September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since.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 › Enterprise · September 2026 Edition

Social media management for enterprise buyers

Asked as “social media management platform”, and as “social media scheduling and monitoring tool”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
26%
Contested · Sprout Social 20%
26Sprinklr Social20Sprout Social15Oktopost39others

26% 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 an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Sprinklr Social26%13%54accepted challenger
02Sprout Social20%31%64criticized challenger
03Oktopost15%0%27accepted challenger
04Hootsuite9%28%58criticized challenger
05Emplifi4%0%19accepted challenger
06Sendible2%36%11criticized challenger
07Buffer2%67%15criticized challenger
Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Agorapulse0%70%10criticized challenger
09Khoros0%17%23accepted challenger
11Meltwater0%15%13accepted challenger
08Brandwatch0%14%22accepted challenger
10Vista Social0%8%13accepted 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.
Head to headHead-to-head pages are published for mid-market buyers, so these open on mid-market figures, not enterprise.
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 →
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04
05
06
07
08
09
10
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12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01Sprinklr Social26%
02Sprout Social20%
03Oktopost15%
04Hootsuite9%
05Emplifi4%
06Sendible2%
07Buffer2%
08Brandwatch0%
09Khoros0%
10Vista Social0%
11Meltwater0%
12Agorapulse0%

What they warned about

Two of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 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.
Sprout Social
31%
20 of 64 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“When to avoid: Organizations experiencing performance issues, needing fast support, or with budget constraints” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
Hootsuite
28%
16 of 58 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Avoid These Pricing Traps: Per-user/per-seat models (Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Agorapulse) - costs multiply exponentially” Mistral Small, budget prompt
Buffer
67%
10 of 15 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 7 hard negative
“The biggest red flags in the results are Buffer, SocialBee, SocialPilot, Later, Planoly, and Zoho Social when they are used as primary enterprise platforms” Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt
Agorapulse
70%
7 of 10 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Platforms to AVOID (Per-Seat Models) ... Agorapulse: Charges approximately $79–$119+ per user/month.” Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget 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

21 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. 278 links across 135 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 Social11 answers · 14 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Buffer9 answers · 9 citations · 3 models
vendor site · LinkedIn7 answers · 10 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Zapier7 answers · 8 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Hootsuite6 answers · 9 citations · 4 models
6 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Sprinklr6 answers · 7 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Reddit5 answers · 7 citations · 1 model
5 answers · 6 citations · 3 models
5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
vendor site · NapoleonCat5 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Planable5 answers · 5 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
Sprinklr Social sprinklr.com26%7414040331,2134
Sprout Social sproutsocial.com20%24749,500719932,4731208
Oktopost oktopost.com15%1671,000117,4716
Hootsuite hootsuite.com9%22049,5001,036748,222119
PostPlanify postplanify.com7%16
SocialPilot socialpilot.co7%586,6004393,623$3,14921
Emplifi emplifi.io4%172,40021524,6679
SOCi meetsoci.com4%12914,800168249,940
Birdeye birdeye.com2%35522,2003806,787,611$1,735110
Sendible sendible.com2%332,4002974,06121

