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Best social listening tools

Updated October 2026

Social listening tool is one query with several different buyers behind it: a PR team watching for a crisis, a growth marketer counting mentions, and increasingly a founder who wants to know what AI assistants say about their brand. The tools below split along that line more than they split on price.

Quick answer

MarketHQ is the pick if AI-answer visibility matters alongside social: it checks six AI engines weekly on paid plans from $29 a month, then turns gaps into an action plan, with chat, an API and MCP. Brandwatch and Sprout Social are the larger suites. Brand24 and Awario are dedicated listening tools with sentiment analysis. Agorapulse and Hootsuite pair listening with publishing, while Mention and Talkwalker (now Lumen by Talkwalker) are listening and media monitoring platforms.

Key points

  • MarketHQ checks six named AI engines weekly on every paid plan; Brand24 sells an AI Visibility module and Talkwalker lists LLM Insights.
  • MarketHQ's free plan stays free with no card and no end date: your brand, 2 competitors and 3 keywords, across news, blogs, forums and a taste of Bluesky.
  • Sprout Social and Hootsuite price per tier or seat, and Brandwatch and Talkwalker quote by demo.

What sources does MarketHQ cover?

Free: Hacker News, GitHub, RSS, Stack Overflow, Dev.to, Lobsters. Paid plans add Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Perplexity, Product Hunt, Broader web crawl, Bluesky.

Hacker NewsGitHubStack OverflowDev.toLobstersRSSRedditLinkedInXYouTubeBlueskyProduct HuntDocs & changelogs
  • Grouped Slack daily digest
  • Drafted replies from your own strengths
  • Gap analysis and action plans
  • Weekly AI-answer visibility (paid plans)
  • Chat over your own evidence
  • API and MCP on every paid plan
  • Flat capacity pricing, tiers differ by tracking volume only
  • 7-day trial for $0.99 on Lite and Startup
  • Free tier with no card and no end date

Method: every tool was checked against its own published pages in October 2026 and included only where the vendor states what it monitors. Prices, free plans and AI-engine coverage shown for each tool are pulled live from our vendor directory rather than typed by hand, so they stay current as vendors change their pages. Ordering is not a ranking by market share; nothing here is paid placement, and MarketHQ is our own product.

  1. MarketHQ

    Social listening joined to a weekly check of six AI engines, gap analysis and action plans, with chat, an API and MCP over the evidence instead of a chart-only dashboard. A free plan covers news, blogs, forums and a taste of Bluesky, and paid plans start at $29 a month. Our own product, listed first because the page is ours.

    Best for
    Teams that want social mentions and AI-answer visibility answered by one tool instead of two.
    Pricing
    Free (paid from $29/mo)
    Sources covered
    Hacker News, GitHub, RSS, Stack Overflow, Dev.to, Lobsters, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Perplexity, Product Hunt, Broader web crawl, Bluesky
    AI visibility
    Yes

  2. Brand24

    AI-powered social listening across social platforms, news, blogs and forums with sentiment analysis, plus an AI Visibility module sold as an add-on below its Enterprise plan.

    Best for
    Teams that want sentiment-scored social mentions and a named AI-visibility add-on in one account.
    Pricing
    From $249/mo
    Sources covered
    X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, news, LinkedIn, blogs, forums, reviews, Reddit, Telegram, TripAdvisor, App Store, TikTok
    AI visibility
    Unknown

  3. Awario

    Crawls billions of web pages a day for brand mentions, with sentiment analysis, real-time monitoring and a lead-generation feature (Awario Leads).

    Best for
    Teams that want broad mention volume plus lead generation.
    Pricing
    From $49/mo
    Sources covered
    X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, blogs, forums, news, the web
    AI visibility
    Unknown

  4. Brandwatch

    An enterprise social intelligence suite listening across 100 million-plus sources with AI-driven analytics and a social media management product for teams that also publish.

    Best for
    Enterprise research and insights teams with an analyst dedicated to running the tool.
    Pricing
    Not publicly published
    Sources covered
    Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter/X, Reddit, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads, Pinterest, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger
    AI visibility
    Unknown

  5. Sprout Social

    A social media management platform with a listening product that processes hundreds of millions of messages a day and an AI assistant called Trellis for plain-language research questions.

