If you’ve worked in media outreach, HARO (Help a Reporter Out) has probably been an essential part of your journey. As the go-to online platform for gaining media placements and valuable backlinks for over a decade, it’s been an invaluable resource.
But in December 2024, HARO (later Connectively) officially closed its doors. So, what does that mean for you? Does your media outreach grind just hit a dead end?
Not at all! There are still plenty of solid alternatives that can help you secure high-quality backlinks and gain media exposure.
This article will explore 10 HARO alternatives, their best features, limitations, and pricing. By the end, you’ll better understand which PR tools best suit your needs and user persona.
- What Should You Look for In HARO Alternatives?
- The 10 Best HARO Alternatives
- 1. Qwoted (Best for PR specialists and startup founders)
- 2. SourceBottle (Best for expert sources and PR professionals)
- 3. JustReachOut (Best for solopreneurs, brand managers, and small PR teams)
- 4. Muck Rack (Best for finding and researching journalists)
- 5. Meltwater (Best for media intelligence)
- 6. ProfNet (Best for high-quality wins)
- 7. Featured (Best for high conversion rates and fastest turnaround)
- 8. PitchRate (Best for media coverage)
- 9. OnePitch (Best for streamlining press pitching)
- 10. Help a B2B Writer (Best for marketing niches)
- Other Noteworthy Methods
- Other Journalist Outreach Tools
⏰ 60-Second Summary
Here are 10 solid alternatives to HARO:
- Qwoted: Best for PR specialists and startup founders
- SourceBottle: Best for expert sources and PR professionals
- JustReachOut: Best for solopreneurs, brand managers, and small PR teams
- Muck Rack: Best for finding and researching journalists
- Meltwater: Best for media intelligence
- ProfNet: Best for high-quality wins
- Featured: Best for high conversion rates and fastest turnaround
- PitchRate: Best for media coverage
- OnePitch: Best for streamlining press pitching
- Help a B2B Writer: Best for marketing niches
What Should You Look for In HARO Alternatives?
When selecting an alternative to HARO for your outreach efforts, choosing a tool that aligns with your business goals and external communication is crucial.
Keep these key features in mind when evaluating your options:
- Response time: Fast responses from reporters or journalists to boost your chances of landing press exposure
- Integration with PR tools: Smooth connections with other PR tools or CRM systems to enhance your outreach workflow
- Reporting and analytics: Access to detailed data, such as response rates and successful placements, to help track progress and adjust strategies
- Cost-effectiveness: A pricing structure that provides, especially for long-term use
- Backlink tracking: Features to monitor backlinks so you can monitor the success of your link-building campaigns
- Media contact database: A robust database of journalists, bloggers, and influencers for targeted pitching
Now that we’ve established the key features to look for, let’s explore the tools they offer.
The 10 Best HARO Alternatives
To help you make your media outreach campaigns successful, here’s a list of the 10 best HARO alternatives designed to streamline your communication efforts.
1. Qwoted (Best for PR specialists and startup founders)
Qwoted connects journalists with expert sources, helping them find valuable insights for their articles. Unlike HARO, one must apply and be approved as a source before responding to queries. Plus, all communication happens directly on Qwoted—no contact information is shared with journalists.
The approval process might mean fewer people competing for the same query, but it also works in journalists’ favor. Depending on how well your profile matches their needs, journalists may also contact you directly.
For PR professionals, Qwoted helps get press opportunities that result in coverage for brands and experts they represent.
Qwoted best features
- Build a profile with your credentials and expertise to receive relevant media inquiries
- Respond to journalist queries directly within the platform
- Get filtered by journalists based on your location, gender, and expertise
Qwoted limitations
- Qwoted is more geared toward PR agencies than SEO-focused agencies
- Pricing for team accounts may be expensive for small teams
Qwoted pricing
- Basic: Free
- Pro: $99/month per user
- Teams: Custom pricing
Qwoted ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: N/A
2. SourceBottle (Best for expert sources and PR professionals)
If you’re looking for a free platform to help journalists and bloggers find expert sources, SourceBottle could be a great fit. Like HARO, it connects industry professionals with media outlets that need expert insights. You can choose to either find sources or become a source yourself.
What makes SourceBottle stand out is its tailored approach to managing PR. You can select topics that match your expertise. These include business and finance, health and well-being, technology, travel and leisure, parenting and lifestyle, and food and fashion.
Plus, the paid plan unlocks additional features like specific giveaways, case studies, and media pitch opportunities.
