Best Social Listening Tools for PR

Social listening tools built for PR are not the same as general social media dashboards. They track journalist coverage, monitor broadcast clips, and measure whether that Forbes mention actually drove traffic to your site. The difference matters when your job is earned media, not Instagram engagement.

We tested the major players in PR-focused listening software, from legacy giants with massive media databases to nimble newcomers designed for modern workflows. Below, you will find our recommendations based on real-world PR use cases, pricing transparency, and the features that actually matter for communications professionals.

How to choose the best social listening tools for PR

Selecting the right PR listening tool depends on your workflow, budget, and the types of media you actually need to track. Before committing to annual contracts with enterprise pricing, consider the following questions.

Is finding journalists your primary need? Some tools excel at media databases while others treat contact lists as an afterthought. If your team spends hours hunting for the right reporter’s email address, a platform with auto-updating journalist profiles and pitch tracking saves enormous time. However, if you already maintain your own contact lists in a CRM, paying for an integrated database duplicates work you have already done. The largest databases contain hundreds of thousands of contacts, but sheer size means nothing if the data is outdated or irrelevant to your beat.

Do you pitch or do you monitor? PR listening tools split into two camps: outreach platforms built for pitching and monitoring platforms built for tracking coverage. Some try to do both, with mixed results. Pitching-focused tools offer beautiful email builders, open tracking, and CRM features. Monitoring-focused tools prioritize real-time alerts, sentiment analysis, and historical data. Choosing a tool that matches your primary workflow prevents paying for features your team will never touch.

How important is broadcast coverage? If your clients appear on television, radio, or podcasts, you need a tool with broadcast capture capabilities. Social-first platforms miss these mentions entirely. Broadcast monitoring requires specialized technology to capture audio, transcribe it, and make it searchable. Some tools offer best-in-class broadcast tracking but weaker social features, while all-in-one suites cover everything at a higher price point.

What does your budget actually support? Enterprise PR platforms run from $10,000 to $50,000 or more per year. Mid-market alternatives offer many of the same features starting around $3,000 to $8,000 annually. Budget-friendly options exist below that, though they typically sacrifice database depth or monitoring breadth. Knowing your ceiling before demos prevents wasted time on tools you cannot afford.

Do you need to prove ROI to leadership? Tracking mentions is one thing. Proving that a specific article drove website traffic and conversions is another. PR attribution technology has improved dramatically, with some platforms connecting coverage directly to revenue. If your executives demand proof that PR generates business results, measurement capabilities should weigh heavily in your decision.

How many brands or clients do you manage? Agency teams managing multiple clients need platforms that handle workspaces, permissions, and reporting across accounts without charging per-brand fees that balloon costs. Solo practitioners and in-house teams with a single brand can use simpler tools without multi-tenant overhead.

Best for Finding Journalists

The Industry-Standard Media Database

Cision

Top Pick

The comprehensive PR platform with the world’s largest journalist database, integrated PR Newswire distribution, and impact tracking–though the interface feels its age.

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Who this is for: PR professionals who need reliable access to journalist contact information at scale. Corporate communications teams managing global media relations and public companies requiring wire distribution for regulatory announcements.

Why we like it: The database size is genuinely unrivaled. When you need to find the email address of a beat reporter at an obscure trade publication, Cision usually delivers. PR Newswire integration means you can pitch, distribute, and track from one platform. Impact analytics have improved substantially, showing which articles actually drove website traffic rather than just counting clips.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: The interface gets called “clunky” and “dated” so often it has become a running joke in PR circles. Search results sometimes include outdated contact information, which defeats the purpose of paying for a database. Pricing sits firmly in enterprise territory, making it overkill for freelancers or small agencies.

Best for Pitch Tracking

Modern PR Management Built Around Accuracy

Muck Rack

Top Pick

A journalist-friendly platform where profiles update automatically based on what reporters actually write and tweet, delivering contact accuracy legacy tools struggle to match.

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Who this is for: Modern PR teams who value data accuracy over database size. Tech startups and agencies running agile campaigns who find legacy platforms too slow and cumbersome for their workflow.

