Let me guess why you’re here. You just want to know Brandwatch pricing. It should be easy to find out, right?
If that was true, you should be able to do what any reasonable person would do: Go check the Brandwatch website pricing page. However, that is not helpful at all.
Brandwatch has made it incredibly difficult, if not downright impossible, to find out the price for their software without booking a call with the sales team.
Here’s my first tip: Don’t waste your time looking for the price of Brandwatch on their website. There is absolutely no pricing information to be had on their “pricing” page.
After I checked every nook and cranny, I found nothing readily available regarding Brandwatch pricing. But being a former journalist and an Internet sleuth, I couldn’t just give up my search there. So I kept digging.
TL;DR
Here’s a high-level summary:
- Lack of straightforward pricing information. You can only find exact pricing info by booking a demo.
- There are no affordable monthly pricing options. There was previously an “Essentials” plan, but this option has since been discontinued. Now, you’ll find that all of the Brandwatch plans are paid annually – so you have to pay for the entire year up front.
- Brandwatch isn’t really a social media management tool. At it’s core, Brandwatch’s main offering is as a social listening and consumer intelligence platform. The social media management features were tacked on (seemingly as an afterthought) when they acquired Falcon.io.
What I Learned About Brandwatch and Its Pricing
1. It’s almost impossible to find straightforward Brandwatch pricing information
Falcon.io and Brandwatch merged back in May 2022. Since then, there has been very little mention of either brand’s pricing.
But throughout my search for the price of Brandwatch, I did find a couple of mentions on software review sites, such as Crozdesk that the former pricing for Falcon.io started at $1,000 a month if you paid annually for their most basic plan. The next plan up started at $1,750 a month, or over $21,000 a year, paid annually. (There is no monthly plan available.)
One can only speculate that this likely has increased since Brandwatch merged with Falcon.io, as the product offerings and features are more robust than they were.
Brandwatch pricing vs Agorapulse
It’s hard to compare two prices when so little is forthcoming. Here’s a look at G2’s comparison of both social media management software platforms.
Agorapulse pricing vs Brandwatch pricing
What’s interesting is that the statement beneath the banner of the G2 Brandwatch review says Brandwatch only has one “pricing edition.”
If we dig deeper into the highly reputable G2 software marketplace and review site, we can easily see pricing information for Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Sendible, and others. Brandwatch stands out for not having pricing information readily available as a social media management tool.
2. The Brandwatch Essentials plan is no more
I found several websites mentioning the Brandwatch “Essentials” plan, which seemed to have a more reasonable price of $108/month and also had a free trial available, according to a TechRadar review.
However, after further research, it seems that this information is outdated. That is confirmed by Brandwatch. A Support article states the Brandwatch “Essentials” plan is no longer available.
In the FAQ of a Brandwatch Support page, an update states:
If you are wondering, “How much would it cost to convert from the Essentials trial account to a Standard package?” There is only one way to find out:
Once again, no pricing information.
Brandwatch has only custom plans now it appears. The only way to get an exact price for anything is by booking a call with one of their sales reps.
So that being said, I can share with you some more info about Brandwatch itself. Doing so might help make your decision a bit easier when the time comes to choose a social media management platform.
3. What is Brandwatch?
Brandwatch is an enterprise-level software platform comprising two main offerings: Consumer Intelligence and Social Media Management. For the purposes of this article, we will discuss primarily the social media management side of Brandwatch’s offerings.
First of all, Brandwatch isn’t really an all-in-one social media management tool. It’s more like a social media management … suite? And the reason I say that is because it’s further divided into seven separate products, all presumably with a separate price tag.
The various products for social media management in the Brandwatch Social Media Management suite include:
- Brandwatch Publish
- Brandwatch Advertise
- Brandwatch Measure
- Brandwatch Benchmark
- Brandwatch Engage
- Brandwatch Audience
- Brandwatch Listen
Combined, these products would give you an “all in one” tool. But they don’t come packaged that way. My guess is that they aren’t priced that way either.
Now, if what you are looking for is primarily a social listening and customer intelligence tool, this is an area that Brandwatch does excel in.
This is probably, at least in part, due to the number of acquisitions and mergers they’ve had over the years with various social intelligence and analytics companies, such as PeerIndex, Crimson Hexagon and even BuzzSumo.
On top of that, Brandwatch was acquired by global PR giant Cision in February 2021. So the sheer amount of data that they have access to is impressive. Plus, each acquisition brought unique strengths to Brandwatch.
For example, BuzzSumo is renowned for its content marketing research and analysis tools. Integrating BuzzSumo’s capabilities means Brandwatch users can benefit from advanced content insights, like identifying trending topics and measuring content engagement. That makes Brandwatch a more comprehensive tool, but it also likely has influenced the complexity and cost of their service offerings quite a bit.
Who is Brandwatch For?
Brandwatch is for enterprise brands looking for a highly advanced social listening and customer intelligence tool. It is not primarily made to be a social media management tool. Can it serve this purpose? Yes, but that’s really not what it’s best at.
At least that’s what some people had to say. For example, this review on Capterra, which suggests that as a social media management tool it doesn’t meet expectations for the price you pay.
So, what happens if you are looking for an all-in-one social media management tool that can do the following?
- Make community management simple with a centralized inbox
- Spare you from tedious excel spreadsheets with automated and custom reporting features
- Help you publish more content in less time with approval workflows, batch scheduling, and shared calendars
- Prove the ROI business value of your social media efforts
You’ve got other options. And, of course, we recommend Agorapulse. Take a look at our no-hidden-cost, straightforward pricing page.
Or if you want, you can see just how great Agorapulse is for yourself with a free trial, no strings attached.
