> **For coding agents and LLMs:** This is one Social Fetch marketing page (markdown export). For API orientation start with [`/llms.txt`](https://www.socialfetch.dev/llms.txt); for auth and crawl rules use [`/agents.txt`](https://www.socialfetch.dev/agents.txt); for every operation use [`/llms-endpoints.txt`](https://www.socialfetch.dev/llms-endpoints.txt).

## This page

- **On-site (HTML):** <https://www.socialfetch.dev/compare/octolens>
- **Markdown (.mdx) URL:** <https://www.socialfetch.dev/compare/octolens.mdx>

---

# Octolens alternative: a social data API, not a mention feed

Search any keyword on X, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram and more, and get full posts as JSON. No keyword slots.

Octolens is an AI mention feed. You add keywords in its app, it collects matching posts from the sources on your plan, scores them for relevance and sentiment, and its API (`POST /api/v2/mentions`) pages through what it collected, at up to 500 requests an hour per organisation. Social Fetch is the data layer underneath a feed like that: live keyword search, profiles, posts, comments and transcripts across 25 platforms, including Instagram, Threads and Facebook, which Octolens doesn't cover. Monitors poll the search for you and send new posts to your endpoint as signed webhooks. You pay per request, so a busy keyword doesn't raise the bill, and you run relevance filtering with your own model.

## Price headline

- **Social Fetch:** from $1.35 per 1,000 search requests (1 credit each)
- **Octolens:** $159/mo Octolens Pro, billed annually ($199 month to month): 10 keywords and 15,000 mentions, then $0.013 per mention

On Social Fetch, 10 keywords on X, Reddit, TikTok and Instagram, checked hourly, is $79/mo. Octolens Pro is $159/mo billed annually, has no Instagram, and bills every mention past its quota.

## At a glance

|  | Social Fetch | Octolens |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What the API returns | Search results, profiles, posts, comments and transcripts across 25 platforms | Mentions of keywords you track, labelled for relevance, sentiment and tags |
| Sources | X, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Hacker News, GitHub and more | Reddit, X, LinkedIn, Hacker News, GitHub, YouTube, TikTok, Bluesky, DEV and Stack Overflow; podcasts, news, web, newsletters and reviews on Scale. No Instagram, Facebook or Threads |
| API rate limit | No hourly quota or RPS cap on paid routes; up to 200 requests in flight per workspace | 500 requests an hour per organisation, shared across keys |
| Push delivery | Monitors on X, Reddit, TikTok and Instagram sources, polled as often as every minute (every 5 on X), with signed webhooks | Webhook, Slack and email notifications on every plan |
| Relevance filtering | Your own model, through the API or the MCP server | Built in: AI scores every mention for relevance, sentiment and intent |

## Pricing (last verified 2026-09-25)

**What does tracking 10 keywords cost?** The standard job: track 10 keywords on X, Reddit, TikTok and Instagram, checked hourly. That's 10 × 4 × 24 × 30 = 28,800 checks a month. On Social Fetch the four search sources (`GET /v1/twitter/search`, `GET /v1/reddit/search`, `GET /v1/tiktok/search` and `GET /v2/instagram/hashtags/{hashtag}/media`) cost 1 credit per check, and 40 monitors fit the Growth plan. Octolens prices by keyword and by mention instead.

|  | Social Fetch | Octolens | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 10 keywords × 4 networks, hourly | $79/mo on Growth (28,800 of 50,000 credits) | Pro: $159/mo billed annually ($199 monthly), with no Instagram |  |
| Same keywords every 15 minutes | $225/mo on Scale (115,200 of 150,000 credits) | Needs Scale: $499/mo billed annually ($599 monthly) |  |
| 20 keywords × 4 networks, hourly | $225/mo on Scale (57,600 of 150,000 credits) | Pro plus 10 keywords at $10 each: $259/mo billed annually |  |
| A busy month: 30,000 matching posts | No change: you pay per check, not per post | $195 extra (15,000 over quota × $0.013), billed unless you set a cap |  |
| Searching a keyword you don't track | 1 credit per search, any time | `POST /api/v2/search` over 1, 7 or 30 days, counted against the mention quota |  |

