By The best reputation management software help SMBs influence their public perception, whether it’s helping you monitor and respond to online mentions or sustainably generating more positive reviews. While Podium is a longtime player in the reputation management field, a range of Podium alternatives have since cropped up that could be a better fit for your agency.
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No matter what types of clients you deal with, you’ll find an alternative option that suits your needs in this roundup of Podium competitors.
Table of Contents
Why use reputation management software?
Today’s consumer spends over six hours online each day. For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), online reputation management has become a key element of operating a successful business. With the proliferation of social media and review websites, it's crucial to have a solid reputation management strategy in place.
Reputation software makes it easy to implement a robust reputation management strategy at scale, but not all software is created equal. That’s why we’re doing a deep dive into 11 Podium software competitors you need to know about if you offer reputation management services.
What is Podium?
Podium is an online reputation management solution well-known as an early software solution in this field. It is primarily used for review management and to facilitate conversations with customers through the Podium inbox.
Customers can use Podium to generate, analyze, and respond to reviews. Additionally, it can gather leads and information about customers through their webchat widget. Internal teams can also use Podium to stay in touch through the platform’s team chat function.
Podium main features
Podium’s primary features are related to review management, although additional features over the years to round out their product. Key Podium features include:
- Online review generation: Businesses can send automated prompts to customers through email or text to generate more reviews. Reviews can be generated on 25 sites, including Google and Facebook. One key selling point is a Google integration that enables customers to leave Google reviews in 2 clicks. Other automated communications are also supported, such as appointment follow-ups.
- Review management: Reviews on the platforms supported by Podium can be accessed from their centralized dashboard. Users can respond to reviews from the dashboard.
- Inbox: The Podium inbox can be used to have 2-way text conversations with customers. Customers can initiate these conversations through a variety of platforms, including Facebook and SMS.
- Webchat widget: Podiums webchat widget makes it easy for customers to get in touch from a business’s website.
- Mobile app: Users can communicate with customers by using Podium’s app, making it easier to stay in touch with customers and manage reviews while on the fly.
- Teamchat: Teams can communicate internally from Podium’s dashboard.
- Payments tool: Businesses can collect payments through SMS.
Podium cost
As you’ll see when we jump into the list of Podium competitors, this isn’t the most budget-friendly reputation management solution on the market. Podium costs vary depending on how many reviews and leads a business wants to generate per month.
Podium’s pricing tiers are:
Essentials
$289 per month with a month-to-month contract, or $249 per month with a yearly contract.
This plan includes up to 1,000 contacts and up to 3 team members. With the essentials plan, users can send review invites and access the web-chat widget, payment processing, and a range of app integrations.
Standard
$449 per month with a month-to-month contract, or $409 per month with a yearly contract.
This plan includes unlimited contacts and team members. With the Standard plan, users have access to the features included in the Essentials plan, plus personalized setup and onboarding, website reporting, automated review invitations, and custom branding.
Professional
$649 per month with a month-to-month contract, or $599 per month with a yearly contract.
This plan includes unlimited contacts and team members. With the Professional plan, users have access to the features included in the Standard plan, plus a range of additional automations, multimedia marketing messages, and more.
Why explore podium alternatives?
In the nearly 10 years since Podium was founded, many Podium alternatives have improved their product and made their reputation management solutions available at a better price.
Like most other aspects of digital marketing, online reputation management is constantly evolving and becoming more complex. Today’s SMBs need solutions that keep up with the latest developments and meet today’s needs, not yesterday's. By using Podium software competitors, businesses can get more value out of their reputation management solutions.
Going beyond reviews
Review monitoring is non-negotiable, but audience conversations take place all over the internet, not just on review sites. Some Podium alternatives include brand mention monitoring, so businesses can be aware of what is being said in blogs, on forums, and anywhere their customers are.
Merging local reputation management and SEO
There’s plenty of overlap between reputation management and SEO. The best Podium alternatives recognize this and include local SEO solutions such as listings management. This ensures brands not only get more reviews across a wider range of sites but also better search visibility by local audiences.
Getting more bang for your buck
SMBs are usually mindful of where their marketing dollars are going. By exploring Podium software solutions, agencies can offer more value to their clients, while also leaving room for greater profit margins.
