8 Meltwater Alternatives & Competitors in 2025

Summary of Top Meltwater Competitors

Looking for the best Meltwater alternative? Here are the top picks by category:

➔ Media databases: JournoFinder - affordable without sacrificing quality.
➔ All-in-one PR tools: Cision, Muck Rack, Agility PR
➔ Media monitoring: Brandwatch, Brand24
➔ Newswire services: EIN Newswire, Newswire, Global Newswire, PR Newswire

Top alternative to Meltwater’s media database: JournoFinder

➔ Free trial: Yes (7 days)
➔ Pricing: Starts from $99 /month
➔ Contract length: Annual and monthly
➔ Tool type: Media database

Looking for a media database that’s both affordable and dependable? JournoFinder deserves a spot on your shortlist.

Its streamlined design keeps the focus on what matters: up-to-date contact details and seamless usability.

Every email address you add to a media list is automatically verified and updated if needed. This is just one of the ways JournoFinder ensures contacts stay current.

Users praise the clean, easy-to-learn interface ideal and the powerful search filters that help you pinpoint the right journalists in seconds.

Another useful feature is JournoFinder's journalist requests platform. You can set up AI-powered alerts to get instantly notified about relevant journalist requests from around the web.

JournoFinder also offers a 7 day free trial, which you can sign up to here.

Pros:

➔ Accurate media database
➔ Easy to use
➔ Great value for money
➔ Free trial available

Cons:

➔ Less features than Meltwater

Try JournoFinder out for 7 days here.

Why consider a Meltwater alternative?

Meltwater is a well known PR platform that provides access to a media database, media monitoring tools, and analytics. However, well-known doesn’t mean best, and there are several reasons to look for an alternative to Meltwater.

Meltwater is very expensive

Meltwater pricing starts from around $7,000 a year (based on web research). Meltwater’s pricing isn’t publicly visible, and it will vary depending on what you need. Some users online have reported paying up to $45,000 a year for their Meltwater subscription.

There is no free alternative to Meltwater, but there are much more affordable options such as JournoFinder.

JournoFinder offers monthly and yearly plans at a fraction of the cost of Meltwater.

Meltwater suffers from inaccuracies in their media database

Meltwater has a lot of different features, but this means that not all of their features are kept up-to-date. Meltwater users on Reddit often complain about the accuracy of their media database, with one user commenting:

"Meltwater has the best interface but the worst database. I worked at an agency that used them and I often found myself having to enter contacts".

Meltwater  Alternatives: All-in-One PR Tools

Cision

➔ Free trial: No
➔ Pricing: Custom pricing (typically starting from $7000 / year)
➔ Contract length: Annual
➔ Tool type: All-in-one PR platform

Cision is the oldest PR software company around, and the one everyone has heard of. It’s a solution that's only suitable for enterprise teams.

The fact they’ve been around for so long means they have a solid reputation behind them and more features than most other PR platforms such as investor relations (although Meltwater is not far behind feature wise!).

However, taking a look online, some users feel that all the features only serve to clutter the interface and make the platform feel complicated to use. If you’re new to PR, Cision will be a steep learning curve.

Similarly to Meltwater, you will also see complaints about the accuracy of their media database. 

One Reddit user commented:

“All I can say for Cision is that even though the database is huge (1,2 million contacts available) you will find 80% of the data useless.”

Pros:

➔ Full suite of features suitable for corporate PR teams
➔ Strong reputation

Cons:

➔ Expensive and no public pricing
➔ Customer support is slow
➔ Focused on enterprise customers

Muck Rack

➔ Free trial: No
➔ Pricing: Custom pricing (typically starting from $5000 / year)
➔ Contract length: Annual
➔ Tool type: All-in-one PR platform

Muck Rack is a newer PR platform compared to Cision and Meltwater, which means it offers a more modern and intuitive interface. The platform offers a media database, coverage monitoring, and outreach capabilities.

They are particularly strong when it comes to TV and radio monitoring, but the analytics and reporting in other areas are less robust compared to other tools.

Like Meltwater and Cision, Muck Rack don’t publicly display their pricing and you will need to talk to the sales team to get a quote.

Pros:

➔ Modern user interface
➔ Good integration options for PR teams

Cons:

➔ No pricing transparency
➔ Hard to justify the price

Agility PR

➔ Free trial: No
➔ Pricing: Unknown
➔ Contract length: Annual
➔ Tool type: All-in-one PR software

Agility PR has a lot more flexibility in its pricing structure than Meltwater, with different plans offered depending on your exact needs.

