11 Help A Reporter Out (HARO) Alternatives to Diversify Your PR Strategy

If you’ve been in the PR game for a while, chances are you've heard of Help a Reporter Out (HARO). It’s long been a staple in the PR landscape. In fact – and I say this with genuine confidence – my team at Repulinks has secured many placements and backlinks through it.

But the HARO ship hasn’t always sailed smoothly. It launched in 2008, went through a rough patch when it was shut down in late 2024, and then made a comeback just recently in April 2025.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that putting all your eggs in one basket doesn’t only apply to investing, but to digital PR as well. Like HARO, platforms can rise, fall, or get rebranded. which is why it's always wise to diversify. And instead of just scrambling for a backup, it’s even better to know which tools actually fill the limitations HARO leaves behind.

So, without further ado, here are the top HARO alternatives worth considering to expand your PR toolkit.

Top Help A Reporter Out (HARO) Alternatives

If you’re unfamiliar with how HARO works or want a clearer understanding before exploring alternatives, I’ve outlined everything you need to know in our practical guide to using HARO effectively. It’s a good place to start if you’re new to media outreach or simply want to see how HARO compares.

Now, onto the top HARO alternatives I recommend.

Source of Sources (SoS)

Best for: Businesses already comfortable with HARO's workflow but want a cleaner, spam-free version of it.

If your goal is to get quoted in real articles without paying for PR tools or battling thousands of spammy AI-generated pitches, Source of Sources (SoS) is one of the cleanest ways to do it.

Launched in April 2024 by Peter Shankman – the original creator of HARO – SoS brings back the core promise that made early HARO effective: Journalists get access to real, relevant sources, and you get the chance to earn high-quality exposure without noise.

“If you pitch a reporter off topic even once, and it gets back to me, you’re gone. No exceptions, no appeals,” Shankman puts it bluntly on the homepage. This warning is also a clue, pointing to the fact that SoS manually reviews source sign-ups and query responses – something HARO, quite frankly, hasn’t exactly been known for in years.

Functionally, it’s a carbon copy of how HARO started. You get three plain-text emails a day. Each one contains real journalist requests. You reply via email. No dashboards to learn, no tracking tools, no fancy workflows.

SoS Pros & Cons

Pros

• 100 % free, so entry-level brands can test media pitching without risk.

• Early-stage list means less competition today (and fewer chances of spam) than HARO’s mature database

• Its early-stage nature also means the list is still curated more tightly, with fewer low-quality or off-topic queries slipping through

Cons

• No built-in tracking or SEO metrics. You must run your own alerts.

• Because it's still relatively new, the number of daily journalist queries is smaller compared to older, more established platforms.

Source of Sources (SoS) Pricing

SoS is completely free. Journalists and sources can use it at no cost. Simply subscribe on their homepage. 

SourceBottle

Best for: Consumer brands that want to get quoted in lifestyle publications by offering samples or giveaways.

SourceBottle helps you get coverage not just by what you say, but by what you give. If you have products, incentives, or a compelling story tied to everyday consumers, this platform lets you plug into media requests looking for exactly that. It’s one of the few platforms where giveaways can be part of the pitch.

The platform was launched in Australia and has grown to serve requests from journalists in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and New Zealand. What makes it stand out is its dedicated stream of “Call-Outs” specifically for giveaways, product placements, and personal stories, ideal for lifestyle, parenting, wellness, or anything consumer-facing. 

Using SourceBottle is straightforward. You subscribe to alerts based on your category and region. When a relevant call-out comes in, you respond with your pitch and, if applicable, what you can provide. Responses go directly to journalists. There's no centralized dashboard, but the email alerts are filterable and reliable.

SourceBottle Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Designed for product-based and lifestyle brands that can offer giveaways or reader incentives

• Global reach since journalists span Australia, UK, US., NZ, and Canada

• Free forever tier includes unlimited email alerts

Cons:

• Smaller volume of daily requests compared to HARO

• B2B or technical queries are rare

• No built-in tracking. You’ll need to monitor placements manually

SourceBottle Pricing

SourceBottle offers a free plan with unlimited access to basic pitches. They also have a "No Pitch, No Pay" option where you only pay $25 if your pitch gets accepted, or $65 for unlimited pitches. For agencies managing multiple clients or profiles, there’s an agency tier priced at $130 per month, which allows up to five expert profiles.

