Later SCIM guide

Buffer, the social media management platform, does not offer SCIM provisioning or enterprise SSO capabilities on any plan. The platform is designed for small businesses and agencies, relying on OAuth social login integration rather than enterprise identity standards. With pricing structured around channels ($5-10 per channel per month) rather than users, Buffer lacks the foundational enterprise features that IT teams need for automated user lifecycle management. This creates significant operational gaps for larger organizations using Buffer. Without SCIM, IT teams must manually create, update, and deactivate user accounts across potentially dozens of social media channels and Buffer workspaces. When employees leave or change roles, there's no automated way to revoke access to sensitive social media accounts, creating compliance risks and potential brand security issues. The lack of centralized identity management means Buffer access often becomes "shadow IT" that security teams can't properly govern.

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.