If you're hunting for a Qwoted alternative, you've hit one of three walls: a free tier that's nearly unusable (2 pitches/mo with a 2-hour delay, so paid users answer first), a price barrier (Pro at $99–149/mo, then a jump to ~$800/mo team plans — no ~$39 tier reviewers keep asking for), or the inbound-only model that makes you wait for queries instead of driving coverage this week.
In fairness, Qwoted's source quality is the best in the category — verified requests, elite outlets (highest share of DR 80+ requests, per BuzzStream), and aggressive AI-spam bans. Most "alternatives" are a step down on exactly that axis, so know it before you switch.
So this list is split honestly: the real inbound source-request services that do Qwoted's job, plus — ranked first — a complementary tool for people who'd rather proactively pitch the right journalists than wait at all. We'll be explicit about which is which.
A disclosure up front: we make Medialyst, and we've ranked it first — but Medialyst is a proactive journalist-discovery and outreach tool, not an inbound source-request service like Qwoted, so we've been explicit about that throughout and ranked it #1 only for people whose real frustration is waiting on inbound requests rather than the source-request model itself. We tried to be a fair broker, including conceding Qwoted's genuine strength (the best source quality and least spam in the category) and covering the real inbound alternatives in depth, because a list that pretends one tool wins every job is useless to you. We evaluated each tool on what decides a Qwoted-leaver's choice: source/request quality and spam levels, pricing and free-tier honesty, whether it's inbound (you respond) or outbound (you pitch), and how current and verified its contact data is. Pricing reflects public pricing pages and customer reviews (G2, Trustpilot, Capterra) as of June 2026; where a competitor is genuinely better than us at something, we say so.
Tool
Best for
Standout
Starting price
Free option
1Medialyst
PR teams, founders, and agencies whose real frustration with Qwoted is waiting on inbound requests — and who'd rather proactively pitch the right journalists for a specific story. (Note: this is outbound discovery, not an inbound source-request service like Qwoted.)
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 content marketers who want earned quotes and authoritative backlinks with less spam than open feeds.
SMBs and DIY founders who want inbound requests AND a way to proactively pitch from one self-serve tool.
Aggregates 20+ request sources + a 700k journalist database
$147/mo
7-day trial (card required)
5Connectively
Listed for completeness — the Cision-run version was shut down; only the relaunched paid platform exists now.
Was HARO's official successor before Cision shut it down
Free version shut down Dec 2024
Free version discontinued
6Source of Sources (SOS)
Experts and PR folks who want a free, no-frills inbound source-request feed and trust the name behind HARO.
Free source requests built by HARO creator Peter Shankman
Free
Free (email/web feed)
7Help a B2B Writer
B2B, SaaS, and marketing experts who want highly relevant inbound requests and less consumer-PR noise.
Source requests narrowed to B2B/SaaS writers and beats
Free
Free (email digest)
Pricing and free-tier notes reflect public pricing pages and customer reviews as of June 2026. Source of Sources and Help a B2B Writer are free, reactive email/web request feeds with no contact verification. Connectively's original free version was discontinued December 9, 2024; the relaunched paid platform's tiers remain unverified. Verify current terms with each vendor.
The ranked list
The 7 best Qwoted alternatives.
1
MedialystOur pick5.0/5 on G2
Best overall — if you'd rather proactively pitch than wait for inbound requests
Best for: PR teams, founders, and agencies whose real frustration with Qwoted is waiting on inbound requests — and who'd rather proactively pitch the right journalists for a specific story. (Note: this is outbound discovery, not an inbound source-request service like Qwoted.)
Pricing: From $97/mo (annual) · $149/mo monthly
Free option: Free first list · no credit card
Honest framing first: Medialyst is NOT a source-request marketplace like Qwoted — journalists don't post queries here and you don't answer a queue. It does the complementary, opposite job, and it's #1 on this list specifically for the many people whose real complaint about Qwoted is the inbound-only, sit-and-wait model rather than source requests as a concept. Instead of waiting for a relevant request to appear, you describe your story (paste a release, a URL, or a one-line topic) and the agent reads hundreds of recent articles, surfaces the journalists who actually cover it, scores them 0–100 by fit with reasoning grounded in their real recent work, and verifies every email in real time before it reaches you. It runs from a chat box and from inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor via a public REST API and hosted MCP. Pricing is public, monthly, contract-free, and your first list is free with no card. If you specifically want inbound journalist requests, use one of the source-request services below — many teams run Medialyst for proactive outbound and keep a free feed like SOS or HARO for inbound.
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
Not a source-request service — if you specifically want inbound journalist queries to answer, this is the wrong category (pair it with a free feed below)
Newer than the legacy incumbents — not the choice if a recognizable enterprise brand name is itself the requirement
The curated, low-spam Q&A platform for quotes and links
Best for: Experts and content marketers who want earned quotes and authoritative backlinks with less spam than open feeds.
