17 Best Social Media Analytics Tools in 2024 (Paid+Free)

How do you know if your social media efforts are paying off? Which posts are performing well, and which ones are falling flat? The answer lies in a social media analytics tool that gives you comprehensive performance insights. 

We’ve put together 17 of the best social media analytics platforms to inform your strategy in 2024. Let’s take a look.

 

What Are Social Media Analytics Tools?

Social media analytics tools are software platforms that gather data on your social media performance. The data may include key metrics related to your:

• Account reach and impressions
• Social media engagement
• Social media followers
• Content-specific performance
• Brand mentions
• Hashtag performance
• Paid media performance
• Competitor performance

You can view these performance metrics in a dashboard and generate reports to share with relevant stakeholders. Some social media analysis tools also offer qualitative insights through social listening features. This can give you an idea of trending topics and discussions to inform your strategies.

Many social media analytics tools come built in as a part of a larger suite of digital marketing tools. But you can also find standalone solutions dedicated to social media analysis. 

The Importance of Social Media Analytics Tools for Business Success

With the right social media analytics software, you can track vital metrics on your social media strategy. This will inform you on how to adjust your approach and improve your social media performance. Let’s break down the key benefits of using social media analysis tools for your business.

Understand Your Audience on a Deeper Level

Social media analytics tools can provide in-depth analytics into your followers and their behavior. You can access valuable insights to understand them on a deeper level. This includes data on:

• Follower growth
• Follower demographics
• Most active times
• Popular topics and hashtags

A better understanding of your audience helps you craft messaging that resonates. You can more effectively address their pain points and appeal to their interests. This will ultimately translate to more impactful social media marketing (SMM) efforts. It will also help you form a closer connection with your social media audience.

Create More Engaging Social Media Content

Social media data analysis tools give you content-specific performance insights. You can see which posts are performing well and find what they have in common. You can also track which content formats tend to drive the most engagement.

These insights will help you understand what resonates with your audience. Then, create more content that they’d want to engage with.

Optimize Your Social Media Strategies

With the ability to track vital social media metrics, these social media analytics tools can inform your overall strategy. You can attribute your performance to specific social media activities. This will allow you to adjust your strategies to maximize outcomes.

For instance, you can optimize your posting schedule to focus on your followers’ most active times. This could help you improve visibility and engagement. Similarly, you can adjust your content strategy to focus on the most engaging content types. That way, you get more out of the effort you put into producing content.

Inform Your Larger Business Goals

Some social media analytics tools also offer brand monitoring and social listening capabilities. These can provide real-time conversational insights to inform your larger business goals.

For example, when analyzing social media in healthcare industries, you can use these tools to detect possible adverse effects of a medication. This can then be used by your R&D team to inform drug development.

List of the Top Social Media Analytics Tools

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite offers a suite of social media management tools, including a robust social media analytics solution. It gathers data from all your social media profiles in one place. This simplifies the process of seeing what’s working and what’s not to optimize your strategies.

⚙️Key Features:

• Get post-level performance insights.
• Easily create reports using customizable templates.
• Create goal-based social media reports.
• Get best time to publish recommendations.
• Access cross-network reporting.
• Benchmark against the competition.

💸Pricing: Starts at $99/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros: 

• Comprehensive social media management solution
• Intelligent AI-powered suggestions
• 30-day free trial

❌Cons:

• No free plan available
• Requires credit card for free trial signup

⭐Best For: Brands that need an all-in-one tool to track and manage their social media presence in one place.

2. Sprout Social

Sprout Social offers powerful tools to unlock deep insights into your social media presence. Its social media analytics capabilities go beyond basic performance tracking. You can use this social media analytics tool to identify trends, streamline reporting, and seamlessly collaborate with team members. Plus, LinkedIn support makes it an excellent solution for B2B social media marketing.

⚙️Key Features:

• Track profile performance across all your social media networks.
• Analyze post-level performance.
• Get in-depth network reports to optimize your network-specific strategy.
• Analyze the performance of your inbound and outbound tagged messages.
• Discover popular hashtags and track their performance.
• Track social media advertising campaigns across channels.
• Measure team productivity in handling cases.
• Benchmark against the competition.