Why we like it: Contact accuracy is noticeably higher than the old guard. Journalist profiles update automatically when reporters change beats or publications, because journalists themselves claim and maintain their profiles as a portfolio. The CRM tracks your team’s entire relationship history with each reporter, preventing embarrassing duplicate pitches.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: Premium pricing puts it in the same range as Cision, so you are not saving money by switching. Broadcast and print coverage tracking lags behind competitors who specialize in traditional media. The focus on pitching and monitoring means social analytics depth is limited.

Best for PR CRM

Affordable All-in-One for SMBs

Prowly

Top Pick

A Semrush-owned platform combining media database, visual pitch builder, and branded online newsrooms at price points that make enterprise tools look predatory.

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Who this is for: Small and mid-sized businesses that need professional PR capabilities without enterprise budgets. Freelance PR consultants who want flexible subscriptions and transparent pricing starting around $200-300 monthly.

Why we like it: The online newsroom feature lets you create a beautiful, branded press center for your website without touching code or begging developers for help. The visual pitch builder produces emails that look like editorial content rather than corporate spam. Database access costs a fraction of Cision or Muck Rack while still covering most journalists you actually need to reach.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: The database is reportedly smaller than the major players, which may matter if you pitch obscure international markets. Monitoring features are functional but basic compared to dedicated listening tools. Fortune 500 teams with complex global needs will likely outgrow it.

Best for Impact Measurement

PR Attribution That Speaks to the C-Suite

Onclusive

Top Pick

The enterprise PR intelligence platform combining three acquisitions–AirPR, Critical Mention, and Digimind–into one suite that tracks earned media from TV appearance to revenue impact.

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Who this is for: Chief Communications Officers who need to prove PR drives business results to skeptical boards. Fortune 500 companies that want enterprise-grade security, global scale, and one vendor replacing multiple point solutions.

Why we like it: The PR attribution technology from the AirPR acquisition is genuinely unique. Instead of reporting impressions and ad value equivalents that make CFOs roll their eyes, you can show that a specific article drove trackable website traffic and conversions. Combining broadcast, social, and news monitoring in one platform eliminates vendor sprawl.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: The platform stitches together acquired tools, and the seams sometimes show. Setup takes meaningful time and training before teams see full value. Premium pricing and enterprise sales processes make it impractical for smaller organizations. The platform is a big ship to turn when you need changes.

Best for Print Monitoring

Human-Curated Clips From the Old Guard

Burrelles

Top Pick

One of the oldest media monitoring services in America, delivering human-edited daily briefings and deep coverage of local print outlets that digital tools routinely miss.

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Who this is for: Government agencies and public sector organizations requiring high accuracy and human verification. Law firms and compliance teams where false positives in monitoring reports create real problems.

Why we like it: Human curation means near-zero false positives in your daily briefing. When the CEO wants a clean morning digest without spam and irrelevant mentions, Burrelles delivers. Coverage of small regional newspapers and local print outlets is genuinely unrivaled because they have spent decades building those relationships. Customer service feels personalized rather than automated.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: The interface feels dated compared to modern SaaS dashboards, which bothers teams used to slick software. Social features are bolted on rather than native, making it weaker for social-first monitoring. The human element that ensures accuracy also makes it slower than real-time AI tools and more expensive than pure software solutions.

Best for Media Contacts

Full-Spectrum Intelligence Across All Channels

Meltwater

Top Pick

A comprehensive media intelligence platform tracking TV, radio, print, podcasts, and social in one dashboard with a built-in journalist database for outreach.

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Who this is for: PR departments at organizations where traditional media coverage matters as much as social. Global NGOs and corporations tracking issues across all media channels worldwide who want one vendor instead of three.

Why we like it: The journalist database is extensive and genuinely useful for finding contacts across beats and regions. Seeing a story break on cable news and tracking its spread to social media from the same dashboard saves time during crisis situations. Support teams are proactive rather than reactive. Unlimited searches on some plans remove the anxiety of burning through quotas.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: Contracts can be rigid, with multi-year commitments that make switching painful. The social analytics interface feels more corporate than creative compared to dedicated social tools. Pricing jumps significantly when you add modules, and the base package rarely includes everything you actually need.