11 Podium competitors to have on your radar
These Podium alternatives offer a variety of different solutions and price points, so you can find a better fit for your business needs and budget.
1. Vendasta
Agencies looking for a robust, customizable reputation management solution to meet the unique demands of customers should look no further. Vendasta’s reputation management tools and services include:
White-label reputation management software: A completely brandable interface that clients can use to access all the reputation management solutions, including review management and listings.
First-to-market with AI capabilities for review responses: Agencies and their local business clients using Vendasta's Reputation Management can leverage AI to suggest a response for customer reviews. “By clicking suggest response, AI will take elements from that review—the star rating, the user's name, and the sentiment of that review—and compose a response in seconds. Before, it could take a user 10, 15, or even 30 minutes to anguish over the best response. Now, they can do it instantly and move on with their day," says Jaw Hawkinson, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Vendasta.
Single dashboard for review management: Businesses can log into a single dashboard to track reviews from over 100 different websites. Review responses can be streamlined thanks to ready-to-use responses and AI-powered suggestions. Plus, thanks to machine learning and AI, they can gather valuable insights that help them continuously improve.
Customer Voice: Customer Voice is Vendasta’s white-label customer feedback tool. It’s completely customizable and can be used to capture reviews via email, SMS, or even at the point of sale.
Brand mention tracking: Every conversation taking place about a business online can be easily accessed using Vendasta’s reputation management software. This means businesses can gain a fuller understanding of brand sentiment, engage with audiences when it matters, and gather information to help refine their product or service.
Customizable widget to display reviews: Businesses can put their reviews on display to build trust with audiences thanks to a widget that can be fully customized to fit the brand.
Get listed where it matters: More listings mean more opportunities to collect reviews and be discovered online. Vendasta’s local listings software makes it easy to create and maintain accurate listings across the internet.
Track the competition: Competitive insights can be leveraged to make improvements in products, services, and marketing messaging. Competitive analysis tools provide valuable insights that can be used to determine benchmarks and set goals.
Since Vendasta also offers white-label services, agencies can leave the fulfillment of reputation management services to experts working under their brand name. As a Podium competitor, this makes scaling a breeze since agencies can focus on selling more while relying on white-label pros to deliver top-notch services every time.
Price
By signing up to Vendasta’s platform you can access wholesale pricing for reputation management solutions, plus a wide range of other digital marketing solutions. Vendasta has a free tier to access its marketplace products. Agencies at higher tiers receive the greatest wholesale discounts. The final price you will pay for reputation management solutions will depend on which solutions you license, which can be customized for each client. Explore pricing, capabilities, and more in the Vendasta Reputation Management product guide.
“When it comes to managing reviews, Vendasta is the superior choice over Podium for agencies seeking cost-effectiveness and efficiency. The AI integration enables the generation of thoughtful responses to reviews from any source, saving time and boosting productivity. This allows agencies to expand their client base and increase their revenue. Additionally, Vendasta’s Reputation Management stands out as the ultimate winner, thanks to its powerful filtering capabilities, valuable insights such as keyword sentiment analysis and competitor tracking.”
2. BirdEye
BirdEye is a reputation management platform for businesses to gather reviews, convert leads to customers, and gain referrals. Through messaging, businesses can send review requests for Google, YellowPages, Facebook, and over 200 other popular websites. Businesses can then build up their reviews on whichever website makes the most sense for their industry.
BirdEye includes:
- A review generation solution: Businesses can generate reviews through email or SMS. Additionally, BirdEye can showcase reviews on business websites, social channels, and within Google Ads.
- A referral generation solution: Users can create, send, and track referral campaigns through the same channels on which they send review requests. This gives businesses an automated way to tap into the power of word-of-mouth marketing.
- Webchat: BirdEye’s Webchat solution can also let users engage with prospects live. Thanks to unlimited automated FAQs, conversations don’t have to scale up customer support and staff can jump in any time for complex situations.
- Wide range of software integrations: Integrations with many popular CRMs mean businesses can easily send automated requests immediately after a purchase, capturing every opportunity to generate a review.
