Brand24 vs Keyhole in 2026: Self-serve AI monitoring vs enterprise-only hashtag analytics
Brand24 publishes pricing from $199 a month and offers a 14-day trial. Keyhole, now owned by Muck Rack, has no public pricing and no self-serve signup at all.
Brand24
Keyhole- Keyhole has no public pricing and no self-serve signup; its pricing page at keyhole.co redirects to a Muck Rack demo request form. Brand24 publishes five pricing tiers starting at $199/month with a 14-day free trial.
- Keyhole specializes in hashtag and keyword tracking with multi-year historical data plus influencer audience quality scoring, workflows Brand24 does not focus on in the same way.
- Brand24 monitors news, blogs, review sites, forums, and podcast transcripts in addition to social media. Keyhole's coverage is social-focused and does not match that breadth for news or podcast content.
- Brand24 includes AI sentiment analysis with emotion detection and anomaly detection for volume or sentiment spikes. Keyhole's feature set does not list comparable AI-driven sentiment or anomaly capabilities.
- Keyhole aggregates campaign performance across owned, influencer, and partner posts sharing a hashtag in a single dashboard view, a dedicated campaign-measurement workflow that Brand24 does not offer.
- Keyhole lists enterprise customers including NBC Universal, Billboard, USTA, and WWF and holds a top G2 ranking in social media analytics, reflecting its post-acquisition enterprise-only positioning.
Brand24 and Keyhole compete for a similar buyer, marketing and PR teams that need more than a raw mention feed, but access to one of them is no longer a real choice you can make on your own timeline. Brand24 keeps a self-serve model with published pricing from $199/month and a 14-day free trial, so you can test coverage before spending anything. Keyhole was acquired by Muck Rack in 2024, and as of 2026 its pricing page redirects straight to a Muck Rack demo request form; there is no way to see a number or start a trial without going through enterprise sales. The underlying products differ too: Keyhole specializes in hashtag-anchored campaign and influencer analytics with multi-year historical data, while Brand24 casts a wider net across news, blogs, podcasts, and social with AI-driven sentiment and anomaly detection. The real decision for most teams is whether they can even get in the door.
The tools at a glance
Brand24
Real-time brand monitoring across social media, news, blogs, and podcasts with AI-powered sentiment analysis and anomaly detection
Brand24 tracks mentions across X, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, news sites, blogs, review sites, forums, and podcast transcripts, claiming 25 million monitored sources and 25 billion indexed mentions. Anyone can sign up and start a 14-day free trial without talking to sales, which is a meaningful difference from Keyhole's current access model.
The AI layer does real triage work: every mention gets a sentiment tag plus an emotion label, anomaly detection catches unusual volume or sentiment shifts before a fixed threshold would flag them, and the AI Brand Assistant on Pro and above answers questions about your mention stream and drafts stakeholder briefings on request. Influencer scoring on every mention author and competitor share of voice round out the analysis layer.
Pricing has climbed in recent years, with Individual now at $199/month for just 3 keywords and 2,000 mentions, and API or podcast access requiring Pro at $399/month. But you can see all five tiers and their exact features before paying anything, and the trial lets you validate coverage for your specific brand. Against Keyhole's opaque, demo-gated pricing, that transparency is a real advantage even before comparing feature sets.
| Feature | Individual $199/mo | Team $299/mo | Pro $399/mo | Business $599/mo | Enterprise From $999/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keywords | 3 | 7 | 12 | 25 | Custom |
| Monthly mentions | 2,000 | 10,000 | 40,000 | 100,000 | Custom |
| Sentiment and emotion analysis | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Anomaly detection | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI Brand Assistant | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| API access | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Self-serve signup | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Contact required |
Keyhole
Social media analytics with hashtag tracking, influencer analytics, and campaign measurement, now part of the Muck Rack platform
Keyhole is a social media analytics platform built around hashtag tracking, influencer analytics, and campaign measurement, in the market since 2012 with a top G2 ranking in social media analytics and enterprise customers including NBC Universal, Billboard, USTA, and WWF. Its particular depth is multi-year historical hashtag and keyword data, useful for trend research and retrospective campaign benchmarking that most monitoring tools do not offer at the same historical depth.
Keyhole aggregates performance across every post using a campaign hashtag, whether owned, influencer, or partner content, into a single dashboard rather than requiring a manual pull from each platform. Influencer profiles include an audience quality score that separates genuine engagement from inflated follower counts, useful for evaluating partnership candidates or reporting on influencer ROI after a campaign.
