The Best 13 Media Monitoring Tools for PR (2025 Buyer's Guide)

The best media monitoring tools on the market are enticing and well worth the hype. Knowing well in advance that a story is trending positive or negative is invaluable intel. It allows you to build upon a wave of support and act quickly to avert a communications crisis.

The good news is that there are many media monitoring services available. The bad news is that there are many media monitoring services available. No doubt: with so many choices, it can be overwhelming to decide which one is best. 

To make it a bit easier to choose the best software for your needs, you’ll find the pros and cons of the top media monitoring solutions below, as well as what to consider when narrowing down your options.

What are media monitoring tools?

Media monitoring tools are software platforms that scan a wide range of media sources—from traditional news to social media—for mentions of specific keywords, brands, or topics.

From tracking mentions of your brand to crisis detection and measuring the ROI of your campaigns, these tools are a must-have for every PR professional.

It should be made clear that the term “media monitoring” is an overarching umbrella that includes a few sub-categories:

• Media monitoring tools track general industry news that’s important to you and your clients.
• Brand monitoring tools track the specific mentions of your brand.
• Social media monitoring tools track conversations about your brand on social media platforms.

The majority of PR monitoring software available on the market will cover all of these types of monitoring in one comprehensive service. 

Top 13 media monitoring solutions compared

Most media tracking platforms offer similar core functionalities, with key differences in specific details, features, and channels. When comparing these tools, consider the following:

Ultimately, your choice may depend on additional considerations such as other tools provided as part of an all-in-one PR platform, overall integration capabilities, user interface design, ease of use, and personal preference.

We've covered the top 13 monitoring platforms below, along with their pricing and key features so that you can find the best solution for your needs.

Media Monitoring Tools Overview

Prowly

Prowly is an all-in-one public relations management platform designed to help teams build media relationships and earn coverage​. It offers a media contacts database, press release creator, email pitching tools, and analytics to track engagement​.

PR pros can use Prowly to manage journalist outreach, host an online newsroom, and monitor press results all in one place.

Prowly includes integrated media monitoring across digital, social, and traditional channels. Even on its basic plan, users can track online news mentions in real time; upgrading unlocks social listening on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, with enterprise plans adding broadcast and print monitoring​, including NLA-licensed outlets and paywalled publications.
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The platform lets you set up keyword-based “mentions” alerts and provides dashboards for analyzing coverage sentiment (positive/neutral/negative) and reach across web, social, print, and TV/radio sources.

Top features:

• Real-time alerts for brand mentions
• Multi-channel monitoring (online, social, broadcast, print)
• Competitor coverage tracking

Cision

Cision is one of the most established PR software suites, known for its extensive media database and media monitoring capabilities. It’s a comprehensive platform that helps PR professionals target journalists, distribute press releases, monitor media coverage across channels, and measure impact​.

Cision offers media monitoring across all major channels – online news, print publications, broadcasts, and social media – integrated into what it calls the Cision Communications Cloud.
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Users can set up complex boolean queries and get real-time alerts when their company is mentioned in articles or on TV/radio​.​

Cision’s monitoring is paired with analytics: you can track sentiment, share of voice, reach, and even tie coverage to business outcomes using their attribution tools.

Top features:

• Comprehensive global media coverage (online, print, broadcast, social)
• Advanced real-time alerts and searches
• Built-in analytics for measuring media impact

Muck Rack

Muck Rack is a popular PR software platform that combines a media database of journalists with news monitoring and PR reporting tools. It’s known for being more modern and social-media-integrated than legacy databases. For PR pros, Muck Rack offers the ability to find and target journalists, send them pitches (either via the platform or your email), and track coverage and engagement.

Muck Rack has strong media monitoring capabilities, especially for online news. The platform checks millions of online sources continuously​. The moment a story mentioning your company or keywords goes live, it often appears in your Muck Rack feed.

You can set up custom alerts for your brand, competitors, industry terms, etc., and get notified in real time when new articles hit. Muck Rack’s monitoring isn’t limited to news websites; it also tracks blogs and can pull in tweets from journalists.

Top features:

• Instant online news alerts
• Journalist-linked monitoring for easier follow-ups
• AI-powered insights on media impact

Meltwater

Meltwater is a media intelligence platform that helps PR and communications professionals monitor and analyze media coverage and social media in real time​.

Known for its powerful media monitoring, it continuously crawls over 300,000 news sources, millions of blogs, and social media platforms to capture mentions of your brand, competitors, or any keywords you specify.

Users can build complex searches with boolean logic and filters (by location, language, source type, etc.), automatically tagging mentions as positive, neutral, or negative – and can detect spikes in volume that might indicate a brewing issue​.

