HARO and Connectively

HARO and Connectively are the same kind of product. Both are journalist request feeds. Reporters post queries asking for expert sources, and those queries are emailed to a list of subscribers. A source who fits the query replies with their pitch.

The feeds are free for sources to receive. Both platforms also offer paid tiers for journalists and PR professionals, with features like advanced search or branding removal. For a business looking to be a source, the free subscription is the relevant part.

HARO is the original service, founded by Peter Shankman. Connectively is a platform built by Cision, the media database company. They operate in parallel. HARO has not shut down. Connectively has not replaced it. Both are live, and both send queries.

HARO and Connectively cover one channel: journalist requests for sources. That is the entirety of their offering for a source subscriber.

They do not cover any other link building channel. There is no backlink gap analysis, no prospecting for resource pages or listicles, no podcast guest booking, no speaking opportunity finder, no industry award tracker, and no measurement of AI answer visibility. If you want those, you need another tool.

Mentionry does not log into HARO or Connectively, and it does not read your mailbox. It cannot pull those queries in on its own.

The way it works is manual. You copy a query from the HARO or Connectively email digest. You paste the text into Mentionry. The system judges that query as an opening, just like any other opportunity it finds. It decides whether your business can honestly answer it. If it can, it drafts a reply. You send that reply from your own connected mailbox.

This means the request feed is a channel you can use, but it is not automated. You still have to read the digest and paste the queries you want to pursue.

Pick HARO when volume is your only goal. It historically has the largest reporter base of any request feed. More reporters means more queries. If you want the highest possible number of potential pitches to look through each day, HARO's digest is where you will find them.

You should also pick HARO if you are comfortable with the manual process. You will receive an email digest, typically early in the morning. You will read it, identify relevant queries, and then act on them yourself or through another tool.

Pick Connectively if you are already using Cision's media database or other PR tools. Having the request feed within the same ecosystem can be convenient.

The reporter base is substantial, as it inherited HARO's reach. The volume of queries is comparable. The choice between them often comes down to personal preference or existing workflow integration.

Pick Mentionry when you want the request feed to be one channel among several. Mentionry's Opportunities screen finds journalist requests, podcasts, conferences, awards, and pages that cite competitors and not your brand. It also measures your AI answer visibility across engines like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.

Pick it when you do not want to read a digest every morning. Mentionry presents individual opportunities that have already been judged for relevance to your business. You see the drafted pitch immediately. You do not scan a long list of raw queries.

Choose Mentionry if you want outreach to be sent from your own mailbox, with replies landing in your own thread. The system checks back to verify if a link appeared, and reports what was earned, not just what was sent.

This table shows the operational differences.