Pricing: $0–$99/mo
Free option: Free tier (3 answers/mo)
Featured (formerly Terkel) is the closest paid like-for-like to Qwoted on the axis people actually care about: quality. It's a curated reverse-marketplace where publishers and journalists post questions and experts answer, and because the network is editor-managed it keeps spam low and the publishers credible — Fortune, Fast Company, and similar, plus it now owns and operates HARO. For getting quoted and building authoritative backlinks, it's legitimately strong, and the free tier (3 answers/month plus HARO access) lets you start at zero. The honest trade-offs: it's a pay-to-play SEO-link motion at heart, pitch caps on lower tiers are tight, there's no direct publisher relationship (you answer, you don't build a contact), and its DA/quality filters can exclude smaller outlets. Paid tiers run roughly $7/credit up to a Pro plan around $50/mo and Business around $100/mo.
Pros
Curated and low-spam, with Fortune/Fast Company-tier publishers
Real free tier (3 answers/mo), and it now operates HARO
Genuinely effective for earned quotes and SEO backlinks
Cons
Pay-to-play SEO-link tool at heart; low pitch caps on cheap tiers
No direct publisher relationship — you answer, you don't connect
The original free source-request newsletter, revived
Best for: Anyone who wants the largest, best-known free inbound feed and will tolerate higher spam for the reach.
Pricing: Quote only
Free option: Free (ad-supported newsletter)
HARO is the name everyone in this space knows. Cision shut it down (as Connectively) on December 9, 2024, then Featured.com bought it back and revived it in April 2025 as what it always was: a free, ad-supported email newsletter of journalist requests sent three times a day to a million-plus sources. For a Qwoted-leaver whose objection is mainly price, HARO is the obvious free fallback — the reach is real and reporters still fire off queries out of habit. The catch is the exact thing Qwoted is good at avoiding: HARO is famous for spam and a long quality decline, with journalists describing most responses as SEO-driven backlink grabs. Featured added Pangram AI-detection in 2025 to help, but you're still pitching a huge public queue with no verification. It's free reach in exchange for noise.
Pros
Free, with the largest reach and best-known brand in the category
Simple email digest, nothing to learn, no contract
Reporters still post here out of long-standing habit
Cons
Historically heavy spam and a well-documented quality decline
Huge public queue — you pitch alongside hundreds of others
Been through three owners and two shutdowns; no verification
Source requests plus a media database and pitching, in one app
Best for: SMBs and DIY founders who want inbound requests AND a way to proactively pitch from one self-serve tool.
Pricing: $147/mo
Free option: 7-day trial (card required)
JustReachOut is the most feature-complete paid pick here because it spans both jobs: a curated press-opportunity finder that aggregates journalist requests from 20+ sources (its post-HARO answer to source requests), plus a 700k-journalist database, AI pitch drafting, and sending from your own Gmail or Outlook. For a Qwoted-leaver who wants inbound requests but also the ability to proactively pitch, it's a genuine one-app option, and pricing is published: $147/$247/$497 a month, contract-free, with a 7-day trial. The honest gaps are real, though: seat and email-send caps stay surprisingly tight even at the top tier, search is recency-biased and thin outside the US, there's no API or agent surface, and the UX feels dated next to newer tools. It's a capable generalist rather than the best at any single job.
Pros
Combines a request finder, a media database, and pitching in one app
Published, contract-free pricing with a 7-day trial
Sends from your own inbox; strong PR education for beginners
Cons
Tight seat/email-send caps even on the $497/mo tier
The discontinued HARO successor (don't start here)
Best for: Listed for completeness — the Cision-run version was shut down; only the relaunched paid platform exists now.
Pricing: Free version shut down Dec 2024
Free option: Free version discontinued
Connectively is on this list mainly so you don't waste time chasing it. It was the name Cision gave HARO when it rebranded the service in March 2024 — and then Cision shut it down on December 9, 2024, killing the free version everyone remembers. (Featured.com later revived the Connectively brand as a separate paid platform with an AI co-pilot, but its pricing has been unsettled through the relaunch.) For someone leaving Qwoted today, the original free Connectively simply isn't a viable choice — it doesn't exist in the form most people are searching for. If you want the free HARO-style motion, go to the revived HARO newsletter or Source of Sources below; if you want a paid platform, the others here are more established. We include it only to close the loop on a name you'll inevitably run into.
Pros
Was the official, recognized HARO successor under Cision
Relaunched paid platform adds AI co-pilot workflows
Cons
The free version everyone remembers was shut down Dec 9, 2024
Relaunched paid pricing has been unsettled and unverified
Not a viable like-for-like choice for most Qwoted-leavers today
Best for: Experts and PR folks who want a free, no-frills inbound source-request feed and trust the name behind HARO.
