Meltwater pricing 2024: How much does it really cost?

Costs, alternatives, and other PR approaches worth testing.

Considering signing up for Meltwater, but struggling to understand their pricing? ​
​You’re not alone.

We did the research so you don’t have to. In this guide, we’ll tell you how much Meltwater costs, what alternatives you can try out, and other PR approaches worth testing out.

• How much does Meltwater cost? 
• Meltwater's pricing: Breaking it down
• The challenges with Meltwater’s pricing model
• Prezly: A transparent, affordable Meltwater alternative
• In conclusion

Let’s cut straight to the chase: 

• On average, a basic Meltwater license costs around $1,000/month per user. There’s no free trial available, but their sales team offers demos
• There are four pricing tiers: Essentials, Advanced, Suite, and Enterprise (more details on each of these below)
• Add-on services like media monitoring, brand insights, etc come with extra fees
• Meltwater keeps their pricing hidden, meaning you’ll need to speak with their sales team for a custom quote
• You’ll need to buy an annual contract to use Meltwater. There’s no monthly subscription option

Disclaimer: This information is based on extensive research, and we believe it to be accurate at the time of writing. For the most up-to-date Meltwater pricing, we suggest contacting their sales team.

Built for medium to large businesses, Meltwater is an all-in-one platform for PR and social media that’s known best for their media monitoring tools. Namely, staying on top of online conversations, analyzing social media trends, and engaging with influencers. 

Along with Cision and Muck Rack, we view Meltwater as a member of the “traditional” all-in-one PR platform category. Platforms we place in this group have a few things in common:

• They are generally quite expensive, and keep their pricing hidden from the public
• They require users to commit to an annual contract with no option for a monthly subscription or free trial
• They sell contact databases and wire services. Two tools used in a “traditional” PR strategy that we struggle to support (specifically because they’re expensive, rarely work, and oftentimes, unethical)

To put it into perspective, at Prezly, we offer a solution that falls into the “modern” category of PR platforms. That means our product is:

• Affordably priced, starting at $50/month
• Can be used on a monthly or yearly basis with easy cancellation, plus a 14-day free trial
• Focused on providing a user-friendly toolkit for building media relationships and earning effective coverage 

Generally, we suggest testing a tool’s free trial in the “modern” category before going “traditional”. They require much less of your time and commitment to try out, are more user-friendly, and are centered around implementing the most effective, ethical, and current PR strategies. 

Meltwater has several pricing tiers. Sadly, they don’t share much on their website about which tools in their suite each tier comes with. From what we can tell, it appears that the “Essentials” and “Advanced” tiers are limited to media monitoring.

Ultimately, the tier you end up choosing depends on which tools of theirs you think you need, what your budget is, and how much patience you have going through their sales process.

Here’s a quick overview on each of Meltwater’s pricing tiers:

1. Essentials: This is the basic package. It’s good for starting out with general brand and market monitoring. It also comes with training resources to help get you going.
2. Advanced: This is a direct level up from the Essentials tier. It offers up deeper analysis tools and unlimited search features. It’s best for businesses that need media monitoring with detailed insights.
3. Suite: This tier is for teams that want access to the full suite of Meltwater’s tools. integrated tools across multiple products. It offers advanced analytics and a more unified approach to managing insights.
4. Enterprise: This is Meltwater’s premium option that comes packed with everything they offer. That includes anything from advanced AI features to specialized services to help you make strategic PR decisions.

Source: https://www.meltwater.com/en/pricing

So the question still stands: how much does Meltwater cost? It’s not listed publicly on their site, but from what we’ve found, the average price falls around $12,000 per seat per year, or $1,000 per seat per month. 

The lowest price we’ve seen mentioned for Meltwater is around $8,000 per seat each year. 

Meltwater doesn’t offer any free trials, so you'd need to be sure it's what you want before committing​​​​​​​​.

We also couldn’t find any further pricing information on Meltwater when looking on review sites like G2.

Source: https://www.g2.com/compare/meltwater-vs-prezly

Don’t forget! Your Meltwater contract’s final price can increase substantially depending on how many users you have plus the amount of customization or training you need. 

Stacking this and every other pricing factor up against other PR tools, we give Meltwater a $$$$ price-rating (for context, at Prezly our starting price is only $50/month). Of course, these conclusions are all based on our third-party research. So again, if you’re still considering Meltwater, we suggest speaking with them directly to understand all the potential costs. 

Let's break down some issues you might run into with Meltwater's pricing. Specifically, its complex structure, how it scales with your business, and some limits on what features you get.

Unlike more modern tools like Prezly, getting a price for Meltwater isn’t as straightforward as just picking a package with a set price. Instead, Meltwater's pricing is incredibly customizable and can get very complicated, very fast. To get a clear idea of the total cost, your only option is to speak with their sales team. 

If you’re like us, and prefer transparent pricing structures (with the option to try before you buy) this can be a big turn-off. ​ 

When researching Meltwater’s pricing, the most common complaint we found was related to their sales process.

Before engaging their sales team, make sure to keep this top of mind. 

While Meltwater offers scalable solutions, the jump in cost between different tiers can be significant. This makes it difficult for smaller or growing companies to scale their usage of Meltwater's platform smoothly. 

As your needs grow, so does the price. Potentially at a rate that isn't sustainable for all businesses.

While Meltwater has a wide range of features, users mention that their lower-tiered plans feel limited in functionality. 

There’s a good chance you’ll find out that the key features you need are only available in a higher, more expensive tier. Meaning a big increase to your cost while paying for extra features you don’t really need.

Simply put, while Meltwater has a robust set of tools and services, their pricing model won’t work for everyone. Especially smaller businesses with needs that don’t fit neatly within their tiers. 

If you’re looking for a more predictable and affordable solution, seriously consider this part of Meltwater’s pricing before committing. 

Want a platform with a straightforward pricing model and powerful PR tools? Try out Prezly. Whether you're a small start-up or a large enterprise, we provide clear, scalable options to fit your strategy.

Plus, if you do decide to use Meltwater’s media monitoring tools, you can easily integrate them with your Prezly account, giving you the best of both worlds (a modern PR toolkit for earning media coverage + media monitoring).

At Prezly, we're all about transparency. 

We provide clear, upfront pricing details right on our website. We also offer a 14-day free trial for all our plans, letting you explore our features before committing.

Prezly has three main pricing tiers. All of which are tailored to match and grow with your PR output.

To see what each tier looks like in depth, take a look at our pricing page. 

Insider tip: Integrating Meltwater with Prezly:

Get the best out of Meltwater's media monitoring tools and Prezly's earned media tools, by using our Meltwater integration. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Reach out to our support team and we’ll set up the integration for you
2. Go to your coverage page. You should now start seeing Meltwater alerts populate
3. On this page, you can see all of your coverage as well as the who, what, where, and when of it
4. Directly link any coverage that stands out to a story, site, and/or contact
5. Continue building relationships with outlets and journalists knowing they’ve already shown interest in your brand

Closing things out, let’s put Meltwater’s pricing into context by stacking it up against Prezly’s. 

While Meltwater has some solid features for media monitoring, their pricing can be a bit of a maze and not very upfront. On top of that, their annual contracts and high-touch sales process make it hard to really test out the product before committing to it. 

If that all sounds like a hassle, try out Prezly’s 14-day free trial first. We’ve designed it to be fully straightforward with costs and able to easily scale with you. If you don’t like it, canceling your trial is just as smooth and easy as signing up.

Jasper Flour

Growth Marketer

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