Top 20 Sentiment Analysis Tools

The things your customers are saying about your brand mean something. And sentiment analysis tools can translate for you. These tools work to understand the context of feedback, comments, and messages so you can know how your audience really feels.

In 2026, brands are navigating an ever-expanding digital footprint from podcasts to TikTok and live streams, and require sentiment-analysis tools that keep pace with this evolution.

Tracking customer sentiment is easier with social listening technology. Let’s explore 20 of the top brand sentiment analysis tools and how they help you monitor and understand the sentiments around your brand.

Contents:

• What Is Sentiment Analysis?

• Top 20 Sentiment Analysis Tools

• How to Choose the Right Sentiment Analysis Tool

• FAQ about Sentiment Analysis and Brand Monitoring

• Why You Should Embrace Sentiment Analysis

What Is Sentiment Analysis?

Sentiment analysis allows brands to surface the true meaning behind of what people are saying about your brand, products, or services. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to learn the context behind content.

When people post comments on social media or provide feedback in a survey, they’re doing so because they feel some type of way. There is emotion embedded into their commentary, and sentiment analysis software uncovers what this emotion is and what's driving it. 

A sentiment analysis tool via reviews feedback at scale and classifies it as positive, negative, or neutral. It’s common for brands to have a mix of all three types of feedback, but you can get an idea of the broader sentiment and know how you're meeting your customers’ expectations.

TIP: Sentiment analysis is just one of the many benefits of using a social listening solution. Check out our Definitive Guide to Social Listening to learn more!

Top 20 Sentiment Analysis Tools

In today's social media landscape, there's no more room for manually reviewing every comment, survey, online review, or social media post about your company. Here are 20 of the best sentiment analysis tools that can analyze sentiment accurately and at scale.

1. Meltwater 

Meltwater's social listening solution provides AI-powered sentiment analysis that tracks brands across publications, social media, websites, podcasts, and other channels. Brands get real-time insights regarding public opinions, enabling them to be proactive about their strategies.

Key features

• Content sources: monitor mentions on all major social platforms including Reddit and Snapchat, print sources, broadcast, and other media such as blogs, review sites, and podcasts
• AI-powered sentiment analysis: understand the feeling behind mentions so you can be better prepared to address them
• Real-time alerts: get alerted to spikes and sentiment shifts so you can spring into action quickly
• AI-driven summaries: providing deeper analysis on conversation origins
• GenAI Lens: gain visibility into how LLM models are representing your company and correct inaccurate or misleading information

Pricing: Meltwater offers custom pricing.

Get in touch to watch a product demo and find out more!

Best for: AI-powered sentiment analysis that provides key contextual information for brand mentions, competitor mentions, or industry-related keywords

The platform identifies sentiment trends, customer emotions, and shifts in perceptions. It can track these trends over time to help companies see how their efforts are contributing to their brand image.

Meltwater’s platform now supports real-time podcast-transcript sentiment and integrates video-analysis capabilities. The latest 2025 update even contains LLM tracking capabilities via GenAI Lens. Within the Mid-Year 2025 Product Release, Meltwater also introduced a new AI teammate (Mira), new social channels coverage, and smarter ways to engage journalists/influencers.

Want to see Meltwater's sentiment analysis in action? Click here and fill out the form below for a personalized demo!

2. Brandwatch 

Brandwatch uses AI and natural language processing (NLP) to analyze customer sentiment across millions of online conversations. The platform specializes in social media monitoring and will track brand mentions and keyword-based discussions on your behalf. 

Key features

• Track your brand name and logo: 100M+ sources
• AI-powered analytics: gain a deeper understanding of your target audience
• Sentiment analysis and benchmarking: compare against competitors for better strategizing
• Emotion/sarcasm detection: go beyond basic sentiment analysis

Pricing: Brandwatch offers three different plans depending on the solution. Fill out a form to get in touch on pricing.

Best for: PR or marketing pros looking for a comprehensive sentiment analysis tool. Brandwatch will categorize posts for you, such as opinions and negative comments. This makes it easier to review feedback and prioritize their next best steps.

