9 Best Sentiment Analysis Tools That Use AI Technology

Last Updated on January 18, 2023

Imagine being able to hear everything people say about you all the time. While that would be pretty creepy (and might create some awkward moments with friends and family), it’s something that businesses need to do to be successful over the long term.

When public opinion of a brand is bad, that brand is destined for failure. And the opposite is also true. But how can you understand what people think about your business without knocking on doors or spending all day on the phone?

With millions of comments, reviewers, and feedback, simply giving a computer a list of positive, negative, and neutral words doesn’t cut it anymore. For example, if I say, “this product was terrific!” then it means something positive. But if I say “Terrific, the product was delivered to be broken”, then we know this has the opposite emotion.

So how does a machine figure out the meaning behind the comment?

Enter Sentiment Analysis with Artificial Intelligence. This technology is just what businesses need to help discover how the public feels about their brand or products by gathering online statements and analyzing the text for positive or negative sentiment.

Today, you’ll find many sentiment analysis tools that claim to be the best for your business. In this article, we’ve rounded up the 9 best sentiment analysis tools that use AI technology, so you can find the right one for your use case.

But first, what the heck does a sentiment analysis tool do?

A sentiment analysis tool will search the web and other media for mentions of your brand, product, or other keywords and generate a list of everything people are saying about it. Then it will rate each statement as Positive, Negative, or Neutral (though some can also pick up other emotions like fear and sadness).

Sentiment analysis helps businesses manage their reputation, improve products, and more. It’s great to have this as part of your AI marketing tech stack.

Now let’s take a look at the best sentiment analysis tools you can find today.

What is the Best Sentiment Analysis Tool?

Table of Contents

1. Brand24

Best for Beginners

Brand24 is a beginner-friendly sentiment analysis tool that scans social media data and tells you what people are saying about your brand, products, or other related keywords and whether the sentiment is positive, negative, or neutral. (This is also called social media sentiment analysis.)

Here’s the quick and dirty on Brand24:

  • Easy to Set Up: When I tested the tool, it took just 2 minutes to set up my account. I gave them a few keywords to track, and I got results immediately.
  • Influence Score: The tool pulls up every mention of a keyword on social media, but it also ranks each poster by his or her level of social influence—allowing you to focus on the most impactful statements first.
  • Automatic Reports: You can generate attractive PDF reports and infographics based on your results with the click of a button. This would make it easy to present the data to a marketing manager or client.
  • The tool isn’t always accurate—negative statements sometimes appear as “Positive,” and vice versa. But you can manually change the sentiment of a post if you’d like.

Pricing: At $59/month for a single user, Brand24 is one of the most affordable sentiment analysis software available. Teams can join for $119/month.

Verdict

Brand24 is easy to use and has robust features, making it an excellent choice for any business just getting started with sentiment analysis.

Test Out Brand24 Here

2. Awario

Best for Businesses on a Budget

Awario may be one the most affordable sentiment analysis tools, but it has everything a business needs. Similar to Brand24, Awario measures social sentiment that’s been written online but then takes that a step further. It will direct you to those consumers that are looking for a product like yours or a consumer so you can convert the negatives of your competitors into leads for your business!

Here are some features I like about Awario:

  • Awario Leads: This feature finds negative customer feedback about your competitors, giving you new opportunities to increase sales and find the pain points that your product may solve.
  • Negative Keywords: If some of your keywords generate unrelated results, you can set negative keywords you want the search engine to avoid. This helps you narrow your results to only the mentions that matter.
  • Awario Reach: Awario can automatically sort your social mentions by their level of influence (based on how many people are likely to see them and other factors), so you can address the most critical statements first.
  • It’s a little confusing to set up your first project, but Awario does have training videos to help.

Pricing: You can use Awario for just $39/month for a single user and up to 3 topics. Teams pay $119/month for 10 users and 15 topics.

Verdict

If you’re looking for an affordable sentiment analyzer, Awario is an excellent choice.

Try Awario Here

3. TalkWalker

Best for Product-Based Businesses

TalkWalker is a social media listening tool similar to other tools on this list, but its image recognition capability is what makes it stand out amongst the rest. The tool can recognize logos and objects in images, which means you can find photos of your product or logo posted on social media to give you a better idea of your brand reputation. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so this is going to become more vital moving forward as Gen Z has been found to engage more visually than textually.

