Best Alternatives to Brand24 in 2026: 6 Media and Social Listening Tools Compared by Price and Coverage

What Are the Best Alternatives to Brand24 in 2026?

The six alternatives we could check on their own pages are Awario, Mention, Talkwalker (Lumen), Meltwater, Sprout Social and Google Alerts. They run from a free Google service to enterprise contracts. Awario is the closest like-for-like rival, a self-serve tool with published prices; Mention and Talkwalker are listening platforms that sell through demos; Meltwater is a media-intelligence suite; Sprout Social is a social media management platform with listening as an add-on; and Google Alerts is a free email feed of new Google Search results.

What Do Brand24 and Its Alternatives Cost?

Brand24 and Awario are the only two in this set that print every self-serve plan price; Awario's tiers cost far less at each step, while the other four alternatives either show no figure or price only the base product. Pricing checked October 2026.

The chart shows Awario's top plan costing less than Brand24's Team plan once both are billed annually, but the limits differ: Awario meters topics and mentions, Brand24 meters keywords and mentions, and the update frequency and AI features also change by tier. Our recommendation, not a vendor rule: compare the mention volume you expect and how often you need updates before comparing price.

What Is Brand24, and Where Does It Still Win?

Brand24 is a self-serve media and social monitoring tool with five published tiers. Individual covers 3 keywords, 2K mentions a month, 1 user and an update “every 12h”; Team covers 7 keywords, 10k mentions, unlimited users and hourly updates; Pro covers 12 keywords, 40K mentions and realtime updates, and adds Lightning Search and AI Insights for 2 projects; Business covers 25 keywords and 100K mentions and adds a Client Success Lead and Advanced Reports. Enterprise has custom limits and lists the “AI Visibility module,” which the comparison table marks as an add-on on the plans (Brand24).

Its source list is broad: Facebook, Instagram, X, news, blogs, Reddit, LinkedIn, Medium, Quora, YouTube, TikTok, reviews, Twitch, newsletters and podcasts. Its terms are buyer-friendly: “Your first 14 days are free of charge,” with “No credit card required,” and a 30-day money-back guarantee “excluding custom plans and deals negotiated with our sales team” (Brand24).

Where Brand24 still wins: it is the most transparent of the paid listening tools here, its trial needs no card, and it names podcasts and newsletters as sources, which none of the other pages we read do. Its limits are mention caps per plan and, on Individual, an update only every 12 hours.

Is Awario a Cheaper Alternative to Brand24?

On published prices, yes. Awario's Starter plan is $29 a month billed annually ($49 billed monthly) for 3 topics, 30,000 new mentions a month and 1 team member; Pro is $89 ($149) for 15 topics, 300,000 mentions and 10 team members; Enterprise is $249 ($399) for 100 topics, 1,000,000 mentions and unlimited team members. Every topic can hold unlimited keywords, and the yearly toggle reads “Save up to 40%.” The free trial grants “free access to the Starter plan, meaning you can create up to 3 alerts,” and needs no credit card (Awario).

Check two points before buying. The plan cards list “Data export” on every plan, but the FAQ says “The export option is available to the Pro and Enterprise plan users.” The cards list 5,000, 15,000 and 50,000 stored mentions per topic, while the FAQ says “from 3,000 to 50,000.” Awario also says “we cannot issue refunds for partial use of service” (Awario). Brand24 still wins on its money-back guarantee and on podcast and newsletter sources.

Is Mention a Good Brand24 Alternative?

Mention is Brand24's most direct rival on scope, but its page shows no price, so it cannot be compared on cost. Its single Company plan lists social platforms (“Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Reddit, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, and more”), news, blogs and forums, “75+ review sites,” Boolean search, sentiment analysis, share of voice and Slack and Zapier integrations. Historical data and API access are each “available as a paid add-on.” The price fields read “Starting at” with no number, in a browser as well as in the page source, and the yearly option says “Pay yearly and get 2 months free” (Mention).

Mention is also narrowing: its FAQ says it will “progressively deprecate the "Publish" and "Respond" features” and points users to Agorapulse for those tasks (Mention). Our head-to-head Brand24 vs Mention compares the two in more detail.

What Does Talkwalker Offer Now?

Talkwalker's site says “Talkwalker is now Lumen by Talkwalker,” describing a rename “as we bring Hootsuite and Talkwalker closer together” and promising “Same data, same reports, same workflows and integrations.” It sells social listening, media monitoring and social benchmarking, and its call to action is “Request a custom demo”; no price appears (Talkwalker).

Talkwalker still runs its free alerts product, which calls itself the “Best free, easy alternative to Google Alerts” and delivers news, Twitter, blog and forum results in 22 languages (Talkwalker Alerts). That free service is a reasonable step below Brand24 for news and web mentions; the paid platform is a step above it in scope and sales process. See Google Alerts vs Talkwalker Alerts for the free pair.

