HARO Alternatives

Help a Reporter Out is still operating. Its queries reach subscribed sources by email, and it remains free for sources to use. The platform works as designed. People look for alternatives not because HARO is broken, but because their needs have expanded.

A journalist request feed is one channel. A complete link building or PR strategy often involves several others: finding pages that already link to your competitors, identifying resource pages and directories in your niche, booking podcast appearances, applying for industry awards, and answering calls for speakers. No single request feed covers all of that. The search for a HARO alternative is usually a search for a tool that looks across multiple channels at once, or that automates the work of reading and matching queries so you do not have to scan a digest every morning.

This page lists the real alternatives. Each entry states what the service is, its published price, who it suits, and where it falls short. Mentionry is included as one entry in that list. The goal is to give you a comparison you can use, even if our product were not on it.

HARO is the original journalist request digest. It is now part of the Connectively platform, but the service continues. Journalists submit queries, and those queries are emailed to sources who have subscribed. There is no public feed of live queries that a tool can scrape automatically. This is a deliberate design: sources opt in to receive the emails.

For a source, it is free to receive the digests and reply to queries. Connectively offers paid tiers with additional features, but the core HARO service remains accessible without payment. The primary value is volume. HARO has the largest base of reporters of any request service, so the number of opportunities passing through it is high.

The limitation is scope. HARO covers journalist requests. It does not find backlink gaps, prospect for resource pages, identify podcast booking opportunities, track speaking engagements, list industry awards, or monitor for visibility in Google's AI answers. If your strategy is purely media relations and you are willing to manually review a high-volume email digest, HARO is still a valid choice. If you need more channels or you want the matching and drafting done for you, you are looking at the other entries on this list.

Qwoted is a source request marketplace that also maintains a reporter-facing expert database. Journalists use the platform to find sources, and experts can pitch to queries. The platform includes a database of events and awards at its higher tiers.

Qwoted has a free plan, but it is limited to two pitches per month and applies a two-hour delay before your pitch is sent. In practice, this makes the free tier a demonstration. The Pro plan is the functional entry point, priced at $149 per month for 35 pitches with no delay. This positions Qwoted as a paid service. The value proposition includes the expert database: being listed there can generate inbound requests from journalists searching for sources, which is a different dynamic from purely outbound pitching.

The service focuses on the media relations channel. It does not help you find pages linking to your competitors, prospect for resource page links, or identify podcast opportunities. Its awards database is a secondary feature. If your goal is to be found by journalists as much as to pitch them, Qwoted's database offers unique value. If your link building strategy requires reclaiming links your competitors already have, Qwoted does not address that.

Featured is an AI PR co-pilot developed by the company behind Connectively and HARO. It finds media opportunities and helps users craft pitches through a chat interface. It covers a broad range of 'earned' channels: journalist requests, finding journalists, podcast guest booking, speaking opportunities, industry awards, bylined article placements, AI answer visibility, and unlinked mention reclamation.

Pricing is tiered. A free plan offers a daily credit allowance. The Lite plan is $29 per month billed annually, and the Pro plan is $79 per month billed annually. Featured states that all plans include every feature. The product is inexpensive for the breadth of earned media channels it covers. It also offers an open MCP server for integration, requiring no API keys.

There is a significant gap between marketing claims and delivered features. The homepage lists 'Perform link-gap analysis' and 'Find Backlinks' as capabilities. The pricing page lists eleven included features, none of which mention link analysis, backlinks, or resource pages. An analysis of its top 500 ranked keywords shows no search traffic for terms related to links or backlinks. In essence, Featured is a capable and affordable tool for earned media outreach, but it does not cover the 'mine' side of link building: finding and pitching for links that already exist pointing to your competitors. If you need that, you must look elsewhere.

SourceBottle is a free call-out board connecting journalists and bloggers to expert sources. Founded in 2009, it has particular strength in Australian and New Zealand media. Journalists post queries, and sources can reply. The platform is free for both parties, with optional paid upgrades for pitching features.

Its focus is singular: journalist requests. It does not offer additional channels for link prospecting, podcast bookings, or awards. For businesses targeting the Australian media landscape, SourceBottle is a valuable and cost-effective resource. Its free model and established reputation in that region make it a genuine alternative for that specific use case.

