The alternative to JustReachOut's top tier — more reach, a real agent, less money.
JustReachOut is a well-liked, SMB-friendly outreach tool: it finds press opportunities, writes pitches, and sends from your own inbox. Medialyst plays in the same price band and outranges it — JRO's Advanced plan is $247/mo; Medialyst Pro is $299/mo with more credits, more list capacity, live story-specific journalist research, and an agent surface (public API, hosted MCP, custom enrichment) that JustReachOut simply doesn't offer.
The honest comparison.
Pulled from public JustReachOut documentation, customer reviews, and our own product. We update this page when either side ships something new.
| Capability | Medialyst | JustReachOut |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the right journalist | ||
| Find journalists for this story | ✓ Story-specific relevance scoring | ~ Keyword/beat/publication search over a 700k journalist database |
| Understand a journalist's beat | ✓ Reads past articles + recent coverage | ~ AI reads prior work to personalize a pitch |
| Analyze past writing | ✓ Grounded in actual articles | ~ Instant article summaries, recency-biased index |
| Per-journalist pitch angles | ✓ Personalized angles + pitch drafts | ~ AI writes full pitch emails + subject lines |
| Data freshness | ✓ Live news article search in real time | ~ Recent-only index — older coverage missed |
| Refine a list with natural language | ✓ “Remove anyone inactive in 6 months” | ✕ Filter + saved-search UI |
| Find more like top performers | ✓ “Find 20 more like the top 5” | ✕ Not available |
| Add custom enrichment columns | ✓ “Research if they use affiliate links” | ✕ Not available |
| Pitching & sending | ||
| Email verification | ✓ Multi-step verification waterfall | ~ Human-verified emails before each send |
| Send + track from one place | ✓ Built-in send + tracking | ~ Send + analytics from your Gmail/Outlook |
| Pricing & setup | ||
| Time to first pitch | ✓ Minutes | ~ Minutes to a pitch; months to results |
| Free trial | ✓ First list free | ~ 7-day trial, credit card required |
| Contract | ✓ None — cancel anytime | ~ None — cancel anytime |
| Price | ✓ from $149/mo | ~ $147 / $247 / $497 per month |
| Agent-native workflows | ||
| API access | ✓ Public REST API | ✕ No API |
| Remote MCP support | ✓ Hosted remote MCP server | ✕ Not available |
| Agent-native workflows | ✓ Usable directly inside Claude, ChatGPT & Cursor | ✕ Not available |
| CSV import / re-enrichment from competitor exports | ✓ Upload any CSV — the agent re-verifies & re-scores | ✕ Manual database, no re-enrichment |
Three reasons teams switch.
We're not trying to out-database JustReachOut. We're trying to out-result them — by being more accurate, faster to act on, and honest about price.
A smaller list that actually replies.
Instead of a giant static database, Medialyst enriches journalists live and verifies every email in real time before it reaches you — global coverage across any outlet, journalist, or beat, researched for your story rather than pulled from a stale row.
From story to sent pitch in minutes.
Paste a release, a URL, or a topic. Medialyst proposes journalists, scores them 0–100 by fit, and drafts a tailored angle for each — no demo call, no contract, no multi-week onboarding.
Pricing on the website. Not in a sales deck.
Every plan and limit is public. Starter is $97/mo billed annually (or $149 month-to-month, cancel anytime) — and your first list is free: 300 credits, no credit card. No lock-in, no “let’s get on a call.”
Why people switch from JustReachOut.
No API, no MCP, no agent surface
JustReachOut is a closed outreach app — there's no public API, no MCP server, and Zapier was reportedly on the roadmap but not shipped. If your workflow lives inside Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or your own scripts, JRO can't plug in. Medialyst is built the other way around: a public REST API and a hosted remote MCP server mean journalist discovery and enrichment run directly from your tools, and custom enrichment columns let you ask research questions a fixed filter UI can't express.
TodayTesting — JustReachOut review (no API) ↗Recency bias and thin international coverage
JRO's search indexes mostly recent articles, so older-but-relevant coverage — and the right journalist for a niche beat — gets missed. Reviewers also flag weak results outside the US, especially DACH, APAC, and LATAM, with some users building their own lists to fill the gap. Medialyst enriches journalists live across any outlet, journalist, or beat worldwide, reading their actual recent articles rather than serving recency-filtered database rows.
