Mention vs. Talkwalker: Which Is the Right Choice? (2025 review)

Choosing the right social listening tool can transform you understand your online presence. Mention and Talkwalker stand among the leading platforms in this space, each offering distinct approaches to monitoring brand conversations across the digital landscape.

This comparison dives into what truly separates these powerful tools. We’ll examine their data collection capabilities, core functionalities, pricing structures, and user experiences based on publicly available information, official documentation, and verified customer feedback.

Rather than declaring an outright winner, this analysis provides the evidence you need to make an informed decision aligned with your specific requirements. Whether you’re prioritizing comprehensive coverage, advanced analytics, budget, or ease of use, you’ll find clear insights into how each platform performs across these critical dimensions.

Pricing & Plans

Mention offers four tiered plans ranging from $41-$149+/month when billed annually, while Talkwalker’s four plans (Listen, Analyze, Business, Premium) don’t publicly disclose pricing. Both platforms allow annual billing, but Mention also offers monthly payment options for greater flexibility. Talkwalker appears to require annual commitments only.

Free Trial & Demos

Mention provides a free trial with limited features across all plan tiers, allowing users to test capabilities before committing. Talkwalker doesn’t offer a free trial period, relying instead on personalized demos to showcase platform capabilities. Both platforms provide demo options, though Talkwalker emphasizes these as the primary evaluation method.

Plan Features

Mention’s plans scale progressively from Solo (2 alerts, 5,000 monthly mentions) to Company (10+ alerts, 100,000+ mentions). Talkwalker’s volume increases significantly between tiers, from entry-level Listen to Premium (20x the volume). All Talkwalker plans include unlimited users, while Mention limits users in lower tiers (Solo: 1 user; Pro: 10 users).

Add-ons

Mention offers several add-ons including historical data access, LinkedIn monitoring, API access, and additional alerts/mentions. These supplement the core functionality at extra cost. Talkwalker mentions custom plans as add-ons but doesn’t specify individual feature pricing, suggesting a more consultative approach to expanding functionality.

Payment Methods

Mention accepts credit/debit cards for all plans and adds wire transfer options for Company-tier customers. Talkwalker’s payment methods aren’t publicly disclosed and are only detailed in their order form during the sales process. This lack of transparency may require additional steps when evaluating Talkwalker.

Refund Policy

Mention clearly states they don’t issue refunds for partial service use or remaining subscription time. Upon cancellation, accounts automatically convert to free versions without prorated refunds. Talkwalker’s refund policy isn’t publicly available, creating uncertainty about commitment risks when selecting their platform.

For budget-conscious teams needing transparent pricing and flexible commitments, Mention offers clearer options, while organizations requiring unlimited users and enterprise-grade features may find Talkwalker’s customized approach beneficial despite its pricing opacity.

Features

Dashboard Comparison

Mention’s dashboard showcases a clean, intuitive interface that prioritizes immediate data visibility. The layout displays key metrics prominently while maintaining an organized structure for quick scanning. In contrast, Talkwalker’s dashboard appears more analytics-focused with comprehensive visualization tools and trend graphing capabilities. Mention’s design seems optimized for quick monitoring sessions, while Talkwalker’s interface suggests deeper analytical functionality.

Alert Creation Process

Mention offers three distinct alert creation options with varying complexity levels. The Basic alert type requires users to enter primary, secondary, and excluded keywords. For more advanced needs, the Standard option supports up to 40 keywords (10 per query block across 4 blocks). Power users can leverage the Advanced option with boolean operators for precise targeting. Before finalizing alerts, Mention provides estimated mention volumes and allows blocking up to 1,000 URLs. Users can also filter by specific countries, with data collection beginning within seconds of creation.

Talkwalker employs a more technical approach with boolean-based search functionality. Their system incorporates social media operators, geographic restrictions, and author-specific searches. Users can also target specific URLs directly. While offering powerful customization, Talkwalker’s approach may require more technical expertise compared to Mention’s tiered options.

Metrics & Filters

Mention tracks a comprehensive set of metrics including sentiment, emotion, reach, source type, influence score, social shares, country, language, net sentiment score, similarity detection, and highlight features. This broad spectrum allows for nuanced analysis across various dimensions of brand mentions.

