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

Social media monitoring has become essential for brands seeking to understand their audience and track their online presence effectively. While Brandwatch and Hootsuite stand out as leading social listening platforms, choosing between them requires careful consideration of their distinct capabilities and limitations. This detailed comparison draws from verified user experiences, platform documentation, and current pricing data to help organizations make an informed decision.

Both tools excel at different aspects of social media management and monitoring, with Brandwatch focusing on deep analytics and consumer intelligence, while Hootsuite emphasizes comprehensive social media management and engagement. Their contrasting approaches to data collection, feature sets, and pricing models reflect different organizational needs and use cases. Understanding these differences is crucial for businesses investing in social listening.

Through this analysis, readers will discover how each platform handles data sources, core functionalities, and user experience, with special attention to value for money and scalability. Whether you’re a small business looking to improve social engagement or an enterprise requiring advanced analytics, this comparison will guide you through the key factors that should influence your choice.

Pricing & Plans

Brandwatch and Hootsuite offer distinctly different pricing structures and flexibility. While Hootsuite provides transparent pricing starting at $99/month for its Professional plan and $249/month for its Team plan, Brandwatch requires interested customers to contact sales for custom pricing based on their specific needs.

Free Trial and Demo Access

Hootsuite offers a 30-day free trial across its plans, allowing users to test core features including post scheduling and analytics. However, advanced features like comprehensive social listening aren’t included in the trial. Brandwatch doesn’t provide a free trial but offers detailed product demos to showcase their enterprise-level capabilities.

Plan Features and Limitations

Hootsuite’s Professional plan supports 1 user and 10 social accounts, while the Team plan accommodates 3 users and 20 accounts. Both include essential features like unlimited scheduling and basic listening capabilities. Brandwatch’s platform is segmented for different use cases: Consumer Intelligence for researchers, Social Media Management for marketing teams, and Influencer Marketing for campaign managers.

Add-ons and Scalability

Both platforms offer significant add-on options. Hootsuite’s extras include advanced social listening, additional users, enhanced analytics, and Salesforce integration. Brandwatch provides custom add-ons tailored to enterprise needs, though specific pricing isn’t publicly available.

Payment and Billing Options

Hootsuite accepts major credit cards, PayPal, checks, and wire transfers, offering both monthly and annual billing options. Brandwatch accepts bank transfers, PayPal, and credit cards, but only offers annual billing terms.

Refund Policies

Both platforms maintain strict refund policies. Hootsuite states they don’t offer refunds but may consider requests on a case-by-case basis. Brandwatch’s fees are non-cancellable and non-refundable unless specifically stated in their terms.

For small to medium businesses seeking flexible social media management, Hootsuite’s transparent pricing and monthly billing options make it more accessible, while Brandwatch’s enterprise-focused solution suits larger organizations requiring deep consumer intelligence and comprehensive social listening capabilities.

Features

Dashboard Design & Layout

Brandwatch’s dashboard presents a data-rich interface with prominent real-time alerts and detailed metric visualizations. The layout emphasizes comprehensive data analysis with multiple widgets displaying sentiment trends, mention volumes, and demographic breakdowns. Hootsuite offers a more streamlined dashboard focused on social media management, featuring a clean interface that prioritizes content scheduling and engagement metrics.

Alert Creation & Monitoring

Brandwatch delivers sophisticated boolean search capabilities with source operators and country-specific filtering, enabling precise mention tracking. The platform supports complex queries using AND, OR, and NEAR operators. Hootsuite’s alert system provides basic boolean operations with proximity-based and demographic-related operators, though it lacks the advanced filtering options found in Brandwatch. A unique advantage is Hootsuite’s preview of mention volume before query validation.

Metrics & Analytics

Brandwatch tracks comprehensive metrics including author profiles, reach, impressions, and emotional analysis across 40 languages. The platform excels with detailed filtering options covering sentiment, emotion, gender, and location data. Hootsuite focuses on engagement-centric metrics, tracking engagement rates, potential reach, and trending scores, with fewer demographic filtering options.

Data Coverage & Sources

Brandwatch monitors an extensive range of platforms, including social networks, blogs, forums, and review sites, with historical data access up to 3 years. The platform supports 165 languages and includes unique sources like radio and TV monitoring. Hootsuite, powered by Talkwalker, covers 150 million data sources across 30+ social networks but offers limited historical data (12 months maximum) and supports fewer languages (60+).

Sentiment Analysis Capabilities

Hootsuite demonstrates superior sentiment accuracy up to 90% using deep learning and neural networks across 186 languages. Brandwatch’s sentiment analysis covers 40 languages with accuracy between 60-75%, utilizing deep learning and transformer architecture models. Both platforms employ advanced NLP techniques, though Hootsuite’s analysis isn’t trained on customer data.

