. 

Hootsuite pricing

The Hootsuite “Professional” plan starts at $49 per month. To get the most out of the platform, the minimum price you should pay is $129 on a monthly basis.

Vista Social pricing

A key advantage of Vista Social is its outrageously low pricing. 

You only need to spend $3 per social profile per month to unlock almost all of the platform’s key and advanced features. Despite this, the platform can be accessed by unlimited users and utilized to publish scheduled posts without limits.

Looking for a free version?

Zoho Social does not offer a free version, but there’s a 15-day free trial you can use to test any of their plans. 

Hootsuite offers a more generous 30-day free trial period, but unlike Zoho Social, you need to enter your billing information. 

Vista Social, however, has a free version that grants access to basic yet essential features, such as a maximum of 15 posts per profile per month, social media reporting, social inbox, and review monitoring for Facebook and Google My Business . It can even be used on up to three social profiles.

Cost for managing 9 profiles or less

With Zoho Social, a plan that supports up to 9 social profiles costs $65 per month (3 users).

For Hootsuite, 10 profiles can be supported on a $49 per month “Professional” plan (1 user). 

Vista Social, on the other hand, will only charge you $27 per month for connecting 9 social media profiles.

Cost for managing more profiles

Zoho Social can function even on a whopping 90 social profiles on an “Agency” plan, but that will set you at $320 per month. 

Should you go with Hootsuite, a 35-profile plan costs a whopping $739 per month. If you need to integrate more profiles, you’ll need to request a quote by contacting their sales team, but it will most certainly be more expensive than all their other plans. 

Lastly, Vista doesn’t charge per seat—it only charges $3 ($5 for Pro +) for every social profile you connect. If you need to manage 90 profiles, you only need to pay $270 per month.

Summary: Zoho Social vs Hootsuite vs Vista Social

As far as pricing, features, and UI/UX are concerned, Vista Social is a cut above Zoho Social and Hootsuite. 

You could even start using Vista Social’s basic features without spending a single cent. Simply click here and create your free account today.