For filtering capabilities, Mention provides extensive options including time period, sources, influence score, languages, countries, tags, emotion, sentiment, status, folders, and group mentions. Users can save preferred filter combinations for future use. Mention also supports numerous actions on mentions such as favoriting, assigning, archiving, blocking domains, and sharing options.

Talkwalker focuses on core engagement metrics, tracking engagement totals, engagement over time, reach, and sentiment. Their filtering system includes source types, media types, and date ranges. Talkwalker’s action options on individual mentions aren’t fully detailed in the provided information, as their help center is client-restricted.

Data & Sources Coverage

Sources: Mention monitors a wide array of platforms across social media, including X (Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, Reddit, and Medium. Their web coverage extends to review sites (G2, Trustpilot, Capterra, Booking), news sites, forums, blogs, HackerNews, and GitHub. Talkwalker claims access to 150 million data sources spanning over 30 social networks, including Facebook, X, LinkedIn (own page only), Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, and LINE. They also cover blogs, forums, online news, print, broadcast, and review sites.

Historical Data: Mention provides up to 24 months of historical data across Facebook, Twitter, forums, blogs, videos, news, and web sources. Talkwalker offers a more extensive historical reach with up to 5 years of data, though specific source limitations aren’t detailed.

Languages: Mention supports an impressive 249 languages with the ability to monitor any ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code, providing comprehensive global coverage. Talkwalker supports 187 languages, still offering substantial international monitoring capabilities but with somewhat fewer options than Mention.

Sentiment Analysis Capabilities

Mention’s sentiment analysis system covers 31 languages including English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. Their model features 278 million parameters and was trained on a 2.5TB dataset, achieving an 82% accuracy (F1 score). Users can manually adjust sentiment classifications and track seven emotion types for more nuanced analysis.

Talkwalker offers deeper language coverage with sentiment analysis in 192 languages, powered by deep learning algorithms. Their system also identifies seven distinct emotions and claims 90% accuracy according to 2017 data. This positions Talkwalker with slightly higher accuracy rates and significantly broader language support.

Reporting Functionality

Mention provides numerous report templates including Listening reports, Alert comparisons, Mention lists, and Market Trends. Users can analyze connected social accounts (X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) and compare any social media page. Reports are available in Link, PDF, and PPTX formats, with CSV/XLS export options for Company plan subscribers. All reports can be white-labeled, and the platform sends automated spike alerts when mention volumes suddenly increase.

Talkwalker offers specialized reports including Brand protection, Share of voice, Social network comparison, and Brand health reports. These are available in PPTX, Word, PDF, and Email formats, with data exports in CSV, RSS, and Excel. Reports can be white-labeled and scheduled on daily, weekly, or monthly intervals.

Report Metrics and Insights

Mention’s reports include comprehensive metrics such as mention volume trends, source breakdowns, sentiment and emotion analysis, geographical data (countries and languages), topic tracking, hashtag analysis, influencer identification, reach statistics, share of voice, word clouds, and activity timing. Users can also incorporate custom tags for more targeted analysis.

Talkwalker’s specific report metrics weren’t fully detailed in the provided information, making direct comparison challenging in this area.

Collaboration Capabilities

Mention offers robust collaboration features including approval workflows for social media, role management (allowing designation of team members as creators only or creators and publishers), and workspace organization that enables multiple sub-accounts for privacy between different collaborators or brands.

Talkwalker provides collaborative dashboards that allow teams to work together on monitoring and analysis tasks. This appears to be a more streamlined approach than Mention’s multi-tiered collaboration system.

AI-Powered Features

Mention incorporates AI across multiple functions: sentiment and emotion analysis, Alert Overviews that summarize mentions and topics, AI Digest Emails, Cloud Words visualization, Caption/Hashtag Generation, and AI Highlights that identify key insights.

Talkwalker leverages AI for sentiment analysis, summary generation, forecasting, and features an AI assistant called “Yeti.” Their AI forecasting capability stands out as a distinctive advantage for brands seeking predictive insights.

Final Insights

Mention excels in providing detailed emotion tracking alongside comprehensive reporting metrics, making it particularly valuable for brands seeking deep audience sentiment understanding across major Western languages.