3. Sprinklr 

Sprinklr’s customer experience management platform includes sentiment analysis as a feature. It uses AI to detect nuanced emotions to help spot trends in feedback.

Key features

• Customer and competitor insights
• CRM integration
• VoC analytics

Pricing: Contact form

Best for: Enterprises who have diverse and large-scale needs, as well as multiple employees, working toward common goals.

Users can see at a glance whether social media posts have been viewed in a positive or negative light. The platform integrates with popular CRM systems and other tools, giving you a more comprehensive option for brand monitoring. 

4. Hootsuite Insights 

Hootsuite is widely known for its social media scheduling, but it also includes AI software for sentiment analysis. Users can collect insights from 150 million websites and 30 social media channels. Hootsuite will rate mentions as positive or negative and track how sentiment changes over time.

Key features

• AI-powered sentiment analysis: learn which mentions are positive, negative, or neutral
• Advanced data filtering: get nuanced insights by sorting and filtering social listening data
• Customizable reports: share relevant results and insights with different stakeholders

Pricing: Hootsuite offers three different plans: Standard ($99/mo), Advanced ($249/mo), and Enterprise (Custom pricing). A free 30-day trial is available for Standard and Advanced plans, with a discount applied if the trial is skipped.

Best for: Social media managers seeking a robust tool from which they can monitor audience perception in real time. Hootsuite’s visual data and real-time monitoring also shows you where conversations are taking place so you can enter the chat prepared.

5. Talkwalker 

Talkwalker’s Customer Feedback Analytics feature analyzes sentiments from 300 unique sources. It monitors online reviews, surveys, and customer service interactions in real time to surface opportunities to improve your brand image.

Key features

• Sentiment classification: sort mentions by sentiment indicators and keywords
• Trend analysis: follow topic trends, hashtag trends, and audience trends to anticipate changes
• Visual listening: detect brand mentions in imagery, video, and audio

Pricing: Talkwalker offers three plans: Listen, Analyze, and Business. Fill out their website form for pricing.

Best for: PR and CX teams. Brands can set up alerts when there’s a shift in sentiment, allowing them to take action. You can get a bird’s eye view of sentiment across all channels or dig deeper into a specific area to see how you might improve the customer experience.

6. Lexalytics 

Lexalytics is part of InMoment’s customer experience platform. It collects and analyzes text feedback from various sources, then synthesizes it into easy-to-digest summaries. 

Key features

• NLP engine for determining sentiment in text
• Customizable sentiment models
• Integrate with broader analytics

Pricing: Request a demo for price information

Best for: Fine-tuning sentiment analysis to suit your specific needs

After analyzing things like online reviews, Lexalytics will prepare suggested responses so you can address negativity at the source. It detects nuances in conversations, especially complex comments that might contain both positive and negative elements.

7. Medallia

Formerly MonkeyLearn, Medallia uses text analytics to surface customer sentiments. It detects keywords, tone of voice, and complex nuances of conversations to give marketers insights into what customers are talking about.

Key features

• Multi-language sentiment detection for video, audio, and various text sources like email, surveys, and chats
• Sentiment scoring and measurable metics like NSS (Net Sentiment Score)
• Incorporate sentiment tracking into advanced workflows

Pricing: Request a demo for price information

Best for: Integrating sentiment into existing workflows for better marketing

Decode customer emotions, effort, and satisfaction all in one place. The platform can send alerts to specific users based on role, allowing them to react and respond accordingly.  

8. Buffer 

Buffer is a common name among social media scheduling tools, but it can also support other parts of your strategy with sentiment analysis.

Key features

• Organize posts based on their contents
• Audience behavior insights
• Suggestions for optimizing post times

Pricing: Paid plans start at $5/mo and can be billed monthly or annually. There is also a free plan available

Best for: Analyzing audience engagement for optimal posting strategy, reducing instances of negative sentiment from followers

Buffer organizes sentiment based on the type of post (e.g., negative comment, question) to make it easier for marketers to review feedback. This adds an extra layer to the social media management puzzle to give brands a more complete picture of their performance.

