Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Hootsuite
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Hootsuite is a social media management platform for building brand awareness, engaging with customers, and driving business results. Users can schedule posts across multiple social networks (including Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube ), manage organic and paid social content together, keep track of customer conversations, integrate with over 200+ applications, and gain actionable real-time insights from social media to make critical business decisions from…
$99
per month
Meltwater
Score 6.6 out of 10
N/A
Meltwater Media Intelligence platform is a set of public relations software tools for media monitoring, social media monitoring, and collecting brand insights. The four areas of functionality are Monitor, Analyze, Distribute, and Engage. (Note that this product combines features from the vendor Meltwater's former Buzz, Press, and News products.)N/A
Pricing
HootsuiteMeltwater
Editions & Modules
Professional
$99
per month
Team
$249
per month
Business
$739
per month
Enterprise
Contact for Pricing
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HootsuiteMeltwater
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details*Prices displayed in USD, based on annual billing, but do not include applicable taxes. Free - 1 user / 2 social accounts Professional @ $99/month - 1 user / 10 social accounts Team @ $249/month - 3 users / 20 social accounts Business - starting @ $739/month - 5 users / 35 social accounts Enterprise - contact for pricing, unlimited users / 50+ social accounts
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HootsuiteMeltwater
Considered Both Products
Hootsuite
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite's ability to post to all the channels we need is far above what Meltwater offered. Hootsuite also goes above and beyond in the category of analytics too. Hootsuite's custom report is far more detailed and easily digestible than Meltwater's. I would say that Hootsuite …
Chose Hootsuite
We actually use Hootsuite's classroom program along with Meltwater and Google Analytics. By selecting Hootsuite in concert with either Meltwater or Brandwatch, and (at times) Facebook Insights, students can get the real-world feeling of how brands and businesses choose the …
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite is better at creating and scheduling content. Meltwater is better at social monitoring and listening.
Chose Hootsuite
Meltwater is much more expensive, however, it provides vast more analytics than Hootsuite. Meltwater is excellent for really large corporations that have someone dedicated to analytics all the time.
Chose Hootsuite
We used it in testing, but it seems to be more robust because of social listening capabilities.
Chose Hootsuite
Tried Meltwater Buzz / Jitterjam, Sysomos and Sprout Social.
Use HootSuite Enterprise to listen and engage with Facebook and Twitter profiles only.
Currently using HootSuite Enterprise in conjunction with Radian6 and Simply Measured for analytics.
Meltwater
Chose Meltwater
They are both similar and different. Similar in that they provide analytics, but different in the type of analytics and tracking. I thnk that I enjoy Hootsuite a little more than Meltwater because it was easier to use. This probably stemmed from the fact that it was just a …
Chose Meltwater
The only other monitoring services I have used live within social media channels including Facebook analytics, Twitter analytics and Instagram analytics. I also use Hootsuite to manage and monitor all social channels almost exclusively. These are simple programs, that can be …
Chose Meltwater
While we use Google and Hootsuite as part of our class education, Meltwater's platform is our go-to every semester. Meltwater provides a dashboard that makes it easy for the new and/or experienced user to understand the data, share it with a class or group, and offers room for …
Chose Meltwater
Meltwater serves as an all-in-one platform, so it has benefitted us greatly in being able to service a variety of needs in one place. Having a streamlined platform is important to our team since it can feel counterproductive to visit a variety of products to service one …
Chose Meltwater
I have tried several platforms but continue coming back to Meltwater. Even though we are a national company, I like the global reach that Meltwater offers.
Chose Meltwater
Meltwater is the most expensive option with the worst customer service. Terrible experience.
Chose Meltwater
We have yet to use other platforms as a comparison.
Chose Meltwater
We love Meltwater for all the extra features, with the abilities to customize. A lot of other PR software doesn't allow for that kind of drill-down, so I really appreciate that from Meltwater.
Chose Meltwater
I feel that the Meltwater platform is much more user-friendly and Meltwater's customer service was superbly higher than that of Cision's.

Note: my experience with Cision was more than 3 years ago.
Chose Meltwater
Very reliable and easy to use for a great price!