💸Pricing: Starts at $199/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Interactive charts and graphs to visualize performance 
• Comprehensive organic and paid performance reports
• 30-day free trial

❌Cons: 

• No free plan available

⭐Best For: Large brands in need of advanced social media analytics to inform paid and organic strategies.

3. Buffer

Buffer’s all-in-one suite comes with advanced social media reporting tools to analyze your performance. This social media analytics tool lets you measure your performance and get suggestions on how to optimize it.

⚙️Key Features:

• Track cross-network performance in an intuitive analytics dashboard.
• Measure individual post performance, Stories, and hashtags to see what works.
• Access valuable audience demographics insights.
• Compare paid and organic results of boosted posts.
• Create custom reports and get daily updates.
• Create white-label reports to share with clients and relevant stakeholders.
• Get suggestions on best time to post, best type of post, and ideal posting frequency.

💸Pricing: $5/mo. per channel

🆓Free Plan Available: Yes

✅Pros:

• Scalable and flexible plans
• Intelligent AI-powered suggestions

❌Cons:

• Lack of competitive analytics

⭐Best For: Social media marketers in need of cost-effective social media analytics software solutions.

4. Zoho Social

Zoho’s social media analytics tool lets you track vital social media metrics for your brand. You can extract in-depth insights into your audience and profile performance across leading social networks.

⚙️Key Features:

• Get in-depth audience demographics data.
• Track engagements on various content types.
• Identify your brand’s top connections.
• Identify top-performing social media posts.
• See the best times to engage your audience.
• Create custom social media reports to visualize performance.
• Schedule your reports to automatically go out daily, weekly, or monthly.

💸Pricing: Starts at $15/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Powerful audience insights
• Low-cost plans
• 15-day free trial

❌Cons:

• No free plan available
• Lack of competitive analytics
• No TikTok integration

⭐Best For: Small businesses looking for in-depth audience insights to inform their strategies on a budget.

5. Rival IQ

As a platform dedicated to social media analytics, Rival IQ provides you with in-depth insights across leading social media channels. Besides essential analytics features, it comes with social listening capabilities to extract qualitative insights. This social media analytics tool even lets you create free head-to-head reports to see how you stack up to the main competition.

⚙️Key Features:

• Track post-level content performance.
• Identify your top-performing social media posts.
• Analyze hashtag performance.
• Get suggestions on the best time and day to post.
• Use Boolean keyword search to track topics, keywords, hashtags, and social media campaigns.
• Conduct in-depth social media audits of your brand’s social media accounts.
• Benchmark against the competition.
• Analyze your competitors’ social media strategies to inform your own.
• Use AI-powered search to quickly analyze social media conversations.
• Measure sentiment, post volume, and brand mentions.

💸Pricing: Starts at $199/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Highly advanced social media analysis reports
• Free competitor head-to-head reports
• Social listening capabilities
• 14-day free trial

❌Cons:

• No free plan available
• Limited collaboration features

⭐Best For: Medium to large businesses that want an analytics platform that offers qualitative social listening insights. 

6. Keyhole

Keyhole is another dedicated social media analytics platform that provides actionable insights. You can use it to track vital metrics across all your social media accounts in a single dashboard.

⚙️Key Features:

• Track cross-network engagement metrics.
• Analyze the performance of specific posts, Stories, and hashtags.
• Get suggestions on the best times to post.
• Identify the types of posts that have the biggest impact.
• Identify your top-performing posts and repurpose them.
• Benchmark your performance against the competition.
• Compare your brand’s accounts across various social media networks.
• Compare influencer performance.
• Customize reports with your brand logo and title.

💸Pricing: Starts at $89/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Easy-to-understand visual reports
• Influencer performance analytics
• 14-day free trial

❌Cons:

• No free plan available
• Lack of audience insights

⭐Best For: Small to medium businesses that need a social media analytics tool to inform their influencer marketing efforts.

7. Sendible

Sendible is one of the most comprehensive social media management tools that comes with powerful analytics features. You can use its social media analytics tools to get an overview of all your social media performance data in one place. 

⚙️Key Features:

• Get one-click access to your performance data for selected social networks.
• Label your posts and attribute them to specific social media campaigns.
• Continuously analyze optimal post times based on changing audience behavior.
• Easily build reports using a drag-and-drop editor.
• Create white-label reports to share with clients and relevant stakeholders.
• Automate your reports to keep stakeholders updated on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
• Connect with your Google Analytics to prove the business value of your social media tactics.

