11 Best Social Media Dashboard Tools Compared (2023): Reviews & Pricing

Are you looking for the best social media dashboard tools to grow your audience and raise your business profile? It‘s not just enough to maintain a presence on multiple social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram – you need to measure and monitor to find out what works for your brand. Then there‘s monitoring and replying to comments, messages, and brand mentions.

But why do all the work yourself when there are tools that can help save you tons of time? In this post, I‘ll compare the 11 best social media dashboard tools on the market to help you achieve that.

The best social media dashboard tools – summary

Sendible – Best overall social media management platform.
Iconosquare – Best for Instagram analytics.
SocialBee – Top publishing and scheduling tool.
Social Status – Best for competitive research.
Pallyy – Most affordable all-in-one platform.
Metricool – Best free social media analytics.
ContentStudio – Great balance of features and price.
NapoleonCat – Best for customer service teams.
Brand24 – Leading social listening platform.
Sprout Social – Ideal for large enterprises.
Cyfe – Top marketing dashboard.

How to choose the best social media dashboard

With so many options, it can be tricky to determine which platform best meets your social media management needs. Here are some key things to consider:

Features – Do you just need a scheduling calendar? Or more advanced publishing and analytics? Maybe even a social inbox? Prioritize must-have functionality.

Budget – Pricing varies widely from free platforms to enterprise tools costing hundreds per month. Set realistic budgets before comparing options.

Brands and users – Some tools are better for solopreneneurs managing 1-5 accounts, while others cater to large agencies managing 100+ brand profiles.

Support and ease of use – Look for intuitive dashboards with strong customer support in case you need help. Complex tools have a steeper learning curve.

Scalability – Consider future growth plans. Can the tool easily scale as your social media expands to more platforms and users?

I‘ll explore all these factors for each platform in my detailed reviews below.

1 – Sendible

Sendible is my #1 pick for the best all-round social media management platform suitable for most users.

Key features

Streamlined publishing – Create social posts and videos and schedule them to all major platforms from one calendar. There‘s also RSS auto-publishing.

Unified inbox – Assign comments and messages to colleagues. Filters, tags, and saved replies enable efficient team collaboration.

In-depth analytics – Review engagement rates, best times to post, top-performing content, conversions and much more via custom visual reports.

Team collaboration tools – Grant access to editors, analysts and clients. Discuss draft posts and schedule approvals.

Pros

  • Comprehensive features for solo users up to large teams
  • Affordable pricing starts from $29/month
  • iPhone and Android apps for on-the-go access

Cons

  • Advanced features like campaign tracking require higher plans
  • Some users report the UI feels cluttered

Pricing

The Starter plan costs $29/month and supports 1 social media account and 1 user. The Team plan at $99/month covers 10 accounts and 5 users. Free 14-day trials available to test first. Discounts for annual subscriptions.

Try Sendible Free

2 – Iconosquare

Iconosquare offers advanced Instagram analytics along with other major platforms via its dashboard. Ideal for brands looking to succeed on visual social media.

Key features

Custom analytics dashboards – Blend metrics like reach, impressions and engagements to gain insights tailored to your goals.

Instagram analytics – An unrivalled treasure trove of Instagram stats shows performance by post type, captions, bio-link clicks and much more.

Post scheduling and approvals – Plan and publish content to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Automated approval routing enables smooth team collaboration.

Branded reports – Generate professional-looking analytics reports incorporating your own branding. Export or schedule for clients. Add call to action buttons too.

Pros

  • Powerful Insights metrics with the best in class Instagram analytics
  • Connect custom internal data via API dashboard integrations
  • Dashboard customizations using drag and drop builder

Cons

  • Steep learning curve
  • Expensive plans don’t offer volume discounts

Pricing

Iconosquare starts from $59/month for up to 10 social media profiles. A custom enterprise quote is required for 50+ accounts. 14-day free trials available.

Try Iconosquare Free

3 – SocialBee

SocialBee provides top-notch post scheduling capabilities along with analytics. It‘s one of the easiest platforms for planning and publishing content at scale.

Key features

Post scheduling – Generate evergreen batches of posts to continuously fill your social queues. Schedule to multiple accounts in bulk too.

Re-queue posts – Missed organic opportunities? SocialBee makes it simple to surface and redo posts which previously didn‘t reach full audiences.

Browser extension – Grab webpage content, suggestions and curated posts when browsing to save time finding things to share.

Custom reports – Blend Instagram insights, best posts metrics and other data into dynamic PDF reports to send to clients and stakeholders.

Pros

  • Leading post scheduling functionalities
  • Evergreen post batch scheduling for hands-off auto-piloting
  • Affordable pricing starts from $29/month

Cons

  • Team collaboration features are quite basic
  • No unified social inbox

Pricing

Pay $29/month for up to 5 social media accounts on SocialBee‘s basic paid plan. The $79/month Pro plan supports 15 accounts. 14-day free trial available. 16% savings for yearly subscriptions.

