Meltwater
Meltwater is a comprehensive media intelligence platform that helps you monitor online news and social media conversations to manage your brand reputation and analyze market trends effectively.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a comprehensive social media management platform that helps you manage engagement, publishing, analytics, and listening across all your social channels from a single, centralized dashboard.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Meltwater | Sprout Social |
|---|---|---|
| Website | meltwater.com | sproutsocial.com |
| Pricing Model | Custom | Subscription |
| Starting Price | Custom Pricing | $249/month |
| FREE Trial | ✘ No free trial | ✓ 30 days free trial |
| Free Plan | ✘ No free plan | ✘ No free plan |
| Product Demo | ✓ Request demo here | ✓ Request demo here |
| Deployment | ||
| Integrations | ||
| Target Users | ||
| Target Industries | ||
| Customer Count | 0 | 0 |
| Founded Year | 2001 | 2010 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, USA | Chicago, USA |
Overview
Meltwater
Meltwater helps you stay on top of your brand's digital presence by monitoring millions of sources across online news, social media, print, and broadcast. You can track mentions of your company, competitors, and industry keywords in real-time to understand public sentiment and identify emerging trends before they go viral.
The platform simplifies complex data by providing visual reports and automated alerts, allowing you to measure the impact of your PR and marketing campaigns. Whether you are managing a global brand or a growing agency, you can use these insights to engage with influencers, distribute press releases, and make data-driven decisions to protect your reputation.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a centralized platform designed to help you manage every aspect of your social media presence. Instead of jumping between different apps, you can handle engagement, publishing, and reporting from one unified smart inbox. It helps you build stronger relationships with your audience by ensuring no message falls through the cracks while providing deep insights into what content actually drives results for your brand.
You can use the platform to schedule posts across multiple networks, monitor brand mentions in real-time, and generate presentation-ready reports for your stakeholders. It scales effectively for growing businesses and large enterprises alike, offering a 30-day free trial to let you explore the full suite of automation and listening tools before committing to a paid plan starting at $249 per month.
Overview
Meltwater Features
- Media Monitoring Track your brand mentions across global news sites, blogs, and social media platforms to stay informed in real-time.
- Social Listening Analyze billions of social media conversations to understand customer sentiment and identify what your audience cares about most.
- Influencer Management Find and connect with the right influencers for your brand using a searchable database of millions of global profiles.
- Media Relations Build targeted media lists and distribute press releases directly to journalists to increase your earned media coverage.
- Consumer Insights Deep dive into audience demographics and interests to create more personalized marketing strategies that resonate with your customers.
- Custom Reporting Generate professional, automated reports that visualize your PR performance and share them instantly with your stakeholders.
Sprout Social Features
- Unified Smart Inbox. Streamline your engagement by managing all incoming messages from every social profile in a single, filterable view.
- Shared Content Calendar. Plan and schedule your social posts across multiple networks using a visual calendar to maintain a consistent brand voice.
- Social Listening. Uncover critical consumer insights and industry trends by tracking specific keywords, hashtags, and brand mentions across the web.
- Automated Reporting. Create professional, presentation-ready reports that track your performance and prove the ROI of your social media efforts.
- Employee Advocacy. Empower your team to share curated company content to their own social networks to extend your brand's reach.
- Review Management. Monitor and respond to your business reviews on Facebook, Google My Business, and TripAdvisor directly from your dashboard.
Pricing Comparison
Meltwater Pricing
Sprout Social Pricing
- 5 social profiles
- All-in-one smart inbox
- Publishing and scheduling
- Social content calendar
- Review management
- Mobile app for iOS and Android
- Everything in Standard, plus:
- Unlimited social profiles
- Competitive reports for Instagram
- Custom workflows and tags
- Optimal send times
- Paid social reporting
Pros & Cons
Meltwater
Pros
- Extensive global database covers niche and international sources
- Intuitive dashboard makes complex data easy to visualize
- Excellent customer support with dedicated account managers
- Powerful Boolean search capabilities for precise monitoring
- Integrated platform handles PR and social in one place
Cons
- Steep learning curve for advanced boolean queries
- Pricing is high for small businesses or startups
- Occasional irrelevant results in automated sentiment analysis
Sprout Social
Pros
- Intuitive interface makes onboarding new team members fast
- Excellent reporting tools that look professional for clients
- Smart Inbox simplifies managing high volumes of messages
- Reliable post scheduling and automated optimal timing features
Cons
- Significantly higher starting price than most competitors
- Additional costs for social listening and advocacy modules
- Limited features for smaller teams on the entry tier