Comparison
Cision vs Meltwater for PR teams, compared on launches, phases and scale
The short answer
On the map, Cision and Meltwater both sit in PR suites [1][2]. Cision describes itself as "The leading platform for media professionals" [1], and Meltwater as "Turn media monitoring, social listening and AI signals into actionable intelligence with Meltwater" [2]. Only Meltwater has a dated agent launch on the map, "Adds Klear and Media Relations agents for creator vetting, reports and outreach follow-up" (announced) [3]. Cision is core in Pitch, where Meltwater is not [4][5].
| Cision | Meltwater | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | PR suites [1] | PR suites [2] |
| Core phases | Discover, Search, Pitch and Measure [4] | Discover, Search and Measure [5] |
| Partial phases | None [4] | Pitch [5] |
| Dated product launches since April 29, 2025 | 45 [4] | 107 [5] |
| Agent launches | 0 [4] | 5 [5] |
| Latest launch | Adds AI Visibility Answers to the AI Visibility dashboard (announced). October 2026 [6] | Adds Klear and Media Relations agents for creator vetting, reports and outreach follow-up (announced). Oct. 27, 2026 [3] |
| Scale | Tier 1, enterprise incumbent. Platinum Equity-owned; $2.7B take-private in 2020; revenue undisclosed. [4] | Tier 1, enterprise incumbent. $439M revenue (FY2022), private (Marlin Equity Partners and Altor since Aug 2023), ~2,300 staff. [5] |
| Price on record | A third-party estimate, not a vendor price: vendr median across 107 purchases: ~$12,625/yr (vendr.com/marketplace/cision). [4] | No published price ("tailored pricing rather than a one-size-fits-all list"); Starter, Pro, Enterprise and Agency tiers carry no figures. [5] |
| Site | https://www.cision.com/ | https://www.meltwater.com/ |
What each sells
Cision
A 500,000-profile media database, monitoring, PR Newswire distribution (including its Amplify AI planning, drafting and reporting tools), and an AI Visibility Dashboard built on Trajaan, the search-intelligence company Cision bought in December 2025. No self-serve price is published; Vendr reports a ~$12,625/yr median across 107 deals. [4]
Meltwater
Media monitoring and social listening suite with a journalist database, outreach, press distribution and GenAI Lens LLM-visibility tracking. [5]
Meltwater on the PR software map
Recent launches side by side
The newest five dated product launches on the map for each company, newest first.
Cision
- October 2026. Adds AI Visibility Answers to the AI Visibility dashboard. Users read the verbatim answers ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and others gave behind each chart point, filtered by model, entity, sentiment or cited source. Announced. [6]
- October 2026. Adds follower growth, engagement and posting-time Social charts. New charts track follower growth across platforms and accounts, benchmark Instagram competitors, follow post engagement over time and show median posting times. Announced. [6]
- September 2026. Adds Spike Notifications to CisionOne Monitoring. Alerts fire on surges in volume, sentiment or social shares, with optional AI summaries and a coverage chart in the email. Announced. [7]
- August 2026. Adds scheduled email delivery of Instant Insights reports. Dashboards export and send weekly or monthly, including a public read-only version for recipients without a login. Announced. [8]
- July 14, 2026. AI Visibility Dashboard. Monitors, analyzes and benchmarks how brands appear across AI platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek, Google AI Overview, Mistral). [9]
Meltwater
- Oct. 27, 2026. Adds Klear and Media Relations agents for creator vetting, reports and outreach follow-up. Agents in Klear and Media Relations take on repetitive work such as vetting creators, building campaign reports and following up on media outreach. Announced. [3]
- Oct. 27, 2026. Adds Top Influencers and Prompt Volumes to GenAI Lens. GenAI Lens shows what people ask AI tools about a brand, and which creators and publishers influence the answers. Announced. [3]
- Oct. 27, 2026. Adds Visual Context Intelligence for what is shown in video and images. Monitoring can search and measure what is said and shown in videos and images, not only text. Announced. [3]
- Oct. 27, 2026. Adds the GenAI Lens Accuracy Checker for claims in AI answers. GenAI Lens flags wrong, outdated or contradictory claims about a brand in AI answers, so teams can correct them. Announced. [3]
- Oct. 27, 2026. Launches Reputation Intelligence, an add-on module for reputational risk. A paid add-on that spots reputational risks as they surface, sorts them into a risk taxonomy, scores their severity and trajectory, and tracks them on a dashboard. Announced. [3]
PR phases compared
Core means the product is built on that phase. Partial means the phase is there but secondary. Not found means the map did not find it on the company’s own site.
| Phase | Cision | Meltwater |
|---|---|---|
| Discover | Core | Core |
| Search | Core | Core |
| Pitch | Core | Partial |
| Measure | Core | Core |
Phase scores come from each company’s row on the map [4][5].
What this comparison does not cover
We did not test either product
This page compares what each vendor says on its own pages and in dated announcements, as recorded on the map. We did not use or test Cision or Meltwater.
Prices are the map's price notes
The prices here are the map's price notes, from each vendor's own pages or, where marked, third-party estimates. Quotes, discounts and contract terms are not covered.
Data read on Oct. 28, 2026
The newest source on this page was read on Oct. 28, 2026. Products and prices can change after that day.
Questions people ask
Which has an AI agent, Cision or Meltwater?
Meltwater. The map labels 5 agent launches from it since April 29, 2025, and none from Cision [4][5]. Meltwater's latest is "Adds Klear and Media Relations agents for creator vetting, reports and outreach follow-up" (announced), dated Oct. 27, 2026 [3].
Which is bigger, Cision or Meltwater?
The map puts both in scale tier 1, enterprise incumbent. Cision: Platinum Equity-owned; $2.7B take-private in 2020; revenue undisclosed. [4] Meltwater: $439M revenue (FY2022), private (Marlin Equity Partners and Altor since Aug 2023), ~2,300 staff. [5]
What do Cision and Meltwater cost?
Cision: A third-party estimate, not a vendor price: vendr median across 107 purchases: ~$12,625/yr (vendr.com/marketplace/cision). [4] Meltwater: No published price ("tailored pricing rather than a one-size-fits-all list"); Starter, Pro, Enterprise and Agency tiers carry no figures. [5]
Which covers Pitch as a core phase?
Cision does [4]. The map scores Meltwater as partial there.
Sources
- cision.com. cision.com. Read .
- meltwater.com. meltwater.com. Read .
- Adds Klear and Media Relations agents for creator vetting, reports and outreach follow-up. Meltwater press release. Read .
- Cision on the PR software map. Newsprint. Read .
- Meltwater on the PR software map. Newsprint. Read .
- Adds follower growth, engagement and posting-time Social charts. CisionOne help center: Product Updates October 2026. Read .
- Adds Spike Notifications to CisionOne Monitoring. CisionOne help center: Product Updates September 2026. Read .
- Adds scheduled email delivery of Instant Insights reports. CisionOne help center: Product Updates August 2026. Read .
- AI Visibility Dashboard. PR Newswire. Read .