If you're here, chances are you already understand the value of a good social listening tool. Whether you're looking for a more affordable alternative to Brand24 or seeking additional features, you're in the right place; and yes, we totally get it.
Social media monitoring tools are notoriously expensive. Brand24 starts at $49 per month, but its basic plan might not provide enough mentions for your needs. On the other hand, Brandwatch, a direct competitor, comes in at a hefty $1,000 per month for just 10,000 mentions. That makes Brand24 significantly cheaper, about 10x, but yet it still may not offer the best value for every business.
Thankfully, there are options in the market now- tools that can track mentions, analyze sentiment and also help you manage your online reputation without breaking the bank. In this blog, we'll talk about the top alternatives for Brand24 that has the right balance between functionality and affordability.
Let’s find the best Brand24 alternatives to help your business stay on top of your reputation management.
What Makes a Great Social Listening Tool?
Before diving into Brand24 alternatives, here’s what you should evaluate:
- Coverage scope: Does the tool monitor all platforms where your audience participates?
- Sentiment analysis accuracy: How well can it detect positive, negative, or neutral mentions?
- Reporting capabilities: Are the reports customizable and easy to understand?
- Alert systems: Does it notify you promptly about critical mentions?
- Historical data access: Can you view trends and mentions from the past?
- Integration options: Does it connect with your existing marketing stack?
- Pricing structure: Is there a transparent, adaptable pricing model?
These alternatives have substantially different price points. Some start at Brand24's level, while others target enterprise clients with higher prices. On top of that, most providers let you start small and scale up as needed.
User experience is different among these tools. Some focus on simple interfaces for beginners. Others offer detailed dashboards with advanced filtering that experienced analysts might prefer.
Small businesses and solo entrepreneurs can try free plans or trials with several alternatives. This gives them a chance to test features before spending money. Larger organizations might want alternatives with team collaboration features and advanced permission settings.
Mobile apps are needed for teams that need to monitor on the go. Several alternatives offer full-featured mobile apps now. You'll never miss important mentions, no matter where you are.
Each alternative in this piece has something special that Brand24 might not offer. It could be better data visualization, more detailed analytics, wider source coverage, or improved integration options.
Look at your monitoring needs, technical requirements, and budget as you explore each Brand24 alternative. The best social listening tool does more than just monitor - it's a great way to get more from your marketing and customer engagement strategy.
Top Brand24 Alternatives for Social Media Monitoring
SurveySparrow
Image Source: SurveySparrow
SurveySparrow stands out among social listening platforms by combining traditional monitoring features with powerful survey capabilities. This platform started as a customer feedback tool and evolved into a detailed solution that brings reviews from over 100 platforms into a single dashboard.
What makes SurveySparrow unique
The platform's chat-like interface helps achieve a 40% higher survey completion rate compared to standard forms. Users find this conversational experience more natural and engaging when giving feedback.
SurveySparrow's AI-driven sentiment analysis technology sets it apart from others. The platform accurately detects positive, negative, and neutral mentions on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and app stores. Its machine learning algorithms excel at decoding subtle tones, sarcasm, and even interpret emojis with high accuracy.
The social listening capabilities include:
- Smart crisis detection with custom alerts for negative spikes
- Keyword tracking for brand, competitor, and industry terms
- Automatic flags for unusual activity
- Live reporting with customizable dashboards
SurveySparrow's CogniVue, an AI-driven text analytics tool, reveals hidden patterns and root causes that human analysts might overlook.
How SurveySparrow compares to Brand24
Brand24 focuses purely on social listening, while SurveySparrow creates a complete feedback ecosystem where monitoring and active questioning work together. You can launch targeted surveys right after spotting trends through social listening.
The platform's ticket management system turns feedback into actionable tasks, a feature Brand24 doesn't have. The system routes feedback to team members automatically, creates priority-based tickets based on sentiment or topic, and tracks resolution from beginning to end.