Featured

Best for: Earning placements in top-tier publications through a curated, editor-screened pitch process, with pitch status tracking feature.

With Featured, an internal editorial team reviews every submission for relevance, clarity, and effort before it ever reaches a journalist. If your pitch is original and on point, it stands a far better chance of being selected over spam or low-effort replies.

I’ve written in detail previously about how Featured.com works. And if there’s one thing that sets it apart – not just from HARO, but from almost every other platform on this list – it’s how clearly it tracks the status of your pitch.

With its intuitive UI, you’ll know whether your answer is still in review, already selected, or published. No guessing. No jumping into separate inboxes or setting up Google Alerts just to figure out what happened. Everything's in one place, and that makes it a lot easier.

Featured Pros & Cons

Pros

• Shows the site's Domain Authority (DA), useful for SEO targeting

• Build a complete bio once, then select it for every pitch. No need to retype credentials every time.

• Access to bylined articles and interview profiles on higher tiers.

Cons

• Free tier limits you to just 3 pitches per month

• Requires a paid subscription to pitch consistently at scale

Featured Pricing

Featured.com uses a tiered subscription model:

• Lite: $19/month for 10 answers, real-time alerts, and basic tracking.

• Pro: $49/month for unlimited answers, 25 keyword alerts, link type & DA data.

• Business: $99/month for everything in Pro plus bylined articles, interview profiles, and PR intelligence.

• Pay-as-you-go credits available at $6.99 per extra answer (no subscription required).

Qwoted

Best for: Experts who value strict editorial vetting and a "gamified" path to more journalist exposure.

Qwoted is one of the few platforms that takes vetting sources and responses seriously. In fact, it has a reputation for banning users who rely on AI-generated pitches, aiming to keep spam out and give high-value insights from real experts a chance to land on a journalist's desk.

If you consistently bring value, you can improve your visibility further through the Qwoted 100. It’s a proprietary scoring system that ranks experts based on pitch quality, credibility signals, and responsiveness – a gamified experience, in a way. This helps elevate your profile in niches like finance, tech, and health, where standing out can be quite difficult. 

Compared to HARO, Qwoted sits a few notches higher in terms of control and feature depth. It isn’t the simplest platform to navigate (I've broken it down in my guide on how Qwoted works), especially if you're managing multiple profiles.

But once you get the hang of it, Qwoted offers more than just backlink potential. You also gain opportunities to build long-term media relationships and land deeper placements over time.

Qwoted Pros & Cons

Pros

• Profiles give you multiple ways to highlight your expertise, through direct quotes, linked social profiles, and a built-in portfolio.

• Less spam and AI-generated clutter thanks to strict editorial policies

Cons

• Generally requires more effort due to its complexity. For example, PR professionals managing multiple clients must create and maintain separate expert profiles for each one.

• Steep learning curve depending on use case

• Limited visibility into pitch status once submitted

Qwoted Pricing

Qwoted offers a free starter plan, although it comes with only 2 pitches a month plus a response delay. The Pro plan, priced at $99 per month, includes 35 pitches and unlocks advanced features like pitch intelligence.

For larger teams or agencies, Qwoted also offers a custom-priced Teams plan with unlimited pitches and more robust functionality.

Dot Star Media

Best for: PR professionals who want Microsoft Teams- or Slack-ready integrations for query alerts.

If you’ve ever lost a media opportunity because you replied too late, or never saw the query to begin with, Dot Star Media helps solve that. Subscribers receive verified journalist requests within 30 seconds of them going live, sent straight to email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams.

So, if those platforms are already part of your internal comms or client workflows, Dot Star Media is the perfect fit, as you won't need to integrate a separate dashboard or learn a new portal.

If I had to sum it up, it really comes down to speed. Dot Star clearly has the edge over competitors solely relying on periodic HARO-style email blasts.

