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Social Media · head to head

Brand24 vs Meltwater

Brand24 logo

Brand24

Social Media

Social listening and media monitoring with published prices and a hard cap on mentions per month

From
$199/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Meltwater logo

Meltwater

News

Media intelligence and social listening platform

From
$15000/year
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Brand24 mention quotas are hard caps, and once a project exhausts its monthly allowance collection stops and that period of data is permanently lost rather than being throttled or backfilled.; Meltwater real-time accuracy issues reported, particularly for niche industries or non-English content
  • They diverge on capability: Brand24 covers Mention monitoring, Meltwater covers Media monitoring.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Brand24 and Meltwater actually diverge.

Attributes where Brand24 and Meltwater differ
AttributeBrand24Meltwater
Starting price$199/month$15000/year
Pricing modelPer month by mention volumeUnknown
CategorySocial MediaNews
FoundedUnknown2001

Identical on both: free tier (No), platforms (Web, iOS, Android), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Brand24

  • Mention monitoring
  • AI Brand Assistant
  • AI Insights
  • Influencer scoring
  • AI visibility module
  • Alerting and reports
  • Lightning search

Only in Meltwater

  • Media monitoring
  • Social listening
  • Influencer discovery
  • Competitive intelligence
  • PR analytics
  • Report automation
  • Crisis monitoring
  • Salesforce

Both cover

  • Sentiment analysis

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Brand24

  • A marketing team that needs to know within the hour when negative mentions spike, without an enterprise listening contractnot Meltwater
  • A PR agency reporting monthly reach and sentiment to clients and wanting white-label PDF exports rather than dashboard loginsnot Meltwater
  • A small brand tracking a handful of competitor names alongside its own to see where share of conversation is movingnot Meltwater
  • A company that wants to see how large language model assistants describe it, alongside conventional media monitoring, in one toolnot Meltwater

Meltwater

  • Media monitoringnot Brand24
  • Influencer researchnot Brand24
  • Brand trackingnot Brand24
  • Crisis managementnot Brand24

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Brand24

  • Mention quotas are hard caps, and once a project exhausts its monthly allowance collection stops and that period of data is permanently lost rather than being throttled or backfilled.
  • Keyword counts are tight at the lower tiers, so tracking your brand plus three competitors plus two product names already exceeds the Individual plan before you have added a misspelling.
  • Historical data on signup is limited, so a new project starts from roughly the date you created it and cannot reconstruct a past incident you actually wanted to analyse.
  • Sentiment classification is weaker on languages other than English and on short informal posts, which produces misleading trend lines in markets where most conversation is not in English.
  • Coverage of closed and semi-closed platforms is thin because of API restrictions, so categories whose conversation lives in private groups or Discord servers will look far quieter than they are.

Meltwater

  • Real-time accuracy issues reported, particularly for niche industries or non-English content
  • Limited media contact database at 380,000-400,000 contacts compared to competitors like Cision
  • Cumbersome dashboard navigation and reporting interface requiring multi-step menu access for data exports
  • Annual contracts with limited ability to scale down; risky for businesses with fluctuating needs

Pricing, plan by plan

Brand24

$199/month
  • Individual$199/month
    • 3 keywords
    • 2,000 mentions per month
    • 1 user
  • Team$299/month
    • 7 keywords
    • 10,000 mentions per month
    • Unlimited users
  • Pro$399/month
    • 12 keywords
    • 40,000 mentions per month
    • Unlimited users
  • Business$599/month
    • 25 keywords
    • 100,000 mentions per month
    • Unlimited users

Meltwater

$15000/year
  • Essentials$15000/year
    • Core media monitoring
    • Brand mention tracking
    • Industry trend monitoring
  • Suite$25000/year
    • Media monitoring
    • Social listening
    • Cross-department analytics

Which should you pick?

Choose Brand24 if

  • You need mention monitoring.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want ai brand assistant.
Brand24 review

Choose Meltwater if

  • You need media monitoring.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want social listening.
Meltwater review

Questions people ask

Is Brand24 or Meltwater better?
Neither clearly leads. Brand24 starts at $199/month and Meltwater at $15000/year, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Brand24 or Meltwater?
Brand24 starts at $199/month and Meltwater at $15000/year.
Does Brand24 or Meltwater run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, iOS, Android, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is Brand24 best used for?
Brand24 is most often used for a marketing team that needs to know within the hour when negative mentions spike, without an enterprise listening contract, a pr agency reporting monthly reach and sentiment to clients and wanting white-label pdf exports rather than dashboard logins, a small brand tracking a handful of competitor names alongside its own to see where share of conversation is moving, a company that wants to see how large language model assistants describe it, alongside conventional media monitoring, in one tool. Of those, a marketing team that needs to know within the hour when negative mentions spike, without an enterprise listening contract and a pr agency reporting monthly reach and sentiment to clients and wanting white-label pdf exports rather than dashboard logins are not what Meltwater is typically brought in for.
What can Brand24 do that Meltwater cannot?
Brand24 covers Mention monitoring, AI Brand Assistant, AI Insights, Influencer scoring. Meltwater covers Media monitoring, Social listening, Influencer discovery, Competitive intelligence. Both handle Sentiment analysis.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Brand24: What happens when I hit the mention limit?

Collection stops for that project until the next billing cycle or until you upgrade. The mentions that occurred in the gap are not recovered later.

Meltwater: How much does Meltwater cost?

Meltwater does not publish pricing; all quotes require a sales call and annual contract. Median annual cost is approximately $25,000, with mid-market PR teams typically paying $15,000-$40,000 depending on users, coverage volume, and features.

Source
Brand24: Does it include historical data?

Only limited backfill. Projects effectively start collecting from the date you create them, so set up keywords before you need the data.

Meltwater: What sources does Meltwater monitor?

Meltwater monitors 200M+ online publications, 400,000+ traditional media sources, 20,000+ podcasts, TV/radio across all 210 US DMAs, and social platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, WeChat, and Weibo.

Source
Brand24: How many users can I add?

Every plan except Individual has unlimited users, which makes read-only distribution across a team cheap.

Meltwater: What languages does Meltwater support?

Meltwater provides global multilingual support with consistent accuracy across 100+ languages for sentiment analysis and content classification.

Source
Brand24: Is monthly billing worth it?

It costs roughly 50 to 100 US dollars more per month per tier. Annual saves up to 20 per cent, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee on standard plans.

Meltwater: Does Meltwater include journalist/media contact information?

Meltwater's media database includes approximately 380,000-400,000 contacts, smaller than competitors like Cision (1.1M). Media database and GenAI Lens are separate paid add-ons.

Source
Meltwater: Can I export Meltwater reports?

Yes, Meltwater generates custom dashboards and reports tailored to stakeholders. Mira AI assistant can generate summaries and insights from monitoring data.

Source
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