SourceBottle best features
- Access a global platform with a wider international reach
- Protect privacy with anonymous options
- Receive free email alerts with spam-reduction features
- Use refined search filters by industry and location
- Target individual professionals and smaller businesses
SourceBottle limitations
- Doesn’t offer the same extensive reach as HARO or larger platforms
- The features are relatively basic, with no premium options for enhanced visibility
SourceBottle pricing
- Free
- Expert Profile: $25/month
SourceBottle ratings and reviews
- G2: N/A
- Capterra: N/A
3. JustReachOut (Best for solopreneurs, brand managers, and small PR teams)
Founded by PR expert Dmitry Dragilev in 2014, JustReachOut was designed to help people with ambitious PR goals connect directly with the media.
With link-building software, you can find and pitch journalists effortlessly, tapping into a massive database of over 700,000 contacts. If a journalist doesn’t respond to your initial pitch, you can schedule automatic follow-ups, ensuring you stay top of mind without any extra work.
For peace of mind, the platform manually verifies email addresses to ensure you reach the right person.
Create personalized pitch emails in seconds, break the ice with journalists without diving into their articles, and even get instant summaries of those articles to understand what they’re looking for.
JustReachOut best features
- Secure genuine press mentions for clients
- Get featured on top podcasts
- Quickly identify broken links in your niche and boost your Google rankings
- Get access to AI-powered PR tools to supercharge your workflow
JustReachOut limitations
- Focuses primarily on outreach, not broader PR management
- Requires new users to learn how to navigate all features
JustReachOut pricing
- Smarter Outreach: $147/month per user
- Advanced Outreach: $247/month for two users
- Unlimited Outreach: $497/month for five users
JustReachOut ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough ratings
- Capterra: N/A
👀Did You Know? A BBC study found that companies with branded podcasts saw an impressive 89% boost in brand recognition.
4. Muck Rack (Best for finding and researching journalists)
While 82% of PR teams regularly measure their PR efforts, less than 40% are “very” or “extremely” confident of the metrics they report.
What if there were a way to automate measurement and easily share results with leadership in just a few clicks? Muck Rack could be precisely what you need.
This outreach platform helps businesses and individuals reach the right media contacts. You can set up alerts for keywords related to your field, making it easy to find and pitch to journalists writing about topics in your expertise.
Muck Rack also provides a comprehensive list of journalists and influencers, complete with contact details. This lets you sift through and identify the right people to pitch. However, you are responsible for outreach and staying on top of trending topics.
Muck Rack best features
- Keep media lists up to date with real-time information
- Set up alerts for industry keywords to stay in the loop
- Be notified when reporters switch beats or start covering new topics
Muck Rack limitations
- Consists of a lot of admin work for outreach and database management
- There may be some missing information in some contact lists
Muck Rack pricing
- Custom pricing
Muck Rack ratings & reviews
- G2: 4.6/5 (270+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.3/5 (20+ reviews)
Also Read: Best Influencer Templates to Manage Outreach
5. Meltwater (Best for media intelligence)
Meltwater is a media intelligence platform designed to help you track your media presence and reach. Using keywords related to your industry or company, you can search for relevant publications and journalists.
The platform lets you create custom dashboards to track key data points for your PR and content marketing campaigns, such as coverage sentiment and audience insights.
The platform lets you generate newsletters to share media mentions with your team or clients. Additionally, you can use Meltwater’s intelligence tool to track your competitors’ coverage and social media presence.
Meltwater best features
- Receive daily or weekly newsletters to stay informed
- Access reporter contact details for targeted outreach
- Monitor media coverage effectively to track your brand’s presence
Meltwater limitations
- Comes with an unintuitive dashboard that can be difficult to navigate
- Not tailored for individual sources seeking to build credibility
Meltwater pricing
- Custom pricing
Meltwater ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.0/5 (2,180+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.0/5 (90+ reviews)
Also Read: Top Social Media AI Tools for Marketers
6. ProfNet (Best for high-quality wins)
Could relevant journalists actively seeking expertise land in your inbox daily? ProfNet offers this service from PR Newswire, which has a 20-year history of connecting PR and marketing professionals with eager media contacts. It saves you the time and effort of endless cold pitching.
ProfNet allows you to tap into exclusive opportunities that are not available on other platforms. With fewer users—around 14,000 PR professionals—your chances of being picked up by a journalist are significantly higher than on other media outreach services, like HARO, which boasts over 1 million users.
