Buzzsumo

Before writing a piece of content, it helps to know what has already worked on that topic. BuzzSumo answers that question by drawing on an archive of billions of articles, ranked by shares, links and real engagement.

BuzzSumo is a content research and monitoring platform. Its search engine queries a vast archive of published content and returns, for any topic, domain or author, the articles that earned the most social shares, backlinks and engagement, with an evergreen score flagging content that keeps performing over time. From there you can analyze what works in your niche, study competitors and identify the formats and angles that generate reaction. The influencer and journalist section lets you identify the most authoritative people on a topic and manage outreach, a feature that makes the tool particularly useful for digital PR work. Alerts monitor brand mentions, keywords, backlinks and competitor publications, notifying you when something moves. Idea generation tools and trend analysis based on publication volume and interest complete the picture.

For content marketers, digital PR agencies and structured editorial teams that base their strategy on content performance data and reputation monitoring.

BuzzSumo has no free plan, but offers a 30-day free trial, among the longest in its category. Pricing is decidedly high: the Content Creation plan starts at $199 per month for one user, PR & Comms costs $299 per month for five users, Suite $499 per month for ten and Enterprise $999 per month for thirty. Annual billing saves up to 20%. It's a tool built for professional budgets: freelancers and small operations struggle to justify the cost.