Here are some standout features of TalkWalker:

  • Able to Recognize Logos and Objects: TalkWalker’s image recognition technology allows you to track images of your brand logo that pop up online to see how your brand is represented. You can also use the tool to identify specific objects like products and pull up any images people have posted of them. This is so important with social media dominating the market.
  • Multilingual Sentiment Analysis: TalkWalker supports more than 127 languages, so you can conduct sentiment analysis across the world.
  • Traditional Media: Besides social media and websites, TalkWalker can find mentions of your brand on TV, radio, news sites, and print publications to get you a full picture of brand sentiment.
  • Reviewers have mentioned that the app sometimes runs slowly, not great for someone like me than can be impatient with technology.

Pricing: Pricing isn’t available on the website, which does annoy me a bit that you have to go through hoops to get an idea of the cost. You can book a meeting with a team member to find the right plan and price for your needs.

Verdict

TalkWalker’s image-tracking capabilities make it a no-brainer for product-based businesses, but its wide range of media sources and ability to track logos makes it a good choice for any business that conducts sentiment analysis.

Check Out TalkWalker Here

4. Critical Mention

Best for Businesses Featured in the Media

Critical Mention differs from other sentiment analysis tools because it focuses on monitoring media coverage, including TV, radio, podcasts, and print. And because it also monitors social media mentions, this tool gives the most comprehensive overview of what people are saying about your brand across many platforms.

Here are some of the quick pros and cons of Critical Mention:

  • Podcast Monitoring: On top of social media, TV, and print media, Critical Mention can find mentions of your brand or products on podcasts. This is “critical” as podcasts are highly growing in popularity, so you won’t miss anything.
  • Clip Editor: The tool allows you to clip audio and video coverage of your brand and piece them together into a video to show stakeholders, customers, or potential investors.
  • Media Contact Database: Critical Mention maintains a large database of journalists and media outlets that you can contact to have your brand featured. You can filter the contacts by location, topic, and other criteria and find guidelines for pitching to each source.
  • The clip editor is known to be buggy. It may take a few tries to get the clip you want.

Pricing: Pricing is available upon request. Contact Critical Mention to get a personalized quote.

Verdict

If your business is regularly mentioned on TV, radio, or podcasts, Critical Mention will provide you with the most comprehensive sentiment analysis of any tool on this list.

Try Critical Mention Today

5. Qualaroo

Best for Surveys

Qualaroo is a survey tool that helps businesses get valuable employee and customer feedback. After collecting responses, Qualaroo uses AI technology to analyze the positive and negative sentiment represented in the data. This is a great tool for businesses that are looking for this more direct type of feedback.

Here are some features I like from Qualaroo (besides the fun-to-say name):

  • Integration with IBM Watson: Qualaroo’s sentiment analysis feature is powered by IBM Watson, a well-established AI software suite that can accurately process natural language.
  • Allows You to Ask for Feedback: Instead of simply waiting for reviews, Qualaroo allows you to embed surveys in your website or app and get customer feedback at specific moments of the customer journey. For example, you can ask a user about a product when they’re on the product page.
  • More Detailed Sentiment Analysis: Most tools categorize sentiment into 3 buckets (Negative, Positive, or Neutral), but IBM Watson also gives scores for Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sadness on a scale from 0 to 1. (Side note: Is IBM taking cues from Inside Out?)
  • Only conducts sentiment analysis on survey results, so it won’t help you find social media mentions or media coverage for your brand.

Pricing: You can get started on the Essentials plan for $100/month, but for larger enterprises it will cost you a bit more.

Verdict

Qualaroo is on the pricey side for a sentiment analysis tool, and because it only focuses on surveys, it’s best for businesses that do user research and want a way to perform sentiment analysis on the results.

Try Qualaroo Here

6. MonkeyLearn

Best for Customer Support

MonkeyLearn is a powerful text analysis tool that analyzes data from surveys, online reviews, customer support tickets, and more. You can visualize the data in multiple ways and customize the algorithm to get more accurate results, all without writing a single line of code.

Here are some of the best features of MonkeyLearn:

  • Custom Machine Learning Models: You can start from preset machine learning models or use toggles and menus to train the models for your use case. This allows you to get more fine-tuned results that has a more customized feel to your company.
  • Business Templates: MonkeyLearn has prepared several everyday use cases and turned them into templates for things like Zendesk Tickets and Customer Feedback Surveys. You can pick a template, connect your data, and get results faster than setting up a project from scratch.
  • Analyzes Customer Support Tickets: MonkeyLearn can handle many use cases, but I found this one unique. As users of an app or website contact Customer Support for issues they’re facing, MonkeyLearn not only analyzes the sentiment behind each request but also identifies the most common issues users are having so you can fix the most pressing problems first.
  • Doesn’t analyze sentiment from social media, TV, or other media sources, so you’ll need another tool for those avenues.