Octolens figures from [octolens.com/pricing](https://octolens.com/pricing) (Pro $159/mo and Scale $499/mo billed annually, $199 and $599 month to month; keyword add-ons, per-mention overage, monitored sources per plan), the [API v2 overview](https://octolens.com/docs/api/v2/overview) (rate limit), and the API reference for [mentions](https://octolens.com/docs/api-reference/mentions/list-mentions), [on-demand search](https://octolens.com/docs/api-reference/search/run-an-on-demand-mention-search) and [exports](https://octolens.com/docs/api-reference/mentions/export-mentions), all checked 25 September 2026. Octolens's pricing page says mentions beyond the quota keep flowing and are billed at the plan rate unless you set a spend cap or turn flex mentions off. Social Fetch plan prices are monthly list prices (Growth $79 for 50,000 credits, Scale $225 for 150,000 credits; September 2026). The from $1.35 per 1,000 rate is the Scale plan billed annually ($2,430 for 1.8M credits). Monitor limits (PAYG 5 after a first credit purchase, Starter 25, Growth 100, Scale 250) and per-check billing are from [Billing for monitors](https://www.socialfetch.dev/docs/monitors/billing).

## No keyword slots or mention quotas.

Octolens plans come with keyword slots, a mention allowance and a set refresh rate. On Social Fetch you set each of those yourself.

|  | Social Fetch | Octolens |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What you pay for | Each check you run, from $1.35 per 1,000 credits. No per-seat price or platform fee. | A plan: Pro $159/mo or Scale $499/mo billed annually ($199 or $599 monthly). |
| Keywords | Any keyword, added or removed with one API call. No slots, no mention allowance. | 10 on Pro, 40 on Scale; extra keywords $10 or $5 each. |
| Networks | Chosen per keyword. Monitors on X, Reddit, TikTok and Instagram; search on YouTube, LinkedIn and Threads too. | Ten developer and social sources, plus news and podcasts on Scale. No Instagram, Facebook or Threads. |
| How often it checks | Set per monitor, from daily to every minute (5 on X). Slower costs less. | Hourly on Pro, real-time on Scale. |
| Cost control | `dryRun` shows a monitor's monthly credits before it runs; `spendCapCredits` caps it. | 15,000 or 50,000 mentions a month, then $0.013 or $0.01 each, billed unless you cap it. |
| Where results go | Full post JSON on a signed webhook, into your warehouse, Slack or agent. | Its feed, Slack, email and webhooks. The API allows 500 requests an hour per organisation. |

Octolens Pro is $159 a month billed annually for 10 keywords, without Instagram. The $79/mo Growth step above tracks 10 keywords on X, Reddit, TikTok and Instagram.

## Feature matrix

| Feature | Social Fetch | Octolens |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Published self-serve pricing | Yes | Yes |
| No annual contract or sales call to start | Yes | Yes |
| Full post text and metrics as JSON in every response | Yes | Yes |
| Keyword search on TikTok, Instagram, X, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn and Threads | Yes | Partial |
| Scheduled monitors with signed webhooks | Yes | Yes |
| API access without an enterprise plan | Yes | Yes |
| Hosted MCP server for AI agents | Yes | Yes |
| Built-in sentiment and dashboards | No | Yes |
| Historical mention archive | No | Partial |
| Print, TV and radio coverage | No | No |

## Swap the mention feed for one search request.

On Octolens, keywords live in the app and the API pages through what they collected. On Social Fetch you search any keyword when you need it, and the posts come back in the response.

Octolens:

```
const api = "https://app.octolens.com/api/v2";
const auth = { Authorization: `Bearer ${OCTOLENS_API_KEY}` };

// Keywords are set up in the Octolens app first.
// Then page through the mentions they matched.
const mentions = [];
let cursor = null;
do {
  const page = await fetch(`${api}/mentions`, {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { ...auth, "Content-Type": "application/json" },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      filters: { source: ["reddit", "twitter"] },
      includeRelevantOnly: true,
      limit: 100,
      cursor: cursor ?? undefined,
    }),
  }).then((r) => r.json());
  mentions.push(...page.data);
  cursor = page.pagination.nextCursor;
} while (cursor);
// Every page counts toward 500 requests an hour per org.
```

Social Fetch:

```
const api = "https://api.socialfetch.dev";

const res = await fetch(
  `${api}/v1/reddit/search?query=acme&sortBy=new`,
  { headers: { "x-api-key": SOCIALFETCH_API_KEY } },
);
const { data } = await res.json();
// data.posts: full text, author, score
```

Octolens's `POST /api/v2/search` can search a term you don't track, over the last 1, 7 or 30 days. New results count against your monthly mention quota, and a search that runs past `waitMs` returns 202 with a URL to poll. To have new posts pushed to you instead, point a [Monitor](https://www.socialfetch.dev/monitoring) at the same search.