Companies with multiple locations benefit from SurveySparrow's AI-driven insights that track reputation changes across all sites simultaneously. This helps understand customer perceptions in different geographic areas better than Brand24's general approach.
Pricing and plans for SurveySparrow
SurveySparrow offers flexible pricing tiers for businesses of all sizes:
If you have simple needs, plans start at $19/month (billed annually) for the Basic plan with 2,500 responses per year and 1 user. The Starter plan costs $39/month with 15,000 responses annually.
Teams can choose the Business plan at $79/month (billed annually) with 50,000 responses and 3 users. Larger organizations might prefer the Professional plan at $249/month with 100,000 responses and 5 users.
Unlike Brand24, SurveySparrow offers a forever free plan with limited features, making it available for small businesses or those new to social listening.
Enterprise-level organizations get custom pricing with dedicated customer success managers, unlimited active surveys, and up to 25+ integrations.
Every paid plan comes with a 14-day free trial so you can test the platform's features before committing. SurveySparrow gives you more pricing flexibility than Brand24, especially when you want to combine survey functionality with social listening capabilities.
Still Comparing Tools? Try SurveySparrow Before You Buy
A personalized walkthrough by our experts. No strings attached!
Brandwatch
Image Source: Brandwatch
Brandwatch has become a leader in social listening, built for enterprises that need powerful analytics. My experience with many monitoring tools shows that Brandwatch's analysis capabilities really set it apart from others.
What makes Brandwatch unique
Brandwatch has a powerful suite of social media analytics that goes beyond simple monitoring. The platform comes through with customizable dashboards that track performance in many networks and metrics at once. You can tailor your monitoring exactly to what your brand needs.
The platform's social listening technology helps you remain competitive and connect with your target audience better. Up-to-the-minute monitoring ensures you catch every important conversation about your brand.
The platform excels with these key features:
- Advanced sentiment analysis that decodes both tone and intent behind social mentions
- Complete benchmarking tools to measure yourself against competitors
- AI-powered insights through their Iris AI that analyzes posts and summarizes conversations
- Image recognition technology that spots visual brand mentions others might miss
Brandwatch blends engagement, scheduling, and influencer marketing features into one platform. This combined solution makes your social media management workflow smoother.
How Brandwatch compares to Brand24
Brandwatch targets mid-size to large businesses and agencies with multiple accounts, while Brand24 takes a more available approach. These platforms differ mainly in how deep their analysis goes.
Brandwatch leads with strong features like customizable dashboards, sentiment analysis, influencer identification, and competitive measurement. Brand24 scores better in customer support with 9.5 versus Brandwatch's 8.6.
Brand24 keeps things simple with monitoring, while Brandwatch builds a complete ecosystem with Consumer Intelligence, Social Media Management, Influencer Marketing, and Media Intelligence. This setup allows detailed analysis but takes longer to learn.
Brandwatch does a great job monitoring large-scale conversations and analyzing sentiment. This gives you better insights about audience groups and content success. The trade-off is a much higher price than Brand24.
Pricing and plans for Brandwatch
Brandwatch doesn't list prices on their website, which can be frustrating. Sources indicate the Pro plan starts around $800 monthly with 10,000 mentions. Enterprise plans cost $3,000+ monthly with unlimited mentions or queries.
This makes Brandwatch one of the pricier monitoring tools available. The company splits its products into:
- Consumer Intelligence - Market insights for researchers and analysts
- Social Media Management - Social content collaboration for teams
- Influencer Marketing - Better influencer discovery and campaigns
The high cost makes sense to many users because of advanced customization and detailed insights. Large organizations managing multiple brands find great value in the combined analytics capabilities.
The platform has flexible pricing for specific needs, but it's still mainly an enterprise tool rather than something for small businesses or individuals.
Mention
Image Source: Mention
My testing of various monitoring tools shows that Mention stands out as a social-first solution that excels at real-life brand tracking. This Paris-based platform has served businesses in over 125 countries since 2012 and provides detailed monitoring of social media and the broader web.