Try SocialBee Free

4 – Social Status

If competitive benchmarking is crucial to your social media strategy, Social Status is my top pick for competitor analytics combined with publishing and listening.

Key features

Competitor benchmarking – Go beyond vanity metrics to compare the real impact of your rivals‘ social media efforts with easy apples-to-apples data.

Influencer analytics – See who has the highest amplification impact in your niche. Then identify mutually beneficial partnership opportunities.

Branded reporting – Generate gorgeous visual reports incorporating your own logo and brand colors to share internally or with clients.

Ad analytics – Monitor cost, revenue and ROI data from your social ad campaigns across platforms including TikTok and YouTube. Identify winning creatives too.

Pros

  • Unique competitive insights no other platforms provide
  • Highly customizable reporting
  • Clean and intuitive interface

Cons

  • Entry-level plans have quite limited historical data access
  • No post scheduling features

Pricing

Social Status starts from $29/month for 3 social media profiles. The Premium plan supporting 50 profiles costs $199/month. Custom enterprise quotes available. Get 3 months free via annual subscriptions.

Try Social Status Free

5 – Pallyy

Pallyy is a budget-friendly all-in-one social media dashboard suitable for solopreneurs. Especially those wanting to master Instagram and TikTok.

Key features

Unified inbox – Manage comments and messages from Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok efficiently from one centralized inbox. Even collaborate with others by assigning tags.

Schedule posts – Plan and publish social media content across leading platforms. Save templates and preset captions, hashtags and emojis for quick posting.

Performance analytics – Review metrics like reach, engagement rates, top posts and best times to post through dynamic visual reports incorporating your branding.

Team features – Collaborate on post ideas in shared drafts. Use labels to mark approval status. Manage user roles and permissions too.

Pros

  • Affordable pricing starts from free
  • Supports Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and more
  • Good balance of features for solopreneurs

Cons

  • Team collaboration features are quite limited compared to enterprise tools
  • No post or account analytics for TikTok

Pricing

Pallyy offers a free plan supporting 1 user, 1 Instagram profile and 15 scheduled posts per month. The Starter paid plan costs just $18/month for 1 user and 5 social profiles. Custom quotes available for larger teams.

Try Pallyy Free

6 – Metricool

Metricool stands out as the best free social media analytics dashboard. It also offers an affordable professional plan with scheduling and competitor benchmarking.

Key features

Custom analytics dashboards – Blend metrics like engagement rates, video views and follower growth into digestible charts drawing data from all connected platforms.

Broad integrations – Connect Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and most other social platforms. But Metricool also pulls useful data from paid advertising accounts and even custom sources.

Social planner – Review currently scheduled posts and plan upcoming content in an editorial calendar view showing statuses and performance projections.

Google Data Studio connect – Export Metricool analytics into Google‘s free custom reporting platform for further analysis.

Pros

  • The free plan is very functional supporting unlimited profiles
  • Easy to create beautiful custom analytics dashboards
  • White label reporting capabilities

Cons

  • No post comment or inbox management features
  • Support for some newer social platforms like TikTok is limited

Pricing

The free plan supports 5 users with unlimited social media profile connections. Paid plans start from $22/month. The Agency plan supports 50 users and 250 accounts for $199/month.

Try Metricool Free

7 – ContentStudio

ContentStudio strikes a great balance between essential social media features and affordable pricing suitable for small businesses and teams.

Key features

Unified inbox – Manage comments and messages from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn efficiently from one centralized inbox. Even collaborate with others by assigning tags.

Schedule posts – Plan and publish social media content across leading platforms. Save templates and preset captions, hashtags and emojis for quick posting. Recycle older evergreen posts too.

Performance analytics – Review metrics like reach, engagement rates, top posts and best times to post through dynamic visual reports incorporating your branding. Export them as well.

Influencer analytics – Discover relevant influencers in your niche by performance metrics and gain contact info. Benchmark against competitors‘ influencers too.

Pros

  • Broad platform support including YouTube and TikTok
  • Powerful influencer identification and analytics
  • Very intuitive user interface

Cons

  • Team collaboration lacks depth compared to enterprise tools
  • Instagram carousels have limited auto-publish support

Pricing

Paid plans start from $25/month for 1 user and 10 connected social profiles. The Agency+ plan costs $99/month for 5 users and 100 accounts. 14-day free trials available.

Try ContentStudio Free

8 – NapoleonCat

NapoleonCat offers a streamlined experience specifically aimed at social customer service teams who need to manage replies at scale.

Key features

Shared inbox – Manage all incoming comments, messages and posts mentioning your brand in one collaborative hub that makes assignment and tracking easy.

