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

Social listening has become essential for modern businesses, with Brandwatch and Meltwater emerging as leading platforms that help organizations monitor and analyze online conversations. These robust tools offer distinct approaches to social media intelligence, though their capabilities and pricing models can make choosing between them challenging for teams seeking the right fit.

This analysis draws from extensive platform documentation, independent user reviews, and verified customer experiences to provide an objective comparison of how Brandwatch and Meltwater deliver on key factors like data coverage, analytics depth, and user experience. Rather than declaring a universal winner, we’ll examine how each platform’s strengths align with different organizational needs and use cases.

Whether you’re a small business looking for basic social monitoring or an enterprise requiring advanced analytics, understanding the nuanced differences between these platforms will help inform a strategic choice. The detailed sections that follow break down essential factors like features, pricing, and support to help readers evaluate which solution best matches their specific requirements and constraints.

Pricing & Plans

Brandwatch and Meltwater both operate on custom, quote-based pricing models with annual contracts, making direct cost comparisons challenging for potential buyers. Neither platform publicly displays their pricing, requiring interested parties to contact sales representatives for customized quotes based on specific needs and usage requirements.

Plans and Billing Structure

Brandwatch offers specialized solutions targeting different user personas: Consumer Intelligence for researchers and analysts, Social Media Management for marketing teams, and Influencer Marketing for campaign managers. Their billing is strictly annual with no monthly payment options. Meltwater provides three tier levels – Essentials for smaller teams, Suite for scalable operations, and Enterprise for global organizations – all with yearly billing cycles.

Free Trials and Demos

Neither platform offers free trials, but both provide comprehensive product demonstrations. Brandwatch’s demos focus on showcasing their AI-powered analytics and customizable dashboards, while Meltwater demonstrations highlight their integrated solutions across different service tiers. Potential customers should note that they’ll need to commit without hands-on testing experience.

Add-ons and Customization

Both platforms support custom plan configurations. Brandwatch allows for tailored solutions across their three main product lines, with additional features available for social listening, reporting, and analytics. Meltwater’s add-ons vary by tier, with Enterprise clients accessing premium services and unified datasets not available in lower tiers.

Payment and Refund Policies

Brandwatch accepts multiple payment methods including bank transfers, PayPal, and credit cards. Meltwater’s payment options aren’t publicly disclosed. *Both companies maintain strict no-refund policies* – Brandwatch’s fees are “non-cancellable and non-refundable,” while Meltwater explicitly states “no refunds will be provided under any circumstance.”

Organizations seeking enterprise-level social intelligence solutions should carefully evaluate their specific needs against each platform’s offerings, considering that both require significant annual commitments without trial periods or refund options.

Features

Both Brandwatch and Meltwater offer robust social listening and media monitoring capabilities, though their approaches differ significantly in various aspects. Let’s explore their key features in detail.

Dashboard Interface

Brandwatch presents a clean, data-focused dashboard prioritizing real-time alerts and metric visualization. Their interface emphasizes quick access to sentiment analysis and mention tracking. Meltwater’s dashboard takes a more comprehensive approach, incorporating AI-driven insights and featuring a wider array of visualization options for cross-channel analytics.

Alert Creation & Monitoring

Both platforms utilize boolean operators for alert creation, but their implementations differ. Brandwatch offers straightforward boolean logic with source and country operators, making it accessible for users with varying technical expertise. Meltwater provides more advanced capabilities including visual analytics operators and case-sensitive searches, though this *comes with a steeper learning curve*.

Metrics & Analytics

Meltwater tracks a broader range of engagement metrics, including EMV (estimated media value) and conversion tracking through clicks and coupon codes. Brandwatch focuses on deeper social analytics, offering detailed emotion analysis in 40 languages and comprehensive author profiling. Both platforms provide sentiment analysis, though Brandwatch’s accuracy rates are transparently stated at 60-75%, while Meltwater’s remain undisclosed.

Data Coverage

Meltwater boasts superior source coverage with 270,000 global news sources and 15 social media channels, including unique offerings like Twitch and Chinese social monitoring. Brandwatch provides deeper historical data access of up to 3 years for Twitter and their archive. In terms of language support, Meltwater leads with 480 languages compared to Brandwatch’s 165.

Reporting Capabilities

Meltwater offers more diverse reporting templates including specialized options like Audience Insights and Campaign Reports, with multiple export formats including Google Slides integration. Brandwatch’s reporting is *more limited*, focusing on email alerts and basic exports, though they do provide detailed analytics within their reports.

AI Integration

Meltwater has embraced AI more comprehensively, offering AI-powered features like contextual analysis cards, daily digest overviews, and an AI search assistant. Brandwatch’s AI implementation focuses primarily on conversation insights and sentiment analysis, though they’ve developed sophisticated emotion analysis capabilities.

Collaboration Tools

Both platforms support team collaboration, with Brandwatch offering multi-step approval flows and timezone support. Meltwater emphasizes influencer content collaboration and provides feedback mechanisms for team coordination. These features make both platforms suitable for enterprise-level usage, though they approach collaboration differently.

Brandwatch excels in deep social analytics and historical data analysis, making it ideal for brands focusing on social media intelligence. Meltwater’s broader source coverage and advanced AI capabilities make it better suited for organizations needing comprehensive media monitoring across multiple channels.

Customer Service

Brandwatch Customer Service

Brandwatch’s help center offers comprehensive coverage across 12 key categories, ranging from consumer intelligence to audience engagement. Support is available primarily in English through in-app chat and email, though email responses can take between 4-24 hours. The platform provides educational resources through Brandwatch Academy, along with regular webinars, reports, and events to help users maximize their investment.

While the dedicated account manager service is a valuable asset, the limited language support and potentially lengthy email response times could present challenges for global teams needing immediate assistance. Brandwatch’s customer service approach is best suited for English-speaking organizations that prioritize structured learning and can accommodate response delays.

Meltwater Customer Service

Meltwater maintains an extensive knowledge base with 371 articles spread across 16 categories, offering detailed guidance on everything from boolean search creation to social media management. Their multilingual support in six languages (English, Suomi, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese) makes the platform accessible to a global audience. The 24/7 live chat and email support ensure users can get help whenever needed.

The combination of Meltwater Academy, webinars, ebooks, and mobile apps provides users with flexible learning options. With dedicated account managers and round-the-clock support availability, Meltwater’s customer service infrastructure is particularly well-suited for international enterprises requiring consistent, timely support across different time zones and languages.

Customer testimonials

Brandwatch Customer Reviews

Brandwatch maintains a strong 4.35/5 rating across 895 total reviews from G2 (4.4/5 from 661 reviews) and Capterra (4.2/5 from 234 reviews). Users specifically praise the platform’s intuitive interface and comprehensive learning resources. “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.” However, some users report technical challenges: “Too much of online news and approx (3 to 5)% of them do not open or show errors. The keyword backfilling fails even after multiple attempts.”

Meltwater Customer Reviews

Meltwater holds a solid 4.0/5 rating across 2,283 total reviews, combining scores from G2 (4.0/5 from 2,187 reviews) and Capterra (4.0/5 from 96 reviews). Users highlight the platform’s robust analytics capabilities: “Meltwater provides us with invaluable data and insights. With the Explore function, we can monitor online conversations about our organization and related areas.” The main criticism centers on the platform’s complexity: “Although the interface is user-friendly, there is still a learning curve to fully utilize all the advanced features.”

Based on user testimonials, Brandwatch excels in user-friendliness and educational resources but faces some technical reliability issues, while Meltwater offers comprehensive analytics capabilities but requires more time investment to master its full feature set.

Meltwater vs Brandwatch: Final verdict

Both Brandwatch and Meltwater offer distinct advantages for social listening needs. Brandwatch stands out with its comprehensive analytics capabilities and extensive historical data access, making it ideal for enterprise-level organizations requiring deep insights. Meltwater excels in user-friendly interface design and competitive pricing, appealing to growing businesses seeking actionable social intelligence without extensive training.

However, users should consider some notable limitations. Brandwatch’s premium pricing may strain smaller marketing budgets, while Meltwater’s restricted historical data access of 6 months could hamper long-term trend analysis. Additionally, both platforms face challenges with emerging social channels like TikTok, potentially leaving gaps in social monitoring coverage.

For teams seeking an alternative that bridges these gaps, Mention offers an appealing middle ground. With 82% sentiment accuracy, real-time monitoring across billions of sources, and up to 2 years of historical data, it addresses key limitations while maintaining competitive pricing. You can start a free trial to explore Mention’s comprehensive reporting suite, or schedule a demo to see how it complements their existing social listening strategy.