For an additional fee, BirdEye makes other products such as a listings management solution and payment processing.
Price
BirdEye’s pricing for single location business starts at $299 per month for listings and reviews. Their professional plan, priced at $399 per month, also includes their interaction solutions: livechat and messaging. Businesses must contact Bird eye for pricing for their premium tier, which includes benchmarketing, surveys, ticketing, and more. There are additional fees for multi-location businesses.
3. Swell
Swell’s software can gather customer reviews and feedback. Additionally, the Podium competitor provides users with suggested steps to follow to improve their online reputations. While businesses in many industries can use this podium alternative, Swell has a particular focus on health and dental practices.
Swell’s solutions include:
- Review generation and management
- Webchat and messaging
- Scheduling
- Surveys
- Payment processing
- Analytics
Price
Swell has different pricing tiers for single-location and multi-location businesses. You’ll have to contact Swell to get a custom quote for your business.
4. SurveySparrow
SurveySparrow bills itself as an all-around reputation management software that also manages customer service tickets. Businesses that can’t handle customer service questions at scale run the risk of damaging their online reputation in the process, making it a valuable combination.
With SurveySparrow, users can:
- Generate reviews across a range of platforms, and manage and respond to them from a single dashboard.
- Assign tickets for reviews that require customer service follow-up, for simplified case management.
- Generate brand reputation reports identifying brand sentiment and other important patterns.
- Embed reviews on any business website.
- Create customer surveys.
Price
SurveySparrow has a range of pricing tiers. Contact them to get a quote for your business.
5. ReviewPush
ReviewPush can generate reviews, monitor, and respond to them all from a single easy-to-use dashboard. Multi-location businesses will appreciate their multi-store review request functionality and straightforward pricing. Features of this podium competitor include:
- Multi-site monitoring, so businesses can keep track of reviews from popular sites such as Google, Facebook, Foursquare, and more.
- Easy response options, including the ability to respond to new reviews directly from the email alert for the review.
- Multi-level dashboards and reporting for businesses wanting different dashboards and reports for different management levels.
- Store-by-store rankings that easily display how different locations rank against each other at a glance.
- Unlimited locations.
Price
Contact ReviewPush for pricing information
6. NiceJob
NiceJob positions itself as a word-of-mouth marketing platform for local businesses ready for growth. Thanks to its easy-to-use reputation management tools, it lives up to that claim. NiceJob includes:
- Review management software that makes it straightforward for customers to leave reviews with a couple of clicks.
- AI-powered review reminders to give customers an extra nudge if they haven’t left a review yet.
- Smart funnel that distributes reviews to the websites they’ll most likely be seen by the greatest number of people, like Google and Facebook.
- Automated review sharing on social media.
- Widgets to showcase reviews on websites, in social media stories, and elsewhere.
- The ability to add photos to any review.
- Automated referral invites.
Price
While there is a free plan with very limited functionality, the standard plan beings at $75 per month for businesses with under 2500 customers. For larger businesses, prices go up to $389 per month plus a $399 setup fee.
7. Review Tool
Review Tool is a budget-friendly and surprisingly feature-rich Podium software competitor. While not quite as robust or integration-heavy as many of the other Podium competitors on this list, it’s a very good and accessible option.
With Review Tool, users can:
- Send Text, MMS, and email invitations to generate a steady stream of new reviews
- Gain competitive insights and set competitive benchmarks
- Auto-respond to reviews with AI and respond to reviews manually from the dashboard
- Display reviews using Review Tool’s widget
Price
Pricing for the Lite, Pro, and Premium plans are $69, $99, and $149 respectively.
8. Meltwater
This Podium competitor uses machine learning and social listening to help businesses gather and understand data. Drawing from reviews, blogs, and social media, users can gain valuable insights into brand sentiment. A unique feature is Meltwater's smart alerts which can provide regular updates about key real-time insights. For example, these alerts let decision-makers know if their search volume is spiking, so they can quickly identify why and respond appropriately if needed.
Features include:
- Media monitoring across a variety of channels
- Sentiment analysis
- Insights into top influencers mentioning a brand
While Meltwater isn’t a review generation platform, it does provide excellent social listening tools.