What makes Mention unique
Mention's greatest strength comes from its real-time alerting system. The notification system responds quickly—you get immediate updates through email or desktop push notifications each time someone mentions your brand online.
Mention's Boolean Search capability sets it apart from simple monitoring tools. You can craft highly specific searches with operators like "AND," "NOT," and "OR" to pinpoint exactly what matters to your brand. To name just one example, rather than tracking every mention of "breakfast," you can refine it to "breakfast NOT egg" to target your results precisely.
The platform has three distinct alert types that get more sophisticated as you go up:
- Basic Alerts: Simple keyword monitoring with suggested additional keywords and hashtags
- Standard Alerts: Enhanced filtering through a query builder interface
- Advanced Alerts: Full Boolean capabilities with up to 2,000 characters for complex queries
The platform's ability to combine monitoring with action stands out. You can categorize mentions as important, favorites, unread, spam, or archive, which makes organization user-friendly. Tags and specific mention assignments to team members create a workflow system right inside your monitoring tool.
How Mention compares to Brand24
Brand24 scores better in support quality with 9.5 compared to Mention's 8.5. Yes, it is true that some former Mention users switched to Brand24 because of price increases, though some eventually came back to Mention.
Mention takes a more targeted approach than Brand24's broader coverage by focusing heavily on social media sources like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. This specialized focus enables deeper sentiment analysis beyond simple positive/negative classifications to understand emotional context behind mentions.
Team collaboration features make Mention shine. The role management system helps assign specific responsibilities to team members. This becomes valuable especially when you have agencies managing multiple clients or larger organizations with specialized social media teams.
There's another reason Mention stands out - its exceptional competitor analysis capabilities. The platform emphasizes tracking competitors' online activities and mentions instead of just monitoring your own brand.
Pricing and plans for Mention
Mention's four main pricing tiers scale with business size:
- Solo: $49/month ($41/month billed yearly) has 2 basic alerts, 5,000 mentions, 1 user, and 1 social account per network
- Pro: $99/month ($83/month billed yearly) has 5 basic alerts, 10,000 mentions, 10 users, and 10 social accounts
- ProPlus: $179/month ($149/month billed yearly) has 7 basic and standard alerts, 20,000 mentions, unlimited users, and 15 social accounts[133]
- Company Plan: Custom pricing with 10+ alerts (including advanced Boolean search), 100,000+ mentions, unlimited users, and unlimited social accounts
Each tier increases in both volume and capability. The Company Plan adds advanced features like TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest monitoring, plus add-ons for LinkedIn, radio, and TV monitoring.
Mention provides a 14-day free trial that lets you access most Company plan features without a credit card. They also offer discounts to non-profit organizations upon request.
Awario
Image Source: Awario
Awario dominates the social listening space with its extensive data coverage and cost-effectiveness. My tests of various monitoring tools show that Awario's approach to detailed web monitoring makes it a great Brand24 alternative.
What makes Awario unique
The exceptional crawling capacity sets Awario apart. It scans over 13 billion web pages daily to find relevant mentions on social networks, blogs, news sites, and forums. This capability goes beyond the standard API connections that other competitors use.
Awario excels at gathering useful information through:
- Up-to-the-minute data analysis that sends instant alerts about critical conversations
- Sentiment analysis that labels mentions as positive, negative, or neutral
- Boolean search capabilities in all pricing plans for precise targeting
- A dedicated module to find sales prospects that Brand24 doesn't have
The platform serves as a detailed brand monitoring solution. You can interact with audience members right from the mention feed—reply, like, or share content without switching platforms. This integration of monitoring and engagement makes the workflow much smoother.
How Awario compares to Brand24
Awario delivers exceptional value by providing approximately 1,932 mentions per dollar spent compared to Brand24's 649 mentions per dollar. It's perfect for businesses that need extensive social media monitoring without breaking the bank.
Both tools take different approaches to data collection. My tests with similar keywords ("Airbnb," "Booking.com," and "TripAdvisor") showed Brand24's original lead of 62,810 mentions to Awario's 1,705. Yet after 24 hours, Awario jumped ahead with 150,000 mentions while Brand24 had 69,001.
