Awario vs Hootsuite: Which Is the Right Choice? (2025 review)

Social media monitoring has become essential for brands seeking to understand their online presence and engage with audiences effectively. Awario and Hootsuite stand out as leading social listening platforms, each offering unique approaches to tracking brand mentions, analyzing sentiment, and managing social media campaigns. This comparison examines their core capabilities, helping businesses determine which tool better aligns with their social monitoring needs.

Drawing from platform documentation, pricing information, and verified user experiences, this analysis provides an objective look at how Awario and Hootsuite handle data collection, reporting, and day-to-day usage. 

Whether prioritizing budget considerations, advanced analytics capabilities, or ease of use, you will find detailed insights to guide your decision-making process. The following sections break down each platform’s strengths and limitations across key areas, from data sources and monitoring accuracy to team collaboration features and customer support responsiveness. Let’s dive in!

Pricing & Plans

Base Pricing and Billing Options

Awario and Hootsuite offer distinctly different pricing structures. Awario’s plans start lower at $29/month for the Starter plan, scaling up to $249/month for Enterprise, with a custom tier available. Hootsuite’s entry point is higher at $99/month for the Professional plan, with Team plans at $249/month and custom Enterprise solutions.

Free Trial Experience and Demos

Both platforms provide free trials, but with notable differences. Awario offers trial access to its full feature set, while Hootsuite’s trial excludes advanced social listening capabilities. Hootsuite stands out by offering product demos, which Awario doesn’t provide. This gives potential Hootsuite customers a guided tour of enterprise features before committing.

Add-on Features and Costs

Hootsuite’s model includes numerous add-ons, such as advanced social listening, additional users, and specialized integrations like Salesforce. These extras can significantly increase the total cost. In contrast, Awario includes all features within its standard plans with no additional add-ons required, making cost projection more straightforward.

Payment Flexibility

Both services accept major credit cards and PayPal. Awario offers more payment options, including WebMoney, Alipay, and various bank transfer methods. Hootsuite accepts traditional payment methods plus checks and wire transfers, though with fewer international payment options.

Refund Policies

Both platforms maintain strict refund policies. Awario explicitly states no refunds for unused services or intermittent usage. Hootsuite officially states “no refunds” but maintains a case-by-case review process through a refund request form.

For budget-conscious teams prioritizing social listening, Awario offers better initial value with its all-inclusive pricing structure, while Hootsuite suits organizations needing extensive social media management capabilities who can justify higher costs and add-ons.

Features

Dashboard Overview

Awario’s dashboard emphasizes real-time mention tracking with a clean, metric-focused layout. In contrast, Hootsuite’s interface presents a more comprehensive view, integrating social media management features alongside monitoring capabilities. Both platforms offer customizable widgets, though Hootsuite’s dashboard appears more complex with additional social management tools.

Alert Configuration

Awario provides two distinct alert types – Standard and Boolean, with intuitive keyword selection and geographic filtering. Hootsuite offers more advanced Boolean capabilities, including proximity operators and demographic filtering. Both platforms allow users to preview mention volumes before finalizing alerts, though Hootsuite’s preview feature provides more detailed insights.

Metrics and Analysis

Awario tracks essential engagement metrics including likes, shares, comments, and reach, with built-in sentiment analysis reaching 70% accuracy. Hootsuite, powered by Talkwalker, delivers superior sentiment accuracy up to 90% and includes unique metrics like trending scores and viral potential. Both platforms offer demographic insights, though Hootsuite provides more granular filtering options.

Data Coverage

Hootsuite demonstrates broader source coverage with access to 150 million data sources across 30+ social networks. Awario focuses on major platforms including X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Reddit, along with web sources. While Hootsuite offers historical data up to 12 months, Awario limits historical data to web sources only, creating a significant limitation for social media analysis.

Reporting Capabilities

Awario offers three main report templates focusing on mention statistics, alert comparisons, and influencer analysis. Hootsuite surpasses this with multiple export formats including PNG, PDF, CSV, XLS, and PPTX. Additionally, Hootsuite’s spike email alerts provide proactive notification of significant metric changes, while Awario lacks automated report scheduling.

Collaboration Tools

Hootsuite excels with Inbox 2.0, comprehensive team permissions, and approval workflows. Awario provides basic role management with admin, user, and guest access levels, but lacks advanced collaboration features. The distinction becomes particularly relevant for larger teams managing multiple social media accounts.

