Birdeye vs. Critical Mention

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Birdeye
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Birdeye is a reputation management and digital customer experience platform for local brands and multi-location businesses. Birdeye’s AI-powered platform is used by brands to engage with customers, drive loyalty, and excel in local markets.
$299
per month
Critical Mention
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Critical Mention headquartered in New York offers their eponymous media monitoring platform for public relations and crisis management.N/A
Pricing
BirdeyeCritical Mention
Editions & Modules
Standard
$299.00
per month
Professional
$399.00
per month
Premium
Custom Pricing
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BirdeyeCritical Mention
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BirdeyeCritical Mention
Considered Both Products
Birdeye
Chose Birdeye
In my opinion, Birdeye cannot be compared to Repugen as their system is their own built from the ground up. Birdeye uses 3rd party tools to put out sub-par products.
Chose Birdeye
In my opinion, you can do everything Birdeye does in high-level and zapier for 1/10th the cost and much more customizations.
Chose Birdeye
It has been some them since I have used either one of those platforms but at the time Birdeye had plenty more features than the others. They were also the first one I found that had automatic review responding.
Chose Birdeye
I have not used another site that is better than Birdeye. None of the other sites I have tried, allow us to utilize 2 different means of contact. It is very simple to use and customer service gets issues resolved in a timely manner. An all-around great product. I would highly …
Chose Birdeye
I have not used any other platforms similar to Birdeye.
Chose Birdeye
I have not used any other product similar to Birdeye
Chose Birdeye
I have never used anything like Birdeye.
Chose Birdeye
It's way more modern and offers more options than Review Wave. It's much more user friendly.
Chose Birdeye
All of these are very similar from a tech stack and API integration standpoint. The dashboard with Birdeye is by far the most transparent, and easy to navigate. There are not a lot of upsells baked into it either. The customer service is also very responsive when we hit a …
Chose Birdeye
Did not other products beside Birdeye. This was recommended to us by a friend of our CEO.
Chose Birdeye
I feel like the social tool is way better than anything that Hootsuite can offer. Very user-friendly. Customizable to each clinic. Listen tool where you can do some social searches on things going on in your industry.
Chose Birdeye
We have a lot of reviews for our business from Trustpilot. They are also a great company to work with. What we appreciate about Birdeye over Trustpilot is Birdeye pushes our reviews out to Google and not just on their own site.
Chose Birdeye
Used Clio Grow and Lexicata before. Birdeye is much more user friendly but lacks all of the substantive features.
Chose Birdeye
We have not used any other products similar to Birdeye.
Chose Birdeye
Podium also has issues with account management and customer service. They are comparable but Birdeye has a better review request interface and reporting than Birdeye.
Chose Birdeye
Birdeye was more adaptable to the franchise structure. We liked the look and feel of Birdeye review-gathering emails. Listen360 had features that were innovative, but not quite right for us. We also found their emails less user-friendly.
Chose Birdeye
Our choice of reputation management platform came down to two contenders, Birdeye and Listen360. Ultimately we chose Birdeye because of their ethical review gathering process. Listen360 had review-gating built in as part of their process, which is against Google's terms of …
Chose Birdeye
We have never used any other platform like Birdeye.
Chose Birdeye
I have not used any other software prior to Birdeye. I was always managing manually in google sheets.
Critical Mention
Chose Critical Mention
We selected Critical Mention and are trapped in a contract with them we can't use. We ended up having to go with another software that does what we need. Grateful that the other company allowed a trial period to ensure that it did have the components we needed. At a …
Chose Critical Mention
It provides both free and premium and you can also add a portfolio, other media links, and website. It also verifies its members like popular apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram [do]. It increases your visibility on google search for free like I use it.
Chose Critical Mention
Critical Mention has an excellent TV coverage solution in the marketing or communication industry. More so, helps us identify or see the comments in most of the social sites mentions, and gives the allowance of positively responding to them. The integration with Google, for the …
Chose Critical Mention
TV Eyes seems to be the biggest competitor to Critical Mention, but we've found that it's just not quite as intuitive or simple to track specific media hits. We keep going back to Critical Mention year after year because it does the job we need it to do to track broadcast TV …
Chose Critical Mention
I am not one to bash a competition product, but I have used several other similar products from different vendors. It has mostly been a disaster. Poor customer service to poor software interface has led me to Critical Mention. It's the first time I have ever stayed with a …
Chose Critical Mention
TV Eyes will grab EVER SINGLE mention of your organization but their UI is clunky and the reporting and editing tool takes some practice.