Since Muck Rack acquired Keyhole in 2024, access has fundamentally changed. There is no public pricing and no self-serve trial; the keyhole.co pricing page redirects to a Muck Rack demo request form, and evaluation requires engaging their enterprise sales process. The product fundamentals remain strong, but the access model now fits large brands and agencies already buying at enterprise scale, not a mid-market team that wants to compare plans on its own.
| Feature | Professional Contact for pricing | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Hashtag and keyword tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Historical data | Limited | Extended |
| Influencer analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Campaign measurement | Yes | Yes |
| API access | No | Yes |
| Dedicated account manager | No | Yes |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Brand24 | Keyhole |
|---|---|---|
| Sources monitored | 25M+ sources: social, news, blogs, podcasts | Social-focused, no news or blog depth |
| Podcast monitoring | Yes (Pro plan and above) | No |
| Hashtag campaign aggregation | No dedicated campaign view | Yes, aggregates owned, partner, influencer posts |
| Influencer quality scoring | Influencer score on every mention author | Yes, with audience quality scoring |
| Sentiment / emotion analysis | Yes, plus emotion tagging | Sentiment included, no emotion tagging documented |
| Anomaly detection | Yes (Team plan and above) | Not documented |
| Historical data depth | Not a core feature | Multi-year on higher tiers |
| API access | Yes (Pro plan and above, $399/mo) | Enterprise tier only |
| Self-serve signup | Yes | No, demo request required |
| Free trial | Yes, 14 days, no credit card | No, not available |
| Starting price | $199/mo | Contact for pricing |
Which should you choose?
Brand24KeyholeBrand24KeyholeKeyholeBrand24Brand24This comparison is shaped less by features than by access. Keyhole's core product, hashtag analytics, influencer quality scoring, and campaign aggregation, is genuinely well-built and validated by both its G2 ranking and its enterprise customer list. But since the Muck Rack acquisition, there is no way to evaluate it without a sales conversation, no published pricing, and no trial. Brand24 is not as specialized in hashtag campaign measurement, but it is self-serve from the first click, publishes every tier's exact price and feature set, and gives you 14 days to test real coverage before paying. For most teams outside the enterprise-and-already-in-Muck-Rack segment, Keyhole is simply not reachable in the way Brand24 is, which makes this less a head-to-head feature fight than a question of who can actually buy the product.
Bottom line
If you need to compare tools, see pricing, and start monitoring today, Brand24 is the only realistic option between the two; its $199/month entry point and 14-day trial let you validate coverage without a sales call. If your team runs large hashtag-driven influencer campaigns, needs multi-year historical benchmarking, and is already buying software at enterprise scale, Keyhole's specialized campaign and influencer analytics are worth the demo request, provided you have the budget and patience for Muck Rack's sales process. Mid-market teams evaluating Keyhole purely out of curiosity should expect to hit a wall before ever seeing a price.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sign up for Keyhole without talking to sales, the way I can with Brand24?
No. Keyhole has no self-serve signup as of 2026, since its acquisition by Muck Rack routed all pricing and onboarding through Muck Rack's enterprise sales process. Brand24, by contrast, offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required and full self-serve signup across all five of its pricing tiers.
Why does Keyhole have no public pricing anymore?
Keyhole was acquired by Muck Rack, the PR software platform, in 2024, and as of 2026 its pricing page at keyhole.co redirects to a Muck Rack demo request form rather than displaying tier pricing. This is a change from Keyhole's earlier self-serve model and now limits practical access to enterprise buyers willing to go through a sales conversation.
Does Brand24 offer the same hashtag campaign aggregation as Keyhole?
Not in the same dedicated way. Keyhole is specifically built to aggregate performance across all posts sharing a campaign hashtag, including owned, partner, and influencer content, in a single view. Brand24 tracks hashtags as part of its broader keyword monitoring but does not offer the same purpose-built campaign aggregation dashboard.
Is Keyhole worth pursuing for a mid-market team without enterprise budget?
Probably not, at least not directly. Since the Muck Rack acquisition, Keyhole has no published pricing and no self-serve path, which effectively prices out mid-market teams who cannot justify an enterprise sales process for evaluation alone. Brand24 or another self-serve tool like Mention is the more practical starting point for a mid-market team, with Keyhole better suited to brands already buying analytics software at enterprise scale.
Which tool tracks more source types, Brand24 or Keyhole?
Brand24 tracks a wider range of source types, including news sites, blogs, review sites, forums, and podcast transcripts in addition to social media. Keyhole's coverage is social-focused, centered on platforms like X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn, and does not match Brand24's breadth for news, blog, or audio content.
Does Keyhole have anomaly detection or AI-generated briefings like Brand24?
Keyhole's documented feature set does not include anomaly detection or an AI briefing assistant comparable to Brand24's AI Brand Assistant. Brand24 includes anomaly detection from its Team plan at $299/month and AI-generated stakeholder briefings from Pro at $399/month, both of which are specific differentiators over Keyhole's hashtag and influencer-focused analytics.