8 best brand mention tools I’m using in 2026 (free + paid)

As someone who's been in the SEO industry for a decade now, I can tell you that the best thing you can do as a marketer right now is get serious about brand reputation management.

The future of brand discoverability is all about consensus. It's not just what you say about your brand, but what others say about you (that is weighed more heavily now).

This is where a brand mentions tool comes into play.

I've spent the past year testing different brand monitoring platforms for my own media company and my SaaS clients. Some are built for enterprise teams with massive budgets. Others are simple and affordable but still get the job done. And a few are specifically designed for tracking AI search engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

And in this article, I’m going to show you my top ones that actually work.

But before we jump into the tools, let's first cover what a brand mention tool actually is and why you need one.

What is a brand mention tool?

A brand mention tool is a platform that allows you to track what others are saying about your brand on social media and in search engines. It can also send you alerts when your brand (or a competitor's) is mentioned, or give you a sentiment analysis on how your brand is perceived.

This can help you understand industry trends with products in your market, making them great tools for not only social media marketers but product marketers as well.

With the rise of Search Everywhere Optimization and AI, brand has become more important than ever. And these tools can help marketing teams better understand how they are doing compared to their competitors.

Here's what most brand mention tools can do:

• Track mentions across social media platforms (Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook, etc.)
• Monitor conversations in AI search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews)
• Send real-time alerts when your brand is mentioned
• Analyze sentiment (positive, negative, or neutral)
• Track competitor mentions and compare performance
• Identify influencers and key conversations in your industry
• Generate reports on brand health and share of voice

The best tool for you depends on where your audience hangs out and what you need to track. Below, I’ll show you my favorite tools and tell you what each one is best for. This way, you can pick the right tool for your own use case.

Okay, let’s get into it.

8 best brand mention tools in 2026

Here are the best brand mention tools:

1. Gumloop
2. Alertmouse
3. Brand Radar
4. Sprout Social
5. Hootsuite
6. Peec AI
7. Brandwatch
8. Google Trends

Alright, let’s go over each of these in depth.

1. Gumloop

• Best for: Building custom brand monitoring workflows with AI
• Pricing: Has a free plan, paid plans start at $37/month
• What I like: You can build any brand monitoring workflow by talking to Gummie (the AI chatbot), and there are already pre-built templates you can use for free.

Gumloop is an AI automation tool that lets you create any workflow using AI. One of the top use cases for Gumloop, that brands like Webflow use, is creating a brand monitoring and sentiment analysis workflow.

Within Gumloop, you can talk to an AI chatbot named Gummie and have it create any workflow to monitor your brand across different websites. Using the AI web scraping feature, you can have it look through Reddit, different blogs and publications, LinkedIn, and pretty much anywhere web scraping tools can operate.

You can also create a workflow where anytime your brand is mentioned somewhere, you can get either a Slack message, an email, or any custom notification.

In fact, this workflow is so popular that there's already a template you can use right now completely free. You can check it out here. And if you like to watch, you can check out this video of Aron building it live:

Overall, it's a great tool if you're on a social media marketing team, not only for its brand tracking features but because you can also create other AI automated workflows around your social media posting schedule, monitoring competitors, creating content, and a ton more.

Gumloop pricing

Here are Gumloop’s pricing tiers:

• Free plan includes 2,000 credits per month, 1 seat, 1 active trigger, unlimited nodes and flows, plus access to Gummie Agent and forum support.
• Solo plan starts at $37/month and includes 10,000+ credits per month, unlimited triggers, webhooks, email support, and the ability to bring your own API key.
• Team plan starts at $244/month and includes 60,000+ credits per month, 10 seats, unlimited workspaces, dedicated Slack support, and team usage and analytics.
• Enterprise plan offers custom pricing and includes everything in Team plus role-based access control, SCIM/SAML support, admin dashboard, audit logs, and advanced security features.

You can learn more about what each plan has to offer by checking out the pricing page.

Gumloop reviews

Here are what customers of Gumloop say about the tool:

"Gumloop has been critical in helping all teams at Instacart - including those without technical skills - adopt AI and automate their workflows, which has greatly improved our operational efficiency."
— Fidji Simo, CEO @ Instacart

"Gumloop wins time back across an org. It puts the tools into the hands of people who understand a task and lets them completely automate it away."
— Bryant Chou, Co-Founder @ Webflow

2. Alertmouse

• Best for: Simple email alerts for brand mentions
• Pricing: Has a free plan, paid plans start at $10/month
• What I like: Created by Rand Fishkin (founder of Moz), and it's way more reliable than Google Alerts.