Price
Set up a demo with Meltwater to get a custom price quote.
9. Feefo
Feefo is a reputation management platform that helps build trust, boost sales, and encourage customer engagement. Here’s what you can expect from this Podium alternative:
- Review generation only from verified customers, which builds trust with customers.
- The ability for customers to post photo and video reviews.
- Instant notifications for negative reviews, giving businesses the chance to promptly respond and rectify problems.
- Respond to reviews from the Feefo dashboard.
- The ability to survey customers and prospects to gain valuable insights.
- Easy sharing on websites and social media channels.
- Reporting to reveal insights and opportunities.
Price
The Essential plan, with a limit of 200 emails per month, starts at $100. For pricing for more advanced tiers, get in touch with Feefo directly.
10. GradeUs
GradeUs is a tool for businesses at all stages to generate, monitor, and showcase their reviews. With solutions for both business owners and agencies, this Podium competitor offers a scalable solution that can meet the needs of most organizations. With GradeUs, you can:
- Generate reviews on over 100 industry-specific websites, as well as the big players like Google and Facebook
- Market reviews on any website with GradeUs’s widget
- Schedule regular automated reports to ensure benchmarks are being met
- Manage reviews from the GradeUs platform
Price
Pricing starts at $110 per month for single-location business owners, with prices scaling up to $2500 per month for larger enterprises and agencies.
11. Cision
Cision is both a reputation management and media management solution. This Podium software competitor can gather data from social profiles, customer interactions, and more to generate information about brand reputation. With Cision, you can:
- Conduct competitor analysis
- Track brand sentiment, product positioning, and more
- Generate leads from online mentions
- Boost content across traditional and digital channels with Cision’s PR Newswire
Price
Contact Cision for pricing information or a custom quote.
How do you know if you’ve chosen the right Podium alternative?
The best choice may vary from one business to the next, but make sure to keep these factors in mind as you evaluate the Podium alternatives in this article:
- Pricing: Your reputation management solution should fit your budget, but cheaper isn’t always better. It’s about how much value you can generate for clients at a given price point. Look for a solution that fits your budget while still checking all of your boxes in terms of functionality.
- Integrations with other tools: Most SMBs (and agencies!) are drowning in cloud-based solutions. Look for a reputation management solution that easily integrates with the tools and platforms most important to your clients.
- Customer support: When you have a question or run into a technical issue, quick, responsive support can be a lifesaver. Pick a platform with an excellent reputation for customer support.
- Free trial: A free trial can be a great way to get to know a reputation management platform. This gives you a chance to take it for a test drive before signing on the dotted line.
Involve all stakeholders in your organization: If a variety of people in your organization will be interacting with the platform, invite them to provide their opinions when evaluating Podium alternatives.
The bottom line: Why users are looking at Podium software competitors
While Podium may have been a top choice in the past, it hasn’t quite managed to keep pace with its competitors. Across many relevant metrics, Podium doesn’t meet today’s reputation management demands.
Pricing
Simply put, Podium is expensive, especially if you want to use all of its features. There are other solutions with similar functionality that don’t cost quite as much.
User experience
While Podium does have a good app, there is a steep learning curve to master the platform. Agency owners are busy, so an easy-to-understand solution is essential.
Limited channels
The platform can generate reviews on 25 different channels, while many Podium competitors can generate reviews on over 100 channels, with many niche industry-specific sites available.
Sub-par support
Podium isn’t known for the fastest support. Look for a Podium alternative that can offer help whenever needed, around the clock.
Lengthy commitment
To access slightly more favorable pricing, users have to sign up for one-year contracts. While the savings may be appealing, this is a long time to commit to a reputation management platform that may not work out.
Customers are finding lots of success switching to Podium software competitors, with no looking back:
Frequently asked questions
Is Podium good for SEO?
Podium is not designed to boost SEO. While having positive reviews can help a business’s SEO performance, other Podium competitors have more built-in SEO functionality.
Who are competitors of Podium?
Many Podium software competitors can be used for reputation management such as Vendasta’s suite of reputation management solutions, which lets you manage reviews, create listings, and more.
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