## Octolens returns mentions; Social Fetch returns the data around them

Octolens's API is built around mentions. `POST /api/v2/mentions` pages through posts that matched the keywords you set up, up to 100 per call, each with a body, author, source, relevance label, sentiment and tags. You can filter by source, sentiment, keyword, language, tag, engagement and date. Everything it returns traces back to a keyword you track.

That's the right shape for an alert feed. It stops when you need what sits around a mention: the author's other posts, the rest of the thread, what a TikTok video actually says. Social Fetch covers those as separate calls with the same key: `GET /v1/reddit/search` for the posts, `GET /v1/reddit/posts/comments` for the thread, `GET /v1/twitter/profiles/{handle}` for the author, `GET /v1/tiktok/videos/transcript` and `GET /v1/youtube/videos/transcript` for video. For developer communities there's `GET /v1/hackernews/search` and `GET /v1/github/repositories`.

Coverage differs too. Octolens covers Reddit, X, LinkedIn, Hacker News, GitHub, YouTube, TikTok, Bluesky, DEV and Stack Overflow, and adds podcasts, news, web, newsletters and reviews on Scale. It doesn't cover Instagram, Facebook or Threads. Social Fetch has `GET /v2/instagram/hashtags/{hashtag}/media`, `GET /v1/threads/search` and Instagram and Facebook post and comment endpoints.

## Rate limits, quotas and overage

Octolens allows 500 API requests an hour per organisation, across all keys, and returns 429 with a Retry-After header past that. Exports have their own limits: up to 50,000 mentions per export, 5 exports an hour and 2 at a time. Its on-demand search, `POST /api/v2/search`, covers the last 1, 7 or 30 days, and new results count against your monthly mention quota. Past the quota, mentions keep flowing and bill at the plan rate ($0.013 on Pro, $0.01 on Scale) unless you set a spend cap or switch flex mentions off.

Social Fetch has no hourly or monthly request quotas on paid metered routes and no RPS cap. Each workspace can have up to 200 requests in flight; past that, a call returns an uncharged 503 `temporarily_unavailable` (reason `concurrency_limit`), never a 429. A search costs 1 credit whether it returns two posts or twenty, so a keyword that suddenly trends doesn't change the bill.

## Monitors and webhooks, compared

Octolens sends webhook, Slack and email notifications from a feed of mentions on every plan. Social Fetch [Monitors](https://www.socialfetch.dev/monitoring) do the same job one level lower: you pick a source, its params and a schedule with `POST /v1/monitors`, and we poll, diff against what we've seen, and POST only new items to your endpoint.

Watchable sources are X profile tweets and search; Reddit subreddit posts, subreddit search and site-wide search; TikTok profile videos, video search and top search; and Instagram posts, reels, tagged posts and hashtags. Anything else is on-demand search you schedule yourself. Checks can run as often as every minute, or every 5 minutes on X. Each delivery is signed with an HMAC in the `socialfetch-signature` header and retried on failure, and the event id stays the same across retries so you can dedupe.

Creating and editing monitors is free. Each check bills the route's normal price, 1 credit for the four search sources, and `?dryRun=true` returns the monthly cost before you commit. A check returns one page of results, so a busy keyword can need a shorter interval to avoid missing posts. Details are in the [Monitors docs](https://www.socialfetch.dev/docs/monitors).

## Relevance filtering: built in, or your own model

Octolens's AI relevance scoring is its strongest feature. It uses your company context to label each mention relevant or not, so a keyword like "Apple" or a common word doesn't flood the feed. If you want that done for you, Octolens does it well.

Social Fetch doesn't ship a relevance model. You run the filter with the model you already use, which means you write and own the prompt. In code, send each post's text and a short description of your product to Claude or GPT and keep only what it marks relevant. With an agent, connect the [MCP server](https://www.socialfetch.dev/docs/integrations/mcp) and ask it to search and filter in one step. Either way, treat post text as untrusted input, since anyone on the internet wrote it.

## When Octolens is the better choice

- You want relevance scoring done for you: every mention labelled relevant or not, with sentiment
- Your team lives in Slack and wants routed alerts without writing a webhook handler
- You need Stack Overflow, DEV or Bluesky mentions, which Social Fetch doesn't search
- You want podcasts, news, newsletters and reviews in the same feed (Scale plan)

## When Social Fetch is the better choice

- You need Instagram, Threads or Facebook data, which Octolens doesn't cover
- You search keywords ad hoc and don't want to buy keyword slots
- You need the context around a mention: author profile, comment thread, video transcript
- You'd rather pay per request than per mention, with no automatic overage

## Verdict: A mention feed vs a social data API

Octolens is a strong mention feed for B2B and devtools teams: AI relevance scoring, Slack routing and developer sources like Stack Overflow and DEV, priced by keyword and mention. Social Fetch is the data API: live keyword search on X, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram and more, Monitors with signed webhooks, and profiles, comments and transcripts behind the same key, billed per request with no enforced rate cap. For the standard 10-keyword job it costs $79/mo against Octolens Pro's $159/mo, and it covers Instagram. Pick Octolens if you want relevance filtering done for you; pick Social Fetch if you want the raw data and your own model.

