BrandMentions vs Awario Pricing for Small Teams in 2026

Short answer: Awario is the cheaper tool at every level. Its Starter plan costs EUR 29 a month billed yearly (EUR 49 month to month) for 3 topics and 30,000 mentions, while BrandMentions Starter costs $79 a month billed yearly ($99 billed quarterly) for 5 keywords and 5,000 mentions. BrandMentions earns its higher price with review-site sources, a published update speed and Excel export on its entry plan. Awario wins on volume, Boolean search on every plan and a much cheaper API, but it bills in euros.

Every figure below was read from awario.com/pricing and brandmentions.com/pricing.php in September 2026, including the feature lists under each plan. Where a vendor does not publish something, we say so rather than fill the gap.

BrandMentions vs Awario pricing side by side

The headline gap is large. Awario's entry plan costs well under half of BrandMentions' entry plan, and Awario's most expensive published tier (EUR 249 a month billed yearly) is close to the price of BrandMentions' second tier ($249). The rest of this article is about whether the extra money buys anything you need.

What each entry plan actually includes

The two vendors count differently, which is why a straight "5 keywords versus 3 topics" comparison misleads. An Awario topic is a group: your brand, its misspellings, your product names and your handle can all sit in one topic. A BrandMentions keyword is one tracked term. For a single brand with a few variants, Awario's 3 topics go further than BrandMentions' 5 keywords, and its 30,000 monthly mentions are six times BrandMentions' 5,000.

What Awario Starter does not give you is a way to get the data out. Its own FAQ says export is available to Pro and Enterprise users. If a monthly report to a client or a boss is part of the job, the real Awario entry price is Pro at EUR 89.

Is Awario cheaper than BrandMentions?

Yes, at every tier. Awario Starter is EUR 29 a month billed yearly against $79 for BrandMentions Starter, Awario Pro is EUR 89 against $249, and Awario Enterprise at EUR 249 costs about what BrandMentions charges for Pro. Awario also gives far more mentions per euro, so the gap only narrows if you need a feature BrandMentions includes lower down, such as Excel export or review sites.

One practical note for US buyers. Awario charges in euros, so your card statement shows a dollar amount that moves with the exchange rate, and many business cards add a foreign transaction fee on top. The euro has traded above the dollar for years, so EUR 29 costs a little more than $29. It is still far cheaper than BrandMentions, but budget a margin and tell your finance team the invoice will be in EUR.

The real cost for a typical small team

List prices matter less than the tier your requirements force you into. Three common requirement sets, priced from each vendor's plan cards:

The API row is the biggest surprise in this comparison. BrandMentions lists its API only on Enterprise, which starts at $1,099 a month billed yearly. Awario includes API access on its EUR 249 Enterprise plan. If you plan to pipe mentions into a dashboard or a CRM, Awario costs a fraction as much.

Boolean search is the second one. Awario lists it on all three plans. On BrandMentions it is named on the Expert and Enterprise cards only, so a team that writes precise queries to cut noise (a brand name that is also a common word, for example) is looking at $399 a month billed yearly.

Where BrandMentions earns its higher price

BrandMentions is not simply overpriced. Three things on its plan table are worth paying for if they matter to you.

• Named review sources. Its comparison table lists Booking, Tripadvisor, Yelp, Google My Business and the App Store on every plan. For a hotel, restaurant, clinic or app, reviews are where reputation is decided, and Awario's pricing page does not name review platforms.
• A published update speed. BrandMentions states daily updates on Starter and real-time updates on Expert. Its Pro card says hourly while the comparison table under it says daily, so confirm with sales before you buy Pro for speed. Awario publishes no refresh interval at all.
• Time-based history. BrandMentions keeps 3, 6 and 12 months of data on Starter, Pro and Expert. Awario caps stored mentions per topic (5,000, 15,000 and 50,000) and replaces the oldest when the cap fills, so a busy brand can lose older history quickly on Starter.

Users also differ. BrandMentions allows 1, 2 and 10 users on its first three plans. Awario allows 1, 10 and unlimited team members, so a team of five pays for Awario Pro but would need BrandMentions Expert.

Which is better, Awario or BrandMentions?

Awario is better for a price-sensitive team that monitors social networks, news and the web, wants Boolean search from day one, or needs an API without an enterprise contract. BrandMentions is better for a business whose reputation lives in reviews on Yelp, Tripadvisor, Google or the App Store, or one that needs a stated update speed and time-based history. Neither is better across the board, and the tier you would actually need decides it more than the entry price.

Does BrandMentions have a free trial?

Yes. BrandMentions offers a 7-day free trial on its Starter, Pro and Expert plans, and Enterprise is sold through a demo. Note that Starter has no month-to-month option on its pricing page: the shortest term is quarterly at $99 a month, so the smallest commitment after the trial is $297 for three months.

Does Awario have an API?

Yes, but only on the Enterprise plan at EUR 249 a month billed yearly or EUR 399 month to month. Starter and Pro do not include API access or white-label reports. That is still a much lower API entry point than BrandMentions, which reserves its API for Enterprise from $1,099 a month.

When neither is the right buy

Both tools are built around broad social coverage: Awario names X, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, blogs, forums, news and the web, and BrandMentions names social networks, video platforms, sites, blogs, news, forums and review sites. If your brand is mostly discussed in those places, one of the two is the right purchase and EyeOut is not.

EyeOut fits a narrower case. It watches Google News, Reddit and Mastodon on every plan, and adds Hacker News, Lemmy and Apple Podcasts episode titles and descriptions from Growth, scanning twice an hour. Every mention is scored for sentiment toward your brand, negative mentions trigger an email, and from Growth a crisis radar compares each keyword's last 24 hours with its own 7-day average. It is priced in dollars, with monthly billing on every plan and no quote:

EyeOut does not watch X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook or review sites, and it is not real time. It suits a SaaS, B2B or tech brand whose reputation moves on Reddit, Hacker News and in the press, where the question is less "did anyone say our name" and more "is this turning against us". Our Reddit monitoring tool page covers that use in detail, and the Awario alternative and BrandMentions alternative pages compare each tool with EyeOut line by line.

How to decide in 15 minutes

1. Write down how many brands, products and competitors you will track, including spelling variants. Map that to Awario topics and BrandMentions keywords.
2. Decide whether you need exports, Boolean queries, an API or white-label reports. Each one moves you up a tier, and they move you up at different points on the two ladders.
3. Ask where your customers actually talk. Reviews point to BrandMentions, broad social and web to Awario, Reddit, Hacker News and news to EyeOut.
4. Price the tier you landed on for a full year in your own currency, including any foreign transaction fee on Awario's euro billing.
5. Put the renewal date somewhere it will be seen. Yearly billing is where both vendors' discounts live, and it renews automatically, so file the order with your other vendor terms in contract management software that flags renewal dates before the notice window closes.

If your shortlist came down to these two because of price, Awario is the default and BrandMentions is the exception you make for reviews. For more ladders side by side, see our Brand24 vs Awario pricing breakdown, the full BrandMentions pricing guide, and the social listening pricing comparison across 21 tools.