Looking for a More Robust Buffer Alternative

You’re on our page because you’re curious about Agorapulse – cool! Why don’t we start with an “Agorapulse v. Buffer” comparison of our features and pricing. Then we’ll share experiences of customers who moved from Buffer to Agorapulse.

Here we go!

1. Agorapulse is truly an all-in-one solution.

Our solution includes publishing, replying, listening, reporting, and CRM capabilities (plus much more) in every plan we offer.

Unlike Buffer, we don’t require a completely separate subscription in order to reply to the comments you’ve received on the posts you’ve published. You’ll have your Inbox, your Fans and Followers, and your Reports all in one place for one affordable price.

Our Inbox works a lot like email -- allowing you to effectively work through all your important conversations in one, clean stream.You can even set up moderation rules to keep away spam like auto-direct messages or assign messages with particular words to a teammate. This makes you even more focused on breezing through your messages and hitting Inbox Zero.

"Agorapulse has helped me scale my business! As my client base continues to grow, Agorapulse enables me to keep four eyes on their social media 24/7! Monitoring my clients’ social media channels is a huge part of what I do on a daily basis thus having one dashboard has simplified this incredibly important task, freeing up time to go out and get more business."

- Dorien Morin-van Dam

2. We gather your Facebook and Instagram ad comments.

Agorapulse has our Inbox so that you’ll never miss a comment on your Facebook or Instagram posts — whether they’re organic or paid. (Buffer Reply doesn’t capture comments on your sponsored posts.)

Our connection to both Facebook’s Marketing API and Graph API means that comments are in sync 100% of the time.

If you know what an API is, let me get geekier with you. What makes our sync system unique is a combination of simultaneous calls to both the Marketing API (aka the Ads API) AND the Graph API.

"With inbox messages and social mentions in one place, our Community Managers get to focus on building relationships with influencers while our Content Managers get to focus on what they do best: creating great content."

- Adam Harkness

Buffer users usually rely on native Facebook to manage comments on their sponsored posts. Not only is that an extra step, but with the way Facebook delivers comments, you have to sift through each and every ad to see if any new comments have been posted. This tedious work often leaves negative comments out in the open — which can ruin your reputation!

Again, we serve you ALL of your ad comments directly in your Social Inbox. Simply filter by ad comments, and BAM! they’re ALL there without crazy clickthroughs or fear that you might have missed something.

social media commenting

To find out how an agency like NewFire Media likes dark post commenting with Agorapulse, read this post.

3. We offer scheduling options that will blow you away.

Buffer was originally built for publishing only, but we like to think we do it better. All personal feelings aside, we offer tons more scheduling options!

Not only will you have access to customize your posts for each channel in your publisher, you can also schedule a post to publish multiple times, repeat content in custom increments, and enjoy an unlimited queue.Sadly, Buffer doesn't offer any of these necessary scheduling additions we've added!

Want to make sure your social media posts reflect your overall content strategy? Why not set them up according to the Queue Categories of your liking. Each queue can easily be paused or shuffled according to your needs.

4. Speaking of your publishing queue, it's unlimited. So bulk it up.

We don’t like limits. So we let you enjoy a custom queue with unlimited publishing on all our plans.

Your unlimited queue frees you up to focus on what matters the most — real engagement. Your unlimited Agorapulse Reports (see a trend here with “unlimited”?) give you personalized data to tweak your queue for maximum results. Learn more about your queue here.

With all this freedom, why not use our bulk upload features to schedule or queue a mountain of link or image posts all at once with a simple CSV file?

5. You can grab reports from Agorapulse whenever you want (regardless what plan you're on).

If you are a good social media manager, you have data to prove your worth on social.

That’s why we include reporting for all of our customers.

Our unlimited, downloadable reports for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn come with every subscription. Our reports are available on the Web and as customizable PowerPoint slides. In addition, you can download your Content Reports via CSV so that you can view your breakdown of engagement on each post.

Now you can post and respond, then with a click, see and present the results of these efforts all in one place.

If you want the benefit of downloading your stats — which pretty much every social media marketer does — you have two choices:

Agorapulse: choose any monthly plan as low as $49/mo (or go annual for a discount).
Buffer: choose one of the ‘Teams and Agencies’ plans that range between $99/mo and $399/mo

One of us clearly has the advantage when it comes to price and flexibility. Download report samples from this welcome page.

"At theSitecook we needed a robust solution to manage social media handles for many customers and I am glad I chose Agorapulse! The reporting, publishing and team management features are very user friendly. Agorapulse's service standards are one of the best in the industry."

- Gautam Khorana

6. With Agorapulse CRM functionality, you can avoid tool overload without needing to add Buffer Reply to your subscription.

Often the biggest hassle of social media management is juggling a closet full of apps that work with your social channels. This gets even more frustrating if you’re paying for 2 tools from 1 company.

We don’t offer a separate “Agorapulse Reply” because it’s already offered in all our plans. Giving you the ability to send out messages without being able to reply to others or know who they are isn’t how we do social.

Our inbox allows you to manage and assign comments, replies, and direct messages.

With our moderation rules, you can:

Auto-assign comments to the appropriate team member
Auto-tag or bookmark comments associated with a campaign
Auto-hide or delete comments that may ruin your reputation

Check out how our customers use moderation rules.

Our customer relationship management (CRM) tool gives you data out-of-the-box so you can immediately better engage your audience or support your clients.

custom user tag

With Agorapulse, you can say goodbye to the added clutter and expense of additional CRM tools like Buffer Reply.

7. Agorapulse is more affordable for large teams and agencies who value ROI.

You have enough on your minds as social media managers. Figuring out the real cost of your social media management tool shouldn’t be a task for you to consider. It should just be obvious.

We did a calculation for a client who:

Manages 25 social media accounts
Requires inbox features
Has 5 team members who need access to the tool
Requires team workflow features
Needs downloadable social media reports

Here is how Agorapulse and Buffer meet the needs of this client:

Tool

Annual Price

Agorapulse

$1,908

Buffer Small + Buffer Reply

$6,768*

* This pricing only includes up to 15 social profiles for your Buffer Reply subscription. The cost would increase if you needed to add the 10 additional profiles to Buffer Reply.

8. We love our customer service almost as much as our customers.

You might be catching the drift that we want to make managing social an easy, seamless job for you.

From our own experience using a gazillion online tools, we know that the best way to master a tool is to have someone at the ready to get you started and answer questions with straightforward, transparent advice.

"I am alone in my role as the Communication Manager with over 20,000 followers on both Facebook and Instagram. Agorapulse has become a vital platform for me to keep track of every conversation I have with our customers and for publishing material on both social media accounts. Thanks to Agorapulse no one is forgotten and I can easily keep both Facebook and Instagram alive and active."

- Alexander Elling

Let’s Review

We gave you a lot of things to think about, no? Here is a rundown of what I’ve mentioned so far, in addition to a couple other goodies like customizing content for each social network and YouTube integration.

Feature

Agorapulse

Buffer

Social Inbox with all plans

Yes

Facebook and Instagram ad comments capturing

Yes

Unlimited queue including queue categories and bulk upload options

Yes

Pause and shuffle queue options

Yes

Ability to customize content for each social network

Yes

Moderation rules

Yes

Downloadable reports with all plans

Yes

Powerful scheduling options

Yes

Built-in CRM to build better relationships

Yes

Affordable pricing for teams

Yes

YouTube integration

Yes

Ready to give Agorapulse a go?

Signing up for a two-week free trial is just a click (or tap) away.

Are you currently posting to social media with Buffer but looking for a more robust solution?

We’ve been evaluating social media management tools for years. Let us help you in your search.