    Best for
    Teams that want social management and listening under one seat-priced login.
    Pricing
    From $99/mo
    Sources covered
    TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Reddit, LinkedIn, BlueSky, WhatsApp, TripAdvisor, Twitter/X, Facebook
    AI visibility
    Unknown

  6. Mention

    Social listening and media monitoring together, tracking over a billion sources in real time across web, social, news, blogs and forums, with AI content tools for engagement.

    Best for
    Brands that want social mentions and press coverage tracked in the same feed.
    Pricing
    Not publicly published
    Sources covered
    web, social media, news, blogs, forums
    AI visibility
    Unknown

  7. Hootsuite

    A social media management and listening platform that owns Talkwalker, with an AI assistant that answers questions grounded in a brand's social data.

    Best for
    Teams already scheduling posts in Hootsuite who want listening in the same place.
    Pricing
    From $99/mo
    Sources covered
    Instagram, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Pinterest, Twitch, Reddit, Disqus, Facebook, X, BlueSky, YouTube, Quora, Threads, news, blogs, forums, podcasts
    AI visibility
    Unknown

  8. Lumen by Talkwalker

    Now Lumen by Talkwalker under Hootsuite: a social listening and consumer-intelligence platform with AI summaries, an AI Agent for questions and LLM Insights on how AI assistants talk about a brand.

    Best for
    Large brands that need a dedicated analytics layer on top of raw mention volume.
    Pricing
    Not publicly published
    Sources covered
    150 million data sources, 30+ social platforms, 100% of tweets, 150M+ websites, print
    AI visibility
    Unknown

  9. Agorapulse

    A social-media management platform with scheduling, a unified inbox and reporting, where deeper listening sits behind a separate Advanced Listening add-on rather than the core plans.

    Best for
    Small marketing teams whose main job is publishing, with light listening added on.
    Pricing
    From $99/mo
    Sources covered
    social accounts, news platforms, blogs, forums
    AI visibility
    Unknown

What does a social listening tool actually track?

Keyword and brand mentions across social platforms, news and the open web, usually with sentiment scoring and a dashboard that charts volume over time.

The category covers a wide range of products wearing the same label. At one end are suites like Brandwatch and Talkwalker, sold through a demo or quote. At the other are lighter tools like Brand24 and Awario that offer a free trial and self-serve signup. In between sit social-media-management platforms, Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Agorapulse, where listening is one feature next to scheduling and inbox management.

What differs most between them is source coverage. Every tool here reads mainstream social platforms; far fewer read niche forums, Reddit or Hacker News, which matters if your buyers compare options in those places before they ever post on social media.

Which social listening tools also track AI answers?

Three of the nine here: MarketHQ on every paid plan, Brand24 through its AI Visibility module, and Talkwalker through LLM Insights.

Social mentions and AI answers are increasingly the same research problem from different angles. The Reddit thread or community post that an AI assistant draws on for its answer about your category is also the kind of thing a social listening tool is supposed to catch, which is why a tool that does both can save a second subscription.

MarketHQ runs a weekly check against ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek on every paid tier and ties the result to the mentions behind it. Brand24 publishes an AI Visibility feature as well, though it is an add-on below its Enterprise plan, and Talkwalker lists LLM Insights. The rest of this list makes no published claim about tracking AI answers.

Do these tools cover developer communities like Hacker News and GitHub?

Not the social-media-first ones. MarketHQ lists Hacker News and GitHub as part of a wider source list of news, blogs, forums and social.

Brand24, Awario, Brandwatch, Sprout Social, Mention, Hootsuite, Talkwalker and Agorapulse all publish source lists built around mainstream social platforms, news and blogs. None of their published pages names Hacker News, GitHub or Stack Overflow among what they monitor.

That gap is invisible if your buyers only talk on Instagram or X, and decisive if they talk in specialist forums first. A brand whose buyers live on Instagram and one whose buyers compare options in forums are not shopping for the same tool here, even though both search for social listening.

  • Names Hacker News and GitHub among its sources: MarketHQ only.
  • Published AI-answer tracking: MarketHQ, Brand24 and Talkwalker.
  • Built around mainstream social, news and blogs: the other six.

How much does social listening cost?

Free for MarketHQ's news, blog and forum sources, from $29 a month for MarketHQ Lite, and from about $199 a month annual at Brand24 up to demo-only pricing at Brandwatch and Talkwalker.