Awario gives unlimited historical data for web results. Brand24's historical mentions stop at 12 months. Plus, Awario lets teams respond to mentions directly in the app instead of just monitoring them.
Pricing and plans for Awario
Awario has three simple plans with clear pricing:
- Starter: $29/month (billed annually) or $49/month (billed monthly) with 3 topics, 30,000 monthly mentions, and 1 user
- Pro: $89/month (annually) or $149/month (monthly) with 15 topics, 300,000 monthly mentions, and 10 users
- Enterprise: $249/month (annually) or $399/month (monthly) with 100 topics, 1 million monthly mentions, and unlimited users
Every plan has up-to-the-minute data search, Boolean search mode, and unlimited historical data. Other providers often restrict these features to premium plans. You can try the platform free for 7 days without a credit card.
Talkwalker
Image Source: Talkwalker
Talkwalker's Consumer Intelligence Platform gives enterprise brands deep analytical insights for brand monitoring. This AI-powered solution makes use of information from multiple channels. Large organizations will find it a strong alternative to Brand24.
What makes Talkwalker unique
Talkwalker stands out with its incredible data coverage. The platform monitors more than 150 million websites and 30+ social networks in 187 languages. You can capture every detail of your online presence because the scope is so big.
The platform's visual recognition technology spots your brand in images and videos without text. You won't miss visual mentions that other text-based monitoring tools can't catch.
Blue Silk™ AI, Talkwalker's proprietary engine, works as your analysis copilot by:
- Finding applicable information from large datasets
- Predicting trends up to 90 days ahead with analytics
- Creating over 900 billion predictions monthly to improve your marketing strategies
Talkwalker shines at crisis management with up-to-the-minute monitoring that warns you about issues before they grow.
How Talkwalker compares to Brand24
Brand24 focuses on accessibility while Talkwalker targets enterprise clients who need powerful analytics. The platform delivers 30% more relevant data than competitors. This gives businesses more confidence in their decisions and a competitive advantage.
Brand monitoring shows interesting results. Brand24 scores better with 9.3 while Talkwalker gets 7.0. Gartner reviews show Talkwalker has a 0% recommendation rate.
Users find the interface harder to learn than Brand24. This happens because Talkwalker includes more advanced analytics like predictive modeling and complete image recognition.
Pricing and plans for Talkwalker
Talkwalker offers four main subscription levels:
- Listen: Entry-level plan with social listening and media monitoring features
- Analyze: Includes social benchmarking and more data volume
- Business: Enterprise-grade consumer intelligence with 12x more data and custom dashboards
- Premium: Full capabilities with 20x data volume for organization-wide intelligence
The website doesn't show pricing publicly. You'll need to ask for a custom quote. Third-party sources say prices start between $1,200 and $9,600 yearly. Enterprise-level plans can reach $20,000 per year.
Talkwalker offers Free Social Search to try simple social listening. This includes unlimited real-time alerts for brand mentions.
Exploding Topics
Image Source: Exploding Topics
Exploding Topics stands out from other Brand24 alternatives because it looks at future trends instead of current conversations. My experience with this platform shows its predictive capabilities are powerful tools to keep up with market trends.
What makes Exploding Topics unique
Traditional social listening tools fall short compared to Exploding Topics, which spots trends 6 months before they become mainstream. The platform uses a sophisticated three-step process that combines AI with human verification:
Machine learning scans millions of data points across the internet—from Google search data to social media platforms. The system then analyzes historical search volume data to separate temporary fads from genuine trends with long-term potential. Human analysts verify each trend's business relevancy before adding it to the database.
The sort of thing I love most is how the platform spots under-the-radar opportunities that competitors might miss. The system tracks over 1.1 million trends in industries of all types. These insights aren't available through standard monitoring tools.