💸Pricing: Starts at $25/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Scalable and flexible plans
• 14-day free trial

❌Cons:

• No free plan available
• Lack of audience insights
• Lack of competitive analytics

⭐Best For: Agencies looking to manage multiple client accounts with a white-label social media analytics solution.

8. Iconosquare

Iconosquare offers a customizable dashboard to track all the social media metrics that matter to your brand. This social media analytics software makes it easy to focus on the metrics that most align with your social media goals. This social media analytics platform also comes with social media monitoring features to track mentions, comments, and competitors.

⚙️Key Features:

• Visualize post and page-level performance.
• Track your follower growth over time.
• Get valuable demographic insights into your followers.
• Access engagement insights across all your social media profiles.
• Customize your dashboard with over 100 social media metrics to choose from.
• Track your comments and brand mentions to easily manage customer interactions.
• Get detailed reports on your competitor’s performance and trending hashtags.

💸Pricing: Starts at $49/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Easy-to-use custom dashboard
• Cost-effective plans

❌Cons:

• No free plan available

⭐Best For: Solopreneurs and social media marketers managing their own social media accounts.

9. Talkwater

Talkwater provides a centralized dashboard to manage all your social media analytics. Its abilities go beyond analyzing your profile performance. You can use it to inform every aspect of your social media, including your influencer marketing and brand management.

⚙️Key Features:

• Track shares, reach, engagement, and mentions for specific social media campaigns.
• Track hashtag performance in terms of engagement and reach.
• Analyze consumer sentiment around your brand mentions.
• See how content spreads across social media using a virality map.
• Set up automated alerts to stay on top of brand mentions and keywords.
• Find visual mentions of your brand with image recognition technology.
• Discover leading industry influencers and brand ambassadors.
• Benchmark your performance against the competition.
• Discover trending topics and analyze the sentiment behind them.

💸Pricing: Custom

🆓Free Plan Available: No 

✅Pros:

• 360-degree view of your brand performance
• Advanced image recognition capabilities

❌Cons:

• No free plan available
• High-priced

⭐Best For: Large enterprises and agencies looking for a comprehensive social media analytics solution.

10. Meltwater

Meltwater offers a robust suite of digital marketing tools that include social listening and social media analytics. It provides in-depth analytics using a comprehensive set of social media data sources, which goes beyond the basics. This allows you to make data-backed decisions when building your social media marketing strategies.

⚙️Key Features:

• Analyze brand mentions across various social media networks.
• Get a deeper understanding of your audience based on their online conversations.
• Set up reports to automatically deliver on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
• Analyze the sentiment behind brand mentions and conversations.
• Analyze your brand’s share of voice to benchmark against the competition.
• Create customized alerts to instantly get notified about relevant topics and mentions.
• Find visual mentions of your brand with image recognition technology.

💸Pricing: Custom

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Advanced social media analytics informed by real conversations
• AI-powered technology to streamline analytics

❌Cons:

• Lack of essential social media performance insights
• No free plan available
• High-priced

⭐Best For: Large enterprises and agencies looking for an analytics solution that focuses on social listening.

11. Later

Later is a social media management platform with analytics capabilities. This social media analysis tool has all the features you need to get essential performance insight across leading social networks.

⚙️Key Features:

• Get performance insights for all your social media profiles.
• Discover top-performing Instagram hashtags to inform your strategies.
• Identify your best posts to understand what’s working.
• Access audience demographics data to create content that resonates.
• Schedule Instagram and TikTok content for optimal performance with a Best Time to Post tool.
• Analyze link in bio performance to see what works.

💸Pricing: Starts at $16.67/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Easy to use even for beginners
• Cost-effective and flexible plans

❌Cons:

• No free plan available
• Lack of competitive analytics

⭐Best For: Medium and small businesses looking for a social media analytics solution that covers all the essentials.

12. Facelift Data Studio

Facelift Data Studio (formerly known as Quintly) is a platform that offers some of the most powerful social media analytics. The platform caters to “data-obsessed people,” offering hundreds of metrics to understand your social media performance.