Meltwater’s dashboards allow you to visualize media trends (share of voice, sentiment over time, geographic spread of mentions) and it can even integrate with third-party data to correlate media coverage to business outcomes (like web traffic or sales).

Top features:

• Extensive global media source tracking
• Real-time alerts and trend detection
• Combined news and social media monitoring

Agility PR

Agility PR is an integrated PR platform designed to streamline media outreach, monitoring, and reporting workflows. Positioned as a versatile tool for PR professionals, it combines an extensive media database with comprehensive monitoring features, enabling users to efficiently identify relevant journalists, distribute press releases, track coverage, and measure results in one centralized location.

Agility PR provides extensive media monitoring capabilities across multiple media types, including online news, print, broadcast (TV and radio), and social media.

The tool supports real-time tracking, meaning users can quickly identify emerging stories or brand mentions, enabling timely responses. Users can set up keyword-based alerts and receive automatic updates on relevant coverage.

The monitoring dashboard provides intuitive visualization, including metrics like reach, sentiment analysis, share of voice, and coverage comparisons against competitors. Coverage reports can be easily generated and customized, providing PR professionals with insights to evaluate the success and impact of their campaigns.

Top features:

• Multi-channel media monitoring including podcasts
• Daily coverage reports and real-time alerts
• Sentiment analysis and impact scoring

Determ (formerly Mediatoolkit)

Determ (formerly known as Mediatoolkit) is an AI-powered online media monitoring platform that provides real-time insights into what’s being said about your brand, competitors, or industry​. 

It’s essentially a specialized tool for tracking online media and social conversations. Determ allows you to monitor keywords across over 100 million online sources in any language, aggregating all your mentions into a single feed for analysis​. 

With its AI assistant “Synthia” and smart alerts, Determ aims to help PR and marketing teams make faster, data-driven decisions based on media trends.

Key features:

• Immediate alerts for online and social mentions
• AI-assisted trend summaries
• Multilingual media monitoring

Propel

Propel is a newer PR software platform that focuses on PR workflow and relationship management (often termed a “PRM”). It combines a media database, outreach tools, and tracking in one system. In practice, Propel is like a PR-specific CRM: you can find journalists (Propel offers a database of over 1 million contacts​), pitch them directly from your email, and then monitor the results of those pitches.

Alongside its pitching tools, Propel includes a built-in media monitoring module so you can see the outcome of your PR efforts. It monitors over 100 million online sources (news sites, blogs, forums) every day for your chosen keywords​. 

It also offers social listening across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram (tracking 1 billion+ social accounts) so you can catch social media mentions of your brand or campaign​. Propel is notable for covering some emerging channels as well – for instance, it touts podcast monitoring, scanning 25,000+ podcasts for mentions of your keywords​. 

Broadcast monitoring is included too, with the ability to track TV and radio mentions and even play the clip within minutes of airing.

Top features:

• Unified PR pitching and coverage tracking
• Covers online, social, broadcast, and podcasts
• Easy-to-use dashboards with AI insights

Vuelio

Vuelio is a PR and communications software suite popular in the UK and Europe. It offers an extensive media database, press release distribution, media monitoring, and even public affairs tools in one platform.

Vuelio includes a built-in media monitoring service that tracks a broad range of media for mentions of your brand or keywords. This covers online news, print publications, and broadcast in the UK and beyond. Users have noted that Vuelio’s monitoring “misses nothing” in their market – it’s very thorough at capturing coverage, even from smaller regional outlets​. 

The platform provides daily email alerts with coverage summaries, which is handy for staying on top of news without logging in​. 

Vuelio’s monitoring dashboard will show you the volume of mentions, top sources, and allows you to drill into each piece of coverage. It may not have the real-time social media firehose of a dedicated listening tool, but for traditional press and online news, it’s robust. The service can also integrate licensed content (like print scans and broadcast clips) – often as an add-on – so you can see everything in one feed.

Top features:

• Thorough UK media monitoring (online, print, broadcast)
• Automated daily coverage emails
• Integrated print and broadcast clips

Prezly

Prezly is a PR software platform that is particularly known for its storytelling and newsroom capabilities. It functions as a PR CRM and publishing tool – allowing teams to manage their media contacts, create and distribute beautiful press releases or stories, and keep track of engagement.

Prezly introduced a built-in media monitoring solution in recent years to round out its offering​. This feature allows Prezly users to track online news coverage of their brand and log those mentions under “Coverage” in the platform​.

In practice, you set up keywords (like your brand name or campaign keywords) in Prezly’s monitoring settings, and the system will fetch relevant news articles from a database of 200k+ online news sources across 150+ countries​. 

