Start with what you want to follow. You might have a regular reading list, need alerts for your brand name, or want to research a subject across publications. News tools combine those jobs in different ways.
Imagine you run a coworking business. An article about flexible office leases could be useful even if it never says “coworking” or names your brand. Include that kind of subject search alongside an exact-name search when trying the tools.
OppAlerts publishes this guide and is included in it. Vendor details come from September 2026 research.
Choose how you want to find articles
A feed reader follows publications you've selected, making it useful for a regular reading list. What you see depends on those sources and the material available from them. Feedly is an option to investigate for following and discovering sources; this guide doesn't include unverified prices or limits.
Alerts apply your monitoring terms to the sources a service covers. Brand24, Mention, Talkwalker, and Meltwater support monitoring queries. Try broad and specific wording to see what each finds. The coworking brand's name and its wider industry subject may need different queries.
A searchable index lets you investigate collected content. OppAlerts' News Index contains news, blogs, and podcasts you can search by words or meaning. Similarity search can find related wording about office leases. Compare it with a word search to see which useful articles each returns, keeping the collection's coverage in mind. The semantic news-search guide explains how to do that.
Test the publications your team reads
Talkwalker claims 150 million sources and Mention claims a billion. Vendors define those totals differently. One publication can produce hundreds of articles while still counting as one source, and another vendor might count its feeds separately.
Try your ten essential publications. Check whether they're included, how quickly new articles appear, and whether you can search full text or only headlines. That tells you more about the reading and research you need to do.
Brand24's reviewed monthly plans cost $249, $349, $499, and $699 for 3, 7, 12, and 25 keywords and 2,000, 10,000, 40,000, and 100,000 mentions. Refresh ranges from 12-hourly to real time, with unlimited users above entry. A busy news period can use more mentions without changing your queries, so allow for both volume and irrelevant matches.
Mention offers Boolean control over registered keyword sets across web and social monitoring. Talkwalker quotes for consumer intelligence, stating coverage of 187 languages and 196 countries with unlimited users. Test the markets and sources you need within that coverage.
Try the next step after finding an article
Meltwater's quoted Starter, Pro, Enterprise, and Agency arrangements can include journalist research and distribution. Price depends on modules, regional and source coverage, volume, users, integrations, onboarding, support, and terms. If you plan press activity, include those operations in the demonstration.
BuzzSumo Content Analyzer adds engagement research by topic, URL, or domain. Trending Feeds focuses on recent content, and PR & Comms adds coverage reports and a journalist database. Check whether its two- or five-alert allowance covers the names and subjects you monitor.
OppAlerts Brand Mentions uses the Prospect Index and the News Index. News research doesn't use the weekly scheduled keyword and prompt allowance. Try the available records and publication-date filters with your research task.
For the flexible-office article, you could investigate an unlinked mention, find the publisher's public contact route, or research related contribution opportunities. PageRank history adds link-graph context. Read the current publication before approaching it. OppAlerts doesn't cover social platforms or provide a journalist database.
Compare the results for both your brand name and the wider subject. Look at useful articles, missing publications, and how you can follow up. The media intelligence comparison covers broader tools for the work around monitoring.
Browse all comparisons and alternatives.
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