The fact most pages bury: Connectively shut down on December 9, 2024. Cision retired the service it had rebranded from HARO, so the platform you remember is gone. You need a working replacement, not a comparison with a dead product.
Connectively was an inbound source-request marketplace — journalists posted queries, you pitched alongside the crowd. That category is alive and well, just under different names now. Below are the genuine replacements, compared honestly on price, free tiers, query quality, and the AI-spam problem that broke the original.
One caveat: our #1 pick, Medialyst, is a different category — proactive journalist discovery, not an inbound feed. We rank it first because for most people the better answer to "Connectively is dead" is to stop waiting in a queue and pitch the right journalists directly. Want a like-for-like inbound feed instead? Skip to Featured/HARO, Qwoted, and Source of Sources below.
A disclosure first: we make Medialyst, so we've ranked it #1 — but a list that pretends one tool wins every job is useless to you, so we've tried hard to be a fair broker. The single most important thing to know is that Connectively no longer exists: Cision shut it down on December 9, 2024. So this isn't a feature face-off with a live product; it's an honest guide to what actually replaces it. We split the field into two motions: the inbound source-request marketplaces that do the same job Connectively did (Featured/HARO, Qwoted, Source of Sources, JustReachOut), and the proactive discovery approach (Medialyst) that we think beats waiting in a queue for most people. We're explicit that Medialyst is not itself a source-request service — if inbound queries are exactly what you want, the marketplaces below are the like-for-like swap. We concede a genuine strength for every tool. Pricing reflects public pricing pages and customer reviews (G2, Trustpilot, Capterra) as of June 2026; free tiers and caps are noted honestly.
Tool
Best for
Standout
Starting price
Free option
1Medialyst
Anyone who'd rather proactively pitch the right journalists than wait for inbound requests — PR teams, founders, and agencies who want a story-specific, verified journalist list in minutes. Note: Medialyst is proactive discovery, not an inbound source-request service like Connectively was.
AI reads each journalist's recent coverage and scores fit for your story
From $97/mo (annual) · $149/mo monthly
Free first list · no credit card
2Featured
Experts and PR teams who want the like-for-like inbound query feed Connectively offered, with curated, lower-spam requests from recognizable publishers.
Now operates the revived HARO; curated, low-spam, Fortune/Fast Company-tier publishers
$0 free → ~$50/mo Pro → ~$100/mo Business
Free tier: 3 answers/mo + HARO access
3Qwoted
Experts and teams who want the highest-quality inbound requests — verified journalists at elite outlets — and can clear the price barrier.
Highest share of elite, verified outlet requests with aggressive anti-AI-spam filtering
Free → $99/mo (annual) / $149/mo (monthly) Pro
Free tier (limited, 2-hr delay)
4Source of Sources (SOS)
Experts and small teams who want a genuinely free, HARO-style inbound query feed and trust the pedigree of HARO's original creator.
Free source requests by email, from the person who invented the category
Free
Free, no paid tier
5HARO
People who want the simplest, free, recognizable HARO-style query feed in their inbox and don't mind the historical spam.
The 15-year HARO brand, revived free by Featured as an email newsletter
Free email newsletter
Free (ad-supported)
6JustReachOut
SMBs and DIY founders who want inbound source requests bundled with a media database and AI-assisted outbound pitching from their own inbox.
Combines a curated source-request feed with a 700k journalist DB and pitching
$147 / $247 / $497 per month
7-day trial (card required), no free tier
Connectively itself is omitted from the table because it shut down on December 9, 2024 — there's nothing to sign up for. Pricing reflects public pages and customer reviews as of June 2026; free tiers are real but limited (Qwoted caps free users at 2 delayed pitches/mo; Featured's free tier is 3 answers/mo). Source of Sources is genuinely free with no paid tier. Verify current terms with each vendor.
The ranked list
The 6 best Connectively alternatives.
1
MedialystOur pick5.0/5 on G2
Best overall — proactively pitch the right journalists instead of waiting for inbound requests
Best for: Anyone who'd rather proactively pitch the right journalists than wait for inbound requests — PR teams, founders, and agencies who want a story-specific, verified journalist list in minutes. Note: Medialyst is proactive discovery, not an inbound source-request service like Connectively was.
Pricing: From $97/mo (annual) · $149/mo monthly
Free option: Free first list · no credit card
Medialyst is the AI-native media list builder. Instead of handing you a giant static database to filter and verify yourself, it reads hundreds of articles relevant to your specific announcement, surfaces the journalists who actually cover it, scores them 0–100 by fit with reasoning grounded in their recent work, and verifies every email in real time before it reaches you. It runs from a chat box — paste a release, a URL, or a one-line description — and from inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor via a public REST API and a hosted remote MCP server. Pricing is public, monthly, and contract-free; your first list is free with no credit card.