Prezly’s monitoring is more basic compared to dedicated tools: it's primarily focused on online news mentions. It does not natively include social media listening or advanced analytics on coverage (aside from listing the outlet, date, and providing a link/clip). The philosophy is to give PR users a simple way to track and report on earned media outcomes without needing a separate monitoring subscription.

Top features:

• Simple global online news tracking
• Easy integration with PR campaigns
• Quick sharing of coverage results

Critical Mention

Critical Mention is an advanced, real-time media monitoring platform specifically built for PR professionals who need comprehensive tracking across multiple media channels. 

It integrates coverage from television, radio, online news, podcasts, print, and social media into a single, easy-to-use platform. Critical Mention helps PR teams stay informed about their brand's presence, respond quickly to coverage, and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.

It provides instant keyword-based alerts, advanced sentiment analysis, and customizable analytics dashboards that allow PR professionals to track media coverage, understand audience reactions, and swiftly respond to emerging trends or crises.

Top features:

• Real-time TV and radio monitoring
• Combined coverage (online, social, broadcast)
• Easy sharing of broadcast clips

Mention

Mention is a user-friendly media monitoring tool designed for real-time tracking of brand mentions across social media, websites, news outlets, blogs, and forums. It helps businesses of all sizes keep track of their digital footprint, analyze sentiment around their brands, and manage their reputation online efficiently.

Top features:

• Real-time online and social alerts
• Influencer identification from mentions
• Simple, team-friendly monitoring dashboard

Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a leading consumer intelligence and media monitoring platform focused on analyzing large-scale social media and web conversations. It helps PR professionals uncover valuable insights about brand perception, consumer sentiment, competitive positioning, and market trends.

Brandwatch provides sophisticated monitoring across social media platforms, blogs, forums, news sites, and reviews, enabling detailed consumer sentiment analysis and influence tracking.

Its advanced analytics offer real-time sentiment detection, deep topic analysis, demographic insights, and customizable dashboards. Brandwatch also supports historical data analysis, allowing teams to measure performance over time and inform strategic decision-making.

Top features:

• In-depth social and online monitoring
• Advanced sentiment and trend analysis
• AI-driven crisis and trend alerts

Talkwalker

Talkwalker is a powerful media monitoring and social listening platform designed to help PR professionals manage brand reputation and gain strategic insights. It tracks real-time conversations across social media, online news, print, broadcast, blogs, and forums, providing advanced analytics to assess the effectiveness and impact of PR activities.

Talkwalker offers robust, real-time monitoring across online, social media, print, broadcast (TV & radio), and even image and video analysis. It excels in sentiment analysis, trend detection, and predictive analytics.

Talkwalker’s dashboards provide visualized data on reach, engagement, share of voice, and brand sentiment. It uniquely offers AI-powered visual insights like logo recognition, helping brands track their presence beyond traditional text-based mentions.

Top features:

• Real-time multi-channel global monitoring
• Visual monitoring (logo/image/video detection)
• Predictive alerts for emerging trends or crises

What to consider when choosing a media monitoring tool

Navigating the vast landscape of media monitoring solutions can be daunting. 

With so many options offering similar functionality, it's easy to get lost. To help you make the right choice, we recommend considering the following:

All-in-one PR tools vs media monitoring tools

Most media monitoring software is not limited to just tracking media coverage and offer a complete suite of tools for PR professionals. These all-in-one PR platforms offer other features such as a media database, PR reporting, press release creation and distribution, and more.

If you’re not solely looking for a tool that offers media monitoring, it’s worth having a look at what other features are available as part of the whole tool and how they compare to other platforms.

Key points:

• Clarifying your needs: Do you require a comprehensive PR suite, or is a dedicated media monitoring tool sufficient?
• Cost-benefit analysis: All-in-one platforms typically cost more upfront but might be more economical than subscribing to multiple specialized tools.
• Feature overlap: evaluate whether additional features genuinely enhance your workflow or create unnecessary complexity and cost.

Available channels

Media monitoring tools typically track:

• Online: News sites, blogs, forums, and reviews.
• Social Media: Platforms such as Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, and niche platforms.
• Print: Newspapers, magazines.
• Broadcast: Television and radio.

Most tools will track mentions from similar sources and include online and social mentions.

More advanced software can cover niche social media platforms, or traditional channels such as print, TV, and radio.

Additionally, the quality of these mentions may differ from tool to tool. If a particular channel is important for you, check with the provider to understand if there any limitations.

Free trial

Some media monitoring tools offer the chance to try out the software first-hand with a trial. The free version will likely be limited, but it’s still a great way to try out the service, check the quality of the mentions, and see if it fits your needs before you commit to a paid subscription.

