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Most buyers should pick Critical Mention.
Choose Critical Mention if broadcast coverage and earned-media reporting are the priority: its homepage lists real-time alerts, custom reports, and one-click sharing, while pricing is custom and unpublished. Choose Mention if you need web and social monitoring alongside publishing and an inbox. Its Company Plan is listed at $599 per month billed yearly, with 50,000 mentions monthly and unlimited users. Neither product lists a free plan; Mention's monthly billing price and both products' support terms are not published.
01Side by side
| Critical Mention | Mention | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Custom quote; starting price not published | $599/month, billed yearly; monthly price not published |
| Free plan | No free plan listed | No free plan listed |
| Best for | PR agencies, communications firms, and brands monitoring earned media | Companies needing monitoring plus social publishing and inbox tools |
| Core strength | Earned-media search, broadcast monitoring, and coverage sharing | Web/social monitoring, analytics, publishing, and inbox in one tool |
| Learning curve | Not published | Not published |
| Integrations/data | Broadcast monitoring; API access offered, pricing not published | Monitors over 1 billion sources; API access is a paid add-on |
| Team/seat costs | Custom pricing; seat limits not published | Unlimited users on Company Plan; $599/month billed yearly |
| Support | Support terms not published | Support terms not published |
Critical Mention Choose Critical Mention if
- Choose Critical Mention if broadcast monitoring is central to your coverage work.
- Choose Critical Mention if you need earned-media reports and sharing tools.
- Choose Critical Mention if custom pricing is acceptable.
Mention Choose Mention if
- Choose Mention if you want web and social monitoring in one tool.
- Choose Mention if social publishing and inbox tools matter to your team.
- Choose Mention if 50,000 monthly mentions and unlimited users fit your needs.
02Pricing compared
Critical Mention’s pricing information describes custom packages for large PR agencies, growing firms, individual brands, nonprofits, and API partners, but does not publish prices. You’ll need to request a quote, so there’s no public figure to compare with Mention’s starting price. Mention’s pricing page lists its Company Plan at $599 per month when billed yearly. It includes 50,000 mentions per month, unlimited users, 10+ alerts, and search queries up to 2,000 characters. Mention does not publish a monthly-billing price, overage costs, or prices for historical data and API access. Neither product lists a free plan, and a free-trial offer is not published for either. If you need a predictable public price before speaking to sales, Mention is easier to assess; Critical Mention’s total cost remains unknown until you request a quote.
03Features and depth
Critical Mention is the more focused option for earned-media monitoring and reporting. Its homepage says search results arrive within 60 seconds and lists real-time alerts, customizable reports, sentiment analytics, and one-click coverage sharing; shared links can be viewed without a login. A customer quote describes broadcast monitoring with segment previews in search results. That makes it a closer fit when broadcast coverage and shareable PR reports are central to the workflow, though the available information does not spell out plan-by-plan feature limits.
Mention covers web and social conversations across more than 1 billion sources, according to its product information. It offers keyword- and page-based alerts, sentiment and influence indicators, dashboards, and analytics for reach, volume, location, source, and emotion. It also adds social publishing, scheduling, and a shared inbox with approval workflows and a content library. The Company Plan lists 50,000 monthly mentions; Mention does not publish overage costs. Choose it for monitoring plus social operations, not just earned-media reporting.
04Ease of use and learning curve
Neither product’s published information gives a detailed account of onboarding, training, or setup time, so we would not assume one is easier to learn. Critical Mention’s homepage emphasizes fast search, alerts, custom reports, and sharing coverage without requiring recipients to log in. Those features may simplify reporting and distribution, but they don’t establish how easy the platform is to configure.
The review summaries score Critical Mention’s ease of use at 7/10 and Mention’s at 6.5/10. Those scores suggest a small reported difference, not a guarantee of a smoother rollout. Critical Mention’s review also flags uneven contact data, while Mention’s wider mix of monitoring and social tools may mean more workflows to evaluate. Both products leave key support terms unpublished in the available information, so ask about onboarding and support before signing.
Questions people ask
What is Critical Mention?
Critical Mention is a cloud-based earned-media monitoring and analytics platform. Its listed capabilities include real-time alerts, custom reports, sentiment analytics, coverage sharing, and broadcast monitoring. The homepage says search results arrive within 60 seconds; pricing is customized and not publicly listed.
How do you measure media mentions?
Mention’s analytics report reach, volume, sentiment, location, source, and emotion. Critical Mention lists sentiment analytics, trends, density maps, and word clouds. These tools provide different ways to assess coverage; the published product information does not define a shared measurement standard for comparing their results.
Does Critical Mention monitor broadcast coverage?
Yes. Critical Mention’s published product information lists broadcast monitoring, and a customer quote describes previewing broadcast segments in search results. The information does not specify which broadcast sources or coverage limits are included in each package, so confirm those details when requesting a quote.
Is Mention cheaper than Critical Mention?
Mention has a published Company Plan price of $599 per month billed yearly, with 50,000 monthly mentions and unlimited users. Critical Mention’s pricing is customized and unpublished, so we can’t confirm which costs less. Mention’s monthly billing price and potential overage costs are also not published.