Free Social Listening Tools in 2026: Free or Just a Trial?

Yes, a free social listening tool exists, but it covers a few keywords on a few networks, and bigger tools offer only trials or demos.

Social listening means watching public posts for your brand, a keyword or a rival. We read 15 vendor pages on 30 October 2026 and sorted what stays free from what expires. We run Weir, so we say where it falls short.

A free Weir monitor is one call. This one watches X (Twitter) for a phrase, and we tested its search below.

curl -X POST https://api.weirapp.io/v1/monitors \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WEIR_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name": "Notion alternative", "schedule": "daily",
       "target": {"kind": "search", "sources": ["x"],
                  "query": "\"notion alternative\" -filter:nativeretweets lang:en"}}'

Is there a free social listening tool?

Yes, you can use five tools for free, and each one gives something up.

Each tool name links to the page we read, and we ran only Weir ourselves.

Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts list no caps on their pages. Our F5Bot alternatives guide covers F5Bot's paid tiers.

Which social media listening tools are only a free trial?

Seven tools give you a trial, and none of them lists a free plan. Prices are for the lowest plan with monitoring.

Three more notes:

• Demo only. Keyhole's pricing link now leads to a Muck Rack demo form. It returned a 403 to our fetch, so we stopped there.
• Closed. GummySearch's homepage says it closed on 30 November 2025. See our GummySearch alternatives.
• Old lists. A May 2026 roundup still lists a Hootsuite free plan. Its plans page shows a 14-day trial.

Want a side-by-side? We wrote Weir vs Brand24, Weir vs Octolens and Weir vs Syften.

Which free social listening tool fits which job?

Pick by the job you need done, because no free tool does every one.

• Best for Reddit and Hacker News alerts by email: F5Bot, within its 5 keywords.
• Best for news and blogs: Google Alerts. Talkwalker Alerts adds X (Twitter) results, per its page.
• Best for alert speed, on paper: Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts list "as it happens". F5Bot's free plan waits up to 2 hours; free Weir runs daily or weekly.
• Best for X and Reddit in code or chat: Weir. Results arrive as JSON, and a webhook posts to Slack, Discord or Telegram.
• Best for data export: Weir, because its API is on the free tier. F5Bot's JSON and RSS feeds start on Gold at $49.99 a month.
• Best for a one-off check with no sign-up: Social Searcher.

What do free social listening tools leave out?

Four things sit behind a paywall or a demo, so you won't get them free.

• History. F5Bot's free plan keeps 7 days of matches. Talkwalker lists "up to 5 years of historical data" only for Social Listening, which it sells by demo.
• Sentiment. Brand24 lists AI sentiment analysis on every paid plan, so you can try it for 14 days only.
• Exports. Awario's CSV export is for its Pro and Enterprise plans. Mention lists API access as a paid add-on.
• Business use. F5Bot's free plan is for personal use. For a business, it points you to Gold at $49.99 a month.

How do you set up a free social listening alert on Weir?

Weir is our API for public X (Twitter) and Reddit posts, and it isn't affiliated with Reddit. Its free tier has 5,000 credits a month, one monitor and one webhook. Our research account is on that tier, and GET /v1/limits returned this on 30 October 2026:

{
  "tier": "free",
  "maxMonitors": 1,
  "maxWebhooks": 1,
  "hourlySchedules": false
}

A monitor repeats one search on a schedule and bills each run like the same call by hand. So we ran that call with Python's standard library.

import json, os, urllib.request

body = {"query": '"notion alternative" -filter:nativeretweets lang:en', "sort": "latest", "limit": 20}
request = urllib.request.Request(
    "https://api.weirapp.io/v1/x/search",
    data=json.dumps(body).encode(),
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer " + os.environ["WEIR_API_KEY"],
             "Content-Type": "application/json"},
)
with urllib.request.urlopen(request) as response:
    posts = json.load(response)["data"]
    print(len(posts), "posts,", response.headers["x-credits-charged"], "credits")

It printed this, and our balance went from 5,129 to 5,108:

