HeyJared alternative · 2026

HeyJared tells you who's talking about you. Medialyst tells you who to pitch next.

Journalists picked for your story, each with a 0–100 fit score and a written reason from their recent bylines. You pay only for the emails delivered.

First list free · No credit card
From $97/mo · no contractPay only for verified emailsFirst list free · no credit card
See the full HeyJared comparison ↓
Medialyst
Medialyst
AI-native · agent-ready
vs.
HeyJared
HeyJared
Media intelligence
Misses free
You pay only for verified emails.
Each email validated in the last 14 days or re-checked
Minutes
From story to sent pitch in minutes.
From your story to a scored list
from $97/mo
Pricing on the website, not in a sales deck.
Starter billed annually · or $149 monthly

Who builds Medialyst, and who grades it.

As far as we know, Medialyst is the only AI PR tool that publishes a public, recurring quality benchmark. Carly Martinetti, our Founding Strategic Advisor, runs Notably, a boutique PR agency serving 25+ clients; she grades our real media lists, and we publish every grade, starting with her first: F, 27.9/100. Elvis Sun, the founder, is an AI engineer who spent 8 years at Google working on AI systems.

At a glance

The honest comparison.

Pulled from public HeyJared documentation, customer reviews, and our own product. We update this page when either side ships something new.

Capability
MedialystMedialyst
HeyJaredHeyJared
Finding the right journalist
Find journalists for this story
✓
Story-specific relevance scoring
✓
Suggests people “by how closely their recent published work matches your subject and topics”
Understand a journalist's beat
✓
Reads past articles + recent coverage
✓
Public reporter profiles with latest articles and 90-day publishing history
Analyze past writing
✓
Grounded in actual articles
✓
Each suggestion “shows the work behind it”
Per-journalist pitch angles
✓
Personalized angles + pitch drafts
✓
A reason and “a first draft” for each person suggested
Data freshness
✓
Live news article search in real time
✓
132.6M-item index; news and podcasts back to 2006, newsletters and YouTube “as they publish”
Refine a list with natural language
✓
“Remove anyone inactive in 6 months”
~
Not documented
Find more like top performers
✓
“Find 20 more like the top 5”
~
Not documented
Add custom enrichment columns
✓
“Research if they use affiliate links”
~
Not documented
Pitching & sending
Email verification
✓
Multi-step verification waterfall
~
“Any contact route we found”; a preparation “doesn't promise an email address”
Send from one place
✓
Built-in sending
~
Neither tool sends for you: copy the draft or “open a contact route in Gmail”
Pricing & setup
Time to first pitch
✓
Minutes
~
Not documented
Free trial
✓
First list free
~
Free preview “with a few recent mentions”
Contract
✓
None — cancel anytime
~
Monthly or yearly listed (“A year costs ten months”); paid plans “coming soon”
Price
✓
from $149/mo
~
Listed $29–$299/mo; “Paid plans are coming soon” (4 October 2026)
Agent-native workflows
API access
✓
Public REST API
~
Not documented
Remote MCP support
✓
Hosted remote MCP server
~
Not documented publicly; its Privacy Notice describes connecting “an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT”
Agent-native workflows
✓
Usable directly inside Claude, ChatGPT & Cursor
~
AI-assistant connection described in its Privacy Notice
CSV import / re-enrichment from competitor exports
✓
Upload any CSV — the agent re-verifies & re-scores
~
Not documented

Find your journalists now. No demo. No contract. No credit card.

Start in seconds and see live journalist matches for your first pitch.

Build your first list free →
From $97/mo · no contractPay only for verified emailsFirst list free · no credit card
The honest read

Why people switch from HeyJared.

An email you can pitch, not a contact route

HeyJared describes a pitch preparation as “a relevant target, why they fit, the sources behind it, an available contact route and a draft to make your own,” and adds: “It doesn't promise an email address or a placement.” Medialyst builds the list around reaching the journalist. Each email is validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time, and you're charged a credit only when one is delivered. When no email turns up, it costs nothing.

heyjared.ai/pricing — “What is a pitch preparation?” ↗

A quality grade we publish, starting with an F

As far as we know, Medialyst is the only AI PR tool that publishes a public, recurring quality benchmark: the Carly Score. Every two weeks Carly Martinetti, Medialyst's Founding Strategic Advisor, builds a media list by hand for a real client brief, as she has for fourteen years, and grades ours against it. We publish every grade. The first, on 20 July 2026, was an F (27.9/100), with her note: “Not yet, if we pitched these journalists our client would fire us.”

medialyst.ai/carly-score ↗

Journalist requests from six platforms, free

HeyJared's requests come “from public calls for sources and experts posted on Bluesky, including journalist-request feeds,” and its reports also surface Hacker News threads. Medialyst gathers journalist requests from six platforms, including Connectively, X, LinkedIn and Substack, at zero credits. Your AI agent reads the feed over Medialyst's MCP server and brings back the ones you can credibly answer.

heyjared.ai/faq — “Where do journalist requests come from?” ↗

A documented API and MCP server on every plan

HeyJared's Privacy Notice describes connecting HeyJared to “an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT” over OAuth. As of 4 October 2026 its site publishes no API reference or setup guide. Medialyst publishes both a REST API and a hosted MCP server, available on every plan including the free credits, so the same research runs inside Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor. The Medialyst team also builds Newsjack.sh, a set of MIT-licensed open-source PR skills for your own agent.

heyjared.ai/legal/privacy — §15 AI assistant connections ↗
Fair is fair

Where HeyJared wins.

