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

As social media’s influence continues to grow, businesses need robust listening tools to track conversations, analyze sentiment, and gather actionable insights. Brandwatch and Sprout Social stand out as leading solutions in this space, each offering distinct capabilities for monitoring and analyzing social data

While both tools serve similar core purposes, they cater to different organizational needs and priorities.

Brandwatch positions itself as an enterprise-grade solution with deep analytics capabilities, while Sprout Social offers a more accessible platform that balances monitoring with engagement features. 

Understanding each platform’s strengths and limitations is crucial for making an informed choice that aligns with specific business requirements.

The following sections break down the essential aspects of both tools, from data sources and feature sets to pricing models and user experience. This comparison aims to help you evaluate which solution best fits your social listening and analysis needs.

Pricing & Plans

Brandwatch and Sprout Social offer distinctly different pricing structures and feature sets for social media management and analytics. While Sprout Social provides transparent pricing starting at $199 per seat monthly for its Standard plan, Brandwatch requires custom quotes for their enterprise-focused solutions.

Core Plans and Billing Options

Sprout Social presents a tiered structure with Standard ($199/seat/month), Professional ($299/seat/month), and Advanced ($399/seat/month) plans, plus custom Enterprise options. They offer flexible monthly or annual billing. Brandwatch, focusing on enterprise clients, doesn’t publicly display pricing and typically requires annual commitments.

Free Trials and Demos

Sprout Social offers a 30-day free trial across all their plans, allowing users to test core features before committing. In contrast, Brandwatch doesn’t provide free trials but offers comprehensive product demonstrations for potential clients. Both platforms provide guided demos with sales representatives to showcase their full capabilities.

Add-ons and Extras

Sprout Social’s social listening capability comes as a significant add-on starting at $999/month, with additional social profiles available at $25 each. Brandwatch includes social listening in their core offering but may charge for custom solutions or additional features based on specific client needs.

Payment Flexibility

Both platforms accept standard payment methods including credit cards and PayPal. Sprout Social also accepts checks, wire transfers, and ACH transfers, while Brandwatch accommodates bank transfers. This provides flexibility for different organizational payment preferences.

Refund Policies

Both companies maintain strict no-refund policies. Brandwatch’s annual fees are non-cancellable and non-refundable, while Sprout Social doesn’t issue refunds for prepaid unused services if canceled mid-subscription. Customers should carefully consider their long-term needs before committing.

For organizations primarily focused on social media management, Sprout Social offers more accessible entry points with transparent pricing, while Brandwatch’s enterprise-level solution suits larger organizations needing comprehensive consumer intelligence and advanced social listening capabilities.

Features

Dashboard Interface

Brandwatch’s dashboard emphasizes data visualization with a clean, modular layout that enables real-time monitoring across multiple channels. The interface prominently displays sentiment analysis and trend tracking. SproutSocial takes a more streamlined approach, focusing on engagement metrics and social media performance with customizable widgets.

Alert Creation Capabilities

Brandwatch offers sophisticated boolean operators and source filtering that enable precise alert refinement. Their system includes country-specific operators and comprehensive noise reduction. SproutSocial provides AI-assisted query building with templated options for different use cases, though it takes 3-5 minutes to display mentions. They’ve incorporated specific exclusion filters for sales listings and cryptocurrency content.

Metrics and Analysis

Brandwatch tracks comprehensive metrics across multiple platforms, including reach, impressions, and emotional analysis in 40 languages. Their sentiment analysis achieves 60-75% accuracy using advanced NLP. SproutSocial focuses primarily on social engagement metrics but lacks emotional analysis capabilities. They’ve incorporated smart categorization and demographic tracking, though sentiment accuracy rates aren’t disclosed.

Data Sources and Coverage

Brandwatch provides extensive source coverage across social networks, blogs, forums, and review sites, including radio and TV monitoring. They support 165 languages and offer up to 3 years of historical data. SproutSocial maintains more limited coverage, primarily focusing on major social networks and web content, with varying historical data limits across platforms (from 30 days for Reddit to full historical access for X).