Pricing: Free
Free option: Free (email/web feed)
Source of Sources is Peter Shankman's free relaunch of the original HARO concept — he built and sold HARO years ago, and stood SOS up specifically to fill the gap left when Cision shut HARO/Connectively down in December 2024. It's deliberately back-to-basics: journalists post queries, you get them by email or on the web, and you respond, at no cost. For a Qwoted-leaver who mainly balked at the price, SOS is the most direct free swap for the inbound motion. The honest caveats are that it's newer and smaller than the volume Qwoted or the revived HARO push, the experience is email-first with little tooling, and — like every open query feed — it has no AI-spam gate, so quality varies and you're still pitching the same queue as everyone else who got the email.
Pros
Completely free, from the person who originally created HARO
Simple inbound query feed — nothing to learn, no contract
A credible free replacement for the discontinued HARO/Connectively
Cons
Newer and lower request volume than Qwoted or the revived HARO
Email-first with minimal tooling, search, or filtering
No verification or AI-spam filter — still a public, reactive queue
Best for: B2B, SaaS, and marketing experts who want highly relevant inbound requests and less consumer-PR noise.
Pricing: Free
Free option: Free (email digest)
Help a B2B Writer (run by the team behind the Superpath content-marketing community) is a free source-request service deliberately scoped to B2B: the queries come from writers working on SaaS, marketing, and B2B content, so the requests you see are far more likely to fit if that's your lane. Because it's a focused niche rather than a general consumer-PR firehose, reviewers consistently report higher relevance and noticeably lower spam than HARO-style feeds — you're not wading through lifestyle and listicle queries to find your two. The flip side is exactly that narrowness: if you're pitching outside B2B/SaaS it's the wrong tool, overall request volume is modest, and it's still a reactive email queue with no contact verification or proactive discovery.
Pros
Free, and tightly focused on B2B/SaaS/marketing requests
Higher relevance and lower spam than general HARO-style feeds
Simple email digest — no platform to learn, no cost
Cons
B2B niche only — useless for consumer or general PR
Lower overall request volume than the big marketplaces
Reactive queue, no email verification, no proactive outreach
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
Qwoted alternatives — common questions.
What is the best Qwoted alternative in 2026?
It depends on which Qwoted frustration you're solving. If your real problem is the inbound-only, sit-and-wait model — and you'd rather proactively pitch the right journalists for a specific story — Medialyst is the best fit (it's a proactive discovery and outreach tool, not a source-request service: describe your story and it returns a scored, email-verified journalist list, from $149/mo with a free first list). If you want to keep answering inbound journalist requests but pay less, Featured is the strongest curated paid option, and Source of Sources is the best free one. Many teams run both: a discovery tool for outbound and a free request feed for inbound.
Is there a free alternative to Qwoted?
Yes — several. Source of Sources (sourceofsources.com), built by HARO's original founder Peter Shankman, is a free inbound request feed and the most direct free swap for Qwoted's reactive motion. The revived HARO newsletter (run by Featured.com) is also free, with the largest reach but more spam. Help a B2B Writer is free and scoped to B2B/SaaS requests. Featured has a free tier too (3 answers/month). All of these are inbound source-request feeds; none verify contacts. Medialyst isn't free, but your first list is free with 300 credits and no credit card.
Why is Qwoted's free tier so limited?
Qwoted's Basic (free) plan caps you at two pitches per month and applies a mandatory two-hour delay on every request, so paying users see and answer queries before you do. Reviewers describe this as making it nearly impossible for free users to compete. The design pushes you toward Pro ($99/mo billed annually, $149/mo monthly), and the former mid-tier 'Unlimited' plan was removed — so there's now a sharp jump from Pro to custom team/managed pricing (around $800/mo). The lack of a ~$39 middle tier is the single most common complaint in Qwoted's G2 reviews.
Is Qwoted actually worth keeping?
For reactive, inbound PR, Qwoted is genuinely good — and it's fair to say so. It has the highest source quality in the category: requests are verified, the outlets skew elite (the highest share of DR 80+ publication requests among source-request platforms, per BuzzStream), and it aggressively bans AI-spam accounts, so there's far less noise than HARO-style feeds. If that signal quality justifies the price for you, keep it. People leave mainly over the near-unusable free tier, the price barrier, and the fact that it's inbound-only — and those are the frustrations the tools on this list address.
What's the difference between Qwoted and a proactive tool like Medialyst?
They do opposite jobs and pair well. Qwoted is inbound and reactive: journalists post source requests and you respond, competing in a shared queue. Medialyst is outbound and proactive: you describe a specific story, and it reads recent articles to find the journalists who'd actually cover it, scores them by fit, and verifies their emails in real time so you can pitch them directly — no queue, no waiting for a relevant request to appear. Medialyst is not a source-request service, so if inbound queries are specifically what you want, use one of the source-request feeds on this list (and many teams run both).
Is Connectively a Qwoted alternative I can use?
Not the version most people mean. Connectively was Cision's rebrand of HARO, and Cision shut it down on December 9, 2024, ending the free service. Featured.com later revived the Connectively brand as a separate paid platform, but its pricing has been unsettled through the relaunch. For a free HARO-style feed today, use the revived HARO newsletter or Source of Sources; for paid, Featured or JustReachOut are more established choices.
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.
