# MarketHQ vs Awario: social listening, or AI answers and the web together?

Updated October 2026

Awario turns up on most social-listening shortlists because it publishes its prices, which half of that category refuses to do. It's a fair tool to weigh against us, and a genuinely different one: broad social-mention volume, sold by topic, with no AI-answer tracking named anywhere on its site. Every Awario figure below is dated 1 October 2026 and cited to awario.com.

## Quick answer

MarketHQ checks weekly whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek name you, tracks social, news and blog mentions against your competitors, and turns the gaps into an action plan, from $29 a month. Awario tracks X, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube and the web by topic and mention volume, also from $29 a month, with no AI-answer visibility named on its site. Pick MarketHQ if AI visibility and an action plan matter; pick Awario for consumer-social volume alone.

- Both start around $29 a month, but MarketHQ includes weekly AI-answer visibility; Awario names none.
- MarketHQ turns mentions and AI-answer gaps into an action plan, with chat over your evidence; Awario's outputs are mentions, sentiment, share of mentions and custom reports.
- MarketHQ's tiers differ by tracking capacity only, so API keys, MCP access and AI-answer visibility sit on every paid plan; countries run from 1 on Lite to 10 on Enterprise.

## Why choose MarketHQ instead of Awario?

MarketHQ adds AI-answer visibility, which Awario doesn't track, plus gap analysis and an action plan, for any company tracking its brand and competitors.

Awario is social listening at volume: X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Reddit, sold by topic and mention cap, with no AI-answer visibility feature on its pricing or product pages. MarketHQ covers the same kind of social and web mentions and adds a weekly check of six AI assistants, with public communities as one part of the source list.

The output differs too. MarketHQ sends a grouped Slack daily digest, surfaces gap analysis with an action plan across mentions and AI answers together, and keeps API and MCP access on every paid plan from Lite at $29.

Choose Awario if consumer-social volume alone is the job. Choose MarketHQ if AI-answer visibility, gap analysis and an action plan matter too.

## What sources does MarketHQ cover?

Every plan: Hacker News, GitHub, RSS, Stack Overflow, Dev.to, Lobsters, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Perplexity, 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
- 4-day trial on Lite and Startup, charged on day 4
- Free one-time check, no account needed

## Awario values read from awario.com/pricing, checked 1 October 2026.

| Feature | MarketHQ | Awario |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Entry paid price | Lite, $29 a month, with a 4-day trial | Starter, $49 a month billed monthly, or $29 a month billed annually |
| Higher tiers | Startup $99, Growth $199 a month | Pro $149 monthly or $89 annually; Enterprise $399 or $249 |
| Free plan | No free plan; a 4-day trial on Lite and Startup, charged on day 4 | None published; the free option is a trial of the Starter plan |
| Trial | 4 days free on Lite and Startup | Free Starter access with up to 3 alerts and 30,000 mentions, no card; no duration stated |
| Sources watched | Social, news and blogs on every plan, from Lite, including Reddit, blogs, forums, RSS feeds you add and Bluesky | X, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, blogs, forums, news and the web |
| Public communities named | Yes, as one part of the overall source list | Reddit only; GitHub, Hacker News, Stack Overflow, Dev.to and Lobsters are not named |
| AI-answer visibility | Weekly check across six AI assistants, included on every paid plan | Not listed on Awario's pricing page or product pages |
| Gap analysis and action plans | What buyers ask for that you lack, and one move per gap | Not listed; outputs are mentions, sentiment, share of mentions and custom reports |
| Best fit | Any company that wants AI-answer visibility, gap analysis and an action plan alongside social | Teams that want consumer-social volume and sentiment reporting only |

## What is Awario?

Awario is a social-listening tool: you create topics, it collects mentions from social networks, blogs, forums, news and the web, and it reports sentiment, share of mentions and leads.

Its own pages list X, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, blogs, forums, news and the web as sources, with over 13 billion web pages crawled daily. It also offers Boolean search, location-based monitoring, sentiment, a topic cloud, custom reports, lead finding, a Slack integration and a social-listening API.

Plans are sold by capacity. Starter, at $49 a month billed monthly or $29 billed annually, gives 3 topics, unlimited keywords per topic, 30,000 mentions a month and 1 team member. Pro is $149 or $89 with 15 topics; Enterprise is $399 or $249 with 100 topics.

