The best PR tools in 2026, compared honestly
PR tools split into four different jobs: answering journalist requests, researching journalists to pitch cold, publishing and sending your own stories, and tracking the coverage that results. The best tool is the one that does your job at your scale. We sell one of the eight below, ours is marked, and every price was checked on the vendor's site on 9 November 2026.
The shortlist at a glance
| Tool | Best for | Price | Free option |
|---|---|---|---|
| QuotedExpert (ours) | Getting quoted without doing PR work | $47/mo | Free to browse matches |
| HARO | Free journalist requests | Free | Entirely free |
| Qwoted | Professional pitchers | $99/mo billed annually | Free, 2 pitches/mo |
| Featured | Every visibility format in one place | Free to $299/mo, by usage | Free plan |
| Muck Rack | Media database for PR teams | Custom, roughly $5,000 to $53,000/yr | Free tools for journalists only |
| Prowly | Media lists and outreach, mid-size teams | Now sold as the Semrush AI PR Toolkit | Trial via Semrush |
| Prezly | Online newsroom and PR CRM | From €100/mo billed annually | 14-day trial |
| Brand24 | Media and social monitoring | From $199/mo | 14-day trial |
1. QuotedExpert: best for getting quoted without doing the work
This is our tool, declared plainly. It monitors journalist requests on HARO, Featured, Qwoted and Source of Sources, scores each one against your expertise, and emails you only the matches with a draft written from your words.
Price: free to browse matched requests, $47/mo to respond, no pitch caps. Pick it if you are the expert, not a publicist, and your scarce resource is time. Skip it if you need podcasts, speaking slots or a journalist database; it does one job.
2. HARO: best free PR tool, full stop
Help A Reporter Out remains the largest free source of journalist requests anywhere. We process about 43 requests a day from its three weekday editions, from more than 1,200 outlets.
Price: free. Pick it if you are validating the channel and can give it 15 to 30 minutes a day of unfiltered reading. Skip it if that daily scan has already died in your inbox twice. Full detail in our HARO breakdown.
3. Qwoted: best for people who pitch for a living
Qwoted pairs a curated request feed with an expert database journalists search directly, plus pitch analytics for people optimising a pitching process. In our May 2026 tracking its outlets skewed national: Newsweek, Forbes, USA Today, the Daily Mail.
Price: free for 2 pitches a month with a 2-hour delivery delay; Pro is $99/mo billed annually for 35 pitches. Pick it if pitching is your job. Skip it if monthly caps would ration your best weeks. See Qwoted in numbers.
4. Featured: best for every visibility format at once
Featured finds journalist requests, podcast guest slots, speaking calls, awards and byline openings, then helps you pitch them through chat or scheduled workflows. We processed 1,518 of its opportunities in 18 days in May 2026.
Price: free with a small daily AI allowance, then $39 to $299/mo depending on usage. Pick it if stages and microphones matter as much as press quotes. Skip it if you only want quotes and would rather not operate another platform. See Featured in numbers.
5. Muck Rack: the professional media database
Muck Rack is where PR teams research journalists, build media lists, pitch and measure coverage in one system. Its database is the category standard, maintained partly by journalists themselves.
Price: nothing published. Contracts are annual and custom, and Muck Rack's own guide puts the range at $5,000 to $53,000 a year, with most teams around $15,000. Pick it if you run PR for an organisation and cold outreach is the strategy. Skip it if you are an individual expert; the price buys research you will never use.
6. Prowly: media lists and outreach for mid-size teams
Prowly built its name on an accessible journalist database with email outreach and coverage tracking. It is now sold as the Semrush AI PR Toolkit, with AI journalist matching and visibility reporting folded into Semrush.
Price: set by Semrush packaging rather than a public Prowly price list, checked 9 November 2026. Pick it if you already live in Semrush and want PR in the same bill. Skip it if you need transparent pricing before a sales conversation.
7. Prezly: best online newsroom and PR CRM at small-team prices
Prezly publishes your stories in a branded newsroom, manages media contacts as a CRM, sends pitches and reports on coverage. It is the publishing end of PR rather than the request end.
Price: Essential at €100/mo billed annually, Standard at €250/mo, with a 14-day free trial. Pick it if you send your own announcements and need them to look professional. Skip it if you have no stories to publish yet; a newsroom without news is furniture.
8. Brand24: best-value media monitoring
Brand24 tracks mentions of your brand across news, blogs and social platforms, with sentiment analysis and alerts. It answers the question the other tools ignore: did anyone notice?
Price: from $199/mo for individuals, up to $599/mo for businesses, with a 14-day trial. Pick it if coverage is arriving and you need to prove and learn from it. Skip it if you have nothing to monitor yet; monitoring an empty room is a subscription to silence.
A note on "best PR software"
Tools and software are the same market wearing two labels, and buyers search both phrases. Everything above counts as PR software; the honest split is by job, from $47/mo request matching to five-figure database contracts.
If a vendor will not show you a price, that is information too. In this category it usually means the number needs a salesperson next to it.
How to choose
- You want to be quoted: start free with HARO, then decide if your time is worth $47/mo to QuotedExpert.
- Pitching is your profession: Qwoted for request flow, Muck Rack or Prowly for research, Brand24 once coverage lands.
- You publish your own stories: Prezly, and monitoring when there is something to monitor.
- You want stages and podcasts too: Featured, accepting its usage meter.
Common questions
- What is the best PR tool?
- It depends on the job. For getting quoted as an expert without doing PR work yourself, QuotedExpert ($47/mo) matches journalist requests to you and drafts replies. For a media database, Muck Rack is the professional standard at five figures a year. For free journalist requests, HARO costs nothing. The best tool is the one matched to the task, not the longest feature list.
- How much does PR software cost?
- The range is enormous. HARO and Source of Sources are free, QuotedExpert is $47/mo, Prezly starts at €100/mo billed annually, and Brand24 monitoring starts at $199/mo. At the top, Muck Rack publishes no prices and its own guide puts typical contracts between $5,000 and $53,000 a year. Most small businesses should be spending at the bottom of that range.
- What is the best free PR tool?
- HARO, still. It is free, carries about 43 journalist requests a day, and quotes from it appear in national publications. Source of Sources is the other genuinely free option, with about 12 vetted requests a day. Both charge you in reading time instead of money.
- What PR software do small businesses use?
- Usually less than vendors suggest. A small business that wants press quotes typically needs a request-matching tool and nothing else. Businesses running their own outreach add a lightweight newsroom and CRM like Prezly from €100/mo, and add monitoring like Brand24 only once coverage volume justifies $199/mo.
- Do I need a media database?
- Only if you pitch journalists who have not asked for anything. Databases like Muck Rack and Prowly sell you contact research for cold outreach. If your strategy is answering live journalist requests, the journalists come to you and a database is an expensive ornament.
Last updated 9 November 2026, by the QuotedExpert team in London. Prices checked on vendor sites that day; platforms reprice often, so confirm before you buy. Nobody paid for a place on this list, and the ordering follows the job each tool does best, starting with the one we know best because we built it.
Wondering if you need a tool at all, or a human? Read QuotedExpert vs a PR agency →