Far more than news: podcasts, newsletters and YouTube

HeyJared searches “132.6 million stories, episodes, issues and videos” as one: 105M podcast episodes, 25.4M news stories, 1.7M newsletter issues and 284K YouTube videos on its homepage counter. Archives reach “back to 2000 for podcasts, 2006 for news, 2017 for YouTube and 2020 for newsletters.” Its suggestions include podcast hosts, newsletter writers and creators as well as reporters. Medialyst is built around journalists and news.

Monitoring with share of voice and tone

Follow a name: “New coverage arrives by email, as often as you choose.” Reports “compare share of voice, tone and topics with the organizations around you,” and the homepage leads with what that reveals: “84% of Y Combinator's coverage is outside traditional media.” It is also candid about the limits: “Tone is a model's reading, so check it against the original story.” Medialyst doesn't offer share-of-voice reporting today.

AI visibility tracking

HeyJared “asks AI assistants the questions you choose about your field and records whether the answers mention you, recommend you or cite your website, next to comparable organizations.” If you want to watch how ChatGPT and other assistants talk about your brand, that's built in. Medialyst doesn't sell a hosted AI-visibility tracker.

Free public reporter profiles and light packaging

Anyone can browse HeyJared's public channel pages: a reporter's latest articles, 90-day publishing history and outlet, with no sign-in. Its listed plans include a one-off Pitch Pack of 25 preparations at $49, and “Packs never auto-renew,” which suits a single launch. As of 4 October 2026 those plans are listed as “coming soon.”

Where Medialyst wins

Where Medialyst pulls ahead.

Each journalist picked for your story

Paste a release, a link or a topic. Medialyst breaks it into story angles you can edit before a credit is spent, reads recent coverage for each one, and scores every journalist 0–100 for fit with a written reason drawn from their recent bylines. On Pro and Scale, deep fit scoring also reads each journalist's author page and the opening of their latest articles before judging.

A list you can pitch the same day

Every journalist you pay for comes with an email validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time. You pay 1 credit per journalist delivered with an email, and misses are free. Starter includes up to 1,000 delivered journalists a month.

Built from both sides

Elvis Sun spent eight years building AI systems at Google. Carly Martinetti runs Notably, a PR agency, and is Medialyst's Founding Strategic Advisor. He builds the research engine; she grades its lists against real agency work, and the Carly Score publishes every grade, starting with the F.

A person sends every pitch

As with HeyJared, sending with Medialyst always involves a person: pitches go out from your own Gmail or Outlook when you send or schedule them, with open, click and reply tracking per journalist and a filter that hides bot opens.

Open by design

A public REST API and a hosted MCP server come with every plan, including the 100 free credits. Newsjack.sh, MIT-licensed open-source PR skills built by the Medialyst team, adds newsjack monitoring and angle work inside your own agent.

Under the hood

Three places the difference shows up.

01Database quality

The two products start from different questions.

” Medialyst starts from the story you want to pitch. It breaks your news into angles, reads what was published recently for each one, and scores every journalist 0–100 with a written reason that cites their bylines. When it can't find enough of someone's work, it says so rather than inventing a score. Emails are validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time, and you pay only for journalists delivered with one.

We also publish how well the lists hold up. 9/100) onwards. If you want to understand the whole conversation around your brand, HeyJared covers far more ground. If you want the list of who to pitch for this story, Medialyst is built for that.

02Speed

HeyJared works report-first.

” Medialyst works list-first. You describe the story, review the angles it proposes before any credit is spent, and the research runs in minutes, returning journalists ranked by fit with their recent articles, a written reason and, where one is found, an email. You can refine the list in plain English (“remove anyone inactive in 6 months”), add your own research columns, or upload an existing CSV to have it re-checked and re-scored.

Each list has a hard maximum credit budget, so you know the most it can cost before it starts. Then you send each pitch yourself from Gmail or Outlook and see opens, clicks and replies per journalist, with bot opens filtered out.

03AI & agent surface

” As of 4 October 2026 its site publishes no API reference or connector setup guide.

