Media monitoring software and media tracking software: what each media monitoring tool actually covers

Start with the only question that reorganizes the whole shortlist: do you need print and broadcast?

Two vendors answer yes with real numbers. Cision states coverage of hundreds of thousands of news sources, leading global print publications, more than 3,000 television and radio stations, over 60,000 podcasts and more than 10,000 premium paywalled titles. Meltwater states more than 400,000 traditional media sources including newspapers and magazines, television and radio across all 210 United States Designated Market Areas, more than 20,000 podcasts and over 200 million online publications. Those licensing deals are expensive, which is why neither vendor publishes a price. Cision's pricing link opens a three-step lead form with no figures on it. Procurement data collected by Vendr puts Cision contracts around a median of $12,700 a year and Brandwatch, which Cision now owns, at a median of $50,000 a year across 40 purchases, with observed deals from $19,542 to $81,200.

If the answer is no, the calculation changes completely. Every remaining platform monitors the open internet, and the differences between them are about depth, refresh speed and how you are metered rather than about media type. Talkwalker states X, YouTube, news, forums and podcasts across 186 languages and does not claim print or broadcast on its monitoring pages. Determ describes itself as covering online media and social conversations. Brand24, Awario, Mentionlytics, BrandMentions, YouScan and EyeOut all sit in the same band: online news plus social plus varying amounts of forum, podcast and review coverage. Nobody in this group will find a print clipping, and most are honest enough not to imply otherwise.

The second decision is refresh interval, and it is the least advertised number in this market. Real-time collection converges on roughly $399 a month across the vendors that state it. Brand24's cheapest plan at $199 refreshes every 12 hours, and real time arrives on its $399 Pro plan. Mentionlytics starts at every 12 hours on its $49 plan and reaches continuous collection at $299. BrandMentions starts at daily on its $79 plan and reaches real time at $399. Determ states real-time updates on every tier. Four platforms buyers routinely shortlist publish no interval at all, at any price: Awario at $29, BuzzSumo at $199, YouScan at $499 and Talkwalker on quote. That silence spans the entire price range, so paying more does not reliably buy you a stated interval.

The third decision is the meter. BuzzSumo is the clearest illustration of why headline prices mislead. At $199 a month it looks like a direct competitor to Brand24 at the same price, but it does not meter mentions at all. It meters saved alerts, and the $199 plan gives you two. If you want to watch your brand, three products and four competitors, you are on the $499 Suite plan or above before you have monitored anything. Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Agorapulse sell seats and then treat listening as a separate quoted conversation, which means the published per-seat price tells you almost nothing about what listening will cost.

One last thing worth knowing, because it is moving quickly. Six of the platforms below now market monitoring of how AI assistants describe your brand: Meltwater lists ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini and Grok, Brand24 markets the same category, Cision sells it as AI Visibility, and Talkwalker, Brandwatch and Ahrefs all ship a version of it. EyeOut does not do this. If tracking what ChatGPT says about you is a requirement today, buy one of those instead, and read the section below before you shortlist us.