There’s a media monitoring plan, a media database and outreach plan, and a social listening plan. You can also order one-time services such as press release distribution, campaign monitoring, and email outreach.

However the flexible plan structure can also mean you end up paying a lot more than you initially expected to get all the features you want.

One user commented:

“Sometimes I wish that more of their features were just a part of what was available instead of an upsell. I want to use everything but can afford it.”

Pros:

➔ Multiple contract options
➔ Decent customer support

Cons:

➔ Contracts are not easily amended
➔ Media monitoring isn’t as strong as it could be
➔ Enterprise pricing when you need several features

Meltwater  Alternatives: Social Listening

Brandwatch

➔ Free trial: No
➔ Pricing: Custom (estimate: $10,000 to $30,000 a year)
➔ Contract length: Annual
➔ Tool type: Social listening

Brandwatch has been around for a while, but not as long as Meltwater, and was primarily built for social listening and consumer insight. It was acquired by Cision in 2021.

Brandwatch ingests billions of conversations from all over the web including social networks, forums, review sites, and news. Then layers on analytics for sentiment, trends, and audience demographics. It also offers print and broadcast data (as an add-on).

But the cost can be prohibitive with so many cheaper options entering the market, and the interface takes time to learn. It’s more suited to enterprise customers.

Sprinklr and Talkwalker are two other social listening tools enterprise users can consider.

Pros:

➔ Active roadmap with regular feature improvements
➔ Highly customizable

Cons:

➔ High pricing and no free trial
➔ Steep learning curve

Sprout Social

➔ Free trial: Yes (30 days of the core product)
➔ Pricing: Starts at $2400 / year (including listening ~ $14K / year)
➔ Contract length: Annual
➔ Tool type: Social listening

If you don’t need Meltwater’s news media monitoring or any of the PR-specific features (such as a journalist database), Sprout can be a mid-range, easier-to-use alternative that fulfills all your social marketing needs.

The standard plan will help you with everyday publishing, light keyword monitoring, engagement, and basic analytics. The optional listening add-on monitors social media, forums, YouTube, review sites, and online news then layers AI sentiment and trend detection on top.

Pros:

➔ AI integration
➔ Useful tagging capabilities

Cons:

➔ Price is on the high side
➔ Complex interface

Brand24

➔ Free trial: Yes (14 days)
➔ Pricing: Starts at $199 /month
➔ Contract length: Monthly or annual
➔ Tool type: Social listening

If you want something more affordable for small businesses, look at Brand24.

Brand24 is a media monitoring tool aimed at businesses looking for real-time tracking of online brand mentions. It’s an easier and cheaper Meltwater alternative for comms teams that still need meaningful analytics without the hefty add-ons.

It covers social media platforms, blogs, forums, podcasts, news sites, newsletters, and reviews. You can get instant alerts to mentions, and information around the context of the mention.

However, Brand24’s sentiment analysis is more basic compared to other platforms and the cheaper plans exclude a lot of features.

Pros:

➔ Flexible plans
➔ Real-time alerts
➔ Covers a wide variety of online sources

Cons:

➔ Limited traditional media coverage
➔ Sentiment analysis is more basic

Newswire Services

EIN Newswire / Presswire / PR Newswire

➔ Free trial: No (pay-per-release)
➔ Pricing: Starts at ~$100–$350 per press release
➔ Contract length: Pay-as-you-go
➔ Tool type: Newswire distribution platforms

Meltwater offers an integrated newswire service powered by GlobalNewswire - however it’s an add-on service and not included in your (already very expensive!) licence. They don’t publicly display pricing for their newswire service, but we can assume it's on the higher end.

If you are looking for an alternative newswire service, here are some options:

➔ PR Newswire (from $325 /release, up to over $1000)
➔ EIN Presswire (from $149 /release)
➔ Presswire (from $250 /release)
➔ Business Wire (from $475 /release)

Newswire platforms vary in reach and price, but they all focus on distributing press releases to their syndication networks. The main difference between the newswire services is which outlets are in their syndication network. 

Newswire platforms typically don’t offer any of the extra stuff like media monitoring, media databases, or analytics.

Pros:

➔ Simple and quick
➔ One-off payment

Cons:

➔ No monitoring, analytics, or media database
➔ Newswires are outdated and ineffective

Which Meltwater alternative is best for me?

If you are looking for a budget-friendly media database with unmatched accuracy, JournoFinder is the obvious choice.

If you need an all-in-one tool with enterprise level support and features, look at Agility PR.

If media monitoring is your priority, consider Brandwatch for enterprises or Brand24 for smaller businesses.

And if you simply need to publish a press release, services like EIN Newswire or Businesswire will do the job.