Best social listening tools for small business
Updated October 2026
A small business does not need an enterprise listening suite; it needs to know when someone mentions it online, at a price that does not require a budget meeting. This category has a wide spread between genuinely free tools and ones that only look free until the trial ends, and between tools built for personal use and tools a business can rely on. This page sorts out which is which, using only what each vendor publishes, and says plainly where a free tool covers only a narrow slice of the places customers talk.
Quick answer
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. Social networks, labelled mentions and AI answers start on paid plans from $29 a month. Google Alerts, Talkwalker Alerts and Social Searcher are free for simple web and social lookups, and F5Bot and Awario cover communities and the wider web.
Key points
- MarketHQ's free plan covers news, blogs, forums and a taste of Bluesky, with a Slack digest, no card and no end date.
- MarketHQ's first paid step is Lite at $29 a month, with a $0.99 7-day trial; F5Bot's paid tiers start at $9.99 a month for Silver.
- Google Alerts, Talkwalker Alerts and Social Searcher are free, but their vendor pages describe alerts or search, with no AI-answer tracking or gap analysis.
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.
- 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 on its own pricing page in October 2026 and included only if it publishes a free option or an entry price under $100 a month. Prices are quoted as published. Pricing, free plans and source coverage render live from our verified vendor records. Ordering reflects fit for a small business budget, not market share. MarketHQ is our own product and is listed first because this is our page.
MarketHQ
A free plan covering news, blogs, forums and a taste of Bluesky, for your brand, 2 competitors and 3 keywords, with a grouped Slack digest, no card and no end date. Social networks, labelled mentions, Reddit, X, LinkedIn, a weekly check of six AI engines and a gap analysis with an action plan arrive on paid plans from $29 a month.
- Best for
- A small business that wants more than an email alert, for free, with room to grow into AI-answer tracking.
- 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
F5Bot
A minimal keyword-alert bot that emails you when your terms appear on Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters, with Slack and Discord delivery. The free tier is for personal use only, and paid tiers start at $9.99 a month.
- Best for
- A small business that wants an email when its name comes up on Reddit or Hacker News and is happy to pay for a paid tier.
- Pricing
- From $0/mo
- Sources covered
- Reddit, Hacker News, Lobsters
- AI visibility
- Unknown
Google Alerts
A free Google tool that emails notifications when new web content matches a chosen search term. We found no payment flow, pricing page or paid tiers on the site.
- Best for
- A small business tracking press and blog mentions with zero budget and zero setup.
- Pricing
- From $0/mo
- Sources covered
- Not published
- AI visibility
- Unknown
Talkwalker Alerts
A free email-alert tool from Talkwalker for brands, topics and competitors, with Boolean queries and delivery by email, RSS or Slack. The alerts tool itself has no paid tier.
- Best for
- A small business that wants a second free alert source alongside Google Alerts.
- Pricing
- From $0/mo
- Sources covered
- Blogs, Forums, websites, social
- AI visibility
- Unknown
Awario
Crawls billions of web pages a day for brand mentions. The Starter plan is $49 a month, or $29 billed annually, and carries a free trial with no charge if you do not upgrade.
- Best for
- A small business that wants to test broad web-mention coverage before committing to a paid plan.
- Pricing
- From $49/mo
- Sources covered
- X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, blogs, forums, news, the web
- AI visibility
- Unknown
Social Searcher
A free social media search engine for looking up public mentions, hashtags and profiles by keyword, with unlimited free searches and no registration required.
- Best for
- A quick, no-signup check of what is being said about a brand right now.
- Pricing
- Not publicly published
- Sources covered
- Not published
- AI visibility
- Unknown
Zoho Social
Part of the Zoho suite, with scheduling, publishing and monitoring, AI-suggested posting times and lead capture. A 15-day trial needs no card, and its pricing page lists a Free plan alongside paid tiers.
- Best for
- A small business already using other Zoho apps that wants social monitoring in the same ecosystem.
- Pricing
- From $0/mo
- Sources covered
- Not published
- AI visibility
- Unknown
Which of these tools are actually free, not just trial-free?
MarketHQ, Google Alerts, Talkwalker Alerts and Social Searcher's basic search are free on an ongoing basis; F5Bot's free tier is for personal use; Awario and Zoho Social lead with trials.
Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts have no paid tier for their core alert product. Social Searcher's basic search needs no registration or payment. MarketHQ's free plan has no card requirement and no end date, covering news, blog and forum monitoring plus a taste of Bluesky indefinitely, not just during a trial window, with caps of 2 competitors and 3 keywords.
F5Bot's free tier is marked for personal use only, so a business should plan on a paid tier, starting at $9.99 a month. Awario's free trial on Starter charges nothing if you do not upgrade, and Zoho Social lists a 15-day trial and a Free plan; its paid USD amounts are region-based and not shown as static figures.
What should a small business budget for when it outgrows free alerts?
Expect $9.99 to $49 a month for the first paid step, depending on how much the business needs beyond a basic email alert.
F5Bot's Silver tier is $9.99 a month for the smallest jump beyond its free plan, with Gold at $49.99. MarketHQ's Lite plan is $29 a month and adds the weekly AI-answer check across six assistants, a gap analysis and paid lanes such as Reddit, which free alerts and keyword bots do not list. Awario's Starter plan is $49 a month billed monthly, or $29 billed annually.
