The tool that cuts email in an approval cycle is the one where reviewers comment on the thing itself and the decision is recorded in the same place. For social posts, that means feedback on the post preview (Planable or Mydrop). For design files that need exact pixel markup, it means Ziflow.
TLDR: Ziflow is for precision review of creative files. Planable is for reviewing posts on a calendar board. Mydrop keeps comments, preview, approval and publishing on one post. Pick by what your reviewers actually need to mark up.
Mydrop pricing check, September 2026: the entry paid plans of the eight tools most often compared with Mydrop run from $6 per channel (Buffer) and $25 a month (Later) to $99 per user (Hootsuite) and $79 per seat (Sprout Social), read on each vendor's pricing page. Mydrop is free to start, then $19 a month flat, not per seat. Full table on Mydrop's compare pages.
Where the email threads come from
Approval email almost always has three causes:
- Feedback happens outside the tool. Someone screenshots the draft and replies from their inbox.
- The reviewer cannot see the post as it will look. So they ask questions instead of approving.
- Nobody knows what is approved. The status lives in someone's head or a thread.
Fix those three and the email drops. Which tool fixes them depends on your content.
Ziflow vs Planable vs Mydrop, compared
| Ziflow | Planable | Mydrop | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Proofing creative files, with visual markup | Reviewing social posts in a content calendar | Planning, approving and publishing social posts |
| Feedback sits on | The file, pinned to exact spots | The post preview | The post, in a thread beside its preview |
| After approval | The file is approved. You still schedule elsewhere | Schedule and publish from the same tool | Schedule and publish on 14 networks |
| Where it falls short for social | One more tool between approval and publishing | Less depth for markup on design files than a proofing tool | Comments on a post, not pixel annotation on a file |
Check each vendor's current plans for how many review stages and reviewers are included, because that changes between tiers.
Choose by the kind of reviewer you have
- A legal or brand reviewer who must mark exact pixels or a video frame: Ziflow. Use it only for that step, then move the approved asset into your scheduler.
- A client or manager who needs to see the post and say yes: Planable or Mydrop. Both show the post as it will appear, so the reviewer answers instead of asking.
- A client who will not create a login: Mydrop's client portal gives them a link to review and approve without an account.
- A team that wants one place from draft to publish: Mydrop, with post previews, roles, comments and approvals on the same screen.
How fast is "fast enough"?
Set a target before you pilot anything. In Mydrop's data on posts that went through client approval, the median time from submission to approval was 6 hours, and 66% were approved within 24 hours. The sample is small, so read it as a shape, not a benchmark. If your current cycle is measured in days, the delay is rarely the tool. It is that feedback has no single home.
Questions to ask in any demo
- Can a reviewer leave feedback without installing or learning anything?
- Is the comment attached to the post, so it is still there after the edit?
- Can I see at a glance which posts are waiting, approved or changed?
- What happens after approval: do I rebuild the post somewhere else, or does it go straight into the schedule?
The last question is the one that decides how much email you keep.
A two-week pilot that settles it
Run one brand through the tool for two weeks and measure three numbers against the previous two weeks:
- Rounds of feedback per post. More than two usually means the brief was unclear.
- Hours from "ready for review" to "approved".
- Email threads about approval. Count them in your inbox.
If the numbers do not improve, the tool was not the problem. For a longer shortlist, see our roundup of approval workflow tools.
Next step: pick your slowest-approving client, move their posts into one tool for two weeks, and count the emails. To try Mydrop's version, start free.
Google review
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