Chose Meltwater
You can't customize your email templates as well as in Constant Contact or MailChimp. The analytics with meltwater are a great way to see what types of journalists are opening your press releases, instead of just an email address. Also, with the other two, you need to have a …
Chose Meltwater
I have only ever used Hootsuite previously for social media planning and scheduling but that did not allow for listening or analysis options so can't really be compared.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
HootsuiteMeltwater
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.6
262 Ratings
1% below category average
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Boolean keyword searches7.4178 Ratings00 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam7.0186 Ratings00 Ratings
Sentiment analysis7.4180 Ratings00 Ratings
Broad channel coverage8.3245 Ratings00 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.3
368 Ratings
5% above category average
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Content planning and scheduling8.9367 Ratings00 Ratings
Audience targeting8.1252 Ratings00 Ratings
Content optimization7.8300 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow management8.2309 Ratings00 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.8
295 Ratings
3% below category average
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Automated routing and prioritization7.7213 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer interaction histories7.6230 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk actions8.0253 Ratings00 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.4
285 Ratings
3% below category average
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Lead generation6.6171 Ratings00 Ratings
Content marketing7.8255 Ratings00 Ratings
Paid media management7.5170 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions7.8218 Ratings00 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.6
364 Ratings
1% above category average
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Twitter8.9333 Ratings00 Ratings
Facebook9.1348 Ratings00 Ratings
LinkedIn8.7304 Ratings00 Ratings
Google+8.960 Ratings00 Ratings
Instagram8.6307 Ratings00 Ratings
Pinterest8.2158 Ratings00 Ratings
YouTube8.2145 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.8
292 Ratings
1% below category average
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Campaign success analytics7.8268 Ratings00 Ratings
Real-time tracking7.9269 Ratings00 Ratings
Competitor analysis7.7182 Ratings00 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.1
304 Ratings
1% below category average
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions & privileges8.4257 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile access7.9282 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HootsuiteMeltwater
Small Businesses
Conte.ai
Conte.ai
Score 1.6 out of 10
Cision Communications Cloud
Cision Communications Cloud
Score 7.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
Cision Communications Cloud
Cision Communications Cloud
Score 7.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
Cision Communications Cloud
Cision Communications Cloud
Score 7.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HootsuiteMeltwater
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(427 ratings)
5.7
(71 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(89 ratings)
8.0
(9 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(65 ratings)
2.2
(3 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(21 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
9.5
(19 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.4
(264 ratings)
7.5
(28 ratings)
In-Person Training
6.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(17 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.1
(39 ratings)
6.1
(2 ratings)
Configurability
7.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.5
(3 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.3
(18 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
HootsuiteMeltwater
Likelihood to Recommend
Hootsuite
I really like that I can just go into hootsuite, connect all the our social channels and be able to have a great overview on what our social feeds look like. It's super handy not having to spend time going into each social platform to do the same post, and I can spend one day scheduling out that month's social plan. I much prefer sorting out boosting post from Hootsuite, the only downside is that they have a limit to what you can boost a month so a lot of the time I have to grin and bear it and use Meta Business Suite instead for boosting posts.
Read full review
Meltwater
Meltwater is well-suited for agencies that have an engagement team who is looking to service a variety of client needs such as social media reporting, public relations outreach, and community management. If you're looking to have a platform serve just one need, you can still use Meltwater but will get more bang for your buck if you are needing a variety of tools.
Read full review
Pros
Hootsuite
  • Scheduling of content. The ease of use for Hootsuite's planner abilities is top of the industry. It is simple and effective in posting content to different channels and accounts.
  • Analytics are superior on Hootsuite. Their custom reports allow you to view very specific KPI's that you can adjust for each channel or account. The reports are also exportable to be used for others in the company.
  • Inbox management. The inbox manager is superior to any in the industry. Hootsuite allows you to tag certain phrases or keywords to better filter messages based on importance or topic.
Read full review
Meltwater
  • Media research - you can search for relevant publications and journalists to add to your media list.
  • Earned media coverage - you can search for coverage of your brand and find news stories that also include data that may be useful (how many people did the story reach for example).
  • Building media lists - if you have no current existing list, you can build and export one in Excel for example.
Read full review
Cons
Hootsuite
  • Because of the way algorithms works, we would have loved to be able to automate making a post with no link and posting the first comment with a link (hello LinkedIn)
  • We would have loved an easy way to post from a main account and repost the post for other accounts we administrate, for instance a corporate post reposted by individuals for LinkedIn, or retweets from one main account by child accounts
Read full review
Meltwater
  • The dashboards are not user-friendly, customizable (color, font size, etc.), or worthy of presenting to a client. All of the insights from a dashboard get pulled from the platform and placed into a more client-friendly presentation.
  • Paywalls for certain publications connected to who-knows-what. DowJones racket limits media monitoring capabilities and results in manual searches for a growing number of publications.
  • TVeyes, the broadcast monitoring arm of the media monitoring capabilities, just needs TLC and to become more client-facing. Currently, the links produced to share clips look sketchy, and they have a relatively short shelf life.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Hootsuite
At this time we are satisfied that Hootsuite offers the most of what we are looking for at the most reasonable price point. As the social media landscape and monitoring/scheduling software changes, so do our needs. We re-evaluate our tools semi-annually or as new tools emerge onto the market. If we find at any point that we aren't gaining an advantage, then we are open to switching products.