The published pricing pages in this list span a wide range. Awario Starter is $49 a month billed monthly or $29 billed annually, Brand24's Individual plan is $199 a month billed annually, Sprout Social Essentials is $99 per seat a month on monthly billing, and Agorapulse Standard is $99 per user a month. Brandwatch and Talkwalker quote by demo. The exact current figures for every tool are shown next to each entry.

The practical filter is usually not the entry price but what the entry plan actually includes. A cheap plan that caps you at a handful of keywords, or an enterprise plan that requires a sales call before you see a number, both change the real cost of getting started. Ask each vendor what the entry plan includes before comparing it with a rival's.

Which of these are built for a small team versus an enterprise one?

Brand24, Awario, Agorapulse, Mention and MarketHQ offer a free trial or free plan you can try without a sales call. Brandwatch and Talkwalker are sold by demo or quote, and Sprout Social and Hootsuite price per seat or tier.

Brand24 and Agorapulse list trials with no credit card (14 and 30 days), Awario and Mention list free trials, and Brandwatch states it has no self-serve trial. A free trial is the quickest way to see whether a tool fits before involving anyone else.

The bigger suites suit teams that need an analyst-driven tool, while a three-person startup is usually better served by a self-serve tool it can start using the same week.

  • Free trial or free plan: Brand24, Awario, Agorapulse, Mention, MarketHQ.
  • Demo or custom quote: Brandwatch, Talkwalker.
  • Per-seat or per-tier pricing, no free plan listed: Sprout Social, Hootsuite.

How would a mid-size brand choose between these?

By starting from the sources that matter most to their buyers, not the biggest feature list. The scenario below is illustrative, not a measured result.

Illustrative: a 20-person consumer app tracks its name, two competitors and three feature keywords. Their support team already hears from users on X and Instagram, and their product team keeps seeing their category discussed on Reddit and Hacker News.

A pure social suite like Awario or Brand24 covers the X and Instagram side well and reports sentiment on top. Neither lists Hacker News or GitHub, so the product team's half of the picture goes untracked unless they also run MarketHQ's free plan alongside it. Moving X, Reddit and the community side to a MarketHQ paid plan is the next step, keeping a separate tool for Instagram, which MarketHQ does not cover.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best social listening tool overall?

It depends what you need tracked. MarketHQ is the pick if AI-answer visibility and an action plan matter alongside social. Brandwatch and Sprout Social suit larger teams. Brand24 and Awario are the simplest dedicated listening tools to try.

Is there a free social listening tool?

Start with MarketHQ's free plan, covering news, blogs, forums and a taste of Bluesky with no card required. Among the social-media-first suites here, Agorapulse says you can stay on a free plan after its 30-day trial; the others start with a trial or a quote.

Which social listening tools also track AI assistants?

MarketHQ runs a weekly check against ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek on every paid plan. Brand24 sells a separate AI Visibility module and Talkwalker lists LLM Insights. The other suites in this list make no published claim about AI-answer tracking.

Do social listening tools cover Reddit and Hacker News?

Most cover Reddit; almost none list Hacker News or GitHub. MarketHQ lists Hacker News and GitHub in its wider source list and adds Reddit on paid plans.

Is social listening the same as social media management?

No. Listening is about finding and understanding mentions; management is about publishing and scheduling posts. Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Agorapulse do both, with listening as one feature. Brand24, Awario and MarketHQ are listening-first and do not list a scheduling tool.

How was this list put together?

Every tool was checked on its own site in October 2026 and included only where the vendor states what it monitors. Prices and source lists shown per tool come from our vendor directory, not a hand-typed number. No placement was paid for; MarketHQ is our own product.

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Sources

  • Brand24 one-liner and sources: https://brand24.com (verified 2026-10-08)
  • Awario one-liner and sources: https://awario.com (verified 2026-10-08)
  • Brandwatch one-liner and sources: https://www.brandwatch.com (verified 2026-10-08)
  • Sprout Social one-liner and sources: https://sproutsocial.com (verified 2026-10-08)
  • Mention one-liner and sources: https://mention.com (verified 2026-10-08)
  • Hootsuite one-liner and sources: https://www.hootsuite.com (verified 2026-10-08)
  • Talkwalker one-liner and sources: https://www.talkwalker.com (verified 2026-10-08)
  • Agorapulse pricing: https://www.agorapulse.com/pricing/ (verified 2026-10-08)