Key features include:
- A Trends Database with 13,000+ manually vetted topics
- Meta Trends that identify emerging niches within markets
- Trend Analysis that provides historical search volume data
- Weekly trend reports delivered directly to your inbox
How Exploding Topics compares to Brand24
The main difference lies in purpose—Brand24 excels at monitoring current conversations about your brand. Exploding Topics helps you understand what your audience will want next.
Exploding Topics works as a forward-looking tool that shows whether brand conversations increase or decrease over time. The platform goes beyond traditional social listening and helps you research industry-wide interests while tracking changes in competitors' popularity.
Pricing and plans for Exploding Topics
Exploding Topics offers three pricing tiers that scale with business needs:
- Entrepreneur: $39/month (billed annually) with 100 tracked trends and 10 trend analyzes
- Investor: $99/month (annually) including 500 tracked trends, trend forecasting, and CSV export capabilities
- Business: $249/month (annually) providing 2,000 tracked trends, 500 trend analyzes, and trend reports
You can access basic features for free or try a 7-day trial for just $1. This makes Exploding Topics much more available than many enterprise-level monitoring solutions.
Sprout Social
Image Source: Sprout Social
Teams looking for an all-in-one social media management solution will find Sprout Social's reliable capabilities go beyond simple monitoring. My experience using this platform with several client accounts shows its unified approach creates efficient complex social workflows.
What makes Sprout Social unique
Sprout Social shines with its detailed Smart Inbox that combines messages from multiple social networks into a single stream. You can monitor and involve yourself with comments on all your owned profiles without switching platforms.
The platform excels at team collaboration and shows immediate indicators when team members view or respond to messages. This feature is a great way to get better coordination with larger marketing teams.
Sprout Social stands out with advanced AI capabilities that:
- Generate automated alt text for accessibility
- Improve post creation through AI Assist
- Provide automated reply suggestions when customers ask questions
Sprout's ViralPost™ technology makes an even bigger impact by determining the best posting times based on your audience's behavior. This boosts content reach by an average of 60%.
How Sprout Social compares to Brand24
Sprout Social operates as a social management platform that emphasizes engagement and publishing along with monitoring. Brand24 takes a more focused approach on listening. User reviews show Sprout Social scores lower in brand monitoring (7.0) compared to Brand24 (9.3).
Sprout makes up for this with broader social network integration. You get access to TikTok, Pinterest, WhatsApp, and YouTube among other traditional platforms. This makes it perfect for brands that need presence on multiple channels.
Pricing and plans for Sprout Social
Sprout Social's pricing comes in four tiers:
- Standard: $199/month per seat with 5 social profiles
- Professional: $299/month per seat with unlimited social profiles
- Advanced: $399/month per seat with additional AI features and sentiment analysis
- Enterprise: Custom pricing with white-glove onboarding and priority support
Sprout Social's price tag runs higher than Brand24, and each new user costs the same as the base subscription. Large organizations managing multiple accounts across different platforms often find the unified dashboard and detailed tools worth this premium investment.
Meltwater
Image Source: Meltwater
Meltwater is a detailed AI-powered media intelligence platform that serves enterprise-level needs. My experience with Meltwater spans multiple client campaigns. The platform's depth of analysis makes it perfect for brands that need robust monitoring.
What makes Meltwater unique
The platform's monitoring capabilities stand out. It scans more than 270,000 global news sources, 15+ social media channels, TV, radio, and over 20,000 podcasts. This wide coverage means you won't miss any brand mentions.
Meltwater's best features include:
- Mira Studio with generative AI that analyzes conversation drivers and how they affect your brand
- Custom scoring to weigh the mentions that matter most to you
- Immediate spike detection alerts for potential crises or trends
- AI-driven text analytics that show deeper patterns in your data
The platform processes over 500 million new content pieces daily and keeps adding sources. This gives you full coverage on all channels where people talk about your brand.
How Meltwater compares to Brand24
User reviews show Brand24 scores better in reporting - 9.0 for "Report Exporting" versus Meltwater's 8.0. Brand24's dashboards also rate higher at 9.2 compared to Meltwater's 7.9. This suggests Brand24 offers better customization and visual appeal in its reports.
