Best brand monitoring tools, compared by source and price

Google Alerts emails you when new results for a topic show up in Google Search. You pick the frequency, sources (news, blogs, web, video, discussions), language and region. It suits anyone who wants a free baseline for brand and product names.

It only reports what Google Search surfaces, and it has no scoring, Slack or team inbox. See how to set up Google Alerts. Checked 17 October 2026.

F5Bot monitors Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters for your keywords and emails you when they appear. It covers posts and comments in every subreddit. Delivery options include email, Slack and Discord through webhooks, and RSS. It suits a founder who wants to catch brand mentions in tech communities for free.

Price: Free $0, Silver $9.99 a month (20 keywords), Gold $49.99 a month (200 keywords, RSS and JSON feeds, AI filtering, Slack and Discord). Limit: it covers three sources only, and no scoring or reply drafting is listed. Checked 17 October 2026. See the F5Bot alternatives page and F5Bot vs Syften.

Awario tracks mentions across social media, news, blogs, videos, forums and reviews, with Boolean search, sentiment analysis and reports. A "topic" is a keyword or group of keywords, and each topic can hold unlimited keywords. It suits small agencies and in-house marketers.

Monthly prices, with the per-month rate when billed annually in brackets: Starter $49 ($29), Pro $149 ($89), Enterprise $399 ($249). The trial is the Starter plan and needs no card. According to its FAQ, CSV export is limited to Pro and Enterprise. Checked 17 October 2026. See Brand24 vs Awario and the Awario review.

Syften monitors communities and forums and filters them with AI, using accept rules you write. Its sources include Reddit, X, Indie Hackers, Hacker News, GitHub, Product Hunt, Stack Exchange sites, forums, newsletters, YouTube, podcasts, Bluesky and Mastodon. Its FAQ says it does not monitor LinkedIn. Reddit alerts target a delay under a minute, and X alerts up to 15 minutes.

Price: Entry is $29.95 a month, Standard $49.95 and PRO $119.95, with X monitoring at +$40 and YouTube at +$20. A 14-day trial on PRO needs no card. Limit: the filters are search queries you maintain yourself. Checked 17 October 2026. See the Syften review.

Brand24 describes AI-powered access to mentions across social media, news, blogs, videos, forums, podcasts and reviews. It lists daily and weekly reports, Storm Alerts, Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations and a mobile app. It suits marketing teams that want a clean dashboard and exportable reports.

Price (monthly, then billed annually): Individual $249 ($199), Team $349 ($299), Pro $499 ($399), Business $699 ($599), Enterprise from $1,499 billed annually. Limit: plans cap keywords and mentions, such as 3 keywords and 2K mentions on Individual. Checked 17 October 2026. See the Brand24 review.

BrandMentions lists brand monitoring, reputation management and competitor tracking as use cases. It offers AI sentiment, Boolean search on higher plans and white-label reports. It suits agencies and resellers.

Price: Starter $99 a month billed quarterly, Pro $299, Expert $499, Enterprise from $1,299. A 7-day trial is offered. Limit: we could not load its annual figures. Checked 17 October 2026. See the BrandMentions review.

Mentionlytics lists web sources, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Bluesky and Threads, with AI sentiment, emotion analysis, clustering and a chatbot. It suits teams that want AI summaries over mentions.

Price per month billed yearly: Basic $49, Essential $141, Advanced $249, Pro $416, Business $624, Enterprise from $1,083. A 14-day trial gives all features. The page showed only yearly figures, so those are the only ones quoted here. Checked 17 October 2026. See the Mentionlytics review.

Octolens monitors Reddit, X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Hacker News, YouTube, TikTok, GitHub, DEV and Stack Overflow, with more on Scale. Each mention gets a relevance rating, sentiment and tags such as buy-intent. It delivers to Slack, email, webhooks and MCP. It suits developer-tool and tech brands.

Price: Pro is $199 a month ($159 billed annually) for 15,000 mentions and 10 keywords. Scale is $599 ($499 annually). Enterprise is custom. A 7-day trial needs no card. The limit is the entry price, which is higher than most tools here. Checked 17 October 2026. See Octolens vs Syften and the Octolens review.

Sprout Social is a social management suite. Standard ($199 per seat a month) lists keyword and location monitoring and 10 brand keywords per group. Listening and analytics are add-ons on top of Standard and up, priced separately. Essentials is $79 per seat a month on annual billing. Professional is $299, Advanced $399 and Enterprise is custom. A 30-day free trial needs no card.

It suits teams that publish and reply from one inbox. The limit is that deeper listening costs extra. Checked 17 October 2026. See the Sprout Social pricing guide.

Agorapulse acquired Mention, according to its home banner. It lists social listening and media monitoring across Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, news, blogs, forums and 75+ review sites. Its pricing page shows one "Company" plan with no price and a "Get a demo" button.

It suits teams that buy through a demo. One limit: its FAQ says the "Publish" and "Respond" features are being deprecated. Checked 17 October 2026. See Brand24 vs Mention.

Brand monitoring is a different job from HearBuyers. HearBuyers (ours) does not track your brand's name or sentiment. It reads public posts on X and Reddit for people asking for what you sell, scores buying intent from 0 to 100, and drafts a reply that a person approves. For competitor names and alternatives requests, see our competitor monitoring list.

1. List where your brand is discussed. Developer communities, review sites and social platforms each need different sources.
2. Estimate volume. Plans cap keywords and mentions, so a famous brand needs a higher tier.
3. Check the alert path. Slack, email, webhooks and a team inbox suit different teams.
4. Trial two tools on your name, then compare what each caught and what each missed.

It means tracking where and how your brand is mentioned online, and getting alerted so you can respond or learn from it.

Google Alerts and F5Bot both have free plans. Awario and others offer free trials.

Brand monitoring centres on mentions of your own name. Social listening is wider and covers topics and competitors. See social listening.

Sometimes. Mentions tell you who is talking about you, but not who wants to buy. See can social listening help you find leads.

Next step: write down your brand name plus two common misspellings, set them up in two tools for a week, and compare.