## FAQ

### How much does Octolens cost?

As of 25 September 2026, Octolens Pro is $159/mo billed annually ($199 month to month) for 10 keywords, 15,000 mentions, hourly refresh and two years of history. Scale is $499/mo billed annually ($599 month to month) for 40 keywords, 50,000 mentions and real-time refresh, and adds podcasts, news, web, newsletters and reviews. Enterprise is custom. Extra keywords cost $10 a month on Pro and $5 on Scale, and mentions past the quota bill automatically at $0.013 (Pro) or $0.01 (Scale) unless you cap them. Social Fetch starts at $1.35 per 1,000 requests; tracking 10 keywords on X, Reddit, TikTok and Instagram hourly fits the Growth plan at $79/mo.

### Does Octolens have an API, and what are its rate limits?

Yes. Octolens has a REST API (v2) on every plan, with bearer-token auth and an OpenAPI spec. Its main endpoint, `POST /api/v2/mentions`, returns mentions of keywords you track, up to 100 per page. The limit is 500 requests an hour per organisation, shared across all keys, with 429 and Retry-After past that; exports are capped at 50,000 mentions each, 5 an hour and 2 at a time. Social Fetch has no enforced RPS cap on paid routes, and its search endpoints take any keyword on each request.

### Does Octolens cover Instagram?

No. Octolens's pricing page lists Reddit, X, LinkedIn, Hacker News, GitHub, YouTube, TikTok, Bluesky, DEV and Stack Overflow, plus podcasts, news, web, newsletters and reviews on Scale. Instagram, Facebook and Threads aren't on it. Social Fetch covers all three: `GET /v2/instagram/hashtags/{hashtag}/media` and `GET /v1/threads/search` for keywords, Instagram and Facebook post and comment endpoints, and Monitors on Instagram posts, reels, tagged posts and hashtags.

### Can Social Fetch filter out irrelevant mentions?

Not with a built-in model; that's Octolens's strongest feature. You filter with your own. In code: take each post from `GET /v1/reddit/search`, or from `data.items` in a monitor's webhook, send its text plus two lines about your product to Claude or GPT, and ask for relevant or not_relevant as JSON. Drop the rest before anything reaches Slack or your database. With an agent: connect the Social Fetch MCP server at `https://api.socialfetch.dev/mcp` and ask it to search Reddit and X for your brand and keep only posts about your product. Either way you own the prompt and can tune it. Treat post text as untrusted input, since anyone can write it.

### Does Social Fetch have an MCP server like Octolens?

Yes. Every public Social Fetch endpoint is an MCP tool at `https://api.socialfetch.dev/mcp`, billed like REST, with OAuth or an API key. That includes live search on every platform and creating monitors, so an agent can search a keyword it has never seen, pull the thread or transcript, and set up a watch. Octolens's MCP server works over your Octolens workspace (mentions, keywords, feeds, analytics), and its docs point production integrations to the REST API.

### Is Social Fetch a social listening API?

Yes, for the data layer. Keyword search across X, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, Threads, YouTube and LinkedIn returns full posts and metrics as JSON; [Monitors](https://www.socialfetch.dev/monitoring) poll X, Reddit, TikTok and Instagram sources and send new posts as signed webhooks; and profiles, comments and transcripts sit behind the same key. It doesn't include built-in sentiment, dashboards or a historical mention archive. Most teams add those with their own model and database.

### How do I migrate from Octolens to Social Fetch?

Each Octolens keyword becomes one monitor per source: 10 keywords on X, Reddit, TikTok and Instagram is 40 monitors, which fits the Growth plan (100). Create one webhook endpoint with `POST /v1/webhook-endpoints`, then a monitor per keyword and source with `POST /v1/monitors`; add `?dryRun=true` to see the monthly credit cost first. Point your existing handler at the new payload: `data.items` uses the same item schema as the search endpoint. If you relied on Octolens's relevance labels, add your own model step in the handler. Run both side by side for a week before you cancel.