Dot Star Media Pros & Cons

Pros

• Keyword filtering for up to 29 topics, offering more customization to match your niche or client base

• Month-to-month billing and easy plan switching

Cons

• Requires enough team capacity to stay on top of alerts. Without it, requests can quickly pile up and start to feel like a media dump.

• Free trial expires after 14 days

• Teams or Slack integration is available only on Gold plan

Dot Star Media Pricing

Dot Star Media offers three paid plans after a 14-day free trial:

• Bronze plan: £40/month (~$50). Includes 5 topic filters.

• Silver plan: £60/month (~$80). Includes 10 topics.

• Gold plan: £80/month (~$107). Includes all 29 topic filters, plus For teams Slack or Microsoft Teams integration

JournoLink

Best for: Small businesses and agencies in the U.K. looking for a combined press release + media request tool under one dashboard.

With JournoLink, you can draft and send press releases to targeted media lists, then pivot directly to replying to live journalist queries – all within the same interface. That's to say JournoLink gives you both the proactive and reactive sides of PR, whereas HARO only handles the reactive.

This dual workflow is suited for small teams who don't want to juggle multiple subscriptions. In fact, the Federation of Small Businesses calls it "an online PR platform built by small-business owners for small-business owners". That seems to be the case, considering how straightforward and simple the platform feels.

JournoLink Pros & Cons

Pros

• It's AI Engine "Volt" helps users draft well-researched and compelling press releases 

• Press-release wire includes national and regional U.K. media

• CRM features for tracking opens and journalist replies

Cons

• Primarily U.K.-focused as the majority of journalist requests come from British media.

JournoLink Pricing

JournoLink offers three paid plans, all designed to match different levels of PR activity:

• Micro: £12/month (~$15) – Monitor requests only

• Starter: £59/month (~$75) – 1 press release per month + unlimited journalist requests

• Unlimited: £119/month (~$150) – Unlimited press releases + unlimited journalist requests

Press Plugs

Best for: U.K.-based founders and small businesses looking for a simple, HARO-style platform but with a PR toolkit built in.

With Press Plugs, you get a twice-daily curated email of high-quality journalist requests, pulled from #JournoRequest streams and the platform’s own sources. It works a lot like HARO, except this service also includes a PR toolkit that's especially useful for beginners or time-strapped founders.

Press Plugs Pros & Cons

Pros

• Comes with pitch templates and other helpful PR tools

• 7-day free trial with no card required

Cons

• Primarily U.K.-based journalists

• Relatively smaller query volume than HARO

Press Plugs Pricing

Press Plugs offers a 7-day free trial. After that, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan, although specific pricing details aren’t listed on their website.

Journo.com

Best for: Agencies that manage multiple clients and need real-time query tracking with built-in AI drafting support

Journo does screen both experts and responses, which helps keep the pitch environment clean. But its standout feature is how well it supports deadline-driven workflows, which is especially useful for agencies juggling multiple client accounts.

Each live query comes with a visible deadline, a clear status, and real-time updates inside a unified interface. This makes it easier to manage pitch volume across campaigns and keep things from slipping through the cracks.

And unlike others that try to distance themselves from AI, Journo leans into it with a built-in human-grade AI press release writer. With this tool, you can quickly generate near-publication-ready drafts based on the latest trends and research.

Journo.com Pros & Cons

Pros

• Strict expert verification and spam filtering

• Agency workspace for managing multiple clients from one account

Cons

• Free tier includes only 2 pitches per month

• No email digest. You have to log in to view live queries.

Journo.com Pricing

Journo.com offers three plans:

• Free: Includes 2 brands and 2 quote responses

• Pro: $250/month: Includes 23 brands and 100 quote requests

• Enterprise: $1190/month: Includes 300 brands and 1500 quote responses

Finance PR (via Substack)

Best for: Finance-focused founders and comms professionals

Finance PR delivers one thing and does it well: Journalist queries focused solely on money, and related topics like banking, fintech, investing, and crypto. Think of it as HARO for finance.

Delivered via Substack, Finance PR skips the usual platform experience. There’s no dashboard to learn. Just a daily email (sometimes two) with links to live finance-related media opportunities.