Alertmouse is a new social listening and brand monitoring tool created by the legend Rand Fishkin (the founder of Moz, the popular SEO tool). It aims at being a better alternative to Google Alerts (which I personally had a lot of issues with).

The tool is quite easy to use, and it starts by you adding in an exact phrase that you want to track. From there, you can set rules where it will give you alerts based off certain keywords that are around your branded search term, or it will ignore certain keywords.

From there, anytime Alertmouse detects your brand being mentioned, you will get a full report via email. You can also use the tool to track your competitors' brand mentions as well.

The tool is great for anyone that is a marketer really looking to track brand mentions, a creator, journalist, author, anybody that works in PR, and pretty much anybody that is concerned with their brand reputation management.

Alertmouse pricing

Here are Alertmouse's pricing plans:

• Nibble (Free): 1 alert, 1 user, up to 10 mentions per day, and history stored for 60 days
• Slice ($10/month): 5 alerts, 3 users, unlimited mentions, and history stored for 1 year
• Wedge ($50/month): 50 alerts, 10 users, unlimited mentions, and history stored for 2 years
• Wheel ($100/month): 200 alerts, 100 users, unlimited mentions, and history stored for 2 years

If you want to compare the different plans, you can check out the pricing page here.

Alertmouse reviews

Alertmouse is still a very new tool, so there aren’t any third-party reviews at the time of writing this. However, Jon Henshaw wrote up a pretty great review if you want to check it out.

3. Brand Radar

• Best for: Tracking brand mentions in AI search engines
• Pricing: Starts at $199/month (as an add-on to Ahrefs plans starting at $129/month)
• What I like: It tracks mentions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews with a database of 150M+ queries.

Brand Radar is a tool that helps you track brand mentions through AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and even AI Overviews. It's created by the team at Ahrefs and it's embedded right into their existing SEO product suite.

I personally have been using the tool to track mentions of my clients and even my own media company. What makes Ahrefs' Brand Radar tool different compared to other AI visibility tracking tools is that they have a database of over 150M+ queries that are constantly being monitored for brand sentiment and AI share of voice.

But all of this premium access to data does not come at a cheap cost. Brand Radar is quite expensive compared to some other tools on this list, but I thought it would be a notable mention for enterprise companies looking to find a way to track their brand visibility, especially in AI search engines.

Brand Radar pricing

Brand Radar is an add-on feature to Ahrefs' main plans. Here are the base Ahrefs pricing tiers:

• Lite ($129/month): 5 projects, 6 months of historical data, 750 tracked keywords, 100,000 crawl credits, 1 user included
• Standard ($249/month): 20 projects, 2 years of historical data, 2,000 tracked keywords, 500,000 crawl credits, unlimited credits per user, 1 user included
• Advanced ($449/month): 50 projects, 5 years of historical data, 5,000 tracked keywords, 1,500,000 crawl credits, unlimited credits per user, 1 user included
• Enterprise ($1,499/month): Custom solutions with advanced customization, automation, and controls (annual commitment required)

Brand Radar AI add-on starts at $199/month and tracks your brand across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot.

If you want to see all the features included in each plan, you can check out the pricing page.

Brand Radar reviews

Here's what customers rate Ahrefs on third-party review sites:

• G2: 4.5/5 star rating (from +606 user reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7 star rating (from +577 user reviews)

4. Sprout Social

• Best for: All-in-one social media management with brand monitoring
• Pricing: Starts at $79/month per seat
• What I like: It's a complete social media platform that includes AI-powered listening tools, not just brand monitoring.

If you've worked in social media marketing, then there's a good chance you've heard of Sprout Social. Sprout Social is a tool that helps social media marketers with everything from planning their campaigns, organizing them with team members, posting them, and even tracking analytics.

One of their popular features is the Listening tool that uses AI to track insights of how people are talking about your own brand and even your competitors' brands. It's a true social listening tool built for social media platforms.

They even have templates that you can start with around things like brand health, industry insights, campaign analysis, event monitoring, competitor analysis, and a ton more.

I remember back when I was working on the marketing team at Webflow, Sprout Social was the main tool our social media team used. And from lots of conversations with people in tech, it seems to be a solid alternative if you ever use the tool Brand24 (which is another really popular brand monitoring tool).