Pricing: The Team Plan is $299/month for 3 users and up to 3 machine learning models.

Verdict

Companies that receive lots of support requests, software reviews, or survey results will benefit from the comprehensive analysis that MonkeyLearn provides.

Try MonkeyLearn Here

7. Co:here Classify

Best for Developers

Co:here is a natural language processing (NLP) platform that allows businesses to analyze large amounts of text with sophisticated language models. Their text analysis software called Classify analyzes text inputs for intent, sentiment, and other factors.

Here are the highlights of Co:here Classify:

  • Access to Sophisticated Language Models: The advantage of using Co:here is that you get access to large and well-trained language models, which makes for more accurate text analysis. On top of that, you can train the models on your datasets for even better results.
  • Pay-As-You-Go Pricing: If you’re looking to test Co:here without investing a lot of money, you can start with 1,000 queries for just $5. (Plus, you get $75 in free credits for signing up, which will get you 15,000 queries for free.)
  • Playground: This web app allows you to test the software before integrating it into your own application. The app has a simple interface and allows you to set parameters and run tests without coding.
  • This tool is not for the non-techy set. You’ll need programming knowledge to use this software for your business.

Pricing: You pay $5 for every 1000 queries. Currently, you get a free $75 credit when you sign up.

Verdict

If your business has developers who can integrate a sentiment analysis tool into your workflow, Co:here will give you access to a large and powerful language model for more accurate results.

Try Co:here.AI Classify

8. Repustate

Best for HR Teams

Repustate analyzes text-based feedback to help businesses better meet the needs of both customers and employees. While other tools focus on the voice of the customer, Repustate’s focus on employee experience makes it unique. But don’t worry, they still have you covered for customers with their social listening platforms.

Here are some features I like from Repustate:

  • Focus on Employee Feedback: Repustate can learn how employees feel about your business, broken down into categories like Salary, Work Environment, and Management. This helps businesses understand what they need to improve to keep employees happy.
  • Multilingual Support: Repustate’s AI models can understand more than 20 languages, which makes it easy to analyze global sentiment.
  • Video Content Analysis: Repustate can find mentions of a keyword from video sources like YouTube, TikTok, and social media, unlike tools that only focus on written text.
  • The subscription for Repustate is pretty pricey, but you can try it out for free for 7 days to see if it’s right for you.

Pricing: You can get started with the Standard Plan at $199/month. To access all 23 languages, you’ll need to upgrade to the Premium Plan at $499/month.

Verdict

Repustate provides a promising solution for large-scale businesses and enterprises that want to improve employee experience, engagement, and retention along with customer sentiments.

Try Repustate Here

9. Lexalytics

Best for Enterprises

Lexalytics is a powerful text analysis tool that can analyze sentiment, understand user intent, and more. It’s connected to a large library of language data that helps it understand written language with human level accuracy.

Here are some things I like about Lexalytics:

  • Entity Extraction: Besides determining if a social mention is positive or negative, Lexalytics is able to extract the specific entities mentioned (in other words, companies, products, ideas, and other keywords) and return a sentiment score for each. It can also identify keywords that you might be interested in, so you can add them to your settings.
  • 3 Ways to Integrate: You can use the Lexalytics Spotlight app, which gives you an easy-to-use app interface and dashboard. Or you can have your development team integrate the tool in 2 different ways (using the API or connecting directly to the software libraries).
  • Understands Slang: Lexalytics’ sophisticated understanding of language paired with machine learning helps it to understand slang, abbreviations, and emojis—making for more accurate social media monitoring.
  • According to review sites, this seems to be one of the most expensive tools available. 

Pricing: Pricing is currently not listed on Lexalytics’ website. You can fill out the sales inquiry form for a personalized quote.

Verdict

Though Lexalytics is definitely overkill for a small business, large enterprises will benefit from its high level of accuracy and multiple options for integration.

Try Lexalytics Here

What is a Sentiment Analysis Tool?

In a nutshell, a sentiment analysis tool helps businesses understand how people feel about them. Most tools use AI technology to analyze statements that mention the business, a product, or other keywords and decide if the social mention is positive, negative, or neutral.

Some tools go further and rate the level of anger, joy, fear, or other emotions found in the statement.