It is important to note that SourceBottle is not replaced by broader platforms, it is integrated by them. Mentionry, for example, reads SourceBottle as one of its inputs for the journalist requests channel. The choice is not between SourceBottle and another tool, but between using SourceBottle alone or using a tool that includes SourceBottle's queries alongside opportunities from other sources. If your sole need is replying to journalist queries and you operate in Australia, SourceBottle alone may suffice.

Prowly is a full PR suite: a media database, press release hosting, pitching tools, and media monitoring. It is owned by Semrush. This is a different category of product from a simple request feed. It is designed for PR professionals who need to manage contacts, distribute news, and track coverage.

Its capabilities include finding journalist contacts via its database, accessing some journalist requests, monitoring for unlinked mentions, and watching competitor coverage. It does not cover the technical side of link building, such as gap analysis or resource page prospecting. Its media database is a key asset, but the data can become stale. A journalist's contact record might be years old, whereas the actual coverage they wrote last week is a more reliable signal of their current interests.

Prowly is a robust tool for traditional PR workflows. If your need is for a media database with validated contacts and a platform to manage your press room, Prowly is a strong candidate. If your primary goal is to efficiently earn backlinks from a variety of channels, including identifying pages that already link to your competitors, a tool focused on link acquisition may be more direct.

Connectively is Cision's journalist request platform, operating alongside HARO. It functions similarly: source call-outs are sent to experts by email. It inherited HARO's substantial reporter base, which is its core advantage. The platform offers both free and paid tiers.

Like HARO, Connectively is a single-channel tool focused on journalist requests. It does not extend into competitive link analysis, podcast bookings, speaking engagements, or AI answer visibility. Its search traffic data is revealing: its highest-traffic ranking position is for the non-PR phrase 'the world's hardest questions'. This suggests its brand recognition extends beyond the PR niche, but its functional offering is narrow.

Choosing Connectively is choosing the HARO model under a different brand. The decision factors are the same: you want high-volume journalist queries delivered via email, and you are prepared to manually review them. If you want the request feed to be one automated channel among many, you would look elsewhere.

Mentionry finds specific places a business can get a backlink and drafts the pitch to send. It works by analyzing a domain to identify competitors, then runs two engines. The 'Mine' engine finds pages linking to competitors but not to you, plus resource pages and directories. The 'Earn' engine finds journalist requests, reporters covering the subject, podcasts booking guests, conferences taking speakers, awards, unlinked mentions, and pages Google's AI reads for buying questions.

Every opportunity comes with a drafted email or form submission. The email is sent from the user's own connected mailbox, using their address and domain. Replies land in their email thread. Mentionry sends pitches, but it never places or publishes a link. That decision remains with the recipient. The product verifies links after the fact, reporting what was earned rather than just what was sent.

Mentionry has specific gaps. It does not automatically pull in queries from HARO, Source of Sources, or Connectively, because it does not read mailboxes or log into those platforms. A query from those services must be pasted in to be judged and drafted. Its AI answer visibility channel covers Google AI Overviews only, not other AI assistants. Several common link building tactics are not built at all, including broken link building, registry submissions, and relationship inventory management. Pricing is not yet publicly published.

The right choice depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Start by separating your needs into two categories: earned media and link acquisition. Earned media is about visibility and authority through mentions, quotes, and features. Link acquisition is about obtaining specific backlinks for SEO value. Many platforms blur this line, but their core strengths usually lie in one area.

If your primary goal is to be sourced by journalists, prioritize tools with strong journalist networks or databases. HARO, Connectively, and Qwoted's expert database serve this goal. Consider response volume and cost. If you cannot manually review hundreds of queries, look for tools that filter and match opportunities for you, like Featured or Mentionry.

If your goal is to build backlinks, you need a tool that covers the 'mine' side: finding pages that already link to your competitors, resource pages, and directories. Among the alternatives listed, only Mentionry explicitly includes this competitive gap analysis as a core function. Featured mentions it in marketing but does not list it as a delivered feature. Evaluate whether you need this capability before deciding.

Finally, consider workflow. Do you want opportunities delivered as a digest you act on, or do you want the software to act for you by sending pitches? Do you need pitches sent from your own email address? Are you comfortable with a chat interface, or do you prefer a structured list of opportunities? Answering these questions will narrow the field to one or two options that fit how you actually work.