Enrichment data

If you’re tracking online mentions, it’s worth checking the quality of the enrichment data. This will allow you to track metrics such as estimated reach, domain authority, and reach, to assess the importance of your mentions.

For example, Prowly uses Semrush data, a leading data provider to accurately estimate the reach of online mentions.

Customization and query flexibility

Effective monitoring depends significantly on precise search queries. Broad or inaccurate queries can lead to irrelevant results or missed critical mentions. Ensure the tool provides adequate customization options, including:

• Advanced search logic: Utilize Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) and parentheses to fine-tune queries.
• Keyword inclusion/exclusion: Easily add relevant keywords and exclude irrelevant terms.
• Real-time query adjustments: Quickly adapt queries to evolving campaign requirements or trends.

Managing and prioritizing results

If you're tracking a popular brand or keyword then the number of your results could be a lot.Efficient workflow management capabilities help prevent information overload. Consider features like:

• Tier assignment: Prioritize important mentions.
• Favorites and tagging: Organize mentions quickly for future reference.

Insights and customizable dashboards

Quick access to insightful data is crucial for real-time decision-making and client communications. Look for:

• Interactive dashboards: Customizable dashboards for campaigns, competitors, or specific trends.
• Advanced visualization: Graphs, timelines, and widgets (e.g., share of voice with filter options) to enhance data presentation and demonstrate the value of your work effectively.

Automated stakeholder communication

Regular updates to stakeholders are essential. Evaluate tools that provide:

• Customized mention digests: Daily, weekly, or monthly emails tailored to stakeholders’ specific interests, avoiding information overload.
• AI-generated coverage summaries: Automatically create concise summaries to save analysis time.

Custom and shareable reports

The ability to generate professional, shareable reports is invaluable. Ensure the platform supports:

• Report customization: Create reports per campaign, topic, or timeframe, with flexible formatting (XLS, PPT, etc.).
• Ease of sharing: Easily share reports via links with customized visuals and data representation.

Pricing and subscription length

Your budget will be one of the key factors in choosing the right software. Media monitoring tools can range from $500/yr to over $10,000/yr. This will depend on the channels available and included features.

The more sophisticated the software, the more you’ll have to pay, so it’s important to figure out your requirements beforehand—if you need a basic monitoring tool or a powerful all-in-one PR platform.

This is also true across different plans for the same software. All tools offer multiple plans, which can greatly differ in price and features.

Some questions worth asking yourself include:

• The number of clients and keywords you’ll need to monitor
• The total number of channels you’ll want to monitor - do you need coverage for only media outlets, or also social media?
• The number of users

Unfortunately, many tools do not publicly disclose their pricing, requiring that you sign up for a demo to get a quote. It’s possible to find estimates online of how much each tool costs, although this may greatly differ based on your requirements.

Last but not least, while most tools require yearly plans, some provide monthly subscriptions as well. These will be more expensive, with the benefit of not having to commit to an entire year.

User experience and navigation

Evaluate the platform’s usability thoroughly:

• Intuitive design: Simple navigation accelerates user adoption and ensures ongoing team engagement.
• Performance: The platform should perform swiftly and reliably, ensuring maximum productivity and utilization.

Customer support responsiveness

Strong customer support is critical, especially during initial setup and ongoing usage:

• Initial query setup assistance: Access to dedicated support simplifies complex query building.
• Responsive ongoing support: Prompt assistance in case of missed coverage or technical issues ensures uninterrupted monitoring and maximum tool effectiveness.

By carefully weighing these criteria, you'll select a media monitoring tool best suited to your

Partnerships and data providers

Many media monitoring tools do not gather all of the mentions by themselves but rely on partnerships or data providers to fill in the gaps for certain channels.

If a particular channel is of importance to you, find out where the mentions are sourced from.

As an example, most media monitoring tools have TV mentions through the same provider, TVEyes.

Paywalls

An increasing number of online news outlets contain paywalls, requiring a subscription to read articles. These can cause online mentions to be missed or displayed incorrectly.

Some media monitoring tools are able to bypass these paywalls.

This information may not always be provided on the website and is worth inquiring about during a demo call.

Time to pick the right tool

The right tool can help you stay ahead of the conversation, measure the impact of your campaigns, and make data-driven decisions. Whether you’re managing a Public Relations of a global brand or a growing business, finding a tool that fits your specific needs and budget is key.

If you're looking for a solution that offers powerful media monitoring combined with intuitive PR tools, consider exploring Prowly's PR software. With features designed to streamline your workflow and maximize your media efforts, it’s a great choice for professionals who want to stay ahead in the competitive PR landscape.

Try Prowly today and discover how it can transform your media monitoring and PR efforts.