Meltwater's own pricing guide puts its plans at about $10,000 a year for Starter, $25,000 for Pro and $130,000 for Enterprise, and Vendr's data from 126 purchases puts the median contract at $25,800 a year. The contract then renews automatically at Meltwater's then-current prices, and Meltwater's renewal FAQ tells customers to expect a rate increase at each annual renewal.
We picked six Meltwater competitors, each the best for a different job:
- Cision is the best for replacing Meltwater's whole PR stack, priced by quote.
- Sociable AI is the best for finding your brand in Instagram Reels, even when the caption doesn't name it, with social listening from $1,740/mo.
- Talkwalker is the best for social listening that also covers TV, radio and podcasts, priced by quote.
- Muck Rack is the best for pitching journalists and tracking the coverage, priced by quote.
- Brandwatch is the best for researching consumer trends over years of history, priced by quote.
- Mentionlytics is the best for monitoring mentions without a sales call, from $49/mo billed annually.
What Meltwater sells
Meltwater sells two things under one contract.
- PR and media monitoring is news, print, TV, radio and podcast monitoring, a journalist database and press release distribution. Broadcast and podcast monitoring are sold as add-ons to the media platform.
- Social listening is keyword and hashtag tracking across social networks, with consumer insights on the higher plans. On Instagram, Meltwater collects posts only from the profiles you list and the hashtags you add, and you can add up to 30 hashtags in any 7-day period, which is the limit Meta sets.
There is no free trial. Every plan starts with a demo.
Our picks
Cision is the best for replacing Meltwater's whole PR stack
Cision covers every part of Meltwater's PR job. CisionOne monitors news, print, TV, radio and podcasts, its database lists 500,000+ journalists and outlets, and press releases go out through PR Newswire, which Cision owns. Of the Meltwater alternatives in this article, Cision is the closest like-for-like replacement for coverage tracking and outreach. Cision also owns Brandwatch, so its social listening is sold as a separate product, Social Listening by Brandwatch.
Cision doesn't publish prices, and there's no free trial. Vendr's data from 107 purchases puts the median contract at $12,625 a year, about half of Meltwater's median.
On Instagram, CisionOne Social collects posts from the accounts you name and from up to 30 hashtags, the same way Meltwater does.
Two runners-up sit on the PR side:
- Agility PR Solutions also covers every part of the PR job, with online, print, broadcast and podcast monitoring, a database of 1.1M+ media contacts and its own newswire. Price is by quote and billed annually.
- Determ is news, web and social monitoring for PR teams at a published price. It starts at €249/mo billed annually, about $279, with unlimited users, and the €299 monthly price still needs a yearly commitment. Print, TV and radio are covered in some regions only, and there is no journalist database. The trial runs 5 days without a card.
Sociable AI is the best for finding your brand in Instagram Reels, even when the caption doesn't name it
Sociable AI lets you search your brand and see the Instagram videos in which it's referenced, including the ones whose caption never names it. For teams that want the data in their own tools, the Search API goes through each Reel frame by frame and returns the brands in it.
Meltwater, Cision and the other tools in this article collect Instagram posts from the profiles you list and the hashtags you track. If a creator you haven't listed posts a Reel with your product in it and no hashtag you track, that Reel never reaches them. In Sociable AI's data on social listening for Instagram, around 9 in 10 Reels in which a brand is referenced never name it in the caption.
Here's how Sociable AI is priced:
- Social listening is on the Scale plan at $1,740/mo, billed monthly.
- The Search API is priced by quote.
Each self-serve plan has a free trial.
Talkwalker is the best for social listening that also covers TV, radio and podcasts
Talkwalker puts social, news, print, TV, radio and podcasts in the same search, with TV, radio and print coming through LexisNexis, so if you need broadcast next to your social listening, you get both from one tool. Talkwalker also finds "30,000+ brand logos" plus scenes and objects in the images it collects, and every plan comes with unlimited users, so the cost doesn't climb with each person you add. Hootsuite has owned Talkwalker since 2024, and the product is now sold as Lumen by Talkwalker.
Talkwalker doesn't publish prices, and the only way in is a demo.
On Instagram, Talkwalker collects posts by hashtag, from accounts you add, and from a catalog of 150,000 Business and Creator accounts, so a brand search only covers posts that came in one of those three ways.
Muck Rack is the best for pitching journalists and tracking the coverage
Muck Rack gives you a journalist database to pitch from and coverage reports to track what those pitches earned, which is the journalist database and outreach side of Meltwater. Pitching, coverage reports and online news monitoring come with every plan, and 75,000+ podcasts are monitored from the Standard plan up. The rest of Meltwater's media sources are add-ons:
- Print and broadcast monitoring.
- Social listening.
- Press release distribution, sent through GlobeNewswire and bought as credits.
Muck Rack doesn't publish prices. The quote depends on how many users you have and which modules you add, and Vendr's data from 80 purchases puts the median at $13,000 a year. There's no trial for PR teams, though journalists use Muck Rack free.
On Instagram, the social listening add-on collects posts by hashtag, plus posts that match your keywords inside the accounts you add.
