Native vs. Sprout metrics

At times you may notice a difference in native network reporting metrics vs. metrics in Sprout Social. This chart shows the Sprout Report, native report and any expected differences.

Network	Sprout Report	Native network report	Differences
	Facebook Pages Report & Profile Performance Report for Facebook	Meta Business Suite - Overview	Meta Business Suite provides Follow and Unfollows, which is not currently available in Sprout. Sprout only provides Net Follower Growth. Meta Business Suite's content interactions metric does not include Post Link Clicks, unlike Sprout's Engagement metric. Meta Business Suite's metrics include interactions and link clicks from stories and ads that are not published on your page.  Due to recent deprecations and limitations of Meta's API that do not allow us to access data for stories, Sprout can only include engagements and link clicks from ads and posts published to your page.
	Post Performance Report for Facebook	Facebook Insights Report	Reporting in the Facebook Insights Report counts all Reactions as Likes. Sprout's Post Performance Report counts Likes and all other Reactions (Haha, Wow, etc.) in the Reactions metric. PAC and DCO Ads do not have metrics available via Meta’s APIs. Any PAC or DCO ad surfaced in Sprout’s reporting will not have metrics associated.
	Facebook and Instagram Paid Performance (Campaigns tab)	Facebook Ads Manager Export	Web Conversions in Sprout and Web Purchases in Ads Manager are calculated differently.  You may see more Web Conversions in Sprout because the metric is calculated as the total number of events or conversions driven by campaigns.
	Post Performance Report for Instagram	Facebook Insights Report (Instagram tab)	Collaborative engagement data is not available via Meta’s APIs if the publishing account is not authenticated. Meta Business Suite surfaces data for collab posts regardless of who the publisher is  IG Views sourced from Meta’s API currently has data from Collab posts. As this metric is considered in development, it is subject to change.
	Profile Performance Report for X	X Analytics	Sprout can’t access video views data for videos shared multiple times from the Twitter Media Studio.
	Profile Performance Report for LinkedIn and LinkedIn Pages Report	LinkedIn Content Report	Sprout Reports can only pull in organic data. Shares data in Sprout reporting are equivalent to Reposts data in the LinkedIn Content Report. Sprout’s Engagement Rate is calculated differently from LinkedIn’s Average Engagement Rate. You may see different values.
	LinkedIn Pages Report (Followers metric)	LinkedIn Followers Report	The LinkedIn Followers Report doesn’t include Followers Lost.
	Profile Performance for TikTok and TikTok Profiles Report	TikTok Overview Report	In the TikTok Overview Report, profile-level export includes Video views, Profile views, Likes, Comments, and Shares. Follower data can be downloaded from the Followers tab, but is only available for the past 7 days.  Exports in Sprout Reports backfill net audience growth for up to 60 days but don't include follower count.
	Post Performance Report for TikTok	TikTok Content Report	Export in the TikTok Content Report is limited to the last 7 days.  The Post Performance Report export for TikTok in Sprout includes backfills for video metrics from the past 365 days up to 500 videos.

Engagement calculations

Sprout calculates Engagement based on all the Reactions + Comments + Shares + Post Link Clicks + Other Post Clicks that occur on the page. A user can create multiple Engagements (e.g., if they click and share a post), so the number of Engagements may be higher than the number of Engaged Users in your Reports.

FAQs

Why are my Facebook share counts different in Sprout than what I see on Facebook?

There are a few reasons why share counts for a Facebook post may appear lower in Sprout than on Facebook natively:

1. How Facebook counts "shares on shares"
When someone shares your post and then their audience reshares that shared version, Facebook calls these "shares on shares." On Facebook's native insights, these cascading reshares are rolled up into the original post's total share count. However, Meta's API — which is what Sprout uses to retrieve data — attributes shares differently. The API may not include all downstream reshares in the share count it returns to Sprout, which can result in Sprout displaying a lower number than what appears natively.

Example: If your original post was shared 50 times directly, and 20 of those shared posts were reshared by others, Facebook's native insights might show 70 total shares on your original post. Sprout may show closer to 50, since the API does not always roll up those secondary reshares the same way.

2. Shared posts may show no shares in Sprout
If your post was reshared by another Page, the shares on that reshared version are typically attributed back to the original post in Meta's system. As a result, the reshared post may show zero or fewer shares in Sprout, even if it appears to have shares when viewed natively. This is by design on Meta's side — it's how their API structures the data.

3. Reels may show different engagement counts
For Facebook Reels specifically, share counts can differ due to how Sprout retrieves Reel metrics from Meta's API. Different API endpoints return different values for the same Reel, and the endpoint optimized for traditional video content can sometimes return numbers that don't match the native display. Sprout uses the most accurate endpoint available, but minor differences may still occur.

4. Timing and data collection
Sprout collects post metrics at regular intervals. If you're comparing numbers shortly after a post goes live or goes viral, there may be a delay before Sprout's data fully catches up. Shares that occur between collection intervals will appear in Sprout after the next data update.

What about other metrics — do they differ for similar reasons?

Yes. Here are a few other common examples where you may notice differences: