Brandwatch vs Mentionlytics

In today’s digital landscape, choosing the right social listening platform can significantly impact a brand’s ability to track online conversations and gain actionable insights. Brandwatch and MentionLytics stand out as popular choices, each offering distinct approaches to social media monitoring and analytics. This detailed comparison draws from verified user experiences, official documentation, and current platform capabilities to help organizations make an informed decision.

Both tools promise to transform social data into business intelligence, but they differ notably in their depth of analysis, pricing structures, and target users. While Brandwatch has established itself as an enterprise-level solution with advanced analytics capabilities, MentionLytics positions itself as a more accessible option for small to medium-sized businesses. Their contrasting approaches to data collection, visualization, and reporting create unique advantages for different types of organizations.

This analysis examines each platform’s strengths and limitations across essential criteria, from data sources and feature sets to user experience and pricing models. By exploring these key aspects, readers can evaluate which tool better aligns with their organization’s specific needs, budget constraints, and analytical requirements. The insights presented here come from extensive research of public documentation, user testimonials, and platform specifications to provide an objective comparison.

Pricing & Plans

In the social media monitoring landscape, Brandwatch and MentionLytics offer distinctly different pricing approaches. While Brandwatch doesn’t publicly disclose pricing, requiring direct contact for custom quotes, MentionLytics provides transparent tiered pricing starting at $41/month for basic plans and scaling up to $799/month for enterprise solutions.

Free Trial and Demo Availability

MentionLytics offers a free trial period, allowing users to test their platform’s capabilities before committing. In contrast, Brandwatch doesn’t provide a free trial but does offer comprehensive product demonstrations. Both platforms use these demonstrations to showcase their full feature sets, though MentionLytics provides the advantage of hands-on testing through their trial period.

Plan Features and Limitations

MentionLytics structures its offerings across six distinct tiers, with clear scaling of features. Their basic plan includes 3 keyword rules and 5,000 monthly mentions, while their enterprise plan offers 100+ keyword rules and 300,000+ monthly mentions. Brandwatch, meanwhile, segments its offerings into three specialized solutions: Consumer Intelligence for researchers, Social Media Management for marketing teams, and Influencer Marketing for campaign managers.

Add-ons and Customization

MentionLytics provides several add-on options, including extensive review monitoring for platforms like TripAdvisor and Booking.com, historical data access, and a premium managed service for Pro plan subscribers and above. Brandwatch offers custom plans but doesn’t publicly list specific add-on pricing or options.

Payment and Billing Flexibility

Both platforms accept major credit cards and PayPal, with Brandwatch also accepting bank transfers. MentionLytics offers both monthly and annual billing options, while Brandwatch operates on an annual billing cycle only. It’s worth noting that Brandwatch’s fees are non-cancellable and non-refundable unless specifically stated otherwise in their terms.

For businesses seeking a transparent, scalable solution with flexible payment options, MentionLytics offers a more accessible entry point. However, larger enterprises requiring extensive customization might find Brandwatch’s tailored approach more suitable for their complex needs.

Features

Dashboard & Interface Design

Brandwatch offers a sophisticated dashboard focused on real-time data visualization and detailed analytics. The interface prominently displays sentiment trends, mention volume, and engagement metrics in customizable widgets. MentionLytics takes a more streamlined approach with its dashboard, emphasizing quick access to top mentions and share of voice metrics while maintaining a cleaner, less complex layout.

Alert Creation & Monitoring

Brandwatch provides advanced boolean operators and source filtering for precise alert creation, allowing users to combine multiple conditions. MentionLytics simplifies the process through a guided workflow where users select their tracking objective (brand, competitors, or industry) before setting up keywords. While this makes setup more accessible, it lacks the granular control offered by Brandwatch’s boolean system.

Metrics & Analytics Capabilities

Both platforms track comprehensive metrics, but Brandwatch excels in social media analytics with detailed author profiling and reach calculations. MentionLytics offers stronger web mention tracking, including website ranking data and social sharing statistics. The platforms diverge in their filtering capabilities, with Brandwatch offering more specific options like gender and Twitter account type filtering, while MentionLytics focuses on broader categories like relevance and channel grouping.

Data Coverage & Sources

Brandwatch maintains extensive historical data access of up to 3 years and covers 165 languages. Their source coverage includes major social networks, blogs, forums, and review sites, with additional radio and TV monitoring. MentionLytics matches most social media coverage but requires an add-on for historical data access. They’ve added TikTok monitoring, which Brandwatch doesn’t currently offer, and provide USA-specific radio and TV coverage.

Sentiment Analysis & AI Features

MentionLytics claims higher sentiment accuracy at approximately 80% compared to Brandwatch’s 60-75% range. Both platforms utilize deep learning for sentiment analysis, but MentionLytics adds unique features like AI mention clustering and anomaly detection. Brandwatch counters with Iris conversation insights for mention summarization.

Reporting & Collaboration

MentionLytics offers more structured report templates including Share of Voice and Influencers reports, with daily/weekly/monthly scheduling options. Brandwatch provides greater export flexibility with multiple format options but limits CSV exports to 5000 mentions. For collaboration, Brandwatch leads with multi-step approval flows and note-sharing capabilities, while MentionLytics offers basic mention assignment features.

Brandwatch emerges as the more robust solution for enterprises requiring detailed social analytics and advanced boolean searching, while MentionLytics proves more suitable for businesses seeking straightforward monitoring with strong web coverage and automated reporting capabilities.

Customer Service

Brandwatch Customer Service

Brandwatch provides comprehensive support through their extensive help center, covering 12 major categories from Consumer Intelligence to Audience Listening. While the help center is only available in English, they’ve built out detailed documentation through their Brandwatch Academy, webinars, reports, and events to help users master the platform.

Support options include in-app chat and email, though email responses can take between 4-24 hours. The Engage mobile app offers additional support accessibility, and all customers receive dedicated account manager assistance. Their training resources stand out with the structured Brandwatch Academy program, making it particularly suitable for enterprise teams needing in-depth platform education.

Mentionlytics Customer Service

Mentionlytics maintains a more streamlined help center with 41 focused articles spanning 8 categories, from basic guides to API services. They’ve made their documentation more globally accessible by offering it in English, Spanish, and Greek, demonstrating stronger international support compared to Brandwatch.

Their support channels include email, live chat assistance, and live demo options, though specific response times aren’t publicly stated. Account manager access is limited to Agencies and Enterprise plans, unlike Brandwatch’s universal account manager availability. While their training resources aren’t as extensive, they offer a dedicated training course that provides essential platform knowledge.

Key Takeaway – Brandwatch: Better suited for companies requiring comprehensive training resources and universal account management support.

Key Takeaway – Mentionlytics: More appropriate for international businesses needing multilingual support with basic but efficient training resources.

Customer testimonials

Brandwatch User Feedback

Brandwatch maintains a solid 4.35/5 rating across 895 total reviews, with scores of 4.4 on G2 (661 reviews) and 4.2 on Capterra (234 reviews). Users have shared mixed experiences with the platform. “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 face technical 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.”

MentionLytics User Feedback

MentionLytics boasts an impressive 4.84/5 rating from 119 total reviews, scoring 4.9 on G2 (81 reviews) and 4.7 on Capterra (38 reviews). Users appreciate its value proposition, with one noting: “Already tried a lot of famous tracker and no one beat Mentionlytics yet. Pay only what you need.” Though some find the platform complex at first: “The platform can be a bit overwhelming at the beginning, due to the vast amount of features it has. I wish to have more details in its documentation, with more links to guides and HowTo’s.”

While Brandwatch offers robust functionality with an easier learning curve and comprehensive academy resources, it sometimes struggles with technical reliability. MentionLytics, despite having fewer reviews, maintains higher user satisfaction scores and offers better value for money, though it may require more time to master its extensive feature set.

MentionLytics vs Brandwatch: Final verdict

Brandwatch excels in delivering enterprise-grade analytics with unmatched historical data access and advanced AI capabilities, making it ideal for large organizations requiring deep insights. MentionLytics stands out with its user-friendly interface and competitive pricing, offering a practical solution for small to medium-sized businesses seeking essential social listening features.

While Brandwatch’s extensive functionality comes with a steep learning curve and premium pricing that may deter smaller teams, MentionLytics’ more limited data sources and basic reporting capabilities could frustrate users needing comprehensive analytics. Both tools have distinct advantages, but teams should carefully consider their specific needs, technical expertise, and budget constraints before deciding.

For teams seeking a balanced alternative that combines robust functionality with accessibility, Mention offers comprehensive social listening with 82% sentiment accuracy and monitoring across over 1 billion sources. You can either start a free trial to explore Mention’s extensive reporting options and two-year historical data access, or schedule a demo to see how their cost-effective solution bridges the gap between enterprise power and practical usability.