Talkwalker offers superior language coverage with 192 supported languages and higher claimed sentiment accuracy, making it the stronger choice for global brands monitoring conversations across diverse linguistic regions.

Customer service

Mention’s Customer Service Efficiency

Mention provides a well-structured help center with 147 articles organized across ten categories covering everything from basic setup to advanced features. The platform offers support materials in English, French, and Spanish, making it accessible to a wider international audience. Customer assistance is available via email and live chat, complemented by various training resources including ebooks, videos, and personalized 1:1 training for specific use cases.

Company plan subscribers receive a dedicated account manager, enhancing the support experience for premium customers. Mention’s approach to customer service balances self-help documentation with direct support options, making it particularly suitable for teams that prefer a mix of independent problem-solving and guided assistance when needed.

Talkwalker’s Customer Service Efficiency

Talkwalker limits its help center access exclusively to clients, creating a closed support ecosystem that newcomers can’t evaluate before purchasing. The platform offers multi-channel support with phone assistance available across three time zones (GMT+1, GMT+8, and GMT-6) during business hours, and email support operating from 8am to midnight Monday through Friday. Training resources focus on professionally produced reports and webinars, while dedicated account managers are provided to all customers.

Talkwalker’s support structure emphasizes human interaction over self-service documentation, with extended weekday availability but no apparent weekend coverage. This approach makes Talkwalker best suited for enterprise clients who value direct contact with support representatives and don’t mind the absence of extensive self-help resources that competitors offer.

Customer testimonials

Mention

Mention earns a strong blended rating of 4.45/5 from a substantial base of 709 reviews across platforms (4.3/5 on G2 from 439 reviews and 4.7/5 on Capterra from 270 reviews). Users appreciate the platform’s value and ease of use.

“Mention was an instant match for us. In addition to offering an easy-to-use solution, the pricing is aligned with our needs. Obviously, we looked at other players. But Mention was the best value for money.” – Terry Kyle, Co-founder @WPX Hosting. However, some users note limitations: “Without proper configuration of searches, you can miss a lot of essential mentions.” – Karl P., Lead Front-End Developer.

Talkwalker

Talkwalker receives a solid 4.30/5 blended rating from 155 total reviews (4.3/5 on G2 from 132 reviews and 4.3/5 on Capterra from 23 reviews). The platform stands out for its comprehensive monitoring capabilities.

“I have been using Talkwalker for more than 3 years now. I like the depth the tool can go into bringing results. Even when a nano influencer or small media website mentions your brand, Talkwalker’s web crawlers don’t disappoint you and show you the results. In almost real-time. The email alerts are a huge time saver too.” – Younes B., Founder. On the downside: “It’s a pretty expensive solution, not a great option for a business with a small budget.” – G2 reviewer.

Based on user feedback, Mention shines as a cost-effective, user-friendly solution with broad appeal (reflected in its larger review base), while Talkwalker excels in depth of monitoring and thoroughness but may be prohibitively expensive for smaller organizations.

Talkwalker vs Mention: Final Verdict

After comparing Mention and Talkwalker, clear strengths emerge for different use cases. Talkwalker excels with its comprehensive global data coverage and advanced AI-powered analytics, making it ideal for larger enterprises requiring deep market intelligence across multiple regions. Mention stands out with its user-friendly interface, streamlined monitoring capabilities, and more accessible pricing structure that appeals to growing businesses and marketing teams seeking actionable insights without overwhelming complexity.

The trade-offs are worth considering before making a decision. Talkwalker’s enterprise-focused approach means smaller teams may pay for features they rarely use, while its sophisticated platform can require significant onboarding time. Mention lacks some of Talkwalker’s advanced analytics depth but compensates with faster implementation and more straightforward reporting that helps teams act quickly on time-sensitive mentions and social conversations.

For teams needing a balance of comprehensive monitoring without enterprise pricing, Mention offers an efficient solution. Its intuitive dashboard delivers actionable insights without the steep learning curve, while providing the essential monitoring capabilities most marketing teams prioritize. Experience the platform’s streamlined approach with a free trial or schedule a demo to see how Mention can deliver on the social listening and brand monitoring features you need without unnecessary complexity.