Meltwater shines with its broader media monitoring. The platform covers traditional channels like print and broadcast along with social media. PR professionals find this detailed coverage valuable.
Pricing and plans for Meltwater
Meltwater offers three main tiers:
- Essentials: Core products with individual training access for smaller teams
- Suite: Multiple solutions that work together for department-wide results
- Enterprise: Custom packages with managed services for global organizations
The platform requires yearly contracts without monthly options. While prices aren't public, research shows yearly costs between $15,000-$20,000. Simple 1-user subscriptions start at $7,000 per year.
Comparison Table
Platform | Starting Price (Monthly) | Key Features | Target Audience | Data Coverage | Unique Selling Point |
| SurveySparrow | $19 (Basic) | - AI sentiment analysis - Ticket management - Multi-location monitoring | Small businesses to enterprises | 100+ review platforms | Conversational interface with up to 40% higher completion rate |
| Brandwatch | $800 (Pro) | - Advanced sentiment analysis - Image recognition - Iris AI insights | Mid-size to large enterprises | 100M+ online sources, multiple networks | Powerful analytics, modular product approach, Iris AI |
| Mention | $49 (Solo) | - Boolean search - Live alerts - Team collaboration | Small teams to enterprises | Social-first, web monitoring | Quick notification system with tiered alerts |
| Awario | $29 (Starter) | - Boolean search - Sales prospecting - Direct involvement | Budget-conscious teams | 13B web pages daily | Best mention-per-dollar value (1,932 mentions/$) |
| Talkwalker | Custom pricing (from ~$800–$1,000/mo) | - Blue Silk™ AI - Visual recognition - Predictive analytics | Enterprise clients | 150M+ websites, 30+ social networks, 187 languages | Advanced image & video recognition, predictive analytics |
| Exploding Topics | $39 (Entrepreneur) | - Trend forecasting - Meta trends - Weekly reports | Market researchers & investors | 1.1M+ tracked trends | Spots trends 6+ months before mainstream adoption |
| Sprout Social | $199 (Standard) | - Smart Inbox - ViralPost™ - AI-powered features | Marketing teams & agencies | Multiple social networks (TikTok, Pinterest, WhatsApp, etc.) | Complete social media management with team collaboration |
| Meltwater | ~$7,000/year (~$583/mo) | - Mira Studio AI - Custom scoring - Spike detection | Enterprise organizations | 270,000+ news sources, 15+ social platforms, TV, radio, 20,000+ podcasts | Broad traditional and digital media coverage |
Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Choosing Social Media Monitoring Tools
- Overcomplicating your needs: Don't choose an enterprise solution if you only need basic social monitoring. Complex platforms can slow down your team and increase costs unnecessarily.
- Ignoring team adoption: The best social listening tool is one your team will actually use. Consider user experience and learning curve when making your decision.
- Focusing only on price: While budget matters, choosing solely based on cost can lead to limitations that hurt your social media monitoring effectiveness.
- Neglecting data quality: Cheaper options might provide more mentions but lower quality data. Consider accuracy alongside volume when evaluating Brand24 alternatives.
Conclusion
Brand24 serves many businesses well, but it’s certainly not the only option available in the market. Choose your business wisely, based on what your business needs, team size and the budget you’ve got. Each has its own merit which is worth thinking over.
SurveySparrow combines survey tools with social listening capabilities. This makes it ideal for getting actionable feedback while you monitor social media. Brandwatch gives you powerful enterprise analytics, but its high price might not work for smaller companies.
Mention does a great job with instant alerts and Boolean searches. Awario gives you excellent value based on mentions per dollar spent. If your team needs complete coverage on a tight budget, Awario could be your best bet.
Talkwalker and Meltwater work best for big organizations that need heavy-duty monitoring across traditional and digital channels. These platforms cost more but make up for it with predictive analytics and media coverage that smaller tools can't match.
