Mention vs Serpstat in 2026: $599/month media monitoring vs $50/month SEO with API
Mention listens across 1 billion+ sources for brand mentions and sentiment at enterprise pricing. Serpstat runs keyword research, audits, and rank tracking with API access from its cheapest plan.
Mention
Serpstat- Mention monitors 1 billion+ sources for brand mentions and sentiment. Serpstat has no monitoring feature in that sense; it tracks keyword rankings and site health, not brand conversation.
- Mention starts at $599/month after a pricing restructure following its acquisition by Mynewsdesk. Serpstat starts at $50/month for its Individual plan, including API access.
- Serpstat includes API access on every plan including the $50/month Individual tier. Mention includes API access only on its $599/month Company plan and above.
- Serpstat does not include AI model tracking for ChatGPT or Gemini. Mention's monitoring covers social, news, and forums, not LLM-generated answers either.
- Mention has no self-serve free trial and requires a sales conversation. Serpstat is fully self-serve with published pricing at every tier.
- Serpstat covers rank tracking across 230 countries. Mention's strength is source breadth (news, social, forums, reviews), not geographic rank tracking.
Mention and Serpstat share a category tag but not a job. Mention is a social listening and media monitoring platform, tracking brand mentions, sentiment, and competitor share of voice across news, social, and forums, now priced at $599/month after its acquisition by Mynewsdesk. Serpstat is a traditional SEO suite covering keyword research, rank tracking, site audits, and backlink analysis, with API access included from its $50/month Individual plan. If the goal is knowing what people are saying about your brand right now, Mention is built for that. If the goal is ranking better in Google and tracking that progress, Serpstat is the far cheaper, more relevant tool.
The tools at a glance
Mention
Social listening and media monitoring across 1 billion+ sources with sentiment analysis, competitor benchmarking, and centralized social publishing
Mention tracks brand mentions, competitor activity, and topic conversations across 1 billion+ sources: news sites, social platforms, blogs, forums, and review sites, with real-time alerts and sentiment classification. It was built as a mid-market listening tool, then repositioned after being acquired by Mynewsdesk, a Scandinavian PR platform, folding it into a broader media relations suite.
The competitor benchmarking and share-of-voice tools are genuinely useful for brand and PR teams that need to show relative positioning, and the sentiment analysis holds up across most conversational contexts. Custom dashboards and white-label reporting support agencies delivering monitoring as a client service.
The current Company plan at $599/month is a substantial jump from Mention's historical pricing, and there is no self-serve free trial; new customers go through a sales process. At this price, Mention competes directly with Brandwatch, Talkwalker, and Meltwater rather than the mid-market tools it used to sit alongside.
| Feature | Company $599/month | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Monitored sources | 1B+ | 1B+ |
| Sentiment analysis | Yes | Yes |
| Competitor benchmarking | Yes | Yes |
| White-label reporting | Yes | Yes |
| API access | Yes | Yes |
Serpstat
Comprehensive SEO platform with keyword research, site audits, and API access across 230 countries
Serpstat covers the five core SEO workflows, keyword research, competitor analysis, rank tracking, site audits, and backlinks, across 230 countries, which makes it a practical choice for international SEO where coverage breadth matters. It serves individual SEOs through agencies, with plans scaling from $50 to $410 per month.
The standout is API access from the entry-level Individual plan, a tier where most competitors either exclude API access entirely or reserve it for premium plans. Keyword clustering groups semantically related terms for content planning, and the rank tracker supports location-level tracking for local SEO across Google and Yandex.
Serpstat does not include AI model tracking for ChatGPT or Gemini, so it stays a traditional search SEO tool. White-label reporting is not available on the Individual plan; agencies need the Team tier at $100/month or higher for branded client deliverables. The interface is also less polished than Moz or Semrush, and the backlink database updates less frequently than top-tier competitors.
| Feature | Individual $50/mo | Team $100/mo | Team x2 $169/mo | Agency $410/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| API access | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| White-label reports | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Rank tracking keywords | 500 | 2,500 | 5,000 | 15,000 |
| AI model tracking | No | No | No | No |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Mention | Serpstat |
|---|---|---|
| Primary function | Social listening and media monitoring | SEO research, tracking, and audits |
| Brand mention monitoring | Yes (1B+ sources) | No |
| Sentiment analysis | Yes | No |
| Keyword research | No | Yes |
| Rank tracking | No | Yes |
| Site audits | No | Yes |
| Backlink analysis | No | Yes |
| API access on entry plan | No (Company plan and up) | Yes |
| White-label reports | Yes | No (Team plan and up) |
| AI model tracking | No | No |
| Free trial without sales call | No | Yes |
| Starting price | $599/mo | $50/mo |
Considering AI Peekaboo alongside Mention and Serpstat?
Serpstat states plainly it has no AI model tracking for ChatGPT or Gemini, and Mention's billion-source monitoring covers news, social, and forums, not what AI models say about your brand when someone asks them directly. Teams running Serpstat for SEO and Mention for PR monitoring still have no visibility into AI-generated answers. AI Peekaboo tracks brand mentions across AI models with a read and write API on every plan from $50 per month, the same entry price as Serpstat, closing the gap both of these tools leave open.
Read the AI Peekaboo review →Which should you choose?
MentionSerpstatMentionSerpstatMentionSerpstatThese tools are rarely evaluated against each other by the same buyer, since the jobs are different: Mention is a listening and reputation tool, Serpstat is a search-ranking tool. The comparison is more useful for teams deciding where their next tooling dollar goes, monitoring conversation volume versus improving organic visibility, than for teams choosing between direct substitutes.
Bottom line
Mention makes sense if the priority is real-time brand and competitor monitoring across news, social, and forums, and the $599/month price fits a PR or communications budget. Serpstat makes sense if the priority is keyword research, rank tracking, and site audits with API access, at roughly a twelfth of Mention's entry price. Neither tracks what AI models say about your brand, so if that matters, pair either with a dedicated AI visibility tool like AI Peekaboo.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Mention cost so much more than Serpstat?
Mention costs more than Serpstat because they serve different jobs at different scales: Mention monitors 1 billion+ sources in real time for brand and competitor mentions, a data-intensive listening function, while Serpstat runs keyword research and rank tracking, a narrower and less infrastructure-heavy workflow. Mention's $599/month price also reflects its post-acquisition repositioning toward enterprise buyers.
Can Serpstat monitor brand mentions the way Mention does?
Serpstat cannot monitor brand mentions the way Mention does since it has no social listening or media monitoring feature at all. Serpstat tracks keyword rankings, site health, and backlinks, an entirely different data category from tracking what people are saying about a brand across news and social media.
Is Serpstat worth it for a solo SEO consultant?
Serpstat is worth it for a solo SEO consultant because the $50/month Individual plan includes API access, keyword research, rank tracking, and site audits, covering the core workflow at a fraction of what Semrush or Ahrefs charge for similar functionality.
Does Mention offer a free trial before the $599/month commitment?
No, Mention does not offer a self-serve free trial; new customers go through a sales conversation before purchasing. Serpstat, by contrast, is fully self-serve with published pricing starting at $50/month, letting you sign up without a sales call.
Do Mention or Serpstat track AI-generated answers from ChatGPT or Gemini?
Neither Mention nor Serpstat tracks AI-generated answers from ChatGPT or Gemini. Serpstat states directly that it has no AI model tracking, and Mention's monitoring covers news, social, forums, and review sites rather than LLM-generated conversational answers.