September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › GTM › Marketing › Social media · September 2026 Edition

Social media management

Asked as “social media management platform”, and as “social media scheduling and monitoring tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
37%
Contested · Buffer 20%
37Sprout Social20Buffer15Agorapulse28others

37% of first choices, contested.

ShowinginAll 112 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Sprout Social37%14%56endorsed leader
02Buffer20%14%44accepted challenger
03Agorapulse15%0%36accepted challenger
04Oktopost9%5%19accepted challenger
05Metricool7%5%21accepted challenger
06Hootsuite2%25%55criticized challenger
07Sendible2%0%23accepted challenger
08SocialPilot2%9%23accepted challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Sprinklr Social0%58%19criticized challenger
09Later0%12%24accepted challenger
10Zoho Social0%6%16accepted challenger
11Vista Social0%0%10accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Sprout Social37%
02Buffer20%
03Agorapulse15%
04Oktopost9%
05Metricool7%
06Hootsuite2%
07Sendible2%
08SocialPilot2%
09Later0%
10Zoho Social0%
11Vista Social0%
12Sprinklr Social0%

What they warned about

Five of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Kimi K2 and GLM 4.7 FlashX changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Hootsuite
25%
14 of 55 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 8 hard negative
“Hootsuite: Highest risk score (34/100) due to a long history of pricing complaints, including aggressive auto-renewals, surprise charges after cancellation, and refund difficulties.” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
Sprinklr Social
58%
11 of 19 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Enterprise platform with complex, potentially exploitative pricing structures” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Sprout Social
14%
8 of 56 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Avoid Enterprise Schedulers: Platforms like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or HubSpot ... entry-level plans often start at $100–$250+ per month” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Buffer
14%
6 of 44 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Buffer is too basic for team monitoring.” Grok 4.20, paraphrase prompt

What they cite

Four of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited.

Sites the answers cite

22 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 293 links across 147 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. The other 8 models searched through a gateway that returned no source list on this edition.

vendor site · Sprout Social12 answers · 14 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Buffer11 answers · 12 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Zapier11 answers · 12 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Hootsuite9 answers · 10 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Hootsuite8 answers · 11 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Reddit6 answers · 10 citations · 2 models
6 answers · 9 citations · 3 models
vendor site · NapoleonCat6 answers · 8 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Planable6 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Social Champ6 answers · 6 citations · 3 models
vendor site · LinkedIn5 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best social media management platform”, “social media management platform”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Sprout Social sproutsocial.com37%24749,500719932,4731208
Buffer buffer.com20%20290,50035,151966,25618
Agorapulse agorapulse.com15%763,6003573,9392
Oktopost oktopost.com9%1671,000117,4716
Metricool metricool.com7%5140,500158184,69166
Hootsuite hootsuite.com2%22049,5001,036748,222119
Sendible sendible.com2%332,4002974,06121
SocialPilot socialpilot.co2%586,6004393,623$3,14921
Planable planable.io2%305,4005969,879253
Publer Professional publer.com2%14