Businesses can use this to manage their reputation, improve a product, better serve their employees, and more.

For example, McDonald’s could do a sentiment analysis of the Big Mac to discover if most customers are positive or negative about the sandwich. Then they could look at negative statements to see what they could improve.

Or they could run an analysis on other fast food restaurants and pick up complaints that are being made about their competitors. Then they could incorporate the feedback to try and win more customers.

How Do Sentiment Analysis Tools Work?

Sentiment analysis tools use natural language processing technology to understand what people are saying and estimate the sentiment behind each statement (in other words, whether the statement is negative, positive, or neutral).

Natural language processing uses lots of language data to help computer programs parse sentences and figure out what they mean (kind of like how we understand language). These programs use machine learning to continually learn from new data they encounter, so they can improve their skills and learn new words as they come up.

To use a sentiment analysis tool, enter keywords that you want the tool to pick up on. Then the tool will search the web (and sometimes other sources) for those keywords and bring back all the mentions it can find.

Then it will analyze each mention to decide if it’s positive, negative, or neutral and if any other emotions are implied in the statement.

With this data, you can get a bird’s-eye view of public sentiment around your brand, products, competitors, or any other keyword you can think of.

Benefits of Using a Sentiment Analysis Tool

So what are the benefits of sentiment analysis tools?

  • Reputation Management. A sentiment analysis tool will help you to understand the overall reputation of your brand or product and whether it’s mostly positive or negative. You can continue to monitor your reputation over time and make sure it stays positive.
  • Measuring Buzz. Sentiment analysis tools help you see who’s talking about you, how many people are talking about you, and what they’re saying. This can help you measure buzz after a product launch or when you’ve been featured in the media.
  • Finding Leads. Being able to filter social mentions by positive and negative sentiment can help your brand find new leads. For example, you can find people who are frustrated by competitors’ products and invite them to try yours.
  • Finding Influencers. Many sentiment analysis tools can show you the influence level of each person who mentions your brand. This can help you find influencers to partner with who are already interested in your products or business.
  • Competitive Analysis. Sentiment analysis tools aren’t just limited to monitoring your reputation. You can also find out what people are saying about your competitors. Discovering what people are unhappy about with your competitors can give you key insights into winning more of the market for your business.
  • Improving Products. You can conduct sentiment analysis on a specific product to see the positive and negative things people are saying about it. These insights can help you decide what to keep and what to change about each product to increase customer satisfaction.
  • Evaluating Marketing Campaigns. After promoting your business or product with a marketing campaign, you can use a sentiment analysis tool to see how many people are talking about the campaign and if they liked it or not.
  • Happier Employees. Some tools (like Repustate) mine social media, surveys, and reviews to discover what employees are saying about your company. You can learn what your employees feel about their pay, the work environment, management, and other factors, and work to improve each metric.
  • Crisis Management. When things go wrong, it’s helpful to get a live update of everything people are saying about your business. Sentiment analysis software can help you find the most negative comments and most influential users so you can quickly address them.
  • Better Customer Experience. Sentiment analysis can also be performed on customer support queries to uncover the emotion behind each request. This can help you identify the angriest customers and take appropriate action before your reputation is damaged.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the best free sentiment analysis tools?

Though not on my list of best sentiment analysis tools, Social Searcher allows you to run sentiment analysis on social media posts for free. You can also use the free Tweet Sentiment Visual Map that performs Twitter sentiment analysis for specific keywords.

What’s a sentiment score?

A sentiment score represents the overall sentiment detected in a line of text. A statement could be classified as Positive, Negative, or Neutral based on the score. Different sentiment analysis tools calculate the score in different ways, so it will depend on the tool you use.

Which sentiment analysis tools analyze print media sources?

For tools that analyze print media sources, I recommend Talkwalker and Critical Mention. Both perform sentiment analysis on print media as well as other traditional media forms.

Can I use a sentiment analysis tool for market research?

Yes, sentiment analysis is a great way to conduct market research. You can search for any topic you’d like to get public opinion about and see what people are saying about it. For example, if you’re looking to develop a new product, you could search for similar products and see the social sentiment around it.

What are the best social media sentiment analysis tools?

For social media monitoring and sentiment analysis, Awario is a great low-cost tool, Brand24 is great for beginners, and TalkWalker is great for product-based businesses.

Which tools provide multilingual sentiment analysis?

TalkWalker performs sentiment analysis in 187 languages. Brand24 supports 24, Lexalytics 21, and Repustate 23.

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