9. Quid 

Quid (formerly NetBase Quid) is a comprehensive consumer intelligence platform that includes social media sentiment analysis. It works with structured and unstructured data across a global feed to learn what customers are saying.

Key features

• AI-powered sentiment analysis
• Mood shift monitoring
• Follow sentiment shifts alongside broader industry trends

Pricing: Contact form

Best for: Measuring emotional tone and gaining wider context for sentiment shifts through monitoring sentiment alongside trends

The platform can track millions of conversations in real time, with AI serving as a huge component in its analytics. It delivers actionable intelligence from all of your social media channels so you can respond to shifting needs, preferences, and behaviors.

TIP: Meltwater's AI-powered consumer intelligence platform can help you develop a comprehensive understanding of your audience and customers.

10. Salesforce Einstein Analytics (CRM Analytics) 

Salesforce Einstein Analytics (now called CRM Analytics) includes an API that analyzes customer sentiment. It classifies customer responses into Positive, Negative, or Neutral ratings, which can be useful for lead targeting or account based marketing.

Key features

• Sentiment analysis template
• NLP powered survey and feedback sentiment insights
• Data visualization for sentiment trends

Pricing: Multiple plans available, depending on specific needs and integrations

Best for: Gaining insight into emotional shifts, sentiment behind open-ended questions, and following sentiment trends and patterns

The API can analyze a wide range of content, including emails, social media posts, and text from chatbots. Companies can use the API to learn how customers feel about products, customer service, or overall experiences, and even find their most loyal supporters based on feedback. 

11. Google Cloud Natural Language API 

Google Cloud Natural Language API offers flexible software for sentiment analysis. Since it’s an API, you can integrate it to the tools you’re already using and familiar with.

Key features

• Sentiment score and magnitude value
• Analyze large blocks of text
• Entity sentiment analysis

Pricing: Pricing is usage based so you only pay for what you use. Contact for more information

Best for: Quantifying emotional tone and advanced analysis, capable of discerning differences in sentiment in large amounts of text

The API can detect sentiment in documents, reviews, and other text-based content. Unlike turnkey platforms, there is some coding involved in setting up this API for your workflows and use cases.

12. Cision Communication Cloud 

Cision’s PR platform comes equipped with sentiment analytics tools. This platform monitors global media to find mentions and help brands maintain their public images. With sentiment analysis, users can dig deeper into each type of media coverage to see how it’s contributing to brand goals.

Key features

• Automated tone analysis using AI-powered NLP
• Social listening integration
• Incorporate sentiment rating and trends into dashboards for better strategizing

Price: By request through their website

Best for: Strategic planning based on spotting emotional shifts early

The platform can differentiate sentiment between stories and campaigns and even compare your brand sentiment to competitors. Taking it a step further, the platform connects the dots between sentiment and other metrics like engagement, website traffic, and conversions so you can see how much your audience’s opinions matter.

Want to learn more about the sentiment analysis within Meltwater's own media monitoring platform? Click here and fill out the form below!

13. Amazon Comprehend 

Amazon Comprehend is a machine learning-based tool that uses text analysis to decode customer sentiment. It reviews multiple types of text-based sources, including documents, social media posts, web pages, emails, and customer support tickets.

Key features

• Text classification by positive, negative, neutral, and mixed, with confidence scores
• Targeted sentiment analysis for various entities
• Real time analysis and integration via API

Pricing: You can get started for free, or contact them for a custom quote

Best for: A customized approach to sentiment analysis

Unlike most social media sentiment analysis tools, Amazon Comprehend isn’t part of a brand management or media monitoring platform. It’s highly customizable and integrates with your existing tech stack.

14. Qualtrics 

Qualtrics’ customer experience platform includes Text iQ, which is its sentiment analysis tool. It uses NLP to make sense of unstructured data from sources like social media posts and surveys.