ProfNet stands out because of its unique system. In this system, journalists submit detailed queries about the expertise they need, which are then sent to subscribed experts. This allows for highly targeted outreach.
ProfNet best features
- See higher conversion rates in placements compared to most alternatives
- Filter queries based on institution type or geographic location for more relevant results
- Get notified instantly via email when new opportunities arise
ProfNet limitations
- Deal with an outdated email format that feels clunky compared to modern tools
- Lack of SEO data means you need to research domain ratings and backlinks independently
ProfNet pricing
- Custom pricing
ProfNet ratings and reviews
- G2: N/A
- Capterra: N/A
📮ClickUp Insight: 83% of knowledge workers rely primarily on email and chat for team communication. However, nearly 60% of their workday is lost, switching between these tools and searching for information.
With an everything app for work like ClickUp, your project management, messaging, emails, and chats all converge in one place—enhanced by built-in AI.
7. Featured (Best for high conversion rates and fastest turnaround)
Launched as Terkel in 2021, the platform began as a simple hub to connect businesses with media opportunities. Fast-forward to September 2023, and it rebranded as Featured to focus more on showcasing top-tier content experts.
Now, it offers an easy way to pitch and track media outreach, making the process much more manageable than dealing with endless email threads like with HARO.
A unique aspect of Featured is how it consolidates everything into a straightforward dashboard. This clarity means no more juggling multiple platforms or trying to keep track of pitches in chaotic email chains.
Featured best features
- Match with questions that align with your knowledge and expertise
- Specialize in written Q&A for article features and expert insights
- Manage pitches and follow-ups with minimal effort
- Build credibility by getting featured in reputable outlets
Featured limitations
- Struggles with fewer opportunities compared to bigger platforms mentioned in this list
- Focuses only on written contributions; no options for other content formats
Featured pricing
- Free
- Pro: 49.75/month per user
- Business: $99/month per user
Featured ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
Also Read: Best Influencer Marketing Tools for Agencies
8. PitchRate (Best for media coverage)
PitchRate focuses on matching sources with the right journalists, increasing your chances of getting a response.
One of its standout features is the online newsroom. This space allows businesses to showcase their media assets, press releases, and story ideas, which journalists can browse and access directly. This increases the likelihood of building meaningful connections.
PitchRate best features
- Receive high-quality, relevant responses from journalists
- Upload expert articles with bylines, providing journalists with ready-to-use content
- Access PR training resources, articles, and tips to improve your outreach plan
PitchRate limitations
- Best suited for smaller-scale PR campaigns than larger ones
PitchRate pricing
- Free
- Custom pricing
PitchRate ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
9. OnePitch (Best for streamlining press pitching)
Launched in 2017, this platform was designed to speed up the pitching process for journalists and PR pros alike. The idea is simple: instead of sending generic pitches, you send one tailored to the journalist’s needs.
One of the best features of this platform is Pitch Checker, which analyzes your pitch to ensure it meets journalists’ expectations. It also provides journalist recommendations, suggesting the best contacts based on your pitch, so you’re not wasting time with irrelevant leads.
OnePitch best features
- Track emails to monitor your outreach progress
- Set up follow-up reminders to stay on top of responses
- Receive email reports to measure your pitching success
OnePitch limitations
- Offers limited advanced features for more experienced PR professionals
- Depends heavily on user input to generate the best results
OnePitch pricing
- All Pitch: $50/month per user
OnePitch ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough ratings
- Capterra: Not enough ratings
10. Help a B2B Writer (Best for marketing niches)
Bought by the content marketing community Superpath in 2023, this niche platform quietly delivers value to marketing, sales, and tech professionals.
What makes Help a B2B Writer (HaB2BW) stand out is its ability to connect writers with subject matter experts—crucial when creating top-notch content. If you’re not an expert, HaB2BW makes it easy to find and communicate with those who are.
Help a B2B Writer best features
- Access a wide range of social media templates
- Free platform with no subscription fees or per-pitch costs
- Create a spam-free environment, delivering high-quality opportunities
Help a B2B Writer limitations
- Limits its use to the marketing, tech, or business niches
- Occasional glitches, such as deliverability issues
Help a B2B Writer pricing
- Free
Help a B2B Writer ratings and reviews
- G2: N/A
- Capterra: N/A
Other Noteworthy Methods
If you feel these HARO alternatives aren’t entirely cutting it for your media outreach needs, there are more options. Some established platforms offer a more community-based, interactive approach that could help you land those valuable mentions and backlinks.