TrustRadius — JustReachOut reviews (recency bias, coverage) ↗AI pitches that risk sounding templated
JRO's AI takes a one-to-two-sentence brief and generates full pitch emails, subject lines, and follow-ups. That's fast, but as more users run the same engine, journalists increasingly recognize and ignore AI-written outreach. Medialyst's edge is the research underneath: it scores reporters 0–100 by fit for your specific story and grounds per-journalist angles in their real recent coverage, so the personalization is true, not just generated.
OnePitch — AI-powered journalist outreach 2026 ↗No relationship intelligence, no story-fit scoring
JRO has no relationship CRM — no interaction history, no engagement tracking — and its match is keyword-and-beat over a database, not a fit score for the announcement you're making. Medialyst reads hundreds of articles relevant to your story, ranks journalists by how likely they are to write it, and tells you why — so the list is built around exactly what you're pitching today.
r2 mid-tier analysis — JustReachOut feature gaps ↗Where JustReachOut wins.
No tool is best at everything. Here's where JustReachOut is genuinely strong — so you can decide honestly.
Press-opportunity discovery is genuinely good
Post-HARO, JRO's curated journalist-request marketplace aggregates queries from 20+ sources and updates throughout the day. If your strategy leans reactive — answering live journalist requests — that inbound finder is a real, well-executed strength Medialyst doesn't replicate.
Built for SMBs and DIY founders, with strong education
JustReachOut is unapologetically shaped for solopreneurs and small teams who want to do PR without an agency, and its real edge is teaching: a PR Academy with 15+ lessons and big-name social proof (HubSpot, Wistia, Pipedrive). For a beginner who wants the tool to teach them outreach, that's a thoughtful package.
All-in-one outreach with send + link building
Journalist database, press opportunities, podcast outreach, broken-link and guest-post tools, and sending from your own Gmail or Outlook all live in one app. For the SEO-meets-PR crowd chasing backlinks alongside coverage, that combined toolkit is a fair reason to stay.
Where Medialyst pulls ahead.
The flip side: here's where Medialyst is the stronger choice over JustReachOut for finding and pitching the right journalists.
Same price band, more range
Medialyst Pro is $299/mo against JRO's Advanced at $247/mo — and for that you get more credits, more list capacity, live story-specific research, and an agent surface JRO doesn't have. Starter is $149/mo, Scale $800, all published and monthly, no per-seat fees, no contract, 30-day money-back. The first list is free with 300 credits and no credit card.
Fit for this story, not a recency-filtered database pull
Instead of keyword search over a recent-only index, Medialyst reads hundreds of articles relevant to your specific announcement, scores reporters 0–100 by fit, and explains why each one would write it — grounded in their actual recent coverage, across any outlet or beat worldwide.
Global live enrichment, verified in real time
Coverage is global — any outlet, any journalist, any beat — enriched live in real time rather than served from a recency-biased database. Every email is verified in real time before it's delivered to you, so the list you receive was built and checked for the pitch you're sending today.
Agent-native, not a closed outreach app
A public REST API, a hosted remote MCP server, and custom enrichment columns mean you can run Medialyst directly inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor — and ask for things a filter UI can't, like “find journalists who use affiliate links” or “has this reporter covered Series A fintech in the last six months?” JRO has no API, no MCP, and no agent access at all.
Switching is a CSV upload
Already running JustReachOut? Export your contacts, upload the CSV, and Medialyst's agent re-verifies and re-scores every one against your story — so you can compare on your own data before you cancel anything.
Pitching the same announcement.
One launch, two tools. Here's what a comms lead actually does to get a story-specific pitch out the door.
Medialyst9 min totalJustReachOuthours–daysThree places the difference shows up.
Database quality
JustReachOut leads with a self-reported 700,000+ journalist database and human-verified emails checked before each send — a real trust signal, and a fair one.
The friction is what the index leaves out. Search is recency-biased: it surfaces journalists from recent articles and misses older-but-relevant coverage, which hurts most on narrow, niche beats where the right reporter wrote the definitive piece two years ago. International depth is the other soft spot — reviewers repeatedly flag weak results outside the US, especially DACH, APAC, and LATAM, with some building their own lists to compensate. Medialyst takes the opposite stance.