Read full review
Meltwater
Meltwater works well for our organization and has allowed us to meet our internal goals. We are always open to new products and services that may be able to provide similar or better features; however, our experience has been that many of Meltwater's competitors are not up to the task.
Read full review
Usability
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is probably the easiest to use social media scheduler of all the ones that I've used. It's been easy to teach clients how to use the software themselves and it can be accessed easily on anyone's phone through their mobile app. Highly recommend for anyone that wants a software that is easy to learn!
Read full review
Meltwater
Once you get some basic training it's pretty easy to use. I would like to see training manuals, or instructional videos to help me explore features I'm not currently using.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Hootsuite
Any outages are communicated in advance and have not been a problem. We let our clients know based on communications from HootSuite. Since we operate 24/7 with multiple shifts, planned outages can interfere with our operations, but we can always work around it.
Read full review
Meltwater
No answers on this topic
Performance
Hootsuite
Hootsuite makes passing on articles from the web very easy- when it works! I have had a number of gliches with Chrome where it does not open properly and the solution (after some toing and froing with support) was to uninstall and reinstall. The support staff are always very helpful (which is great!) but the gliches..... well, they suck when you are already busy!
Read full review
Meltwater
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Hootsuite
I can manage all of my accounts on one site! It's absolutely amazing!
The dashboard is helpful to see how you are doing as well. Still
getting to understand the analytics and may need to reach out for help
on this
Read full review
Meltwater
Our account rep at Meltwater went dark for a long time. Then, a couple of weeks ago, our new account manager reached out to set up a meeting. Apparently, they had a big shakeup in the company, and there were some personnel changes. Our new account rep was great in discussing the platform's capabilities that were available to us and even offered to schedule a follow-up meeting with his technical team to introduce our new social media team members to the platform and how it could help them with their jobs.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Hootsuite
Very easy to teach and learn
Read full review
Meltwater
Again, really in-depth and helpful for a program that is really easy to use.
Read full review
Online Training
Hootsuite
The online training is decent; however, it takes a lot more time to search for answers to my questions. Having a training session with a live person was much more effective as they were able to quickly address the business needs I have.
Read full review
Meltwater
Walked step by step through program. Very informative on a program that doesn't require much training.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Hootsuite
• Combination of vendor and internal. The vendor bumped up our account to the Enterprise version (quite simple and easy) and then set up our organization and team structure. We then had to log in and set up team members and assign members to social media accounts. This was pretty easy to do as they have a great user interface. We simply had to drag and drop people into the correct team giving them access to specific social media accounts.
Read full review
Meltwater
You are only allowed 15 users, so make sure you've identified who will have access to use the tool.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Hootsuite
Hootsuite's free account was sufficient for use on behalf of our client. When they restructured their pricing model and eliminated free and affordable subscriptions suitable for a small business, we found that Zoho Social was an excellent replacement. The interface was simpler and the pricing was affordable and suitable for a small business.
Read full review
Meltwater
I was looking for a full-service option. I did some research. What really sold me was the presentation. They offered products that were helpful, and I wasn’t even aware of them. It is more expensive than the other products that are out there, but you get more. The other companies are good, but Meltwater Media Intelligence is more full service.
Read full review
Scalability
Hootsuite
We are only using in marketing and have been able to scale.
Read full review
Meltwater
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Hootsuite
  • I have been able to evaluate which posts, in general, do well and figure out what types of posts to make (content)
  • It's been harder however to compare on social medial platform compared to another because it's hard to duplicate a post with a new owly (I think you used to be able to) but more so, you also can't assign it a custom owly link so I can see at a glance which owly link was associated with what platform.
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Meltwater
  • As a PR firm, we rely on the media databases that [Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform] supplies to deliver the media exposure that they expect from us.
  • We utilize their tracking of media hits for our overall reporting to our clients.
  • Both of these are advantageous in helping us to not only keep our existing clients happy but also to gain new clients (and, in turn - revenue), as well.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Hootsuite Screenshots

Screenshot of Monitoring: Monitors social media profiles in one place and tracks the topics that matter to the brand.Screenshot of Publishing: Create, publish and schedule engaging posts across social channels.Screenshot of Customer Engagement: A consolidated stream of messages across networks that can be triaged and assigned to respond to customers faster. Provides optional chatbot handover for automated responses.Screenshot of Scheduling: Social content can be planned as a team with a shared calendar that features collaborative post drafts and built-in approval workflows.Screenshot of Analytics & Reporting: Measures the effectiveness of a social media strategy to help turn strategy into execution with meaningful and actionable insights. Reports can be customized and shared according to unique business goals and objectives.Screenshot of Best Time to Publish: Helps to find the best time to publish so posts are seen more often by fans and followers.