Overall, if you need a tool that can do more than just monitor your brand mentions, then Sprout Social is definitely a platform to look into. But if you just need to track brand mentions, it might be worth using a platform like Alertmouse or Gumloop.

Sprout Social pricing

Here are Sprout Social's pricing plans:

• Essentials ($79/month per seat): Advanced post scheduler, optimal send times, unlimited AI-generated alt text, profile and post performance, and built-in image editor
• Standard ($199/month per seat): Everything in Essentials plus consolidated inbox and collaboration tools, real-time keyword and brand monitoring, case management, and review moderation
• Professional ($299/month per seat): Everything in Standard plus unlimited social profiles, unlimited competitor insights, digital asset library, AI Assist suggestions, and message tagging
• Advanced ($399/month per seat): Everything in Professional plus enhanced AI Assist, sentiment analysis, helpdesk integrations, team productivity reports, and message spike alerts

If you want to compare the different plans, you can check out the pricing page.

Sprout Social reviews

Here's what customers rate Sprout Social on third-party review sites:

• G2: 4.4/5 star rating (from +5,546 user reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 star rating (from +602 user reviews)

5. Hootsuite

• Best for: Brand reputation management across social platforms
• Pricing: Starts at $149/month per user
• What I like: Real-time damage control alerts help you quickly respond to negative brand mentions.

Hootsuite is the first social media platform that I ever used when I started working in marketing. It's been around for quite a long time, and many of its features are similar to that of Sprout Social. You can do everything from planning your social media posts, publishing and scheduling them, and even tracking analytics.

Within that analytics suite, you can find the social listening features that allow you to track how your brand name is showing up across different social media platforms.

Hootsuite's angle at these types of tools is that they focus a lot on brand reputation management. So they're big on helping you monitor the sentiment of what people are saying, whether it's positive, negative, or something worth paying attention to.

There's also a damage control feature that allows you to see real-time alerts so your social media team can quickly jump in and try to control the narrative of how your brand is showing up.

Overall, just like Sprout Social, if you need a tool that can do more than just social listening, Hootsuite is definitely a tool to check out. However, it may have too many features for some if all they need is a brand mentions tracker.

Hootsuite pricing

Here are Hootsuite's pricing plans:

• Standard ($149/month per user): Up to 10 social accounts, unlimited post scheduling, AI assistant with image and caption generator, one inbox for all social accounts, DM automations, search the past 7 days for brand mentions, analyze brand sentiment, and benchmark against 5 competitors
• Advanced ($399/month per user): Everything in Standard plus unlimited social accounts, customizable analytics reports, team approval workflows, bulk schedule up to 350 posts, benchmark against 20 competitors, search the past 30 days for brand mentions, and inbox reporting and analytics
• Enterprise (custom pricing): Everything in Advanced plus a fully customized plan, unlimited users, enterprise customer support, single sign-on, and access to advanced tools like Listening powered by Talkwalker, Advanced Analytics, Generative AI Chatbot, and Salesforce integration

If you want to compare the different plans, you can check out the pricing page here.

Hootsuite reviews

Here's what customers rate Hootsuite on third-party review sites:

• G2: 4.3/5 star rating (from +6,601 user reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 star rating (from +3,783 user reviews)

6. Peec AI

• Best for: Affordable AI search engine brand monitoring
• Pricing: Starts at $95/month (approximately €89)
• What I like: It's way cheaper than Brand Radar but still tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews effectively.

Peec AI is a brand monitoring tool that has been growing recently. I came across the tool around 6 months ago, and I've been using it to track how my clients' brand names are showing up in AI search engines like ChatGPT and AI Overviews.

It has a similar concept to Ahrefs' Brand Radar tool we went over earlier, however this tool is a fraction of the cost. Granted, it doesn't have the same database as Brand Radar, but it does allow you to track any prompt or mention of your brand in a simple to understand user interface.

The cool thing about Peec AI is that it also has a chat interface that you can talk to, so you don't have to bounce around different tabs inside the interface to figure out what's going on.

Overall, it's a solid platform to monitor brand mentions on AI search engines, and there's also a free trial so it doesn't hurt to take it for a spin and see if you like it.