Brandwatch is the best for researching consumer trends over years of history
Brandwatch gives you years of history to work with. Its Consumer Research archive goes back to 2008, and on Instagram it holds up to 400 days of history for the Business accounts you track. Brandwatch replaces the social listening and consumer insights side of Meltwater.
Brandwatch doesn't publish prices or offer a trial, and Consumer Research is sold through a demo. Its UK government rate card starts Consumer Research at £10,800 a year for 5 searches, and Vendr's data from 40 purchases puts the median contract at about $50,000 a year.
If your research team wants image analysis, YouScan is the runner-up. YouScan collects posts by the logos and objects in their images as well as by their text. Pricing starts at $499/mo billed annually on Starter, which only runs text searches. Collecting posts by logo needs one of the Unlimited plans, which are priced by quote. There is no self-serve signup either. You book a demo, and YouScan sets up a trial account for you afterwards.
Mentionlytics is the best for monitoring mentions without a sales call
You can sign up for Mentionlytics and start using it today. The trial runs 14 days with no card, while Cision, Talkwalker, Muck Rack and Brandwatch all start with a demo. Mentionlytics covers news, the web and social networks, including TikTok and YouTube, with LinkedIn from the Advanced plan and podcasts from Pro. It's a small-scale version of Meltwater's media monitoring and social listening.
- The Basic plan is $49/mo billed annually, or $59/mo billed monthly, for 3 keywords and 5,000 mentions a month. It covers 2 users and 10 social profiles, with mentions updated every 12 hours.
- The $49 is a promotional price, and the list price is $58.
On the other hand, there's no broadcast monitoring and no journalist database, and on Instagram Mentionlytics collects posts by hashtag only.
Brand24 is the runner-up, also self-serve, from $199/mo billed annually or $249/mo billed monthly, with a 14-day trial.
Pricing and coverage compared
Here's how the six picks and their runners-up compare on price, trial, what each one monitors and the way each one finds Instagram posts:
| Tool | Best for | Price from | Free trial | What it monitors | How it finds Instagram posts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cision | Replacing Meltwater's whole PR stack | Not published | No | News, print, broadcast, podcasts, social | Profiles and hashtags |
| Sociable AI | Finding your brand in Instagram Reels | $1,740/mo (social listening) | Yes | Instagram Reels | Search your brand; finds it in the video |
| Talkwalker | Social listening with TV, radio and podcasts | Not published | No | Social, news, print, broadcast, podcasts | Hashtags, added accounts and a 150,000-account catalog |
| Muck Rack | Pitching journalists and tracking the coverage | Not published | No | News and podcasts, with print, broadcast and social as add-ons | Hashtags, plus keywords in accounts you add |
| Brandwatch | Researching consumer trends over years of history | Not published | No | Social, news, blogs, forums | Profiles and hashtags |
| Mentionlytics | Monitoring mentions without a sales call | $49/mo annual | 14 days | News, web, social | Hashtags only |
| Agility PR Solutions | Runner-up, whole PR stack | Not published | No | News, print, broadcast, podcasts, social | Not stated |
| Determ | Runner-up, PR monitoring at a published price | €249/mo annual | 5 days | News, web, social, plus print, TV and radio in some regions | Profiles and hashtags |
| YouScan | Runner-up, image analysis | $499/mo annual | No (demo first) | Social, news, reviews, plus logos in images | Hashtags and channels |
| Brand24 | Runner-up, self-serve monitoring | $199/mo annual | 14 days | News, web, social | Hashtags and tagged posts |
See where your brand shows up on Instagram, then comment early
Sociable AI lets you search your brand and see the Reels that reference it, including the ones whose caption never names it. Once you can see those Reels, the next step is being part of them while they're still climbing. In our data, comments left in a Reel's first hour earned about three times the likes of comments left a few hours later, and Sociable AI users have earned nearly 1.4 million likes this way.
Sociable AI monitors Reels across your niche in their first hours and flags the ones likely to go viral. We draft a comment that fits the post, you approve it, and the comment goes up while the Reel is still climbing.
Try Sociable AI and see which Reels your brand is in today.
FAQ
How much does Meltwater cost?
Meltwater's own pricing guide puts Starter at about $10,000 a year, Pro at $25,000 and Enterprise at $130,000. Across the 126 purchases on Vendr, contracts ran from about $5,400 to $57,000 a year.
How do I cancel a Meltwater contract?
Send written notice of non-renewal at least 60 days before the term ends. Otherwise the contract renews for the same length at Meltwater's then-current prices. Fees are invoiced up front and aren't refunded.
Does Meltwater have a free trial?
Not for businesses. Meltwater offers a guided demo instead. Its UK government listing offers public-sector buyers a trial limited to a few days.
Who owns Meltwater?
Marlin Equity Partners and Altor own Meltwater. They took it private in 2023 and delisted it from the Oslo Stock Exchange.
Are Cision and Brandwatch the same company?
Cision owns Brandwatch, but they're sold as separate products. CisionOne covers PR and media monitoring, Brandwatch covers social listening and consumer research, and each is priced by quote.
Which Meltwater competitor is cheapest?
Mentionlytics is the cheapest, from $49/mo billed annually. Of the tools built for PR teams, Determ is the only one with a published price, at €249/mo billed annually. Cision, Muck Rack and Agility PR are all by quote.
