Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management platform which you can access from the web or via mobile apps for iOS and Android.
With Sprout, businesses can extract real value from social media by offering customer support and satisfaction, growing their social media profiles, automating tasks and monitoring engagement and conversations in their niche.
According to the company, more than 20,000 world class brands and organizations trust Social Sprout to help them manage their overall business strategies and make deeper connections with their audience.
Sprout’s intuitive features allow brands to:
Whether you’re an individual or you represent an agency or brand, Sprout Social has plans to fit your budget and needs.
You can get started with a full 30-day trial just to test the platform and see the results. There is no credit card required for you to begin your trial so there’s no reason to not try it.
Below, I’ll outline step-by-step how to sign up and get started with your trial.
How To Start Your Sprout Social Free Trial
You do not need to enter your credit card information and there is nothing to download and install so starting your Sprout Social free trial is pretty simple.
Here are the step-by-step instructions you need to follow to get started.
1. Pick the plan you want to try.
There are three plans to choose from in order to start using Social Sprout to manage your social media.
Pick a plan based on your needs and budget then click on the “Start Your Free Trial” button.
I chose to try the Professional account because it was the most popular subscription plan. This plan includes all features of the Standard plan.
2. Enter your signup info
To create your account, enter your name, email address and choose a password to continue.
3. Connect a social profile
Sprout Social will prompt you to start connecting your social media by offering two options to begin with – your Twitter profile or a Facebook page.
You’ll be able to connect other networks after you connect one of these.
To connect your Facebook page or pages if you have multiple, you’ll first need to connect your main Facebook account before choosing to connect your business page.
4. Connect more profiles
Social Sprout will show you this page after you’ve successfully connected your first profile.
You can use this step to connect your other social media profiles or just hit next to continue signup. You will be able to connect all the profiles you need to manage from inside your dashboard.
Here I have 9 profiles remaining in the Professional plan. If you choose to try the Standard plan, you’ll have 4 more profiles remaining.
5. Customize your account
To customize your account, Sprout Social asks for more information about yourself and your business.
They’ll want to know:
- Your organization name so they can add it to your dashboard.
- How many people work there
- Whether or not you’re a social media agency
- Where you’re located
- Your time zone
- Your preferred language
Most of the options are pre-filled so you can get through this step easily. You can adjust these in your account settings.
6. Select your interests
The final step before you’re able to check out your dashboard is to select your interests.
You’ll choose whether you’ll be doing the work or overseeing a team who will be doing the work or both. Then you’ll check all the reasons why you’ll be using Social Sprout.
7. View your dashboard
Congrats. You’re now able to view your dashboard and start managing your social media strategy.
There’s quite a lot going on here at first glance but you can begin with the “Get Started” section. When you’ve completed all of these tasks, you’ll be able to remove that section and you’ll be more familiar with getting stuff done in your account.
How Much Does Sprout Social Cost After the Free Trial?
When you’re done testing Sprout Social, fortunately, you won’t be billed automatically because no credit card is necessary to take the free trial.
You will be asked to choose a plan though. If it’s different from the one you chose at signup, you’ll either gain or lose some features depending on if you upgrade or downgrade.
Sprout will prompt you to subscribe and you have three pricing options.
The Standard plan is the entry pricing where you only get the essential tools to manage your social media. Scheduling, review management, keyword monitoring, tasking and social CRM, paid promotion tools to boost Facebook posts, access to mobile apps and more are included.
This plan is limited to 5 social media accounts although additional profiles can be purchased for a nominal fee without the need to upgrade to a higher plan.
The Standard plan is $249 month-to-month per user or $199/monthly when billed annually.
The Professional plan appears to be the most popular plan for Sprout Social users and may be because you get to add up to 10 social media accounts. Like the Standard plan, you can purchase more without upgrading.
This plan has all the features of the Standard plan as well as other powerful tools to manage your social business.
On a month-to-month basis, the Professional plan costs $399 while it’s only $299/month when billed annually.
Finally, the Advanced plan has even more advanced tools that allow your business to scale. From automated link tracking to chatbots with automation tools this plan fully encompasses everything you can do with Social Sprout.
This plan when billed monthly is $499/month while it’s only $399/month billed annually ($4788/yr).
If your needs exceed what is offered in the Advanced plan, then you may need to contact Sprout’s sales department to talk about the Enterprise plan.
There are many social media management tools available for you to make the most of your social media strategy.
Some of them can help you with specific tasks while some, like Sprout Social, serve as an all-in-one solution.
If you’re serious about your brand’s social media strategy then there’s nothing to stop you from testing Sprout Social.