Peec AI pricing

Here are Peec AI's pricing plans:

• Starter ($95/month): Track up to 25 prompts, access to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews, up to 2,250 AI answers analyzed per month, unlimited countries and seats, and email support
• Pro ($214/month): Track up to 100 prompts, access to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews, up to 9,000 AI answers analyzed per month, unlimited countries and seats, and email plus Slack support
• Enterprise ($535+/month): Track 300+ prompts, access to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews, 27,000+ AI answers analyzed per month, unlimited countries and seats, and a dedicated account rep

If you want to compare the different plans, you can check out the pricing page here.

Peec AI reviews

Here's what customers rate Peec AI on third-party review sites:

• G2: 5/5 star rating (from +1 user review)
• Slashdot: 5/5 star rating (from +4 user reviews)

7. Brandwatch

• Best for: Enterprise-level social media management and brand monitoring
• Pricing: Custom pricing (contact sales)
• What I like: It's built for scale with clients like Nestlé and Toyota, and includes crisis management features.

Brandwatch does exactly as the name implies. It's a brand monitoring tool that uses AI to uncover your social mentions. Designed mostly for enterprise companies, some of their customers include Nestlé and Toyota.

But similar to Hootsuite or Sprout Social, Brandwatch is also a full social media management tool. You can do everything from managing your campaign marketing strategy, creating your influencer strategy, and even connect all of your social networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Reddit, WhatsApp, YouTube, and more.

It's pretty much an all-in-one tool with the addition of brand monitoring and crisis management features. I would definitely recommend this tool to anyone running social media for a large consumer brand.

Brandwatch pricing

Brandwatch offers three main product suites with custom pricing:

• Consumer Intelligence: Search the world's largest archive of consumer opinion for market insights, segment audiences in customizable dashboards, analyze data at scale with AI, and distribute automated reporting and alerts
• Social Media Management: Manage all social channels in one place, collaborate on content with a unified calendar, engage with your community in a centralized social CRM, monitor your brand with social listening, and benchmark against competitors
• Influencer Marketing: Discover influencers from a database of 30M+ creators, manage influencer relationships at every touchpoint, and run and measure multichannel campaigns

All plans require contacting sales for custom pricing based on your needs.

Brandwatch reviews

Here's what customers rate Brandwatch on third-party review sites:

• G2: 4.4/5 star rating (from +704 user reviews)
• Capterra: 4.2/5 star rating (from +235 user reviews)

8. Google Trends

• Best for: Free keyword and competitor trend tracking
• Pricing: Completely free
• What I like: It's underrated, completely free, and gives you a quick snapshot of how your brand compares to competitors over time.

Google Trends is a free tool that allows you to track how keywords in Google are trending. It's such an underrated tool, and I use it almost every time I set out to write an article. However, when it comes to brand monitoring, Google Trends can help you figure out how your competitors are trending against your brand name.

It's a good way to track search interest over time and see if your brand awareness is growing or declining compared to competitors. You can filter by region, time range, and even specific categories to get a sense of where your brand is gaining traction.

The main limitation is that it only shows relative search volume, not actual numbers. So while you can see trends and comparisons, you won't get the detailed mention data or sentiment analysis you'd get from paid tools. But for a free tool that takes seconds to use, it's incredibly valuable for getting a quick pulse check on brand awareness.

Google Trends reviews

Google Trends does have a 4.5/5 star rating on G2 (out of 244 reviews) but I would take them with a grain of salt. This platform doesn't have traditional review sites since it's a free Google product, but it's widely used and trusted by marketers, journalists, and researchers worldwide.

The future of marketing is brand

If there's one thing I've learned after a decade in SEO, it's that the game is moving more towards things that are harder to manipulate.

You can't fake what other people say about you. You can't buy your way into ChatGPT recommendations. And you can't trick AI search engines into thinking your brand is trusted if the consensus says otherwise.

Today, brand management is the foundation of modern content marketing and how customers discover you in 2026.

The tools I covered in this post will help you stay on top of social media monitoring, track how your brand shows up in AI search engines, and give you the insights you need to run smarter marketing campaigns. Whether you go with something free like Google Trends or invest in a platform like Gumloop or Brand Radar, the important thing is that you start tracking your brand mentions ASAP.

Because at the end of the day, you can run the best marketing campaigns in the world, but if no one's talking about your brand or the sentiment is negative, none of it matters.

So pick a tool from this list, set up your first brand monitoring workflow, and start paying attention to what people are actually saying about you. That's where the real marketing work begins.