Is Meltwater a Brand24 Alternative?

For larger teams that want media monitoring, social listening and media relations in one contract, yes; for a small team that wants to start this week, no. Meltwater's four plans (Starter, Pro, Enterprise, Agency) each list Media Intelligence, Social listening, AI Visibility Tracking and Media Relations among the capabilities to choose. It “uses tailored pricing rather than a one-size-fits-all list,” “does not offer a self-serve free trial,” and says “most partnerships are structured on annual agreements, with a minimum contract length of 12 months.” For complex setups “there may be a one-time implementation or onboarding charge” (Meltwater).

Brand24 wins on speed and transparency; Meltwater wins on suite breadth and media-relations tools. Our Meltwater alternatives guide and Cision vs Meltwater cover it in depth.

Does Sprout Social Do Brand Monitoring?

Partly. Sprout Social is a social media management platform. Its Standard plan lists “Keyword and location monitoring,” and the comparison table gives “Brand keywords per group” as “Not included” on Essentials, 10 on Standard and Professional, and 20 on Advanced. Full listening is separate: “Premium Analytics and Listening are each available as individual add-ons to the Standard plan and up,” with “Schedule a demo” in place of a price (Sprout Social).

The plans are priced per seat: Essentials $79 a month ($99 billed monthly), Standard $199, Professional $299 and Advanced $399, under a page heading of “Annual billing”; Enterprise is custom. Sprout offers a 30-day free trial with “No credit card required” (Sprout Social). Because the Listening price is not printed, the true cost of Sprout as a Brand24 replacement cannot be read from the page. It makes sense mainly for a team already publishing through Sprout.

Is Google Alerts Enough?

For a small business watching its name in news and web results, it may be. Google says you “can get emails when new results for a topic show up in Google Search” (Google Search Help). The alert form offers “As-it-happens,” “At most once a day” or “At most once a week,” sources of Automatic, News, Blogs, Web, Video, Books, Discussions and Finance, and language and region filters (Google Alerts).

No social network appears in that source list, and there is no sentiment, team inbox or reporting, which is what Brand24 adds. Our how-to How to Monitor Brand Mentions With Google Alerts covers set-up, Best Alternatives to Google Alerts covers the step up, and Can You Still Monitor Reddit for Mentions? covers one source Google Alerts handles poorly.

Who Should Choose Which Tool?

The right tool depends on budget, sources and whether you will accept a sales process. This table is our recommendation, not a vendor claim.

Final Verdict: Is There a Better Choice Than Brand24?

For price alone, Awario is the clear published alternative, and for news and web alerts alone, Google Alerts or Talkwalker Alerts may be enough. For enterprise scope, Meltwater and Talkwalker offer more but ask you to talk to sales first. Brand24 remains the better choice for a team that wants published prices, a broad source list including podcasts, and a no-card trial. A monitoring tool finds mentions; it cannot create coverage. For the newer AI-answer side that Brand24, Meltwater and others now sell, see Search and AI Monitoring and what AI visibility trackers cost.

How We Compared Brand24 and Its Alternatives

We read each vendor's pricing or product page on October 19, 2026 and recorded only the prices, limits, trial terms and sources printed there. Mention's pricing page was checked in a browser as well as in its page source, and showed no figure either way. Awario's two price sets were matched to their “billed annually” and “billed monthly” labels in the page. We did not trial any tool, compare coverage or measure accuracy, and we used no review-site ratings.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources and Methodology

This guide is built from each vendor's own pricing, product and help pages, read October 19, 2026. Mention's pricing page was also checked in a browser; it displayed no price figure. Prices are list prices, not quotes. The “Who Should Choose Which Tool?” table and comparisons of value are house recommendation. We did not test any tool or verify any vendor's coverage claims.

1. vendor Brand24, Prices. Plans, limits, sources, AI Visibility module, trial, payment and money-back terms. Read October 19, 2026.
2. vendor Awario, Pick your Awario plan. Plans, billing labels, limits, trial, export and storage discrepancies, refund policy. Read October 19, 2026.
3. vendor Mention, Pricing. Company plan, sources, add-ons, empty price field, deprecation notice. Read October 19, 2026.
4. vendor Talkwalker, Lumen by Talkwalker” home page. Rename, products, demo-only access. Read October 19, 2026.
5. vendor Talkwalker, Talkwalker Alerts. Free alerts, result types, languages. Read October 19, 2026.
6. vendor Meltwater, Pricing. Plans, capabilities, tailored pricing, trial, contract and onboarding terms. Read October 19, 2026.
7. vendor Sprout Social, Pricing. Seat prices, brand keywords, Listening add-on, trial. Read October 19, 2026.
8. official Google, Google Alerts. Frequency and source options. Read October 19, 2026.
9. platform documentation Google Search Help, Create an alert. How alerts work. Read October 19, 2026.