Bottom Line: Vista Social prices well against Hootsuite and Sprout at 79 dollars a month for 15 profiles, and the number holds up if you only need publishing, an inbox and standard reports. Add wider social listening and you are at 154 dollars, and the analytics windows are shorter than the marketing suggests.

Three numbers get quoted for Vista Social: 79, 149 and 349 dollars a month. They are accurate and they are not what a lot of teams end up paying.

The gap is not hidden fees. It is that the two things people most often want, listening across the wider web and unlimited AI generation, sit outside the plan you just bought.

I worked through the pricing page, the billing terms and the support docs on data retention to build the real cost picture for a small brand or agency running TikTok and Instagram. Here is what each tier covers, what it does not, and where the analytics stop.

What is Vista Social: A social media management platform covering scheduling, a unified inbox, analytics, review management and link in bio across twelve networks, aimed at small teams and agencies rather than enterprise.

What Each Plan Includes

Every paid tier gets unlimited scheduled posts, so you are buying profile slots, user seats and AI credits, not volume.

That is the right way to read the table. The jump from Professional to Advanced doubles your profiles and adds multi-stage approvals plus custom reports, which is an agency need rather than a brand one.

Plan	Monthly	Annual	Profiles	Users	AI credits	Review platforms
Professional	79 dollars	758 dollars	15	2	1,000	2
Advanced	149 dollars	1,430 dollars	30	4	2,000	8
Scale	349 dollars	3,638 dollars	70	8	3,500	8

Annual billing saves 20% and the trial is 14 days with no card required. White labelling for reports and dashboards arrives on Scale, which is the line most small agencies care about.

Work it per profile and Professional lands near 5.30 dollars per account per month. That is why the tool keeps showing up in agency shortlists even when the interface frustrates people.

The Costs That Sit Outside the Plan

Social listening on your own profiles is free, and listening across the wider social web and news starts at 75 dollars a month on top of any tier.

So the honest entry price for a brand that wants to monitor conversation beyond its own comments is 154 dollars a month, not 79. That reframes the comparison against tools which bundle listening at a higher headline price.

AI credits are the other one. They cover captions, replies, posts and ideas, and they are capped monthly rather than pooled or rolled over, so a team drafting variations for every post on the 1,000-credit Professional plan can run the meter down before month end. Generation stops until the reset.

Run the arithmetic on your own setup before you compare tools on the headline number.

Before: “Professional is 79 dollars a month, so budget 948 dollars for the year.”

After: “Professional at 79, plus wider listening at 75, is 154 a month. Take the 20% annual discount on the plan and the year lands near 1,658 dollars, not 948.”

That is the number to put next to a competitor quote. Comparing a bundled listening tool against Vista Social’s bare 79 is comparing two different products.

There is a third cost that only affects older accounts. In late 2025, X publishing was removed from AppSumo lifetime plans and moved to an add-on at 10 dollars a month per X profile, or 25 with analytics, after X raised third-party API costs across the industry. Anyone buying a current plan today is unaffected.

Where the Analytics Stop

Vista Social’s reporting windows are shorter than most buyers assume, and they are set by the platform APIs rather than your plan.

This is the detail worth checking before you build client reporting around it.

1. Initial sync takes 48 to 72 hours after you connect a profile before all metrics appear, so do not judge the tool on day one.
2. Historical backfill is 60 days on standard paid plans. Anything older than that never lands in your dashboard.
3. Post performance covers the last 30 days by default on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
4. X post metrics cover the last 2 days. That is the API limit, not a bug.

Here is the practical consequence. A monthly client report built entirely in Vista Social works fine. A year-on-year comparison for a client you onboarded last week does not, because the data is not there to pull.

If reporting on Instagram growth is the job, our breakdown of why organic reach on Instagram explains why the numbers move the way they do, and the Instagram trials growth tool guide covers a lever that sits outside any scheduler.

The Billing Terms in One Paragraph

Cancel mid-cycle and nothing is refunded, on monthly or annual plans.

The policy is explicit that there are no partial or prorated refunds if you cancel before the end of your subscription period, and that downgrades and removed add-ons only take effect at the end of the billing term. Disputing a charge with your bank before contacting support can get the account suspended during the investigation.

The safe sequence is straightforward. Run the 14-day trial, take one month at 79 dollars to confirm your profiles connect and your reports pull, and only then take the 20% annual discount.

One more thing if you are an old customer rather than a new one. Legacy plans stay supported but do not receive new features or pricing updates, so anything released after your plan was retired is not included, which over a few years is a long list.

Is It Worth It for a Small Team

Worth it for a brand or agency running 10 or more profiles that wants publishing, inbox and reports in one place. Not worth it for a single-brand account posting to two platforms.

At the low end you are paying for capacity you will not touch, and a lighter scheduler covers the job. Our guide to scheduling Facebook posts from desktop covers the free native route that is often enough at that size.

The value case sharpens with volume. Ratings back that up, with users on G2 consistently scoring it well on value for money and ease of use while flagging the learning curve, and the complaint pattern is about finding features rather than features failing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is Vista Social per month?

Professional is 79 dollars, Advanced is 149 and Scale is 349, all billed monthly. Annual billing takes 20% off, and Enterprise pricing is quoted individually.

Is there a free version?

No, only a 14-day trial with no credit card. The pricing page lists no permanent free tier.

How much does social listening cost?

Listening on your own profiles is included at no extra cost. Listening across the wider social web and news starts at 75 dollars a month on top of your plan.

Do unused AI credits roll over?

No. Credits are a monthly allowance of 1,000, 2,000 or 3,500 depending on tier, and generation pauses once they are spent until the next cycle.

Can I get a refund if I cancel?

No. Vista Social does not issue refunds or credits for unused time on monthly or annual subscriptions, so the trial is the window to decide.

How far back does the reporting go?

Standard paid plans backfill 60 days of history, post performance defaults to the last 30 days on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and X post metrics only cover the last 2 days.

Quick Takeaways

• The three headline prices are real, but wider social listening adds 75 dollars a month to any of them.

• Unlimited scheduled posts on every tier means you are buying profile slots and seats, not volume.

• Analytics backfill stops at 60 days and X metrics at 2 days, which rules out deep historical client reporting.

• No prorated refunds on any plan, so prove the setup on a monthly cycle before committing annually.

• At 15 profiles for 79 dollars the per-account maths is strong, and at two profiles it is money spent on unused capacity.