HARO alternatives became a real search category the day HARO stopped existing. Cision shut the service down on December 9, 2024. It came back in April 2025 under a new name, Connectively — still owned by Cision, still built on the same query-and-response model.
The platform that PR people pitched for two decades looks different now that it’s back. Response quality has slipped since the relaunch. AI-generated pitches now flood the query threads with little quality control behind them. Reporters notice the difference. Editors notice it faster.
The practical result: anyone earning press through source-matching platforms now needs more than one tool — and needs to know which one to use for which job. Some of these compete directly with what HARO used to be. Others solve a different problem entirely — proactive pitching, journalist tracking — and belong in the mix for that reason alone.
The Alternatives, Ranked
1. Muck Rack. Enterprise-scale journalist tracking and direct pitching, from $5,000 a year. Built for teams pitching reporters proactively rather than waiting on inbound queries.
2. Qwoted. A verified-expert requirement filters out the noise that has overtaken Connectively. Paid plans start at $195 a month. Free basic tier for occasional use.
3. Prezly. A full PR platform with a built-in media CRM. Built for ongoing reporter relationships and proactive outreach. 14-day trial. Plans from $90 a month.
4. Featured (formerly Terkel). Written Q&A matching that rewards a well-constructed quote. Free for contributors. $49.75 per user per month for paid pitching access.
5. Connectively (formerly HARO). Still functional. Still worth checking. But every response coming out of it now needs a second look. The honor system that used to hold has weakened since the AI pitch flood arrived.
6. SourceBottle. Free, with daily email alerts. Strongest by a wide margin for brands and experts targeting Australian and New Zealand media.
7. Source of Sources (SOS). Peter Shankman’s free platform. Three query emails a day. Quality control runs entirely on the honor system — same as HARO once did.
8. #JournoRequest and #PRrequest. Free, real-time hashtags on X. No vetting on either side. Nothing moves faster when a reporter is on deadline this afternoon.
None of these fully replicate what HARO was in its best years: one inbox, three daily digests, a reporter base that checked in out of habit. That version is gone. The version that replaced it is more fragmented. Running two or three of these in parallel now produces something closer to the old HARO’s volume than any single one does on its own.
The Traps
Treating every platform like it is still 2015 HARO. The category has fragmented and each platform now has its own norms. A pitch that worked on the original HARO gets ignored on Qwoted without a verified source, and skipped on Featured without a quotable line.
Trusting a Connectively response without checking who sent it. The platform’s AI-pitch problem cuts both ways. Reporters using it to source quotes are more likely to encounter fabricated expertise now than at any point in the platform’s history — and PR teams citing it for their clients face the same exposure in reverse.
Depending on a single platform. HARO’s own shutdown made the point for the whole category: platforms disappear, get sold, or degrade. Split submission volume across at least two services so one relaunch or one ownership change doesn’t take out an entire media strategy.
Ignoring the free platforms’ informal norms. SOS and SourceBottle both run on trust between the person asking and the person answering. Long, over-styled, marketing-voiced responses get skipped in favor of the source who answered the actual question in three sentences.
Buying an enterprise tool before the volume justifies it. Muck Rack and Qwoted only pay for themselves with consistent monthly submissions. A brand doing occasional reactive PR should start on the free tier or a lower-cost platform and upgrade once the placement rate proves it out.
FAQ
Is HARO still around in 2026? Not under that name. Cision shut HARO down on December 9, 2024, and relaunched it in April 2025 as Connectively. The platform still exists and still works on the same query model — but response quality has changed since the relaunch.
What is the best free HARO alternative? SourceBottle and Source of Sources both cost nothing. SourceBottle performs best for Australian and New Zealand coverage. SOS sends three query emails a day and runs on the same honor-system model HARO used before its shutdown.
Should PR teams still use Connectively? Yes — as one platform among several, not the only one. AI-generated pitches have flooded the platform since it reopened. The quality control that made the original HARO useful has not fully returned. Verify before you cite anything sourced from it.