## Does Awario track AI-answer visibility?

No. Awario's pricing page and product pages list no AI-visibility or AI-answer tracking feature.

Awario's analysis is retrospective and quantitative: how many mentions, what sentiment, what share of the conversation, which posts look like leads. That's a real job, and for a brand focused purely on social it covers most of the job.

What it doesn't answer is whether an AI assistant recommends you or a competitor when someone asks a buying question directly. MarketHQ checks that weekly on every paid plan and feeds the result into the same gap analysis as the rest of your mentions.

## Which covers public communities like Hacker News and GitHub?

MarketHQ, by a wide margin. Reddit is the only developer-adjacent community Awario names anywhere on its site.

GitHub, Hacker News, Stack Overflow, Dev.to and Lobsters don't appear in Awario's source list or navigation. Awario sells to teams watching consumer social broadly, where those communities are a smaller piece of the picture.

If your buyers' research happens partly in public communities, MarketHQ covers that ground as one source alongside social, news and AI answers, then turns what it finds into gap analysis and an action plan.

## How do the two prices actually compare?

They meet at $29 a month, but only if you pay Awario a year up front; billed monthly, Awario Starter is $49 against our $29.

Awario gates capacity rather than features: Starter's 3 topics, 30,000 mentions and single seat are the constraint, and the way out is Pro at $149 monthly or $89 annually. Keywords per topic are unlimited at every tier.

MarketHQ gates capacity only. Every paid plan from Lite up includes API keys, MCP access, the Slack digest and the weekly AI-visibility check. Awario includes none of those at any tier.

## Where does Awario win?

Awario wins on consumer-social volume and sentiment reporting at scale. Choose MarketHQ when AI-answer visibility, gap analysis and an action plan are part of the picture too.

If your audience is primarily on Instagram, Facebook or broad social volume, Awario's unlimited keywords per topic and sentiment reports are built for exactly that, and Awario's free Starter trial with no credit card is more convenient than our free trial.

MarketHQ wins when AI-answer visibility or an action plan matters: checked weekly on every paid plan from Lite at $29, alongside social, news and blog monitoring.

- Choose Awario if your audience is on Instagram, Facebook or Vimeo, which MarketHQ doesn't cover.
- Choose Awario if volume-based sentiment and share-of-mentions reporting is what your team needs.
- Choose Awario if the free Starter trial with no credit card is more convenient than a paid trial.

## FAQ

### How much does Awario cost?

Awario publishes three plans, as of October 2026: Starter at $49 a month billed monthly or $29 billed annually, Pro at $149 or $89, and Enterprise at $399 or $249. The tiers differ by topics, monthly mentions, stored mentions per topic and team members.

### Does Awario have a free plan?

MarketHQ has no free plan, and neither does Awario: it offers a trial with Starter-level access (up to 3 alerts and 30,000 mentions), no card, with trial length unstated on the pricing page. MarketHQ's own trial needs a card and runs 4 days on Lite and Startup, charged on day 4.

### Does Awario monitor GitHub, Hacker News or Stack Overflow?

MarketHQ covers public communities, GitHub and Hacker News among them, alongside social, news and blogs. Awario lists X, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, blogs, forums, news and the web, so Reddit is its only developer-adjacent community.

### Does Awario track AI-answer visibility?

MarketHQ checks weekly across six AI assistants on every paid plan and feeds the result into a gap analysis with an action plan. Awario's pricing and product pages list no AI-visibility or AI-answer tracking.

## Related

- [MarketHQ vs Mention](https://markethq.ai/compare/markethq-vs-mention) — the comparison against a tool that moved to enterprise-only pricing
- [MarketHQ vs Peec AI](https://markethq.ai/compare/markethq-vs-peec) — the comparison against a tool that tracks AI answers only, no social coverage
- [All comparisons](https://markethq.ai/compare) — every head-to-head we verified
- [Pricing](https://markethq.ai/pricing) — what the four MarketHQ tiers cost

## Sources

- Awario pricing: https://awario.com/pricing/ (verified 2026-10-01)
- Awario home page: https://awario.com/ (verified 2026-10-01)