Chose Critical Mention
I initially selected Critical Mention because of it's DIY, quick, easy, and intuitive monitoring platform which tracks the most TV outlets in the industry. I stay with Critical Mention because of its customer service.
Chose Critical Mention
We previously used a company called TV Eyes for our media monitoring. When a big event happened and their system was down, we were very disappointed. The disappointment was compounded by their reaction and customer service. They never offered to help fix it or offered an …
Chose Critical Mention
Both Cision and Meltwater are over price and undervalued in our opinion. They both cost more and provide less. If Critical Mention makes a few changes to their software and expands its online offer and social media tracking both of these software companies would be obsolete. …
Chose Critical Mention
I've used TV Eyes as well, a similar product.
Chose Critical Mention
I honestly do not know of any other alternatives to Critical Mention that I have personally used in a professional capacity. The only one that I am aware of is TYeye and from what I have heard about the platform from colleagues is that Critical Mention is a much better and …
Chose Critical Mention
Burrelles is confusing and outdated. Critical Mention works on the side of the account team and understands our needs better. I was able to share hundreds of outlets that I wanted to be included in my online search and Critical Mention added all of them in less than a day I was …
Chose Critical Mention
I've used TVEyes in the past. I like it because it's easier to point out national media hits with their search options. You can also search for key words in a given time period.
Chose Critical Mention
I haven't used any other products except for Critical Mention.
Chose Critical Mention
Critical Mention offers a different value than Radian6. Radian6 helped my client achieve the monitoring that they required, but it didn't capture the news segments like Critical Mention was able to.
Chose Critical Mention
Critical mention has a more extensive list and the customer service is great.
Chose Critical Mention
Before Critical Mention, I utilized VMS for similar projects and there is simply no comparison between the two platforms. While VMS reported similar results, it did not include the same post-production features as Critical Mention and the lack of self-service functionality was …
Chose Critical Mention
I did not select Critical Mention, it was what was made available to me by my employer. Although I like Critical Mention, I prefer Cision because I'm more familiar with it.
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BirdeyeCritical Mention
Small Businesses
Yext
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Score 8.9 out of 10
Newswire
Newswire
Score 8.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Yext
Yext
Score 8.9 out of 10
Newswire
Newswire
Score 8.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Yext
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Score 8.9 out of 10
Cision Communications Cloud
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Score 6.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
BirdeyeCritical Mention
Likelihood to Recommend
7.2
(0 ratings)
1.6
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.4
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.4
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.5
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BirdeyeCritical Mention
Likelihood to Recommend
For businesses that have customers or clients or patients with several different locations, Birdeye is essential to help with the reviews and messages received through Google and other platforms. For businesses with only 1 single location, Birdeye could still be useful but wouldn't be as essential as it would be for other businesses.
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Critical Mention is excellent for media monitoring across platforms including TV, radio and online. It is easy to grab and tailor video clips and share. The reporting function makes creating thorough reports simple. Most importantly, the customers service is unparalleled. Any time I've ever had a question or challenge, it has been handled quickly. I would suggest that you make sure to take the time to thoroughly set up your searches to be sure you don't miss anything.
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Pros
  • Their customer service is always very helpful and ready to give you the personal attention that you require.
  • They connect many different sources and funnel them straight to you so you can easily capitalize on multiple platforms and information streams.
  • They are constantly innovating and improving their systems with real-time feedback from their customers.
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  • Monitor media mentions and send alerts: it's great because I don't have to go in and search every day. I am set in the morning and afternoon with alerts.
  • Online media reports: it's great because it helps me create my own personal reports in a format that my clients love.
  • Customer service: our account team dedicated to us is amazing. There has never been a time that they let us down.
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Cons
  • The sentiment feature is just okay. It requires custom adjustments and time to understand where it is working well and where it is not in order to get the most out of it, while other features require very little user input.
  • Social listening needs work. I often receive notifications for unrelated terms because of their similarity in spelling to my organization's name, so I don't use this feature.
  • Birdeye could have more built-in features to create digital content from the reviews.
