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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Meltwater

    Score7.6 out of 10
    N/AMeltwater 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

    Sprout Social

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/ASprout Social provides social media management, marketing, customer care, data and intelligence, and employee advocacy solutions for brands and agencies, including Ticketmaster, Chipotle, Grubhub, Subaru, and Zendesk. Sprout’s platform is used to simplify social publishing, engagement, reviews, analytics and listening for customers. Sprout also provides customer success and technical support, to deliver consistent value to all users. Any organization, regardless of size or industry, receives…

    $249

    per month per user

    Pricing
    MeltwaterSprout Social
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Essentials
    $79 per seat/per month annual / $99 per seat/per month monthly
    Standard
    $199 annual / $249 monthly
    per user/per month
    Professional
    $299 annual / $399 monthly
    per user/per month
    Advanced
    $399 annual / $499 monthly
    per user/per month
    Free Trial
    Free
    for 30 days
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    MeltwaterSprout Social
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    MeltwaterSprout Social
    Considered Both Products
    Meltwater
    Chose Meltwater
    Cision and LexisNexis are better for accessing articles behind paywalls. I've found that social-specific tools like Sprout Social or Sprinklr seem to be better for monitoring social media mentions. However, Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform may have upped its "social game" …
    Incentivized
    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 …
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Chose Meltwater
    Very reliable and easy to use for a great price!
    Incentivized
    Sprout Social
    Chose Sprout Social
    We previously used Meltwater and Sprout Social was more intuitive to use. It was also less expensive.
    Incentivized
    Chose Sprout Social
    Sprout Social is overall an easier platform to use, understand, train on and be trained on than Meltwater. While I do think that Meltwater has listening tools at a higher level than Sprout Social, every other aspect of the platform is harder to use and not as intuitive or …
    Incentivized
    Chose Sprout Social
    Prefer Meltwater social listening functionality but prefer sprout's reporting and publishing
    Incentivized
    Chose Sprout Social
    I selected Sprout because it was more comprehensive in everything we needed. We previously used Meltwater and it was fine for posting and analytics, but we weren't able to see everything we posted in the calendar view like we can with Sprout. Even if we posted in the native …
    Incentivized
    Chose Sprout Social
    I think Sprout Social is much better. In my opinion, it is superior in its functions and user experience. I have also enjoyed the trainings and webinars a bit more here.
    Incentivized
    Chose Sprout Social
    We have used Hootsuite in the past and we prefer Sprout Social because it's easier to use, more intuitive and visually appealing, provides more robust analytics, and is better organized so we can find things more easily.
    Incentivized
    Chose Sprout Social
    Meltwater buzz Spreadfast Radian6
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    63%
    Would buy again
    20 Answers
    94%
    Would buy again
    106 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    62%
    Delivers good value for the price
    16 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    93 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    69%
    Happy with the feature set
    22 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    108 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    63%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    15 Answers
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    81%
    Implementation went as expected
    22 Answers
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    92 Answers
    Features
    MeltwaterSprout Social
    Listening/monitoring
    Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Meltwater and Sprout Social
    Feature
    Meltwater
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    7.2
    114 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Boolean keyword searches00 Ratings6.980 Ratings
    Filtering out noise/spam00 Ratings7.196 Ratings
    Sentiment analysis00 Ratings7.077 Ratings
    Broad channel coverage00 Ratings8.090 Ratings
    Publishing
    Comparison of Publishing features of Meltwater and Sprout Social
    Feature
    Meltwater
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    8.2
    145 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Content planning and scheduling00 Ratings9.2145 Ratings
    Audience targeting00 Ratings7.2110 Ratings
    Content optimization00 Ratings8.2126 Ratings
    Workflow management00 Ratings8.4126 Ratings
    Engagement
    Comparison of Engagement features of Meltwater and Sprout Social
    Feature
    Meltwater
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    7.9
    132 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Automated routing and prioritization00 Ratings7.687 Ratings
    Customer interaction histories00 Ratings8.1116 Ratings
    Bulk actions00 Ratings8.1115 Ratings
    Marketing
    Comparison of Marketing features of Meltwater and Sprout Social
    Feature
    Meltwater
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    7.1
    96 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Lead generation00 Ratings6.869 Ratings
    Content marketing00 Ratings8.192 Ratings
    Paid media management00 Ratings6.23 Ratings
    Campaigns and promotions00 Ratings7.24 Ratings
    Channel coverage/integration
    Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Meltwater and Sprout Social
    Feature
    Meltwater
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    8.4
    144 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Twitter00 Ratings8.8126 Ratings
    Facebook00 Ratings8.7143 Ratings
    LinkedIn00 Ratings8.6130 Ratings
    Google+00 Ratings7.846 Ratings
    Instagram00 Ratings8.6132 Ratings
    Pinterest00 Ratings8.246 Ratings
    YouTube00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Reporting/analytics
    Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Meltwater and Sprout Social
    Feature
    Meltwater
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    8.2
    146 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Campaign success analytics00 Ratings8.6138 Ratings
    Real-time tracking00 Ratings8.1134 Ratings
    Competitor analysis00 Ratings7.8120 Ratings
    Account management
    Comparison of Account management features of Meltwater and Sprout Social
    Feature
    Meltwater
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    8.0
    138 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Role-based user permissions & privileges00 Ratings8.7132 Ratings
    Mobile access00 Ratings7.3124 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    MeltwaterSprout Social
    Small Businesses
    Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
    Score5 out of 10
    Sendible
    Score7.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Cision Communications Cloud