Pros
Story-specific relevance scoring grounded in journalists' actual recent articles, not keyword filters
Every email verified in real time before delivery — built to kill the bounce-rate problem of static databases
Public, monthly, contract-free pricing with a free first list
Agent-native: public REST API + hosted remote MCP, usable inside Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor
Upload any competitor CSV and the agent re-verifies and re-scores every contact
Cons
Newer than the legacy incumbents — not the choice if a recognizable enterprise brand name is itself the requirement
Focused on discovery, pitching, and verification rather than broad social-listening or share-of-voice dashboards
The closest direct replacement — it now runs the revived HARO
Best for: Experts and PR teams who want the like-for-like inbound query feed Connectively offered, with curated, lower-spam requests from recognizable publishers.
Pricing: $0 free → ~$50/mo Pro → ~$100/mo Business
If you want the most direct replacement for Connectively, Featured (formerly Terkel) is it — and not by coincidence: Featured.com acquired HARO from Cision and revived it in April 2025, so the brand and the query flow you remember now live here. Its real strength is curation: requests skew toward Fortune, Fast Company, and other recognizable publishers, and the platform pushes back on the low-quality noise that plagued HARO/Connectively. There's a genuine free tier (3 answers a month plus HARO access), with Pro around $50/mo and Business around $100/mo. The honest catch is that it's a pay-to-play SEO/link-building tool at heart: pitch caps are low on cheaper tiers, you don't interact with publishers directly, and its domain-authority filters can exclude smaller outlets you might actually want.
Pros
Now operates the revived HARO — the closest like-for-like to Connectively
Curated, lower-spam requests from recognizable, higher-authority publishers
Real free tier to start, with transparent low-cost paid plans
Cons
Pay-to-play SEO/link tool at heart, with low pitch caps on cheaper tiers
No direct publisher interaction — you submit and wait to be picked
Domain-authority filters can exclude smaller outlets you may want
The high-quality inbound marketplace with the least spam
Best for: Experts and teams who want the highest-quality inbound requests — verified journalists at elite outlets — and can clear the price barrier.
Pricing: Free → $99/mo (annual) / $149/mo (monthly) Pro
Free option: Free tier (limited, 2-hr delay)
Qwoted is the quality play among the inbound marketplaces. Its requests are verified, the outlets skew elite (it holds the highest share of high-authority DR 80+ publication requests among source-request platforms), and it aggressively bans AI-spam accounts — directly addressing the problem that broke Connectively. If you want inbound source requests and care most about signal quality, it's the strongest of the marketplaces. The trade-offs are real: the free tier is nearly unusable (2 pitches a month with a 2-hour delay so paid users see requests first), Pro runs $99/mo billed annually or $149/mo monthly, and it's inbound-only — you're still reacting to queries rather than choosing who to pitch. Reviewers also report occasional account suspensions, now including AI-content bans.
Pros
Highest share of elite, verified, high-authority outlet requests
Aggressively filters AI-pitch spam — the problem that killed Connectively
Real-world media mixers and PR-firm backing add genuine credibility
Cons
Free tier is heavily limited (2 pitches/mo, 2-hour delay)
Higher price barrier than its peers, with a gap from Pro to custom pricing
Inbound-only, plus reports of account suspensions including AI-content bans
The free HARO-style query feed, built by HARO's own founder
Best for: Experts and small teams who want a genuinely free, HARO-style inbound query feed and trust the pedigree of HARO's original creator.
Pricing: Free
Free option: Free, no paid tier
Source of Sources (sourceofsources.com) is the closest thing to old-school HARO in spirit, because Peter Shankman — the person who created HARO in the first place — built it after Cision retired the original. It is free, it works the way HARO always did (journalists post requests, you reply by email), and there is no paid tier or upsell funnel, which makes it the honest pick if your only goal is to keep answering inbound queries at zero cost. The trade-off is maturity and volume: it is newer and smaller than the revived HARO newsletter or Qwoted, so on any given day there are fewer queries and fewer in a given niche. As a free, reactive complement it is excellent; it is not a proactive way to find and pitch the specific journalists covering your story.
Pros
Genuinely free with no paid tier or pitch caps
Built and run by HARO's original founder, Peter Shankman
Simple email-based query feed — nothing to learn
Cons
Newer and lower-volume than HARO or Qwoted, with thinner niche coverage
Reactive only — you wait for a relevant query rather than choosing who to pitch
No contact database, verification, or outbound tooling
The revived free newsletter — same name, scaled-back product
Best for: People who want the simplest, free, recognizable HARO-style query feed in their inbox and don't mind the historical spam.
Pricing: Free email newsletter
Free option: Free (ad-supported)
HARO is the brand at the center of this whole story: Cision rebranded it to Connectively in March 2024, shut it down in December 2024, then sold it back to Featured.com, which revived it in April 2025 as a free, ad-supported email newsletter — journalist requests delivered three times a day. So "HARO" is back, but as a simpler product than the Connectively platform it replaced: a newsletter, not a searchable platform with workflows. Its strength is exactly that simplicity plus a name reporters still recognize and a million-plus sources on the list. The well-documented weakness is spam: the model historically drowned journalists in low-quality, AI-generated pitches, which is why Featured added Pangram AI-detection. If you just want free queries in your inbox, it's fine; the paid Connectively platform's structured feed is now a separate product.
