Agencies leave Hootsuite for a predictable set of reasons: the price climbs, the interface feels heavy, and a lot of the enterprise capability goes unused while you still pay for it. The question is not whether to leave — it is what actually fits your agency instead.
This is sorted by agency type, because the right answer differs sharply depending on who you are.
If you run many small local clients
Your constraint is margin per client. A roster of fifteen local businesses cannot each absorb much tool cost.
What matters: per-client pricing, fast content production, low-friction approvals, templating so you are not writing every post from nothing.
Orbit is built for this — per-workspace pricing, AI drafting in the composer, a content library, and approvals over a link the client opens on their phone. Cloud Campaign also serves this segment and has broad network coverage; weigh it if TikTok or Pinterest publishing matters.
If you run fewer, larger clients
Your constraint is depth of service — analytics, listening, community management, boardroom-grade reporting.
Sprout Social is the strongest fit here. The per-seat pricing that punishes small shops is manageable when a few large clients fund it.
If you are a solo operator or freelancer
Buffer or Later at the entry tier. Do not over-buy agency machinery you will not use yet. Revisit when you hit eight clients or when approvals start costing real hours.
The four questions that actually decide it
Feature matrices are mostly noise. These predict fit better:
- Does pricing grow with clients or with profiles? Per-profile pricing taxes the growth you want.
- Can a client approve without creating an account? If no, you will keep doing approvals over email.
- Can you see all clients on one calendar? If no, you will keep finding coverage gaps on Friday afternoon.
- Can you scope a coordinator to specific clients? If no, you will share logins or over-buy seats.
Run whatever you are considering against those four. Fail two, and the tool will fight you every week.
What changed recently
Two shifts worth noting for 2027. AI drafting is now table stakes, but quality varies wildly — test it with a real client brief before buying, not a demo prompt. And approval workflow has become the main differentiator, because every tool schedules competently now; the gap is entirely in how content gets from your draft to the client's yes.
The short version
Many small clients: Orbit or Cloud Campaign. Few large clients: Sprout. Solo: Buffer or Later. Then check the four questions. The honest truth is that "best" is meaningless without naming what kind of agency you run — a three-person local shop and a thirty-person brand agency should not land on the same tool.