I dare say that most snails might be better algae eaters than most shrimp. Look at their mouth structure alone--it's designed to rasp, enabling them to scrape algae off the sides of your tank and off plant leaves and rocks, etc.
Of course, all this varies from species to species. My amano shrimp have learned to eat flake food off the surface of the water, and have learned to capture frozen brine shrimp in mid-water. So they're clearly supplementing their diet that way. My snails, on the other hand, are only eating algae and dead/dying plant matter as far as I can tell.
I keep both in my tank, along with otos, and I havent had to clean the glass in my tank since I set it up a couple months ago.
Do a search on here, and you'll find that many people swear by certain snails for algae-eating, especially nerites. I've kept MTS, red rams, and apple snails (brigs), and of those, I'd say the brigs did very little to stave off algae, since they're so big and messy and demanding themselves. The smaller snails tho, proved a boon to keeping the tank clean.
I'd get the shrimp AND the snails, if you can keep both with the fish you're planning.
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