Reporting Capabilities

Both platforms offer robust reporting features, but differ in approach. Brandwatch allows exports of 5,000 mentions in CSV format and includes detailed metrics like emotion volume and topic wheels. SproutSocial enables larger exports up to 10,000 mentions and offers more flexible scheduling options with weekly/monthly reports and spike alerts.

Collaboration Tools

Brandwatch features multi-step approval workflows and note-sharing capabilities, along with channel groups and timezone support. SproutSocial includes message approval workflows and case management but offers fewer collaborative features overall.

AI Integration

Both platforms leverage AI for analysis, but with different focuses. Brandwatch emphasizes sentiment and emotion analysis with Iris conversation insights. SproutSocial incorporates AI for industry themes, content optimization through ViralPost, and smart categorization of mentions.

Customer Service

Brandwatch Customer Service Support

Brandwatch’s help center covers 12 key categories focused on consumer intelligence, social listening, and marketing analytics. While the documentation is comprehensive, it’s only available in English, which may limit accessibility for international teams. Support options include in-app chat and email, though response times can stretch up to 24 hours for email inquiries.

The Brandwatch Academy provides structured learning paths through webinars and detailed reports, helping users master the platform’s advanced features. All customers receive dedicated account manager support, ensuring personalized guidance for complex analytical needs. The mobile app extends support access, though it’s limited to the Engage feature set.

Sprout Social Customer Service Support

Sprout Social maintains an extensive help center with 19 categories covering social media management, integrations, and analytics. While primarily in English, the site offers Google Translate functionality for international users. Their 24-hour support on weekdays through live chat, phone, and ticket systems provides more immediate assistance compared to Brandwatch.

Training resources include pre-recorded webinars and product guides, though they’re less structured than Brandwatch’s academy approach. Like Brandwatch, Sprout Social assigns account managers to all customers. The platform excels in rapid response support but focuses more on practical guidance than comprehensive training programs.

Key Takeaway – Brandwatch: Best suited for teams requiring in-depth platform education and willing to navigate longer response times.

Key Takeaway – Sprout Social: Ideal for organizations needing quick, multi-channel support with flexible language options.

Customer testimonials

Brandwatch User Reviews

Brandwatch maintains a solid rating of 4.35/5 across 895 total reviews from G2 (661 reviews, 4.4/5) and Capterra (234 reviews, 4.2/5). Users share 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 encounter 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.”

Sprout Social User Reviews

Sprout Social demonstrates strong user satisfaction with a 4.4/5 rating across a substantial 4,411 combined reviews from G2 (3,818 reviews, 4.4/5) and Capterra (593 reviews, 4.4/5). Users praise its comprehensive features: “Sprout has everything you could possibly need from a social scheduling and reporting tool… It’s a huge step up from the manual way we were doing prior.” Yet some users highlight onboarding difficulties: “Our onboarding was horrendous. It took over 2 months to schedule the meetings, and our rep changed in the middle without notice or much communication.”

Based on user testimonials, Brandwatch’s strength lies in its intuitive query building and search capabilities, though it faces some technical performance issues. Sprout Social offers comprehensive social media management features but could improve its onboarding process and customer support experience.

SproutSocial vs Brandwatch: Final verdict

Brandwatch delivers enterprise-grade social intelligence with unmatched historical data access and advanced analytics capabilities, making it ideal for large organizations requiring deep insights. SproutSocial shines with its intuitive interface and comprehensive engagement tools, offering a more accessible solution for small to mid-sized teams focused on community management and basic social listening.

However, both platforms come with notable trade-offs. Brandwatch’s steep learning curve and premium pricing can be prohibitive for smaller teams, while SproutSocial’s limited historical data and basic analytics may not satisfy enterprises needing sophisticated market research. Users should also consider that Brandwatch lacks native TikTok monitoring, and SproutSocial’s reporting capabilities are somewhat restricted compared to specialized analytics tools.

For teams seeking a balance of comprehensive monitoring and cost-effectiveness, Mention offers an alternative worth exploring. With real-time analysis across billions of sources, 82% sentiment accuracy, and up to 2 years of historical data, it addresses key gaps while remaining budget-friendly. Start a free trial to experience Mention’s extensive reporting suite, or schedule a demo to see how it can complement your social listening strategy.