AI Integration

Both platforms leverage AI for sentiment analysis, with Hootsuite incorporating additional AI-powered mention forecasting. Awario’s AI focuses primarily on sentiment detection through deep learning models. Hootsuite’s broader AI implementation demonstrates more sophisticated predictive capabilities, particularly useful for trend analysis and strategic planning.

Customer Service

Awario Customer Service Profile

Awario provides a comprehensive help center with 13 well-organized categories covering everything from basic setup to advanced features like Boolean search and API integration. While the platform’s documentation is only available in English, they compensate with responsive live chat support and a dedicated contact form. The Awario Learning Center offers structured training materials to help users maximize the platform’s potential.

Every Awario customer receives access to an account manager, regardless of their subscription tier – a significant advantage for users who need personalized guidance. This democratized approach to premium support makes Awario particularly suitable for businesses seeking hands-on assistance without requiring enterprise-level commitment.

Hootsuite Customer Service Profile

Hootsuite’s help center stands out with its extensive multilingual support, offering documentation in six languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German). Their support structure is highly organized with specific time windows across multiple time zones, though it’s limited to business hours rather than 24/7 availability. Customer service is available in English, French, and Spanish through email channels.

The platform offers exceptional training resources through Hootsuite Academy, webinars, and Social Media bootcamp programs. However, account manager access is restricted to Enterprise plan subscribers, creating a tiered support experience. This makes Hootsuite most appropriate for large, multinational organizations that can leverage the full scope of their educational resources and multilingual support infrastructure.

When comparing the two platforms, Awario excels in democratic access to premium support features, while Hootsuite offers superior language coverage and structured training programs. Awario’s approach is more inclusive for smaller teams, whereas Hootsuite’s sophisticated infrastructure better serves global enterprise clients.

Customer testimonials

Awario User Reviews

Awario maintains a solid rating across review platforms, earning a 3.9 on G2 and 4.3 on Capterra, with a blended rating of 4.12/5 based on 87 total reviews. While this represents a smaller sample size, it still provides valuable user insights.

Users share mixed experiences with the platform. “I love Awario’s simplicity, ease of creating reports, and speed. It’s daily reports are helpful to give you a quick birds-eye view. There are really lots of powerful and key features for the price.” However, others express frustration: “Even if you add specific keywords, it yields irrelevant outcomes. The statistics provided are way off compared to the actual ones from the platform. The customer service sucks.”

Hootsuite User Reviews

Hootsuite demonstrates strong performance across review platforms with a 4.2 rating on G2 and 4.4 on Capterra, achieving a blended rating of 4.29/5 from an impressive 8,713 total reviews. This substantial review base offers robust social proof of the platform’s capabilities.

User feedback highlights both strengths and limitations. “The customer service is focused on the success of their clients… We feel confident with our social media success because we feel supported by Hootsuite’s amazing employees every step of the way.” Yet some users note specific challenges: “The social listening tool doesn’t work for a company like us… Our industry is very niche and our brand name is a common name depending on the country, which makes it difficult to filter.”

Based on user testimonials, Hootsuite’s strongest asset appears to be its customer service and platform evolution, while users praise Awario for its simplicity and reporting capabilities. However, both platforms face challenges with their social listening accuracy, particularly for niche industries or specific use cases.

Hootsuite vs Awario: Final verdict

While both Awario and Hootsuite offer robust social listening capabilities, they serve different needs. Awario stands out with its advanced Boolean search and competitive analysis features, making it ideal for brands focused on detailed market research and competitor tracking. Hootsuite excels in its comprehensive social media management toolkit and user-friendly interface, perfect for teams prioritizing an all-in-one solution for both monitoring and engagement.

However, users should consider that Awario’s learning curve may be steep for beginners, and its analytics dashboard isn’t as intuitive as some alternatives. Hootsuite’s pricing can be prohibitive for smaller teams, and its social listening features aren’t as sophisticated as dedicated monitoring tools. The platform also lacks advanced sentiment analysis capabilities that some brands might require for detailed reputation management.

For teams seeking a balance between comprehensive monitoring and cost-effectiveness, Mention offers an alternative worth exploring. With 82% sentiment accuracy, real-time analysis across billions of sources, and up to two years of historical data, it addresses key limitations found in both Awario and Hootsuite. You can start a free trial to test these features firsthand or schedule a demo to see how Mention’s extensive reporting capabilities can enhance their social listening strategy.