Reporting & Collaboration

Brandwatch offers extensive reporting capabilities with detailed metrics including volume benchmarks, sentiment trends, and topic wheels. The platform supports multi-step approval flows and note-sharing features. Hootsuite provides flexible report formats (PNG, PDF, CSV, XLS, PPTX) and robust team collaboration through Inbox 2.0 and granular team permissions.

AI Integration

Both platforms incorporate AI functionality, with Brandwatch offering sentiment analysis, emotion detection, and Iris conversation insights. Hootsuite’s AI mention forecasting provides predictive analytics for trend analysis. These features enhance the platforms’ ability to deliver actionable insights from social data.

Brandwatch excels in comprehensive data analysis with extensive historical coverage and advanced boolean searching, making it ideal for deep social listening and market research. Hootsuite shines in social media management with superior sentiment accuracy and collaborative features, better suited for teams focused on engagement and content strategy.

Customer Service

Brandwatch Customer Service

Brandwatch’s help center provides comprehensive coverage across 12 key categories, from consumer intelligence to audience engagement, though it’s limited to English-only documentation. Support options include in-app chat and email assistance with response times ranging from 4-24 hours, while the Engage mobile app extends support accessibility. The Brandwatch Academy, along with regular webinars and events, offers structured learning paths for users of all levels.

Every Brandwatch customer receives dedicated account manager support regardless of plan tier, setting it apart from many competitors. The platform excels at providing detailed technical documentation but may present challenges for non-English speaking users. Overall, Brandwatch’s support structure is best suited for English-speaking enterprise teams requiring deep technical assistance.

Hootsuite Customer Service

Hootsuite maintains an extensive help center available in six languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German), with 17 detailed categories covering everything from basic setup to advanced features. Their support team operates during business hours across multiple time zones, offering assistance in English, French, and Spanish through dashboard messaging and email channels.

While account manager access is restricted to Enterprise plan subscribers, Hootsuite compensates with robust self-service options including Hootsuite Academy, social media bootcamps, and regular webinars. The multi-language support and diverse training resources make Hootsuite particularly effective for global teams who need multilingual support during standard business hours, though 24/7 support isn’t available.

Customer testimonials

Brandwatch User Reviews

Brandwatch maintains a strong rating across review platforms, achieving a blended score of 4.35/5 from 895 total reviews. On G2, it holds a 4.4/5 rating from 661 reviews, while Capterra shows a 4.2/5 from 234 reviews.

“Its query builder is clean and simple, as are the Brandwatch Academy resources which teach junior colleagues how to use it. The Quick Search function rivals Google Trends in being a ‘pick up and play’ insight finder. The dashboard templates, equally, are great for both seasoned pros and novice users.” However, some users note significant challenges: “Too much of online news and approx (3 to 5)% of them do not show or show errors. The keyword backfilling fails even after multiple attempts. Sometimes data loading takes too much time.”

Hootsuite User Reviews

Hootsuite demonstrates consistent performance across platforms with a blended rating of 4.29/5 from an impressive 8,713 total reviews. The platform scores 4.2/5 from 4,927 reviews on G2 and 4.4/5 from 3,786 reviews on Capterra.

“The customer service is focused on the success of their clients. Not on how much money clients must spend to get quality services… We feel confident with our social media success because we feel supported by Hootsuite’s amazing employees every step of the way.” On the flip side, users highlight specific limitations: “The social listening tool doesn’t work for a company like us, although we’re paying for this service, which is annoying. 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, Brandwatch’s strength lies in its intuitive query building and search capabilities, though it struggles with technical reliability. Hootsuite shines in customer service and platform evolution but faces challenges with social listening functionality for niche industries.

Hootsuite vs Brandwatch: Final verdict

Brandwatch excels in delivering enterprise-grade social intelligence with unmatched historical data access and advanced analytics capabilities, making it ideal for large organizations requiring deep insights. Hootsuite stands out with its comprehensive social media management features and user-friendly interface, perfect for teams prioritizing posting and engagement alongside basic listening.

However, buyers should consider key limitations – Brandwatch’s steep learning curve and premium pricing may deter smaller teams, while Hootsuite’s basic listening capabilities and limited data sources might not satisfy advanced analytics needs. The platform selection ultimately depends on whether robust social management (Hootsuite) or sophisticated social intelligence (Brandwatch) better aligns with organizational priorities.

For teams seeking a balance between advanced analytics and affordability, Mention offers an alternative worth exploring. With 82% sentiment accuracy, real-time monitoring across a billion sources, and up to 2 years of historical data, it fills important gaps. You can start a free trial to test these capabilities or schedule a demo to see how Mention’s comprehensive reporting suite can complement their social listening strategy.