Here are a few noteworthy ones to check out:
X (formerly Twitter) (#journorequests)
X isn’t just for scrolling through memes or celebrity gossip. It’s a goldmine for connecting with journalists actively seeking expert opinions.
Search the hashtag #journorequests for real-time media queries from reporters across industries.
Journalists use this hashtag to post opportunities for quotes, interviews, and expert insights. The beauty of X is its immediacy and reach—you can jump into conversations right away and connect with a wide range of reporters.
Be sure your pitch is concise and tailored to each request, though.
🧠 Fun Fact: Instead of simply cold-pitching, many PR professionals actively network on LinkedIn, offering thought leadership or joining media communities like PR Week or Media Relations 101.
Reddit communities (e.g., r/PRpros, r/Freelance)
Reddit is a hidden gem for media outreach, with several active communities dedicated to PR and media relations.
Subreddits like r/PRpros and r/Freelance are packed with journalists and content creators who post media requests and seek expert opinions. These communities are often smaller and more niche, which can be a huge advantage for finding highly relevant opportunities that align with your PR goals.
However, follow the subreddit rules and avoid overly promotional content—Redditors truly value authenticity.
Slack communities
Many PR and media professionals use Slack to share opportunities and connect with journalists and influencers in real time.
Channels like #PRdaily, #PublicRelations, or #MediaRequests often allow you to post your availability as a source, share press releases, or respond to journalist requests. Slack communities excel due to their casual, conversational communication style, which encourages quick engagement.
Plus, they tend to be more exclusive, meaning you’ll often get access to high-quality opportunities.
Other Journalist Outreach Tools
If you want to improve your journalist outreach and manage your media relations, ClickUp is the everything app for work to make it happen!
Its all-in-one project management and social media engagement tool for agencies can help you run your media outreach and media planning better. Here’s how:
🚀 Track media requests with Custom Forms
Whether gathering insights from journalists or monitoring incoming media inquiries, ClickUp Forms allows you to capture all relevant details.
Once the information is collected, you can automate tasks and follow-ups so your team knows exactly when to take action. This ensures that your media outreach is seamless and timely.
🚀 Collaborate on PR strategies with ClickUp Docs
With ClickUp Docs, your team can collaborate on real-time PR strategies and media outreach plans. Create, edit, and share documents easily, making it simple to draft pitches, plan campaigns, or refine press releases.
Docs also allow you to organize your content with rich formatting features, nested pages, and templates to keep everything aligned.
🚀 Generate ideas with AI assistance
ClickUp Brain, an AI-powered assistant, helps you generate fresh ideas for your media outreach efforts. It offers instant support, allowing you to brainstorm content strategies, refine PR goals, or even generate ideas for outreach campaigns.
AI suggestions can become actionable tasks within your Docs, speeding up your content creation process.
🚀 Automate tasks and follow-ups
With ClickUp Tasks, you can create automated workflows for follow-ups, outreach tracking, and assigning tasks. Set automatic reminders for media follow-ups or have tasks assigned to the right team members when a pitch is sent.
This way, you’ll keep your outreach campaigns on track with minimal effort.
🚀 Proactive communication with Chat
Similarly, ClickUp Chat combines team communication with task management. Discuss campaign updates, share feedback on media lists, or brainstorm pitch ideas—all within the same platform.
Chat also integrates with your tasks, so you can link meaningful conversations directly to specific action items, making it easier to stay aligned.
🚀 Monitor progress with powerful Dashboards
With ClickUp Dashboards, you can track key metrics, monitor campaign performance, and adjust strategies as needed. These customizable dashboards provide insights into how well your efforts are performing, helping you make data-driven decisions.
By centralizing your tasks, communications, and documents in one platform, ClickUp ensures that your media planning is efficient and productive. Whether drafting pitches, managing follow-ups, or collaborating on outreach strategies, ClickUp makes the entire process smoother, more organized, and more effective.
Choosing the Right HARO Alternative
HARO may be gone, but media outreach is far from over. With these 10 alternatives, you have plenty of ways to keep your PR and link-building efforts alive and kicking.
But how do you pick the right one for your needs?
Try testing a mix of free and paid platforms to see what fits your situation best. Whatever you decide, remember that your pitches need to offer real value. That’s the key to landing quality backlinks that will stay strong with Google’s algorithm over time.
With ClickUp, you can manage your media outreach efficiently, track PR goals, and collaborate on your link-building strategies all in one place.
Sign up for a free ClickUp account today to take your PR efforts to the next level!