Key features

• Topic based sentiment analysis
• Detailed sentiment categories, including Very Negative, Negative, Neutral, Positive, Very Positive, and Mixed
• Workflow integration

Pricing: Qualtrics has three different suites depending on your needs. Contact for price information

Best for: Integrating with experience management platforms to act on comprehensive sentiment analysis

Text iQ categorizes its findings into themes, making it easier for marketers to spot trends in feedback. It works across multiple platforms and languages to create a more comprehensive approach to sentiment analysis.

15. Microsoft Azure 

Microsoft Azure AI Language is another customizable option for social media sentiment analysis. Models are optimized for specific tasks, like sentiment analysis, and can deploy anywhere in your workflows.

Key features

• Combine sentiment analysis with opinion mining
• Labels and confidence scores from sentence level to document level
• Pre-trained NLP models

Pricing: Use the calculator on their website to project costs and contact them for more info

Best for: A scaleable solution for uncovering what aspects are driving sentiment and gaining advanced future-looking analysis

This one requires some knowledge of model training and implementation. It’s best for larger companies and enterprises with dedicated AI and computing resources.

16. Mention 

Mention uses sentiment analysis to help brands gain a competitive edge. Brands can monitor their own customers’ feedback as well as the reputation of competing brands and companies from a single tool.

Key features

• Automatic tone classification
• Filter mentions by sentiment
• Real-time alerts

Pricing: Plans start at $599

Best for: AI-powered labeling and filtering of mentions to help shape strategy and address crises

Mention automatically analyzes your content for sentiment hints and will compile it into side-by-side reports with competitors for easy comparison. It can also analyze the sentiment of one-off comments or mentions on social media or the web.

17. Awario 

Awario is a social listening software that includes social sentiment tools. It tracks brand mentions across multiple channels, then analyzes the sentiment of each comment or mention.

Key features

• Data visualization for sentiment trends over time
• Prioritize negative mentions for quick responses
• Automatic categorization by sentiment

Pricing: Plans start at $29/mo and go up to $249/mo for their Enterprise plan

Best for: Quantifying sentiment data and trend analysis

You can sort mentions by positive, negative, or neutral ratings, helping you to prioritize negative feedback and prevent potential crises. See what percentage of mentions fall into each category and track your results over time.

18. Zoho Analytics 

Zoho Analytics connects more than 500 data sources to understand and report on sentiment. Brands can apply Zoho’s sentiment analysis tools to social media, documents, reviews, and even internal communications to get immediate feedback on how their audience feels.

Key features

• CRM based sentiment analysis for emails, support tickets, and other interactions
• Integrated functionality across various Zoho apps
• Build sentiment analysis into BI solutions

Pricing: Plans start at $48 / mo (billed annually)

Best for: Customizing sentiment analysis into various solutions

Zoho’s tools also look at engagement metrics to help understand a post’s popularity and sentiment around it. 

19. HubSpot Service Hub 

HubSpot’s customer service tools infuse sentiment analysis to gauge how your customers think and feel. It reviews NPS survey results to learn whether a customer’s feedback is good or bad, then organizes the results for visual appeal and understanding.

Key features

• Conversion intelligence to analyze customer interactions
• Sentiment dashboards to follow trends and changes in sentiment
• Monitor sentiment from within the HubSpot CRM platform

Pricing: Two main plans available: Professional ($800 / mo) and Enterprise ($3,600 / mo)

Best for: CRM integrated sentiment analysis

The Service Hub also connects to HubSpot CRM. It can quickly identify customers who are potentially unhappy so agents can be proactive about following up with them.

20. Dialpad 

While most social media sentiment analysis tools focus on written media (e.g., reviews, social comments), Dialpad was made for monitoring the sentiment on phone calls. Its sentiment analysis tools are built into their contact center management platform and transcribes voice calls in real time.

Key features

• Real-time sentiment detection for live conversations
• Combine sentiment with call details for better customer service
• AI conversation intelligence

Pricing: Several plans available depending on your needs. Lowest plans start at $15 / mo

Best for: Analyzing customer interactions in real-time

During call transcription, AI technology detects positive, negative, and neutral sentiments. This allows managers to see if and when calls are turning heated or problems aren’t getting resolved.

