Metricool is very good and genuinely cheap — $25 a month for five brands, and a free tier that actually works. It schedules better than we do, it posts to Google Business Profile, and we are not going to pretend we beat it on price. But its competitor tracking watches social profiles only, and it cannot see a competitor’s website at all. ScoutRival is the layer above it: it reads their site, decides what to do, and writes it.
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…and the work still arrives as a recommendation.
Metricool does have website and blog analytics. But read how it works, in their own setup docs: you install a tracking code — a WordPress plugin, a JavaScript tag, or a pixel — on the site you want to measure.
Which means it can only ever see your site. You cannot install a pixel on your competitor’s website. That isn’t a gap in their roadmap; it’s the architecture. Metricool’s competitor tracking is social profiles — seven networks, and the list doesn’t include LinkedIn or TikTok.
ScoutRival reads a competitor’s site from the outside, the way a customer does. Every night it checks their website, their blog, and their Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn and YouTube — and at 7am it tells you what they published, what it means, and what to do about it.
A recommendation is a to-do. A draft is done work.
Metricool’s AI writes social captions, posts and carousels, and it schedules them beautifully — to Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, TikTok and Google Business Profile. Genuinely better than us at that. We don’t schedule at all.
What it doesn’t write is the 1,000–5,000-word article that answers the question your customer types before they call anybody — the one that ranks, and the one ChatGPT quotes.
ScoutRival writes that, in your brand voice, from the gap it found in your rival’s content, and publishes it to your WordPress in one click. Metricool’s WordPress integration is an analytics plugin — it brings data in; it doesn’t push articles out.
Metricool will tell you your engagement rate. It won’t tell you whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Gemini name you when someone asks who to call — and it won’t grade your website, because it doesn’t audit sites.
ScoutRival checks all four AI engines from $29 and grades your site across 27 SEO checks, A–F, with the fixes ranked by what each one is worth. Checked July 2026.
We’re not going to pretend otherwise: Metricool Starter is $25/month for five brands (monthly-billed — their page shows the annual rate by default). ScoutRival Starter is $29 for one. Here is what the money actually buys.
Keep Metricool. It schedules better than we do, and it’s cheaper. We’re the layer above it.
Every price read from Metricool's own pricing pages in July 2026, and linked so you can check us.
| ScoutRival | Metricool | |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | ||
| Entry paid price | $29 1 brand | $25 5 brands — they win this |
| Free tier | No LinkedIn or X · 20 posts/mo | |
| It watches | ||
| A competitor’s website and blog | Daily, from the outside | Their web analytics needs a tracking code on the site |
| A competitor’s LinkedIn | Not in their competitor-tracking networks | |
| A competitor’s Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube | Up to 100 per network — genuinely good | |
| A daily brief telling you what to do | 7am, every morning | |
| It creates & ships | ||
| Social captions and posts | ||
| Long-form SEO articles | 1k–5k words | |
| Publishes articles to WordPress | One click | Their WP plugin brings analytics in |
| Schedules & posts to social | We write; Metricool posts | Incl. Google Business Profile |
| It measures | ||
| 27-check SEO audit of your site | A–F, fix cards | |
| AI-search visibility | 4 engines, from $29 | |
| Where Metricool wins | ||
| Price per brand | $29 for 1 brand | $25 for 5 brands |
| Scheduling & publishing | Incl. Google Business Profile | |
| Ad-campaign tracking |
Prices read from Metricool's own public pricing pages in July 2026 (source). They change — check theirs. Metricool is a trademark of its owner. ScoutRival is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by them. Spot something stale or unfair? Tell us and we'll correct it — including if you work there.
You have someone whose job this is.
Their data is the best there is. If that's your situation, it's the better buy — and we'd rather you knew now than after the refund.
Nobody there does marketing full-time.
It does, and it’s good — up to 100 competitor profiles per network. But look at which networks: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bluesky, YouTube and Twitch. No LinkedIn. No TikTok. And no websites. It’ll tell you a rival’s Instagram engagement went up. It won’t tell you they published a pricing guide this morning — because it can’t see their site at all.
It has web analytics for your site. Their own setup docs are explicit: you connect a site by installing a tracking code — a WordPress plugin, a JS tag, or a pixel. That’s how the data gets collected. And you can’t install a pixel on someone else’s website. It isn’t a missing feature; it’s the architecture. ScoutRival reads a competitor’s site from the outside, the way a customer does.
It is cheaper, and we’re not going to spin that — $25 for five brands against our $29 for one. On brands-per-dollar they win outright. You’d pay us for a different job: watching your rivals’ websites, writing the long-form article, auditing your SEO, and checking whether ChatGPT names you. If you don’t need those four things, don’t buy us.
That’s the setup we’d actually recommend, and plenty of customers run it. ScoutRival decides what to say and writes it; Metricool schedules and posts it — including to Google Business Profile, which we don’t support. Together it’s about $54–$114/month, which is still less than a single seat of most tools on our compare page.
Read from Metricool’s own pricing page and help docs in July 2026. One note if you go and check: their pricing page shows the annual rate by default and prices in both EUR and USD, so the $25 we quote is the monthly-billed USD figure. If anything here is stale — including if you work there — tell us and we’ll fix it.
Most people shortlist two or three. Here's what else lands on the list next to Metricool — what each one costs, and where each one stops.
Priced per person, from $99 a seat, with no free plan. Three people on its Professional tier is $597 a month — and it still won’t write your article.
The best scheduler there is, and we can’t schedule at all. What it has never done — by design — is tell you what to post. Run both: $29 with Buffer’s free plan.
Excellent, and priced per seat. Competitor reports start at $399/seat and cover Facebook, X and Instagram only. Five people is $1,995 a month.
A superb social publisher — and we can’t schedule at all. Its competitor report covers Facebook and Instagram only, and watching anything else costs $75 a topic.
Same $29 entry, unlimited AI posts, and a 30-day refund. Its “competitor analysis” compares Facebook follower counts — that is the entire feature.
The best on-page optimizer there is — and its entry plan tracks zero AI prompts, in their own words. The advertised $49 is the annual rate; month to month it’s $59.
We've researched all 35 — prices, limits and where each one stops. See every comparison →
Add your website, name a competitor, and go to bed. Your first brief lands tomorrow morning — with the article already written.