Best for Budget PR

Enterprise Features Without Enterprise Pricing

Agility PR Solutions

Top Pick

A flexible PR platform offering media database, monitoring, and wire distribution at price points that let mid-sized agencies actually maintain margins on their accounts.

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Who this is for: Mid-sized agencies that need robust capabilities without Cision-level budgets. Nonprofits and organizations with limited PR spend who still need professional tools rather than cobbled-together free alternatives.

Why we like it: The interface is genuinely more user-friendly than the legacy giants, with a learning curve measured in hours rather than weeks. Customer support consistently earns high ratings, which matters when you are troubleshooting during a campaign launch. Contract flexibility means you can often negotiate terms that enterprise vendors refuse to discuss.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: Social listening capabilities are “good enough” rather than best-in-class, so pure social teams may want dedicated tools. Database updates can lag behind Muck Rack’s auto-updating journalist profiles. The balanced feature set means it does not specialize deeply in any single capability, which suits generalists but frustrates specialists.

Best for Newsrooms

Beautiful Storytelling for Modern PR Teams

Prezly

Top Pick

A PR CRM that transforms your pitches into multimedia stories and hosts unlimited branded newsrooms, built for teams who believe presentation matters as much as content.

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Who this is for: Creative agencies where visual presentation differentiates their work. Tech startups that want modern, fast tools integrating with their existing stack via API rather than clunky enterprise software from another era.

Why we like it: The newsroom builder produces genuinely beautiful results that make your press center look like an editorial publication rather than a corporate afterthought. Pitches render as rich multimedia stories with embedded video and image galleries instead of boring text emails. The CRM automatically logs every open, click, and reply, showing exactly which journalists engaged with your last five campaigns.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: This is not a media database. You bring your own contacts or purchase lists separately, which adds friction if you expected an all-in-one solution. Monitoring features are minimal to nonexistent because the platform focuses entirely on outreach and hosting. Teams that just want to blast press releases will find the storytelling approach overkill.

Best for Broadcast Tracking

The Fastest TV and Radio Capture Available

Critical Mention (Onclusive)

Top Pick

A broadcast monitoring specialist that captures television and radio mentions in near real-time, with searchable audio transcription that finds your brand in podcasts and videos.

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Who this is for: PR agencies managing clients with significant television and radio exposure. Corporate communications teams that need to catch a crisis mention on cable news the moment it airs rather than finding out from angry executives.

Why we like it: Broadcast capture speed and reliability are genuinely best-in-class. The Wordplay search feature finds mentions inside spoken audio with impressive accuracy, surfacing podcast appearances that text-based tools miss entirely. Clipping and sharing tools let you deliver broadcast wins to clients without wrestling with video editing software.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: Social listening features lag behind dedicated social tools, so teams focused primarily on social media will find it underwhelming. The interface prioritizes function over form. The platform is now part of Onclusive, which can make the sales and support process more complex than dealing with an independent vendor.

Best for Crisis Alerts

Real-Time Alerts Built for Speed

Mention

Top Pick

An entry-level listening platform designed for instant notifications when keywords spike, catching negative sentiment and PR crises before they go viral.

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Who this is for: Small and mid-sized businesses that need capable monitoring without enterprise budgets. PR professionals who value speed and simplicity over exhaustive analytics and are willing to trade depth for accessibility.

Why we like it: Setup takes minutes rather than days, with a learning curve so gentle it barely exists. The Pulse alerts genuinely catch viral spikes early, delivering notifications via email or Slack the moment your brand starts trending for the wrong reasons. The mobile app is robust enough to monitor crises on the go without squinting at a dashboard designed for desktop screens.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: Sentiment analysis struggles with sarcasm and nuance, occasionally flagging praise as negative or missing subtle criticism entirely. LinkedIn and Instagram data can be limited compared to tools with official API partnerships. Custom reporting on cheaper plans is restrictive, which frustrates teams needing polished client deliverables.