Zoho Social and Social Searcher do not publish a clear paid-tier price for monitoring specifically; Zoho's paid tiers are region-priced and rendered dynamically, and Social Searcher lists no public pricing.
Do any free or cheap tools track AI assistant answers?
Among the tools here, only MarketHQ lists an AI-answer check, and it runs on paid plans starting at $29 a month.
The vendor pages for Google Alerts, Talkwalker Alerts, Social Searcher, F5Bot, Awario and Zoho Social describe web, social or forum alerts and search, with no check of how ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity answer questions about a brand. They were built for alerts well before assistant answers became a visibility channel worth tracking.
MarketHQ's free plan focuses on news, blogs, forums and competitors. The Lite plan is where the AI-answer check starts: weekly, across six named engines, which makes it the lowest-priced way into that capability among the tools listed here.
What is the difference between an email alert and a listening tool?
An alert tells you something was said; a listening tool helps you decide whether it matters and what to do about it.
Google Alerts, Talkwalker Alerts and F5Bot do one job: they notice a keyword match and deliver it. Talkwalker Alerts offers Boolean queries and delivery by email, RSS or Slack, and F5Bot adds AI filtering. For a one-person business checking a few keywords a week, that is often enough, and it costs little or nothing.
The gap shows up once volume rises past what one person reads comfortably, or once the question stops being whether anyone mentioned you and becomes whether to respond and what to say. MarketHQ groups mentions into a daily digest instead of a raw stream and offers drafted replies built from your own strengths, so the step from noticing to acting takes less time than writing from scratch.
Is it worth running more than one free tool at once?
Yes, for many small businesses, since the free tools here cover different places and cost nothing to combine.
Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts watch the web for new content that matches a search term. F5Bot covers Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters. Running more than one costs little and covers more ground than any alone, which is an advantage of this category's generous free options.
MarketHQ's free plan sits across news, blogs and forums, in one dashboard with one digest instead of several inboxes to check. A small business starting from zero can begin there and add F5Bot or Google Alerts only if a specific source matters enough to want a dedicated second check.
When does a small business need more than the free tools here?
Once competitors show up in the mentions, or once a customer asks about AI assistants, since the free alert tools do not answer either question directly.
Free alerts tell you your name was mentioned; they do not tell you a competitor was recommended instead, in the same thread. That is a gap analysis question, not an alert question, and none of the free or near-free tools on this page attempts it. It is also the point where a $29-a-month plan starts to earn its place.
The second trigger is simpler to spot: a customer or investor asks whether the business shows up when they ask ChatGPT for a recommendation in the category. The alert tools here list no way to answer that. MarketHQ's Lite plan is the lowest-cost route listed here, and a business can keep whichever free tool it was already using alongside it.
What might a one-person online shop run?
Probably a free alert tool and MarketHQ's free plan, moving to Lite once a customer mentions asking an assistant. The scenario below is illustrative, not measured.
Illustrative: the owner of a small online shop sets up Google Alerts for the shop's name and MarketHQ's free plan to watch news, blogs and forums for the name and two competitors, reading one daily digest.
A few months later a customer says they asked ChatGPT for shop recommendations and a competitor was named. The owner takes the $0.99 7-day trial of MarketHQ Lite, sees the weekly check across six assistants, and reads the gap analysis before deciding whether to keep it at $29 a month.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best completely free tool for a small business to monitor mentions?
MarketHQ: its free plan covers news, blogs, forums and a taste of Bluesky with a Slack digest, no card and no end date. Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts are also free for web mentions, and Social Searcher offers free social search. Combine them for broader free coverage.
Is F5Bot good enough for a small business on its own?
For a few keywords on Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters, yes, though its free tier is marked for personal use only and paid tiers start at $9.99 a month. It does not cover news or blogs, so pair it with Google Alerts or MarketHQ's free plan.
How much should a small business expect to pay once free alerts are not enough?
MarketHQ Lite is $29 a month and adds social networks, labelled mentions, Reddit, a weekly check of six AI engines and a gap analysis. F5Bot's Silver tier starts at $9.99 a month for more keywords, and Awario's Starter is $49 a month, or $29 billed annually.
Do any free social listening tools track AI assistant answers?
MarketHQ's Lite plan at $29 a month adds weekly tracking of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek. No free plan on this list lists that check; the free tools describe alerts or search.
How was this list put together?
Every tool was checked on its own pricing page in October 2026 and included only if it publishes a free option or an entry price under $100 a month. Prices are quoted as published. MarketHQ is our own product and is listed first.
Related
- MarketHQ vs F5Bot — a keyword bot versus a free tier with a path to AI-answer tracking
- MarketHQ vs Google Alerts — the two fully free options compared directly
- MarketHQ vs Awario — an ongoing free tier versus a time-limited trial
- Best brand monitoring tools for small business — the same budget question across a wider tool set
- Best social listening tools for agencies — the same category for multi-client budgets
- All category guides — every list we judged the same way
- Pricing — what MarketHQ's own tiers cost
Sources
- F5Bot plans: https://f5bot.com/tiers (verified 2026-10-08)
- Google Alerts: https://www.google.com/alerts (verified 2026-10-08)
- Talkwalker Alerts: https://www.talkwalker.com/alerts (verified 2026-10-08)
- Awario pricing: https://awario.com/pricing/ (verified 2026-10-08)
- Social Searcher home page: https://www.social-searcher.com (verified 2026-10-08)
- Zoho Social pricing: https://www.zoho.com/social/pricing/ (verified 2026-10-08)