⚙️Key Features:

• Create a customized analytics dashboard with 350+ metrics to choose from.
• Get a comprehensive look into your social media performance.
• Visualize and compare the performance of different social media content types.
• Streamline analytics with a Fast Analysis feature to focus on specific data points.
• Gain competitive insights to benchmark your performance.
• Create customized reports to focus on metrics that matter the most.

💸Pricing: Starts at €490/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Access to a wide range of social media metrics
• Highly customizable dashboard

❌Cons:

• No free plan available
• High-priced
• A bit too advanced for beginners

⭐Best For: Large organizations and agencies with a dedicated analytics team to uncover advanced social media insights.

13. Agorapulse

Agorapulse is a social media management software solution with built-in social media analytics capabilities. It automatically pulls data from your Google Analytics so you can attribute your social media activities to real business outcomes.

⚙️Key Features:

• Visualize your performance metrics across key social networks.
• Identify your top-performing posts for each social media platform.
• Customize your reports and schedule them to automatically deliver on a regular basis.
• Listen in on relevant social media conversations to understand what your customers want.
• Monitor brand mentions and protect your brand reputation. 

💸Pricing: Starts at $49/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: Yes

✅Pros:

• User-friendly dashboard
• Comes with listening capabilities for qualitative insights
• Offers custom plans for agencies

❌Cons:

• Lack of audience insights

⭐Best For: Small businesses and agencies looking for a cost-effective social media analytics tool.

14. Sprinklr

Sprinklr’s self-serve social media management platform lets you track key metrics to understand your performance. Besides essential performance analytics, the platform also offers social listening capabilities to get qualitative insights.

⚙️Key Features:

• Monitor your organic social media performance in real time and over time.
• Measure the performance of your paid social media advertising campaigns.
• Analyze your customer interactions to gauge your social media customer service efforts.
• Listen in on conversations taking place around specific topics.
• Get AI-powered insights on trending conversations around the world.
• Benchmark your performance against the competition.

💸Pricing: Starts at $199/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Comprehensive social media analytics
• AI-powered technology to extract valuable insights

❌Cons:

• No free plan available
• Slightly pricey

⭐Best For: Medium to large enterprises looking to manage their social media analytics in-house. 

15. Brandwatch

Brandwatch’s social media management platform offers robust analytics features to inform your strategies. In addition to essential performance analytics, it gives you qualitative social listening insights from 100+ sources.

⚙️Key Features:

• Create a customized dashboard to monitor metrics that matter the most.
• Benchmark your performance against the competition.
• Track share of voice to see where you stand.
• Discover trending content to see what resonates with your audience.
• Monitor conversations from hundreds of sources to find relevant brand mentions.

💸Pricing: Custom

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• Comprehensive social media analytics with social listening insights
• Unlimited channel allowance

❌Cons:

• No free plan available

⭐Best For: Large enterprises and agencies looking to analyze multiple social media channels and profiles.

16. Emplifi

Emplifi is a social media management platform that unifies all your social media analytics in one place. You can get a complete picture of your social media performance along with AI-powered insights to inform your strategies.

⚙️Key Features:

• Create customized reports to focus on metrics that matter the most.
• Analyze all your owned, earned, and paid media in one place.
• Track your message volume to see how people are engaging with your brand.
• Monitor sentiment across networks to understand how people feel about your brand.
• Gather competitive insights to benchmark your performance.

💸Pricing: Starts at $200/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: No

✅Pros:

• AI-powered social media analytics to make smart decisions
• Qualitative insights with sentiment analysis

❌Cons:

• No free plan available
• Slightly pricey
• Audience analytics is limited to Instagram

⭐Best For: Medium to large enterprises looking to simplify their social media analytics with AI.

17. Social Status

Social Status is a dedicated platform for social media analytics. It offers robust tools to analyze every aspect of your social media, including your ads and influencer campaigns.

⚙️Key Features: 

• Analyze your cross-platform performance in one place.
• Get a detailed breakdown of your audience demographics.
• Create customized reports and schedule them to automatically deliver on a regular basis.
• Get comprehensive insights into your paid social media campaign performance.
• Benchmark your performance against the competition.
• Audit influencer profiles to find potential brand partners.
• Track and analyze your influencer marketing campaigns for effectiveness.

💸Pricing: Starts at $9/mo.

🆓Free Plan Available: Yes

✅Pros:

• Cost-effective plans
• User-friendly interface

❌Cons:

• Support for X (Twitter) limited to Business plan onward

⭐Best For: Small businesses and agencies looking to manage social media analytics on a budget.