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 15 sites; 6 of them are among the sites the models cited here (efficient.app, 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 an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which social media scheduling and monitoring tool would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade social media management platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best social media management platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a social media management platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which social media management platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceSprout SocialChanged
One alternativeOktopost
against: Hootsuite
no first choiceagainst: Brandwatch, Khoros, Sprinklr Social, Sprout SocialSendibleagainst: Agorapulse, Hootsuite, Sprout Socialno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniSprout Social
Two alternativesHootsuite, Sprinklr Social
Sprinklr SocialChanged
Two alternativesOktopost, Sprout Social
Sprinklr Social
Four alternativesBrandwatch, Emplifi, Hootsuite, Sprout Social
Buffer
One alternativeHootsuite
against: Sprout Social
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashOktopost
Three alternativesEmplifi, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
OktopostHeld
Two alternativesSprinklr Social, Sprout Social
Sprinklr Social
Five alternativesBrandwatch, Hootsuite, Khoros, Meltwater, Sprout Social
Birdeye, SOCi
Three alternativesCloud Campaign, Emplifi, MyContentBridge
against: Hootsuite, Sprout Social
Sprinklr Social
Three alternativesHootsuite, Khoros, Sprout Social
against: Buffer, Loomly
against: Agorapulse, Buffer, Hootsuite, Later, Loomly, Planoly, Publer Professional, Sendible, SocialPilot, Sprout Social, Tailwind
Perplexity SonarOktopost, Sprinklr Social
One alternativeSprout Social
Sprout SocialChanged
Two alternativesHootsuite, Sprinklr Social
Sprinklr Social
Five alternativesBrandwatch, Hootsuite, Khoros, Oktopost, Sprout Social
Sprinklr Socialagainst: Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Socialno first choiceagainst: Buffer, Later, Planoly, SocialBee, SocialPilot, Zoho Social
Grok 4.20Sprinklr Social
Three alternativesHootsuite, Oktopost, Sprout Social
HootsuiteChanged
One alternativeOktopost
against: Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
Hootsuite
Three alternativesBrandwatch, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
against: Agorapulse, Sendible, Vista Social
Sprinklr Social
Six alternativesBrandwatch, Hootsuite, Khoros, Sendible, SocialPilot, Vista Social
against: Buffer, Sprout Social
no first choiceagainst: Brandwatch, Buffer, Hootsuite, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Later, Meltwater, Metricool, Sendible, Sprout Social, Typefully
Mistral SmallOktopost
Three alternativesHubSpot Social, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
Hootsuite, Sprout SocialChanged
Two alternativesBrandwatch, Sprinklr Social
Sprinklr Social
Six alternativesBrandwatch, Hootsuite, Khoros, Meltwater, Sprout Social, Zoho Social
ContentBridge, SOCi
Two alternativesPlanable, Sprinklr Social
against: Agorapulse, Hootsuite, Sprout Social
no first choiceagainst: Crowdfire
DeepSeek V4 FlashSprout Social
Three alternativesHootsuite, Oktopost, Sprinklr Social
Sprinklr SocialChanged
Three alternativesHootsuite, Oktopost, Sprout Social
against: Khoros
Sprinklr Social
Seven alternativesBrandwatch, Emplifi, Hootsuite, Khoros, Oktopost, SOCi, Sprout Social
Emplifi
One alternativeSendible
against: Hootsuite, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
no first choiceagainst: Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Sprout Socialagainst: Agorapulse, Buffer, Khoros, Metricool, Picmim, Sprinklr Social
Llama 4 MaverickPostPlanify
Three alternativesOktopost, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
PostPlanifyHeld
Three alternativesDemandBird, Sendible, Sprout Social
no first choiceHootsuite
Two alternativesBuffer, Sprout Social
no first choice
Seven alternativesHootsuite, Khoros, Oktopost, Sked Social, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social, Vista Social
nothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashSprout Social
Two alternativesOktopost, Sprinklr Social
Sprinklr SocialChanged
One alternativeSprout Social
Sprinklr Social
Four alternativesEmplifi, Hootsuite, Khoros, Sprout Social
SocialPilot
One alternativePlanable
against: Agorapulse, Hootsuite, Sprout Social
no first choice
Four alternativesHootsuite, Khoros, Oktopost, Sprinklr Social
against: Sprout Social
against: Buffer, Hootsuite, Later, Sendible, Sprout Social
Kimi K2Oktopost, Sprout Social
One alternativeSprinklr Social
OktopostChanged
Three alternativesHootsuite, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
Sprinklr Social
Five alternativesBrandwatch, Hootsuite, Meltwater, Sprout Social, Vista Social
SocialPilot
Two alternativesPlanable, Sendible
against: Brandwatch, Hootsuite, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
Sprinklr Social
Six alternativesBrandwatch, Hootsuite, Khoros, Oktopost, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Sprout Social
against: Agorapulse, Buffer, Hootsuite, Khoros, Later, Meltwater, SMM Panel & Low-Tier/Unknown Tools, Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
GLM 4.7 FlashXSprout Social
Three alternativesOktopost, OutX, Sprinklr Social
OktopostChanged
Two alternativesSprinklr Social, Sprout Social
Sprinklr Social
Five alternativesAgorapulse, Brandwatch, Emplifi, Hootsuite, Sprout Social
PostPlanify, SocialPilot
Two alternativesSendible, Vista Social
against: Hootsuite, Sprout Social
no first choiceagainst: Buffer, Hootsuite, Later, Sprout Social
MiniMax M2.5Sprinklr Social, Sprout Social
One alternativePostPlanify
Hootsuite, Sprinklr SocialChanged
One alternativeSprout Social
Sprinklr Social
Four alternativesHootsuite, Khoros, Sprout Social, Vista Social
Emplifi
Three alternativesPostPlanify, Sprinklr Social, Vista Social
against: Hootsuite, Sprout Social
Sprinklr Social
Two alternativesHootsuite, Sprout Social
against: CoSchedule, Crowdfire, Hootsuite, MeetEdgar, Sprinklr 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 01:03no06 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:47yes45 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:29yes1124 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:35yes206 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 00:43yes010 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:35yes010 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:03yes034 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 05:00yes03 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:44yes049 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:00yes023 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:20yes0134 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:45yes024 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:01yes714 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:34yes35 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:35yes1722 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:01yes205 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)2026-09-15 04:46yes014 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 03:40no04 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:06yes019 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 02:53yes01 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:55yes049 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:06yes027 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:50yes023 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:34yes018 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:28yes711 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:28yes59 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:45yes1731 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:40yes2023 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)2026-09-14 23:35yes011 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:58yes013 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 05:04yes027 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:47yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:47yes042 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:34yes064 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:46yes020 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:08yes014 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:15yes158 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:46yes47 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:04yes1329 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:15yes176 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 00:44yes08 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:25yes010 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 01:27yes041 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:41yes01 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 05:02yes086 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:10yes034 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:54yes0203 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:44yes060 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:36yes2212 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:35no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:13no016 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:06yes2022 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)2026-09-15 04:42yes08 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:06yes07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 01:42yes043 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:03yes03 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 04:23yes045 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:00yes041 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:35yes033 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:30yes026 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:27yes1610 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:46yes15 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:57yes1929 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:32yes205 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 02:26yes012 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:24yes010 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 00:06yes029 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 02:49yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:38no038 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:02yes0100 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:36yes072 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:06yes012 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
Sprinklr read as Sprinklr Social
Sprinklr (Sprinklr Social) read as Sprinklr Social
Unresolved, counted raw
ContentBridge
MyContentBridge
OutX
Picmim
SAP
SMM Panel & Low-Tier/Unknown Tools
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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