Best social media tools for agencies
Agencies buy on different criteria to everyone else: how cleanly clients are separated, whether reports can carry your branding, how approvals work, and what each additional client account costs. Feature lists aimed at single brands don't tell you any of that.
Who wrote this
Optimate publishes this page, so treat it as a vendor's list rather than an independent review. We've tried to earn the read by ranking on fit rather than on who's paying for the page — Optimate isn't first on every list here, and where a competitor is the better answer we say so and link you to them.
How this list is ordered
Ranked on the four things agencies actually buy on — client separation, white-label reporting, approval workflow, and cost per client account at 10–50 accounts.
Pricing checked 25 August 2026. Tools without a figure are ones we haven’t verified directly — check their site rather than trust a number we didn’t read ourselves.
Number 1: SocialPilot
From $20/mo (5 accounts)Best for: Agencies wanting white-label reports at a low price per account
Aggressively priced per connected account, with white-label client reporting and generous AI credit allowances. One of the best value options for agencies below about twenty accounts.
Number 2: Optimate
Free plan · Pro £29/mo · Studio £59/mo · Agency £135/moBest for: Agencies where content production is the constraint
A separate brand kit per client keeps each voice distinct, with client approval and history built in, and Agency covers 50 profiles at £135/month — better value than most at the top of the range. The gap is white-labelling: reports carry Optimate's branding, and if you resell reporting under your own brand, SocialPilot or Sendible do that and Optimate doesn't.
Number 3: Metricool
Free plan · from €20/moBest for: Agencies selling reporting as the deliverable
Priced per brand — €54 for 15 and €172 for 50 — with competitor benchmarking, report templates and a Looker Studio connector. The strongest reporting per pound on this list; white-labelling is reserved for the Custom tier.
Number 4: Sendible
Best for: Agencies wanting white-label dashboards for clients
Long-established agency tool with client dashboards and white-labelling, including custom domains on higher tiers.
Number 5: Planable
Best for: Approval-heavy workflows between agency and client
Built around collaboration and sign-off — content is previewed exactly as it will appear and commented on in place. Strong if approvals are the bottleneck rather than production.
Number 6: Sprout Social
From $99/seat/mo billed annuallyBest for: Large agencies needing listening and a real inbox
The most capable product here and by some distance the most expensive, at $199/seat/month on Standard. Per-seat pricing punishes big teams, so model it against headcount before shortlisting.
Common questions
What's the best white-label social media tool for agencies?
SocialPilot and Sendible are the usual answers — both put your branding on client-facing reports and dashboards. Optimate does not white-label, so if that's a requirement it rules us out and we'd rather say so here than waste your evaluation time.
How should an agency compare cost across these tools?
Cost per client account at your actual scale, not headline price. Per-seat tools like Sprout get expensive with team size; per-account tools like SocialPilot scale with clients; flat-tier tools like Optimate are cheapest at the top of their range and poor value if you're well under it.
Which handles client approvals best?
Planable is built around approvals specifically and is the strongest if sign-off is your bottleneck. Optimate, Metricool and SocialPilot all have approval flows as part of a broader product, which is usually enough unless approvals are the whole problem.
Try Optimate against your own accounts
Free plan, 3 social profiles, no card required — enough to judge the content quality for yourself rather than take our word for it.
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