Comparison of the Best Social Media Analytics Tools

 

Platform	Pricing	Key Features	Best For
Hootsuite	Starts at $99/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Competitive benchmarking Best-time-to-post recommendations	Small, medium, and large businesses
Sprout Social	Starts at $199/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Competitive benchmarking Best-time-to-post recommendations Hashtag tracking Paid social analytics	Large businesses
Buffer	$5/mo. per channel	Cross-platform profile analytics Paid social analytics AI-powered suggestions	Solo practitioners
Zoho Social	Starts at $15/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Best-time-to-post recommendations In-depth audience insights	Small businesses
Rival IQ	Starts at $199/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Competitive benchmarking Best-time-to-post recommendations Social media audits AI-powered search	Medium to large businesses
Keyhole	Starts at $89/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Competitive benchmarking Best-time-to-post recommendations Influencer analytics	Small to medium businesses
Sendible	Starts at $25/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Campaign tracking Optimal post time analysis White label reports	Agencies
Iconosquare	Starts at $49/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Competitive benchmarking Hashtag tracking	Solo practitioners
Talkwater	Custom	Cross-platform profile analytics Competitive benchmarking Hashtag tracking Sentiment analysis Influencer analytics Image analytics	Large businesses and agencies
Meltwater	Custom	Brand monitoring Sentiment analysis Share of voice analysis Image analytics	Large businesses and agencies
Later	Starts at $16.67/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Competitive benchmarking Best-time-to-post recommendations Hashtag tracking	Small and medium businesses
Facelift Data Studio	Starts at €490/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Competitive benchmarking Customizable dashboard	Large businesses and agencies
Agorapulse	Starts at $49/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Social listening Brand monitoring	Small businesses and agencies
Sprinklr	Starts at $199/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Competitive benchmarking Paid social analytics Social listening	Medium to large businesses
Brandwatch	Custom	Cross-platform profile analytics Social listening Share of voice analysis Brand monitoring	Large businesses and agencies
Emplifi	Starts at $200/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Competitive benchmarking Sentiment analysis	Medium to large businesses
Social Status	Starts at $9/mo.	Cross-platform profile analytics Paid social analytics Competitive benchmarking Influencer analytics	Small businesses and agencies

 

Our Methodology for Selecting the Best Social Media Analytics Tools

For our analysis of the best social media analytics tools, we carefully looked at platforms with a strong reputation in the social media space. We then combed through third-party reviews and ratings from thousands of users. This allowed us to narrow down the top-rated platforms to include in our analysis.

From this shortlist, we went through every platform and analyzed them based on the following key aspects:

• Features – Whether they’re a standalone solution or part of a larger social media management platform, we focused on tools with comprehensive social media analytics features. We made sure that each tool could give you all the essential data on your profile performance at the bare minimum. Other features like social listening and brand monitoring were a plus.

• Platform support – We also made sure that every tool on our list supports all the leading social networks. At the bare minimum, they needed to provide analytics for Facebook and Instagram. Aside from a couple of exceptions, most of these tools could also provide analytics for TikTok, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn.
  
  Most social media analytics tools couldn’t offer analytics for specialized social networks, such as web3 social media platforms. So, this wasn’t part of our selection criteria.

• Pricing – Another factor that influenced our selection was pricing. The tools needed to be reasonably priced, making them accessible to most types of businesses. A few of the larger platforms had custom pricing, making them suitable for enterprise customers.

Conclusion

The social media analytics tools listed above can provide you with insights to build impactful, data-backed strategies. You can use them to see what’s working and what’s not. Then, fine-tune your approach according to those insights.

If you outsource social media to an agency, however, you can leave everything to the experts. You can have dedicated experts analyze your performance and optimize your strategies for you. Plus, you won’t need to invest in your own social media analytics platform and, instead, rely on their advanced tech stack. 

For instance, Ninja Promo’s social media marketing services include reporting and analytics for your paid and organic social. The team uses powerful analytics tools to audit your existing social media. This is then used to build a customized strategy that’s aligned with your business goals.

Ninja Promo also conducts ongoing campaign measurement. We then adjust your strategy to deliver a bigger impact. Get in touch with us to see how our analytics-driven services can help grow your business.