How to Choose the Right Sentiment Analysis Tool

Choosing sentiment analysis software involves various factors, including your business needs, goals, budget, and the level of analysis you expect. When exploring your options, consider the following criteria:

• Level of accuracy
• Natural language processing (NLP) to detect nuances like humor, sarcasm, and complex emotions
• Real-time analysis
• Integrations with your CRM, survey tools, social media channels, and other software
• Scalability as your business needs change
• Reporting features, especially visual data options
• User-friendliness
• Training and adoption timelines
• Compliance and data security
• Multilingual capabilities
• Technical support
• In 2026 you’ll also want to ask if the vendor offers real-time audio sentiment
• AI-driven anomaly detection
• Video-based comment recognition
• LLM tracking capabilities

These criteria give you a good starting point as you learn what you need and want in sentiment analysis software.

FAQ about Sentiment Analysis and Brand Monitoring

Here are some frequently asked questions regarding sentiment analysis and brand monitoring topics.

What exactly is sentiment analysis, and how does it differ from brand monitoring?

Sentiment analysis uses AI-driven natural language processing (NLP) to classify text (such as social comments, reviews, survey responses) into positive, negative or neutral sentiment, and often detects emotion, tone and intent. Brand monitoring is broader: it tracks mentions of your brand, competitors, keywords or industry across channels (social, news, blogs) and may include sentiment analysis as a component.

How accurate are sentiment analysis tools in 2026?

In 2026 many tools (including Meltwater’s) now employ advanced deep-learning models and continual retraining, so accuracy has improved significantly, but no tool is flawless. Accuracy can vary based on language, context, sarcasm and domain-specific jargon. Always validate with your own sample data.

Which channels should we monitor for sentiment analysis in today’s landscape?

You should monitor all channels where customers talk: social media (Instagram, X/Twitter, Facebook, TikTok), review sites, forums, news articles, blogs, podcast transcripts, and even internal feedback (surveys, chat logs). In 2026 the emphasis on audio and video transcripts (YouTube, podcasts) is stronger.

How frequently should we run sentiment analysis reports and act on them?

Ideally, you run real-time or near-real-time monitoring (alerts for major sentiment shifts) and also scheduled deeper reports (weekly, monthly, quarterly) to assess trends over time. The combination of live alerts + periodic trend review gives the best balance.

What should we look for when comparing sentiment analysis tools in 2026?

Key criteria include: multilingual support, sarcasm/complex-emotion detection, real-time & historical trend analysis, integrations with your CRM/BI stack, channel breadth (including podcasts/audio), ease-of-use, and vendor support/training. Tools that added major upgrades in the last 12 months (2024–25) should get bonus consideration.

Can sentiment analysis tools help in brand reputation crisis management?

Yes. Timely detection of negative sentiment spikes or trending “hot” topics allows brands to act proactively. For example, in 2026 you can often set up automated alerts when positive/negative ratio falls below a threshold, or when a keyword is trending negatively, and tie that to incident-response workflows.

Why You Should Embrace Sentiment Analysis

As of 2026, AI-powered sentiment analytics move beyond simple positive/negative classification to tracking customer emotion journeys and influencer sentiment over time.

That mountain of customer feedback and commentary you’re sitting on isn’t helpful until you understand the why behind it. AI has enhanced the way brands analyze sentiment, ensuring you get the full context behind customer feedback.

Sentiment analytics tools can parse through this data quickly and give you a clear read on how your customers feel. The more you know about how your customers view your brand, the better you can align your products and messaging to meet their needs.

The AI sentiment analysis tool within Meltwater social listening digs deep into your data along with conversations popping up across the digital ecosystem. You can take an always-on approach to listening to your customers and know exactly where you stand.

Request a demo to find out how Meltwater’s social listening solution can help you better understand the sentiment around your brand.