Rather than maintaining a giant static inventory and hoping it's current and complete, it enriches journalists live at the moment you build a list: pulling recent articles, confirming the beat, and verifying the email in real time before it's ever shown to you. Coverage is global — any outlet, any journalist, any beat — but the unit of truth is the freshly-researched contact for your story, not a row last touched in a database refresh. The practical result is fewer gaps on niche and non-US beats, and far less manual list-building to fill them.
Speed
JustReachOut is fast where it counts for its model: there's no sales gate, you sign up self-serve, and the AI can take a one-to-two-sentence brief to a drafted pitch in minutes.
But JRO is honest that outcomes take time — it tells buyers plainly that if you want quick press in a month or two, it's not the right tool, and to expect three to six months for repeatable results. That's a relationship-and-volume model. Medialyst optimizes a different number: time from describing your story to a verified, scored journalist list, which averages four minutes and thirty-two seconds.
There's no credit card to start the first list and no contract. When a story breaks and you have a timely angle, the difference between a researched list in five minutes and a database-and-draft cycle is the difference between landing the coverage and missing the window. Both tools are self-serve; Medialyst's speed is pointed at the research, so the list you act on is already fit-checked for today's pitch.
AI & agent surface
This is the widest gap.
JustReachOut is a closed outreach application — there's no public API, no MCP server, and integrations were reportedly on the roadmap but not shipped, so there's no real way to drive it from outside its own UI. Medialyst is built agent-first. A public REST API and a hosted remote MCP server mean you can run journalist discovery and enrichment directly from inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor, wire it into your own scripts, or hand it to an internal agent.
Custom enrichment columns let you ask research questions in plain language and get structured answers back across a whole list — the kind of thing a fixed filter schema can't express. If your team is building AI-assisted workflows, Medialyst is a component you compose with; JRO is an app you log into.
Two pricing philosophies, side by side.
Ours is public and posted. Here's how it sits next to what JustReachOut customers tell us they encounter.
- Starterfounders & small teams$97/mo annual
- Proin-house comms & PR teams$194/mo annual
- Scaleagencies & high-volume teams$520/mo annual
- No contract · no per-seat fees · 30-day money-back
- Free first list — 300 credits, no credit card
- One unified product — no modules priced separately
- JustReachOut publishes pricing openly: Starter Outreach $147/mo, Advanced $247/mo, Ultimate $497/mo, plus a done-for-you White Glove tier at $1,997/mo. Annual billing is ~33% off ($98/$165/$331). The 7-day trial is monthly-plans-only and requires a credit card.
- Pricing published online
In the words of Medialyst users.
Real customers, approved for use. Your results depend on your story and your list — these are theirs.
"My new favorite PR intern. With a few detailed prompts, the agent comes up with a pretty targeted list of journalists. The best thing is it gives a summary of their recent articles before I commit to reading every piece."
"Medialyst is the only tool that keeps up with the pace our firm needs to move at across our High Growth B2B Tech clients. The journalist targeting is sharp as well as accurate, and Elvis actually ships when you give him feedback."
"It's 100% customizable to you & your clients. It's affordable. It's built by someone who gets back to you quickly & truly wants to give the people what they want — MORE time."
"Medialyst takes the guesswork out of journalist outreach. It vets your pitch for suitability, matches it to the right journalists, and hands you their most accurate contact details — so instead of firing off cold emails into the void, you're landing in the right inboxes. The result? Fewer emails sent, more stories published."
"This is a must-have if you work in media, it's easy to use and saves you a lot of time! The customer service has been some of the best I have experienced."
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.
Common questions about switching from JustReachOut.
How much does JustReachOut cost in 2026?
What is the best JustReachOut alternative?
JustReachOut vs Medialyst — which should I pick?
Is JustReachOut worth it?
Does JustReachOut have an API?
Can I import my JustReachOut contacts into Medialyst?
More reach, more agent, same budget. Build your first list.
Start free with 300 credits and no credit card. Paste your story and get a verified, story-specific list of journalists in minutes.