Finance PR Pros & Cons

Pros

• Arrives as a simple email. No dashboard learning curve

• Focused 100% on finance queries

• Issues go out daily, sometimes twice on heavy days

Cons

• Covers only finance. No value for other verticals

• No in-app tracking. You’ll need to set alerts to catch backlinks.

• Newsletter format limits team features or integration options

Finance PR Pricing

Finance PR offers a free newsletter with daily finance-focused media opportunities. For those who upgrade, the paid plan includes a custom-written article with guaranteed placement on high-authority finance sites like Yahoo Finance and Benzinga.

Help A B2B Writer

Best for: Those in B2B sectors who want daily PR opportunities that match their actual expertise.

Help A B2B Writer was created with one goal in mind: To make connecting B2B writers and credible sources easier and far less chaotic. The only queries that hit your inbox are the ones matched to the exact area of expertise you selected when signing up.

These categories span across fields like advertising, marketing, sales, legal, photography, and more.

Help A B2B Writer Pros & Cons

Pros

• 100% free for writers and sources

• Every query is filtered by expertise tag

• No logins or dashboards

• Global. Anyone with B2B expertise can join

Cons

• Query volume may be smaller as it's strictly B2B

• No analytics or tracking features. You’ll need Google Alerts to spot placements

Help A B2B Writer Pricing

Help A B2B Writer is completely free for both writers and sources. No premium tiers, logins, or platform fees.

ResponseSource

Best for: PR professionals who want a trusted, full-featured media outreach tool especially for the UK market

ResponseSource has been around for over 20 years, earning trust from editors and agencies across the U.K.

Unlike free tools that blast you with hundreds of irrelevant queries, ResponseSource uses a category-paid model. You only pay for media requests in the specific industry you care about, so you can keep your inbox clean and every pitch opportunity highly relevant.

You might be thinking, "Why pay for filters when tools like HARO or B2B Writer let you access media queries for free?" Here’s the difference: ResponseSource integrates with Vuelio, one of the U.K.’s most robust journalist databases, and includes a built-in press release distribution system.

This leaves you with a more advanced toolset for managing research, outreach, and tracking. Everything in one place.

ResponseSource Pros & Cons

Pros

• UK-centric with strong credibility among journalists

• Only receive requests in the sectors you select

• Bundled tools: Press release wire + Vuelio database

Cons

• Mostly UK-based journalist pool. Less useful for U.S. outreach

• Annual subscription (starting at £625/category) may be steep for smaller brands

ResponseSource Pricing

ResponseSource offers several pricing options based on how frequently you send press releases and how many categories you want to reach:

• Pay As You Go: Starts at £85 for up to 3 categories, but you can pay an add-on for additional queries

• 10 Release Bundle: £675 total, includes all categories and file attachments.

• 20 Release Bundle: £1050 total, includes all categories and file attachments, suited for very high volume releases

HARO Alternatives Comparison Table & Roundup

Below are HARO alternatives at a glance to help you quickly match the right one to your preferences, workflow, and budget.

Best Free HARO Alternatives

• Source of Sources (SoS)

• Help A B2B Writer

• Finance PR (Substack)

Niche-Relevant Platforms (Great for Industry Targeting)

• Finance PR: Focused on investing, crypto, banking, fintech, and other finance topics.

• Help A B2B Writer: Tailored to business professionals in fields like sales, HR, legal, SaaS, etc.

• SourceBottle: Focused on lifestyle, wellness, and product-based queries

• ResponseSource: For UK-centric initiatives with category-specific outreach

Not Sure Which HARO Alternative to Use? Ask a PR Specialist!

There’s clearly no shortage of HARO alternatives out there. And as you’ve probably noticed, figuring out which ones are actually worth your time can be a huge headache, especially if you haven’t tried any of them yourself

Some of our clients ran into that exact problem early on. That’s why we built Repulinks' Linkbuilding: Pro – to map out a custom plan that blends HARO with the right mix of alternatives, all based on their goals, priorities, and constraints.

Want the same hands-off, done-for-you linkbuilding & PR strategy? Feel free to reach out and chat with us, or explore our other linkbuilding packages to find what suits your needs best.