  • Birdeye could also have additional reputation tools to strengthen GMB listings and to combat negative press. Review listings and rich snippets in search are great, but having a tool that measures and helps to improve overall brand health/search results would be amazing. My CEO isn’t looking at what is going right. He looks at what is going wrong. We may have thousands of positive reviews on Google, but the bad article with false information is still showing up on page one of search results. That makes for an unhappy CEO.
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  • The media database was not as robust as our proprietary one, it contained a key journalist that had been dead for 3 years for example, others that retired or moved to other outlets. Its influencer list was dismal. Fortunately when I complained (which I did the first time I used it) they removed it from our subscription and did not charge us. They said we could add the updates or add our contacts - not sure why they thought someone would pay for a service and then give valuable information to the company that would then be shared with competitors. They removed it from our bill so that at least was positive.
  • It only tracks hashtags across social media accounts that have been added to its system. Right from the beginning, just by running a hashtag search on IG, we could see missing posts. They said we could add all those in batches or manually one at a time which was work we were hoping to avoid with this subscription. Basically, it becomes a service that prepares nice-looking reports, not one that monitors mentions on public accounts.
  • They should allow a trial demo period.
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Likelihood to Renew
I think it is a good tool overall, there are some hiccups but what program doesn't have them. I think we should be notified of more things, specifically broken integrations. There have been instances where I don't notice for MONTHS a client it's having requests sent out because they are organically still getting reviews.
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I gave this a 5 only because I do not make the decisions to renew. When I used this at my previous company, I also recommended to the decision maker to renew this tool as it was a crucial piece to the overall client objective
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Usability
The easiest program I've ever used in the medical field. Just one click to send a review and easy data entry to add customer into the system. The Birdeye program is actually fun to use and no prior skill is necessary!
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It's great for quickly looking up a specific clip, but this platform makes it difficult to select and accurately report on a high volume of clips
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Support Rating
The customer support is usually very fast in getting someone connected with you to figure out a solution. Sometimes the communication following up on how they did can be a little much, but they are just practicing what they preach and doing what they know best. People are usually very friendly and knowledgable also.
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Look, Critical Mention follows up on an or phone call immediately or in the AM the following business day. I have called them after hours and get a live person to work through any issues that may have come up. Support seems to be job one with Critical Mention.
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Implementation Rating
Let Birdeye do what they do
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Critical Mention implementation was easy and fast. Their support and training were awesome.
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Alternatives Considered
Our choice of reputation management platform came down to two contenders, Birdeye and Listen360. Ultimately we chose Birdeye because of their ethical review gathering process. Listen360 had review-gating built in as part of their process, which is against Google's terms of service. We wanted to be very careful to gather reviews in an ethical way, and Birdeye was better for our needs.
Read full review
I am not one to bash a competition product, but I have used several other similar products from different vendors. It has mostly been a disaster. Poor customer service to poor software interface has led me to Critical Mention. It's the first time I have ever stayed with a product beyond one year. One company only ever reached out to me when it was time for a renewal despite repeated reach-outs on my part during the year.
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Return on Investment
  • One stop shop for Reviews are great, it saves marketing department time and money on if they were all separate.
  • I'm not sure about the surveys yet due to integration.
  • Listings is very easy to use with updating this saved us money compared to competitors.
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  • Every week the department I am a part does dozens of searches on Critical Mention. We use it as our primary search engine for all things broadcast.
  • One negative aspect is that we do not know where Critical Mention gets their audience viewing numbers from so we just have to take it as their word.
  • Another negative aspect is that we are limited on the amount of time that one clip can be so we have to share several clips of the same show with our clients.
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ScreenShots

Birdeye Screenshots

Screenshot of Birdeye’s local business listing management tool, used to show up everywhere customers search for improved SEO and a better rank.Screenshot of a visualization of the customer experience. This helps to understand the performance of every customer interaction and touch point with actionable reports.Screenshot of Birdeye Insights AI, part of the BirdAI platform, which uses generative AI to analyze reviews, surveys, and listings data, providing actionable recommendations for business growth.Screenshot of Birdeye’s AI-powered review generation, management, and reporting platform.Screenshot of Birdeye Social, which is designed from the ground up for multi-location businesses. Generate social posts, monitor engagement, and track performance from a single dashboard.