20 posts, 21 credits

That is 1 credit for the call plus 1 per post. Most posts came from private accounts, so here is one brand post, trimmed:

{
  "url": "https://x.com/AlternativeTo/status/2113577931171836401",
  "createdAt": "2026-10-23T10:27:01.000Z",
  "text": "The perfect Notion alternative, but open source and self-hostable, with full data ownership...",
  "likeCount": 92,
  "author": { "username": "AlternativeTo", "followersCount": 45193 }
}

A monitor's first run bills the same. After that it pays only for new posts, and a quiet day costs 1 credit. The 20 posts spanned 3 to 29 October, so a daily monitor here needs about 50 credits a month, around 1% of the free grant.

One free monitor can hold several phrases. We joined three with OR and got 10 posts for 11 credits. To add Reddit, put "reddit" in sources, at 3 credits a post.

A webhook posts alerts to Slack, Discord or Telegram, and your dashboard shows results too. The keyword alerts guide has each setup, and the social listening API page lists what Weir covers.

When not to use Weir

• You need Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or TikTok. Weir reads X and Reddit only.
• You need alerts every few minutes. Free monitors run daily or weekly, and hourly runs need a $5 pack.
• You want dashboards or sentiment scores. Weir returns posts, and you or an AI agent do the analysis.
• You want plain email alerts. F5Bot and Talkwalker Alerts email you, while Weir sends webhooks.

Weir reads public data only and can't post or reply for you. It isn't licensed by X or Reddit, so access can change.

FAQ

Is there a free social listening tool?

Yes. Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts email you web results, F5Bot watches Reddit and Hacker News, and Weir covers X and Reddit. Each caps keywords, networks or speed, as the first table shows.

Are there free social listening tools for Instagram?

We found none that names Instagram as a source. Brand24, Awario and Mention list it, but only as trials. Weir does not cover Instagram.

How long is each social listening tool free trial?

Sprout Social gives 30 days. Brand24, Syften and Hootsuite give 14, and Octolens gives 7. Awario and Mention say "free trial" without a length. Brandwatch offers only a demo.

Are AI social listening tools free?

Not for good, on the pages we read. F5Bot's AI filtering starts on Gold at $49.99 a month, and Syften's on Standard at $49.95. Octolens and Brand24 list AI features on paid plans only. Weir's MCP server lets Claude or ChatGPT search X and Reddit on free credits.

How much do social listening tools cost?

For entry plans, social listening tools pricing runs from $29 a month at Awario, billed annually, to $249 at Brand24, billed monthly. Syften is $29.95, Octolens $159 billed annually, and Sprout Social $199 per seat. Brandwatch and Keyhole publish none.

Sources

Checked 30 October 2026, except the roundup, which shows its own date.

• Google Alerts: https://www.google.com/alerts
• Google Alerts help: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/4815696?hl=en
• Talkwalker Alerts: https://www.talkwalker.com/alerts
• F5Bot tiers: https://f5bot.com/tiers
• F5Bot FAQ: https://f5bot.com/faq
• Social Searcher: https://www.social-searcher.com/social-listening/
• Brand24 pricing: https://brand24.com/prices/
• Awario pricing: https://awario.com/pricing/
• Octolens pricing: https://octolens.com/pricing
• Syften pricing (homepage): https://syften.com/
• Hootsuite plans: https://www.hootsuite.com/plans
• Sprout Social pricing: https://sproutsocial.com/pricing/
• Mention pricing: https://mention.com/en/pricing/
• Brandwatch plans: https://www.brandwatch.com/plans/
• Keyhole: https://keyhole.co/
• GummySearch: https://gummysearch.com/
• Built In roundup, updated 27 May 2026: https://builtin.com/articles/social-listening-tools
• Weir pricing: https://weirapp.io/pricing
• Weir billing docs: https://docs.weirapp.io/billing
• Weir monitor docs: https://docs.weirapp.io/monitors
• Our Weir calls, 30 October 2026: one 20-post search (21 credits) and one 10-post search (11 credits)