Why Heardsay
Between Google Alerts and a $10,000 contract.
Free alerts miss too much. Enterprise suites cost too much and take weeks to learn. Heardsay gives smaller teams the part that matters: honest coverage and a clear daily brief.
14 days free. No card needed to start.
In short
Why choose Heardsay over Google Alerts or an enterprise suite?
Google Alerts is free but slow, noisy and blind to most social posts. Enterprise suites like Meltwater and Cision cover more, but they are sold on annual contracts that often pass $10,000 a year. Heardsay sits in between, with honest sources, sentiment, team alerts and a daily brief from $99 a month.
Side by side
How we compare.
| Feature | Heardsay | Google Alerts | Meltwater or Cision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | From $99/month, monthly | Free | Annual contracts, often $10k+ a year |
| Setup time | 5 minutes | 1 minute | Days to weeks, with onboarding |
| News coverage | Google News, GDELT, your RSS | Google index only | Very broad, licensed content |
| Social and community | Reddit, Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, HN | ||
| Sentiment and crisis flags | |||
| AI daily brief | Varies by package | ||
| Team inbox and assignments | |||
| English and French | Separate alerts per language | ||
| Media database and outreach | |||
| Broadcast monitoring | Usually an add-on |
Based on publicly available information as of 2026. Meltwater and Cision do not publish list prices; enterprise contracts are commonly reported in the five figures per year. Features change, so check each vendor before you decide.
The short version
Pick Heardsay if this sounds like you.
Your comms team is small
One to six people, no analyst, no time to learn a complex suite.
Your budget is real
You need something you can approve on a credit card, not a procurement cycle.
You work in two languages
Your coverage comes in English and French, and your team reads one or both.
You want answers, not dashboards
A brief that says what happened and what to do beats a wall of charts.
Try it next to what you use today.
Run Heardsay alongside Google Alerts for two weeks and compare what each one caught.
Set up in 5 minutes. First brief tomorrow morning. No training.