Bulk actions – Moderation features like hiding or deleting multiple comments at once enables efficiently keeping communities clean and on topic.

Canned replies – Save predefined response templates personalized with recipient details to rapidly respond at scale while still seeming personal.

If-this-then-that logic – Choose to automatically hide, tag or reply to messages matching configured triggers to reduce mundane repetitive tasks.

Pros

  • Affordable pricing starts from $39/month
  • Perfect for dedicated community managers
  • Powerful automation speeds up common community management tasks

Cons

  • Lacks post scheduling calendar
  • No organic post performance analytics

Pricing

NapoleonCat starts from $39/month for 2 users and 10 connected profiles. The Agency Suite plan costs $359/month for 10 users and 200 accounts. 14-day free trial available.

Try NapoleonCat Free

9 – Brand24

Brand24 leads the market for social media monitoring, making it easy to detect brand mentions across the web and analyze them for actionable consumer insights.

Key features

Broad listening scope – Detect brand mentions across social media, forums, blogs, news sites and more with 75 coverage languages.

Sentiment analysis – Classify whether discussion sentiment for keyword topics leans positive, negative or neutral – then track sentiment shifts over time.

Influencer identification – See who drives the highest amplification and engagement for associated keywords to identify mutually beneficial influencer partnerships.

Google Analytics integration – Connect web analytics data showing how social mention trends directly impact website conversions and ROI metrics.

Pros

  • Leading social listening capabilities
  • Affordable starter plan costing $79/month
  • Highly customizable real-time alerts

Cons

  • No ability to directly respond to brand mentions in the platform itself
  • Very limited post creation and publishing features

Pricing

The Starter plan costs $79/month including 20 daily brand mention alerts. The Business plan bumps alerts to 70 per day for $229/month. Custom enterprise pricing available. 14-day free trial offered.

Try Brand24 Free

10 – Sprout Social

Sprout Social caters well for larger corporations and agencies needing deep collaboration tools alongside publishing, analytics and engagement.

Key features

Advanced inbox – Manage high volumes of social messages efficiently with smart assignment tools. Automated conditional filtering also helps.

Team workspaces – Create separate collaboration environments for different clients or campaigns. Plus re-usable saved replies and status tracking.

Competitor benchmarking – See how your social media efforts directly compare across all key metrics to pinpoint what content tactics rival brands use that perform well.

Listening and analytics – Monitor keywords with volume change alerts. Blend this data with owned profile analytics to quantify downstream ROI.

Pros

  • In-depth team collaboration capabilities
  • Broad platform integrations beyond just social media
  • Ideal for mid-market and enterprise brands

Cons

  • Very expensive, especially for additional user seats
  • Potentially overly complex for lean solopreneurs

Pricing

Sprout Social starts from $149/month for standard features then $399/month for the full advanced toolset. Extra user seats cost $99/month making it prohibitively expensive for larger teams. Custom enterprise quotes available.

Try Sprout Social Free

11 – Cyfe

Cyfe focuses specifically on delivering white-label ready reporting dashboards blending social media analytics with other data sources. Fantastic for agencies.

Key features

Drag and drop dashboards – Easily build sleek, customized analytics dashboards incorporating logos and brand styles drawing live data from social platforms.

Share endlessly – Embed dashboard views within client reports, behind secure logins, or publicly on websites. The analytics auto-update without needing code skills.

300+ integrations – Combine data from social accounts with other marketing, sales, support and even financial sources. Mix charts as required without dev help.

Scheduled reports – Generate PDF snapshots from dashboards on set schedules. Ideal for delivering regular analytics reporting to stakeholders all personalized.

Pros

  • Interactive dashboards make data truly actionable
  • Broad integrations beyond just social platforms
  • Perfect for agencies managing analytics across client accounts

Cons

  • No ability to natively post or respond via social platforms
  • Steep learning curve for some less tech-savvy users

Pricing

Cyfe starts from $19/month for getting started. The Premium plan bumps limits for embedding dashboards for $39/month. Custom enterprise quotes available for bigger needs. 14-day trials offered.

Try Cyfe Free

Choosing the best social dashboard for your needs

All the leading platforms reviewed offer free trials, so I recommend testing out some shortlisted options tuned to your priorities.

Small business owners often get great value from Sendible, SocialBee or ContentStudio costing around $25-$50/month.

For mid-market brands, tools like Sprout Social and NapoleonCat offer enhanced collaboration features but do cost over $100/month.

Meanwhile enterprise corporations may require fully customized platforms like Sprinklr or Talkwalker costing upwards of $5000/month.

If budget is super tight, I suggest Metricool and Pallyy as leading freemium platforms with enough core features to get started.

No matter the size of your social media management needs – take advantage of the many free trials on offer to experience the dashboards available first hand.