HARO (Help A Reporter Out), explained
HARO is a free email service that connects journalists who need expert quotes with people who can give them. We process the actual HARO feed every day to power QuotedExpert, so this page uses our real request data rather than HARO's own marketing numbers.
What is HARO?
HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out. Peter Shankman founded it in 2008 as a mailing list, sold it to Vocus in 2010, and it is now run by Cision at helpareporter.com.
The idea is simple and it works. Journalists on deadline need expert voices, and experts want press coverage, so HARO puts journalists' questions into subscribers' inboxes three times every weekday.
How HARO works
- 1. A journalist submits a query. They describe the story, the expert they need and the deadline, sometimes anonymously.
- 2. HARO emails it to sources. Requests go out in three weekday editions, grouped into categories like business, health and lifestyle.
- 3. You reply by email. Your answer goes to the journalist, usually through a masked address, and you write the whole pitch yourself.
- 4. The journalist picks. Winning answers get quoted, usually with your name, title, company and often a link.
HARO in numbers: our processing data
QuotedExpert reads and scores every HARO request the moment it lands. These figures come from the 30 days to 9 November 2026, with outlet counts from our full processed history.
| Measure | What we see |
|---|---|
| Requests processed, last 30 days | 1,276 |
| Requests per day | About 43, across three weekday editions of roughly twenty requests each |
| Distinct outlets in our processed history | More than 1,200, from national newspapers to niche trade titles |
| Typical deadline | Half of requests close within about three days of landing |
| Fast movers | About 17% close within 24 hours, and a third within 48 hours |
Two conclusions follow from the numbers. Volume is not the problem, since 43 requests a day means your topic shows up regularly. Speed is the filter, because a sixth of the feed is gone within a day.
What does HARO cost?
Nothing. Sources and journalists both use HARO free, and there is no paid tier that changes what reaches your inbox.
The real price is attention: reading three editions a day takes most people 15 to 30 minutes, which adds up to 6 to 10 hours a month before a single pitch is written. We compared that trade-off properly in QuotedExpert vs doing HARO yourself.
How to get quoted on HARO
- Answer the actual question first. Your first sentence should be usable as the quote itself, with context after.
- Reply within the hour. Journalists build stories from early replies, and 17% of requests close within a day.
- Prove expertise in one line. Role, company and one specific credential. Not your life story.
- Include one quotable sentence. A clear opinion, a number, or a specific example a journalist can lift without editing.
- Skip anything off-topic. A pitch that nearly fits reads as spam and trains journalists to ignore your name.
The full method, with a fill-in template, is in our HARO pitch template and the guide to writing a HARO pitch that gets picked.
HARO's limits
- No relevance filtering. On a typical day, a handful of the 43 requests will fit you. You personally scan the other 40.
- Deadline pressure. Editions arrive three times a day, but stories do not wait for edition three.
- Everything is manual. Every pitch is written from a blank email, so quality drops exactly when you get busy.
- It is only one source. The same journalist might post on Qwoted, Featured or Source of Sources instead, where a HARO-only routine never sees the request.
How QuotedExpert automates HARO
QuotedExpert processes the HARO feed the moment each edition lands, then scores every request against your expertise and the core offering you want to be quoted on. Only genuine matches are emailed to you, each with its deadline.
You dictate or type your answer, and a draft comes back in your voice, ready to send from your own email. Featured, Qwoted and Source of Sources are monitored the same way, so one routine covers all four sources.
Common questions
- What is HARO (Help A Reporter Out)?
- HARO is a free email service that connects journalists with expert sources. Journalists submit questions they need quotes for, and HARO emails those requests to subscribers three times every weekday. You reply by email, and the journalist quotes the best answers in their story.
- Is HARO free?
- Yes. Joining as a source costs nothing, and journalists pay nothing to submit requests. The cost is your time: three unfiltered editions every weekday, each carrying around twenty requests you have to scan yourself.
- How many requests does HARO send?
- In the 30 days to 9 November 2026 we processed 1,276 HARO requests, about 43 per day across the three weekday editions. They came from more than 1,200 distinct outlets in our processed history, from national newspapers to trade publications.
- How quickly do I need to reply to HARO requests?
- Fast. Half of the requests we process have a deadline under three days, and about 17% close within 24 hours of landing. Journalists also read early replies first, so a good answer sent within the hour beats a perfect one sent tomorrow.
- Is HARO the same as Connectively?
- They were the same service. HARO's owner Cision folded it into a platform called Connectively, then shut Connectively down in December 2024. HARO continues under its original name at helpareporter.com, and its founder Peter Shankman now runs a rival called Source of Sources.
- Is HARO worth it for getting press coverage?
- For experts with genuine, specific knowledge, yes: it remains the largest single source of journalist requests, and quotes often carry links from high-authority publications. The catch is consistency. The experts who win treat replying as a fast habit, or automate the reading and matching.
Last updated 9 November 2026, by the QuotedExpert team in London. Request data measured from our own processing of the HARO feed, 10 October to 9 November 2026.
Comparing the platforms side by side? See all 7 HARO alternatives compared →