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 15 sites; 7 of them are among the sites the models cited here (efficient.app, learn.g2.com, linkedin.com, planable.io, reddit.com, sproutsocial.com, zapier.com). The first result for “best social media management platform” is zapier.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best social media management platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which social media scheduling and monitoring tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top social media management platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best social media management platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a social media management platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which social media management platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Sprout Social
Two alternativesHootsuite, Oktopost
DemandBird, PlanableChanged
Three alternativesHootsuite, Oktopost, Sprout Social
no first choiceSocialPilot
Three alternativesMeta Business Suite, Social Champ, SocialBu
no first choiceagainst: Buffer, Hootsuite, Later, Sprinklr Social
GPT-5.4 miniAgorapulse
Two alternativesHootsuite, Sprout Social
against: Buffer
AgorapulseHeld
Three alternativesBrandwatch, Hootsuite, Sprout Social
no first choice
Six alternativesBuffer, Hootsuite, HubSpot Social, Later, SocialPilot, Sprout Social
Buffer
One alternativeZoho Social
against: Hootsuite, Sprout Social
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashOktopost
Four alternativesAgorapulse, Hootsuite, HubSpot Social, Sprout Social
against: Sprinklr Social
OktopostHeld
Two alternativesAgorapulse, Sprout Social
Buffer, Sprout Social
Three alternativesAgorapulse, Hootsuite, Later
Buffer, Metricool
Four alternativesPlanable, Publer Professional, SocialBee, Zoho Social
against: Hootsuite, HubSpot Social, Sprout Social
Sprout Social
Two alternativesBrandwatch, Hootsuite
against: Sprinklr Social
against: Hootsuite, Meltwater, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social, Workplace from Meta
Perplexity SonarSprout Social
Five alternativesAgorapulse, Hootsuite, Oktopost, Sendible, SocialPilot
against: Sprinklr Social
Sprout SocialHeld
Three alternativesAgorapulse, Buffer, Oktopost
no first choice
Nine alternativesAgorapulse, Buffer, Hootsuite, Iconosquare, Later, Metricool, Planable, Sendible, Sprout Social
Buffer
Two alternativesVista Social, Zoho Social
no first choiceagainst: Crowdfire, Hootsuite
Grok 4.20Sprout Social
Seven alternativesAgorapulse, Buffer, Hootsuite, HubSpot Social, Oktopost, Sendible, SocialPilot
AgorapulseChanged
Three alternativesHootsuite, SocialPilot, Sprout Social
against: Buffer, Oktopost
no first choiceBuffer
Four alternativesMetricool, Publer Professional, Social Champ, Zoho Social
against: SocialPilot
Agorapulse, Hootsuite, Sprout Social
Three alternativesSendible, SocialPilot, Sprinklr Social
against: Crowdfire, Hootsuite, MeetEdgar, Metricool
Mistral SmallSprout Social
Two alternativesAgorapulse, Oktopost
OktopostChanged
Two alternativesBuffer, DemandBird
Hootsuite, Sprout Social
Six alternativesBuffer, Later, Metricool, Ordinal, Typefully, Vista Social
Buffer, Metricool
Three alternativesLater, PostEverywhere, SocialBee
no first choiceagainst: CoSchedule, Crowdfire, Hootsuite, MeetEdgar, Sprinklr Social
DeepSeek V4 FlashSprout Social
Two alternativesAgorapulse, Oktopost
Agorapulse, Sprout SocialChanged
Five alternativesBrand24, Loomly, Mention, Oktopost, Planable
Hootsuite, Sprout Social
Eight alternativesAgorapulse, Buffer, Later, Metricool, Publer Professional, SocialBee, SocialPilot, Sprinklr Social
Buffer
Four alternativesLater, Metricool, Postoria, Zoho Social
against: Hootsuite, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
Sprout Social
Three alternativesAgorapulse, Emplifi, Hootsuite
against: Khoros, Sprinklr Social
against: Buffer, CoSchedule, Crowdfire, Hootsuite, Later, MeetEdgar, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
Llama 4 MaverickSprout Social
One alternativeOktopost
SendibleChanged
Four alternativesAgorapulse, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Zoho Social
no first choice
Ten alternativesAgorapulse, Buffer, Hootsuite, Iconosquare, Metricool, Ordinal, Sendible, Sprout Social, Typefully, Vista Social
Publer Professional
Two alternativesBuffer, Later
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashSprout Social
Two alternativesHootsuite, Sendible
Sprout SocialHeld
Two alternativesOktopost, Sendible
Buffer, Hootsuite
Six alternativesAgorapulse, Later, Metricool, Sendible, Sprout Social, Vista Social
Metricool
Three alternativesBuffer, Later, Meta Business Suite
against: Hootsuite
Sprout Social
Three alternativesAgorapulse, Hootsuite, Planable
against: Buffer
against: Adobe Express, Canva, Hootsuite, InstaBoost, Sprout Social
Kimi K2Oktopost
Three alternativesHootsuite, SocialPilot, Sprout Social
AgorapulseChanged
Three alternativesMetricool, Sprout Social, Vista Social
no first choice
Seven alternativesAgorapulse, Buffer, Hootsuite, Later, Metricool, SocialPilot, Sprout Social
Buffer
Four alternativesLater, Metricool, SocialPilot, Zoho Social
no first choice
Six alternativesAgorapulse, Hootsuite, Khoros, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social, Vista Social
against: Hootsuite, Later, MeetEdgar, Planoly, Salesforce Social Studio, SocialBee, Sprout Social
GLM 4.7 FlashXSprout Social
Two alternativesHootsuite, Oktopost
AgorapulseChanged
One alternativeSprout Social
against: Buffer, Hootsuite, SocialPilot
Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social
Five alternativesHubSpot Marketing Hub, SocialPilot, Tailwind, Vista Social, Zoho Social
Buffer
Three alternativesLater, SocialPilot, Zoho Social
no first choiceagainst: Brandwatch, Khoros, Sked Social, SociaMonials, Sprinklr Social
MiniMax M2.5Sprout Social
Three alternativesAgorapulse, Hootsuite, SocialPilot
Sprout SocialHeld
Four alternativesAgorapulse, Hootsuite, HubSpot Social, Mention
Sprout Social
Four alternativesAgorapulse, Buffer, Hootsuite, Later
Buffer
Three alternativesMetricool, Sendible, SocialBee
no first choiceagainst: Crowdfire, Hootsuite, MeetEdgar, Planoly, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social, Zoho Social
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:57yes77 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:47yes54 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:03yes1525 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:54yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 04:21yes08 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:18yes09 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:23yes019 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 02:48yes01 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:22yes049 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:10yes031 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:49yes077 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 02:39yes018 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:49yes87 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:20yes44 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:01yes1821 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:22yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-14 23:32yes014 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:06yes06 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:14yes024 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:11yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:55yes031 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:12yes043 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:37yes091 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:04no012 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:08yes1515 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:21yes45 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:17yes921 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:10yes207 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 01:21yes010 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:08yes07 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 02:05yes032 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:11yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 02:35yes020 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:44yes046 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:38yes055 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:58yes012 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 22:56yes76 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:13yes33 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:23yes2117 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:55yes206 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 00:32yes08 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:12yes07 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 01:00yes038 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:26yes02 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:14no035 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:08yes014 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:12yes016 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:22yes010 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:34no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:53no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:44yes721 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:43yes206 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-14 22:54yes08 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:59yes09 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 02:15yes050 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:38yes03 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:33yes044 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:50yes044 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:50yes018 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:45no09 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:24yes2612 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:07yes59 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 22:56yes1923 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:55yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 02:22yes06 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:13yes06 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 23:33yes031 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 02:11yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:49no043 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:17yes058 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:04yes051 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 05:04yes011 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
HubSpot read as HubSpot Social
HubSpot Social Media Tools read as HubSpot Social
Sprinklr read as Sprinklr Social
Sprinklr (Sprinklr Social) read as Sprinklr Social
Unresolved, counted raw
Facebook Creator Studio
HipSocial
InstaBoost
Postoria
Salesforce
SchedPilot
SociaMonials
TweetDeck
Workplace from Meta
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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