Social Media Approval Workflow With Custom Permissions: 7 Tools

The social media tools that combine an approval workflow with custom permissions are Mydrop, Sprout Social, Planable, Agorapulse, Loomly, Sendible and Hootsuite. What separates them is how precisely you can decide who drafts, who approves and who publishes, and whether you can set that per client or per brand. A tool with approvals but one flat "editor" role still lets a junior writer hit publish on the wrong account.

TLDR: Write your permission map first (who drafts, who approves, who publishes, on which brand), then test every tool on your shortlist against it. Mydrop splits creator, approver, analyst and admin roles with access set per resource, and clients approve through a link that needs no login.

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 $199 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.

Write the permission map before you open a single trial

Most teams find the permission gaps in week three, when a freelancer can suddenly see every client. Start instead with one line per person:

• Who drafts: writers, designers, freelancers, interns.
• Who approves: the account lead, the client, sometimes legal for one regulated brand.
• Who publishes: usually the approver, sometimes a dedicated scheduler.
• Which brands each person touches: this is the line agencies forget, and it is the one that causes leaks.

If a tool cannot express a line on your map, it is out, no matter how good its calendar looks.

The four permission layers that decide the shortlist

"Custom permissions" means four different things depending on the vendor. Check each layer separately.

1. Roles. Can you separate creating from approving from publishing, or is everyone an "editor"?
2. Scope per brand or client. Can a writer draft for Client A without seeing Client B?
3. Access per resource. Can an analyst read reports without touching the calendar or the inbox?
4. Outside reviewers. Can a client approve without taking a paid seat or creating an account?

Most tools handle layer 1. Layers 2 and 4 are where agency workflows break, because that is where client data and client patience live.

7 social media tools with approval workflows and custom permissions

Tool	Best fit	What to test in the trial
Mydrop	Agencies and multi-brand teams	Roles per resource, no-login client link, WhatsApp sign-off
Sprout Social	Large in-house teams	Approval paths across many profiles, user permission levels
Planable	Teams that review in a visual feed	Approval levels and how guest reviewers comment
Agorapulse	Agencies that want inbox and publishing together	Roles per profile, approval on scheduled posts
Loomly	Small brand teams	Post approval flow and user roles
Sendible	Agencies with many small clients	Client access and approval on client accounts
Hootsuite	Organisations already running on it	Which plan includes approvals and custom permissions

Every tool here lists approvals. The difference shows up only when you rebuild your own permission map inside it.

Run these four permission tests in every trial

Skip the demo script and run real cases with a test account:

• The junior test. Log in as a creator and try to publish. The button should not exist.
• The offboarding test. Remove a freelancer. Their access should disappear from every brand in one action, not one profile at a time.
• The client test. Send a post to a client on their phone. They should approve without a password, and their comment should land on the post, not in your inbox.
• The hold test. Reject a post that is already scheduled. It should stop, not go live on time anyway.

A tool that fails the hold test is the one that eventually publishes something nobody approved.

How Mydrop splits roles per resource and per client

Mydrop's workspaces give every member a permission map across posts, media gallery, profiles, brands, automations, analytics, inbox, notes and conversations. Four roles come ready (creator, approver, analyst, admin) and you can adjust access per resource from there. A creator drafts but cannot publish; an analyst reads reports but never sees the calendar.

When you need a hard wall, for a client who demands isolation or a separate sub-team, a new workspace keeps its own members, brands, billing and timezone.

On the approval side, you pick the reviewers for each post, teammates or outside email addresses. Clients review through a per-post link or the no-login client portal, approve or suggest edits, and can even answer straight from WhatsApp. Putting a post back on hold returns it to pending and pauses scheduling. Automatic reminders chase overdue approvals so you do not have to.

In Mydrop's data on client approvals, the median time from submission to approval was 6 hours, and 66% were approved within 24 hours.

If you want the role setup in detail, our guide to social media role permissions walks through a six-role structure for agencies.

Rebuild your map in Mydrop in 20 minutes

1. Write the permission map above for your two busiest clients.
2. Create a free Mydrop account and add those two brands.
3. Invite one teammate as a creator and one as an approver, then run the junior test and the hold test.
4. Send one real post to a client through the approval link and time the answer.

If all four pass, roll out the rest of your clients.