    Score8 out of 10
    Emplifi
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cision Communications Cloud
    Score8 out of 10
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (discontinued)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    MeltwaterSprout Social
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.2
    (73 ratings)
    8.4
    (203 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (10 ratings)
    9.2
    (67 ratings)
    Usability
    5.6
    (5 ratings)
    8.5
    (130 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.7
    (8 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (7 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (29 ratings)
    1.8
    (39 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.3
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    6.1
    (2 ratings)
    1.0
    (12 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (42 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    MeltwaterSprout Social
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    Sprout is typically the first platform that comes to mind when I think of social media content scheduling/platform management/social media management. However, Sprout is very pricey, and I don’t think there’s an obvious standout element that helps differentiate it from other scheduling platforms. For organizations with only a few social media profiles, I’d be more likely to recommend lower-cost or free platforms as opposed to Sprout. I’d probably only recommend Sprout for organizations with dozens or hundreds of social media accounts
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    • Social Scheduling: Sprout Social makes it easier than any platform I've used to schedule posts with each, and to batch-schedule the same post to run on multiple dates. The scheduling platform is intuitive and easy to understand.
    • Social Reporting: With just a few clicks of the button, you can easily export reports that are easy for both social media experts and complete novices to understand. I like how you can get a report within 60 seconds or so if needed.
    • Customer Service/Help: Whenever I've had a question, both my Sprout Social rep and the Help Center have been extremely easy to contact and quick to reply. Problems are solved very fast and it's made easy to understand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    • I would like for Personal Instagram Accounts to be able to integrate with Sprout Social's Employee Advocacy platform. You are able to connect personally accounts to Sprout Social itself, which is great, but for employee re-sharing internal stories, this is not possible unless it is with a Business Instagram account.
    • I would like for the left hand tool bar to be more user friendly. There are so many tools and settings that are available, and I would like for it to be simplified in a way that makes it less cluttered.
    • An improvement can be made with the Sprout Social Mobile App. The user friendliness of the app does not allow as much autonomy as the regular webpage.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    Sprout Social is the best platform out there for social-media management, and now that I have all my clients using Sprout Social, it would be sort of silly for me to walk away format at this juncture. The only cloud on the horizon would be if Salesforce bought it (as has been rumored) and put it inside its walled garden.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    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
    Sprout Social
    Sprout Social is straightforward to use - built for anyone regardless of tech experience to be able to navigate. It integrates pretty seamlessly to the native platforms and brings a lot of things together to make a seamlessly experience for seasoned social media managers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Meltwater
    No answers on this topic
    Sprout Social
    Uptime was OK, but given the fact that we are in Europe, there were some specific problems: They tended to take the system down for maintenance during the night in the US, which was during our workday. This was definitely problematic and hard to explain to our clients.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Meltwater
    No answers on this topic
    Sprout Social
    It is quick to post, however you have to refresh the page every time you add a new scheduled item.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    The chat and online resources are great. The managers are too. They go through account reps pretty fast. Also, not a lot of onboarding once a product or service is sold. The ticket request system is terrible, they have too many people switching off roles, they take a long time to get back to you and don't plan on anything being fixed over a weekend - even if you have a problem. Their customer service via tickets is the worst.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Meltwater
    Again, really in-depth and helpful for a program that is really easy to use.
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Meltwater
    Walked step by step through program. Very informative on a program that doesn't require much training.
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    Their training is good, but the promotion of it is even better. I don't need or have the time for training, but I was always happy to know it was there. They did a great job sending updates out and making me aware when there was a new feature that I may want training for. As for the training I never used it, so I can't comment on that
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Meltwater
    You are only allowed 15 users, so make sure you've identified who will have access to use the tool.
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    Make sure you do it all the way. Do not break it into phases. Pour yourself a coffee, start it in the morning and you'll be done before you finish that coffee.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    We started this agency using Later and switched to Iconosqaure because we needed more in-depth reporting. We switched from Iconosquare to Sprout Social because of the continuous scheduling bugs/issues we were having with our account and our terrible experience with their Customer Service team. We are planning to close our Sprout Social account and move to HeyOrca because of cost, ease of use, and the basic scheduling features Sprout Social doesn't offer.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    • One positive impact has been a huge time saver for our team. Where we once had multiple systems and delays from producing content to approval to publishing, now everything is seamless.
    • Another positive impact is streamlining the onboarding process for new team members. Sprout Social is user-friendly and intuitive, making it easy to study even for someone completely new to social media.
    • One negative impact has been the time it takes to wade through irrelevant social listening posts. The filtering is not effective enough to eliminate the noise.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Sprout Social Screenshots

    Screenshot of Sprout’s social media publishing tools, used to schedule and post messages to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn simultaneously from a single Compose window.