Pros
Free, simple, and a name reporters still recognize
Revived by Featured with a million-plus sources on the list
Added Pangram AI-detection to fight the spam that broke it
Cons
Historically high spam — the core reason the model struggled
Now just an email newsletter, not a searchable platform
Reactive-only, no contact data, no verification, no outbound tooling
Source requests plus a media database and pitching, in one app
Best for: SMBs and DIY founders who want inbound source requests bundled with a media database and AI-assisted outbound pitching from their own inbox.
Pricing: $147 / $247 / $497 per month
Free option: 7-day trial (card required), no free tier
JustReachOut is the most all-in-one of the replacements: alongside a curated press-opportunity feed that aggregates source requests from 20+ sources, it bundles a 700k-journalist database and AI-assisted pitching you can send from your own Gmail or Outlook. For a small business that wants both the inbound query motion Connectively offered and a way to run proactive outbound without juggling separate tools, that combination is a fair fit, and it's contract-free with a 7-day trial. The honest downsides: pricing starts at $147/mo (no free tier), the per-source caps are tight on lower plans, the database search is recency-biased and weak outside the US, and the UX feels dated next to newer tools. It's a credible mid-market pick, not a free HARO swap.
Pros
Bundles source requests with a media database and AI pitching in one app
Aggregates journalist requests from 20+ sources, refreshed through the day
Contract-free with a 7-day trial and strong PR education for beginners
Cons
From $147/mo with no free tier and tight per-source caps on lower plans
Recency-biased search with thin coverage outside the US
Paste a story. Get your journalist list in minutes.
Drop in a press release, your website URL, or a one-line description of your news. Medialyst reads what's relevant, finds reporters who actually cover it, scores them by fit, and verifies every email — your first list is free, no credit card.
First list free · No credit card
FAQ
Connectively alternatives — common questions.
Is Connectively shut down?
Yes. Connectively shut down on December 9, 2024. It was the name Cision gave HARO when it rebranded the service in March 2024, and Cision retired it entirely later that year. If you're looking for it now, the platform is gone — you'll need one of the replacements in this guide. (Confusingly, Featured.com later revived the Connectively brand name as a separate paid platform, but the original Cision-run service you may remember is discontinued.)
What replaced Connectively?
Nothing replaced it one-for-one, because it was a Cision product that got retired. The inbound source-request job it did is now spread across Featured.com (which acquired and revived HARO as a free newsletter and runs the closest like-for-like query feed), Qwoted (the highest-quality marketplace), and Source of Sources (a free HARO-style feed from HARO's original founder). If you'd rather not wait in a public query queue at all, a proactive discovery tool like Medialyst finds and pitches the right journalists for your story directly.
What is the best Connectively alternative in 2026?
It depends on the job. For a like-for-like inbound source-request feed, Featured (which now runs the revived HARO) is the closest direct replacement, with Qwoted the best for high-quality requests and Source of Sources the best free option. But for most people, the better answer to "Connectively is dead" is to stop waiting in a queue and proactively pitch the right journalists — that's Medialyst: it reads each reporter's recent work, scores fit for your specific story, verifies every email in real time, and starts at $149/mo with a free first list.
Is there a free Connectively alternative?
Yes. Source of Sources (sourceofsources.com), built by HARO's original founder Peter Shankman, is genuinely free with no paid tier. The revived HARO email newsletter (run by Featured.com) is also free and ad-supported. Featured and Qwoted both have free tiers too, though they're limited — Featured caps free users at 3 answers a month and Qwoted at 2 delayed pitches a month. Medialyst isn't free, but your first list is free with 300 credits and no credit card.
Is Medialyst a source-request service like Connectively was?
No — and we want to be clear about that. Connectively was an inbound marketplace: journalists posted requests and you pitched alongside the crowd. Medialyst is the opposite motion — proactive discovery. You describe your story and it reads recent articles to find the journalists who'd actually cover it, scores them by fit, and verifies every email before you pitch them directly. We rank it #1 because for most people that beats waiting in a public queue, but if you specifically want inbound source requests, use Featured/HARO, Qwoted, or Source of Sources from this list.
Why did Connectively (and HARO) struggle with spam?
Because the model is reactive and public: a journalist posts a query, it goes to everyone, and sources race to respond. Once AI writing tools became common, queries were flooded with low-quality, AI-generated pitches — journalists reported that a large share of responses were SEO-driven backlink grabs rather than real expertise. That noise is part of why the original model struggled. The marketplaces that survived now fight it actively (Qwoted bans AI-spam accounts; HARO added Pangram AI-detection), and proactive tools like Medialyst sidestep it by researching the right journalists instead of firing into a public queue.
Product names and logos are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only for purposes of comparison. Medialyst is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of the tools listed. Pricing and feature claims are based on public documentation and customer reviews as of June 2026; please verify with each vendor.
