Cheap media monitoring for a startup, without Meltwater or Cision

The cheapest workable media monitoring for a startup is free keyword alerts (Google Alerts plus Talkwalker Alerts) on your company and product names. Pay for a listening tool such as Awario, Brand24 or Mention only when you need social media coverage and sentiment. For news coverage that must meet a condition, an AI news alert like Avos sits in between.

This guide is for founders, marketers and whoever "does PR" on the side at a small company, when an enterprise media intelligence contract isn't on the table. Full disclosure: Avos is our product. Facts about the other tools come from their own websites, linked below, and we say what Avos doesn't do.

What should a startup actually monitor?

Write down the questions you want answered first. Most small teams land on four:

• Brand mentions. Did a news site, blog or trade title write about us?
• Competitors. Did a competitor launch, raise money, change prices or hire a leader?
• Your market. Did a regulator, customer or partner announce something that changes our plans?
• Social conversation. What are people saying about us on social networks, and how do they feel?

The first three are news monitoring. The fourth is social listening, a pricier job that decides most of the budget.

Which cheap media monitoring tools are worth comparing?

Checked on 6 November 2026 against Google Alerts and its help page, Talkwalker Alerts, Mention's pricing page, Brand24's pricing and home page, and Awario's pricing and home page.

Brand24's entry plan covers 3 keywords and 2,000 mentions a month for one user; Awario's Starter covers 3 topics and 30,000 new mentions a month, and showed us euro prices. Avos's free plan includes alerts; the alert allowance and how often alerts are checked on each plan are on the pricing page.

Are free alerts enough for a startup?

For news mentions of a distinctive name, often yes. Google Alerts emails you new results for a word or phrase, with the source types, language and region you choose; Talkwalker Alerts also covers X and can deliver by RSS or Slack. Running both costs nothing.

Free keyword alerts struggle in three cases:

• Your name is a common word. A startup called "Orbit" gets every article that uses the word.
• You care about events, not words. "A competitor cuts prices" can't be written as a keyword without catching everything else.
• The same story arrives ten times. Google's help page describes no grouping of copies of one story.

If none of these bite, stop here. Free alerts are the right tool.

When is a social listening tool worth paying for?

When the conversation about you happens on social networks and you need to measure it. Awario, Brand24 and Mention track social media alongside news, blogs and forums, with sentiment analysis. Mention adds review sites and share of voice; Brand24's higher plans update hourly or in real time; Awario has the lowest listed price. If your startup appears a few times a month in trade press, a listening suite is mostly empty dashboards; if people talk about you daily, it pays for itself.

How do Avos news alerts work?

An Avos news alert watches feeds you choose and tells you when a new story matches. It reads stories; it doesn't count social posts.

• Feeds you pick. A news search for any phrase, in the language and region you set; any RSS feed, such as a trade title; curated Avos sources with wide international coverage; web or AI search; X accounts or an X search; YouTube channels.
• A condition in plain words. Get every new story, or only the ones that meet a condition you write, such as "a competitor announces a price change". AI judges each new story and tells you why it matched.
• Names that mean you. When you describe a brand-mention alert, Avos puts your name in quotes for an exact match and adds a condition that the story is really about your company, not something with a similar name.
• Fewer repeats. Only new stories count. When several outlets run the same story, you get it once with the others listed, and Avos is designed to skip rewrites of a story you already received, though a reworded one can slip through.
• Your sources, your rules. Limit an alert to outlets you trust, or block ones you don't, by domain or publisher name.
• Delivery you choose. By email, as it happens, as a daily digest or as a weekly report, at your time and in your timezone. A digest can stay quiet when nothing matched, and you can cap how many instant alert emails an alert sends.

Combined alerts go further, mixing news and price conditions and firing when all of them hold, or any one, but most media monitoring needs only a news alert.

How do you set up news-mention monitoring in Avos?

1. Open Alerts and describe what you want. "Email me when a news site or trade blog writes about Acme Robotics, the warehouse robot startup." Or start from a recipe on the news monitoring page, such as brand mentions or competitor watch.
2. Check the draft. Avos proposes a news search with your name in quotes and a condition that the story is about your company. Add your trade titles' RSS feeds.
3. Preview it. See what it would have caught over the past few days before you turn it on. If it would have flagged the wrong Acme, tighten the condition.
4. Pick the delivery. As it happens for competitor moves, a daily digest for brand mentions, a weekly report for the market.
5. Tune it by chat. On the alert's page, ask why something did or didn't match, or change it in plain words: "ignore press releases", "only stories from Europe".

Honest limits: alerts are checked on a schedule set by your plan, not in real time, so one can arrive up to one check after a story is published. Avos reads the feeds you pick, and no tool catches every article. An alert emails the account that owns it; for the team, add a mentions section to a weekly briefing, as in how to track your industry.

When is another tool the better choice?

• You need social listening. Avos can follow named X accounts and an X search, and YouTube channels, but it doesn't monitor other social networks, measure reach or chart sentiment. Awario, Brand24 or Mention do.
• You want it free and any mention counts. Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts cost nothing and match exact phrases.
• You need a PR workflow. Journalist databases, pitching, press release distribution and coverage reports for clients belong to PR suites. Avos isn't one, and it doesn't replace Meltwater or Cision for an agency or a large comms team.
• Minutes matter. For a live crisis, use a tool with real-time updates.
• You need to know when a web page changes. Avos reads new stories from feeds; it doesn't watch a page for edits.

Which should you pick?

• Free and keyword-based: Google Alerts plus Talkwalker Alerts, on your exact names in quotes.
• Social mentions and dashboards: Brand24 or Awario.
• Only the stories that meet a condition, by email: an Avos news alert.

Many startups combine the first and the last: free alerts on the exact name, plus a few Avos alerts for the events that matter. Avos News vs Google Alerts compares the two.

FAQ

What is the cheapest media monitoring tool?

Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts are free and cover news, blogs and more. Among the paid listening tools here that list a price, Awario's Starter plan is the cheapest, at €29 a month billed yearly as shown on its pricing page. Avos's Starter plan is free and includes news alerts that run on its monthly credits.

How do I monitor news mentions of my company without Meltwater or Cision?

Set up Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts on your company and product names in quotes. If those bring too much noise, or you care about events rather than words, add an AI news alert that checks each story against a condition, such as an Avos news alert. Add a paid listening tool only if you also need social media and sentiment.

Does Avos track social media mentions?

Only partly. Avos alerts can watch X accounts, an X search and YouTube channels alongside news and RSS feeds, but no other social networks, and there are no sentiment or reach dashboards.

How fast are Avos news alerts?

They check on a schedule set by your plan, listed on the pricing page, and email you after the check that finds a match, right away or in a daily or weekly digest.