Buffer SCIM guide

Later, the social media management platform, does not support SCIM provisioning on any plan. While Later offers enterprise SSO through SAML 2.0 and OIDC via their Keycloak identity broker, this only handles authentication for existing users. The system requires manual user creation before SSO can function—there's no JIT provisioning or automated user lifecycle management. Additionally, Later only supports SP-initiated SSO flows, meaning users must start their login journey from the Later application rather than their identity provider dashboard. This creates a significant operational burden for IT teams managing marketing departments that rely on Later for social media scheduling and analytics. Without automated provisioning, administrators must manually create and maintain user accounts, defeating much of the purpose of centralized identity management. The lack of JIT provisioning means new team members can't simply be assigned the application in their IdP and gain immediate access—someone must first manually create their Later account. For organizations with frequent team changes or seasonal marketing staff, this manual overhead quickly becomes unmanageable.

Hootsuite supports SCIM 2.0 for automated user provisioning, but only on Enterprise plans starting at $15,000/year minimum plus $1,800-2,000 per user. For a 50-person marketing team, that's $105,000+/year just to unlock basic provisioning automation. Making matters worse, Hootsuite requires their Customer Success Manager to configure SSO, and user accounts must be pre-created before SSO can be enabled—defeating much of the automation benefit. This creates a significant operational burden for IT teams managing social media access. Without automated provisioning, you're stuck manually creating accounts for every new marketing hire, updating roles when people switch teams, and remembering to deactivate access when employees leave. For an app that's often used by contractors, agencies, and temporary campaign staff, this manual overhead quickly becomes unmanageable.

Sprout Social does not offer native SCIM provisioning on any plan. While Enterprise customers get SAML 2.0 SSO with Just-In-Time (JIT) provisioning, this only creates user accounts on first login—it doesn't handle ongoing lifecycle management, role assignments, or deprovisioning when employees leave. At $199-$499+ per seat monthly (with Enterprise requiring custom pricing above the $499 Advanced tier), organizations are paying premium rates but still manually managing user accounts in Sprout Social's admin panel. This JIT-only approach creates significant operational gaps for IT teams managing social media access. When marketing team members join, change roles, or leave the company, their Sprout Social permissions must be manually updated or removed. There's no automated way to assign users to specific social media accounts, adjust publishing permissions, or ensure former employees lose access immediately upon termination. For organizations managing multiple social media managers across different brand accounts, this manual overhead becomes substantial, while deactivated employees retain access until manually removed—creating security risks for your organization's social media presence.