Medialyst documents both. The hosted MCP server and the REST API are available on every plan, including the 100 free credits, so you can build lists, enrich journalists, search live news and read the free journalist-request feed from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or your own code. Some tools need a paid plan, and the docs say which.

sh, MIT-licensed open-source PR skills that install into your agent: newsworthiness checks, angle generation, fact-checks and daily newsjack monitoring. Data steps such as list research and enrichment use Medialyst credits, and the skills themselves are free to read, change or fork. Both companies keep a person in charge of sending, so the difference is how much of the research you can script and how openly it is documented.

Pricing reality

Two pricing philosophies, side by side.

Ours is public and posted. Here's how it sits next to HeyJared's own published pricing page and what named third parties report.

Pricing and claims verified 4 October 2026
Medialyst
Transparent
From $97/mobilled annually
or $149/mo month-to-month · cancel anytime
  • 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 · cancel anytime · 14-day money-back guarantee
  • Free first list — 100 credits, no credit card
  • One unified product — no modules priced separately
HeyJared
Published
Coming soon
Typical range: $29–$299/mo listed
  • As of 4 October 2026, HeyJared's pricing page lists Track $29/mo (3 tracked subjects), Pitch $59/mo (1 pitching brand, 50 pitch preparations a month), Pro $79/mo (both), Portfolio Track $149/mo and Portfolio Pro $299/mo, plus a $49 one-off Pitch Pack of 25 preparations. A year “costs ten months.” The same page says “Paid plans are coming soon. Until then, try HeyJared free,” and “Nothing is charged here,” so these prices can't be bought yet.
  • Pricing published online
What teams say

In the words of Medialyst users.

Real customers, approved for use. Your results depend on your story and your list — these are theirs.

★★★★★

"What came back was a working list with real journalists, current coverage, and contact information I could use the same day. No cross-referencing. No digging through three different tabs. One prompt and I was pitching."

Amy Bartko
★★★★★

"I love Medialyst. It follows the workflow I already use, which, if I may say so myself, is the right workflow. I don't keep old Excel documents full of old emails and blast things to people. I hate the spray and pray. I like to make sure reporters are writing about the things I'm talking about, and to find new people who are. Muck Rack, Cision, all of those are basically very expensive static databases. I already know the major trade reporters. What Medialyst has helped me uncover are the people at Fast Company and The Wall Street Journal who cover packaging, and the freelancers I can get on the radar of. Muck Rack just doesn't help with that. Now when I tell Claude 'here's the person,' it pulls them through Medialyst, onto my list there, and starts gathering information about them. I haven't gotten a bounced email yet. I'd rather send a smaller list I can defend. And I'm never afraid to share it with clients, because it has everything in there. It proves its worth. My first job, as an intern, was photocopying Bacon's books into an Excel database every year. So I'm acutely aware of how hard it is to keep track of all this. This is how I would approach it myself."

Christine Pietryla Wetzler
Christine Pietryla Wetzler
★★★★★

"Medialyst makes it super easy to narrow down and create dedicated PR lists to reach out to the journalists that actually want to hear what you have to say. The timeline from chatting to the agent about what you have to promote to actually launching the campaign goes down to mere 1-2 hours instead of days worth of research and prospecting."

Milena Petrović
★★★★★

"Then recently I stumbled upon Elvis Sun's agentic PR tool Medialyst — 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."

Rita Liao
★★★★★

"This new company is a terrific idea—and helps PR people in ways they didn't know they needed it. The team really 'gets' this business and so many businesses just don't. Jump in. The agents are ready!"

Richard Laermer
★★★★★

"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."

Sim Aulakh
Sim Aulakh
Founder at EstablishCred
★★★★★

"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."

Kristjana (Kris) Hillberg
★★★★★

"The big media database platforms are built for agencies with full teams and retainers to match. For a boutique practice like mine, the economics just do not work. Medialyst fits the model. Beyond contact discovery, it helps me stay on top of what reporters are actually covering: the beats, the patterns, the recent angles. That is the real work of pitching well these days. Spray and pray is over, and Medialyst is built for how modern media relations actually works, at a price point that makes sense for the way I operate."

Kyle Cabodi
★★★★★

"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."

Saddat Abid
Saddat Abid
CEO at Property Saviour
★★★★★

"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."

Raul Quiroz
Raul Quiroz
Senior Account Manager at HJ-PR
Try it free · no account to start

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 checks every email before you get it. Your first list is free, no credit card.

First list free · No credit card
From $97/mo · no contractPay only for verified emailsFirst list free · no credit card
FAQ

Common questions about switching from HeyJared.

How much does HeyJared cost in 2026?
As of 4 October 2026, HeyJared's pricing page lists Track at $29/mo, Pitch at $59/mo, Pro at $79/mo, Portfolio Track at $149/mo and Portfolio Pro at $299/mo, with a $49 one-off Pitch Pack and yearly billing that “costs ten months.” The same page says “Paid plans are coming soon. Until then, try HeyJared free,” so none of the paid plans can be bought yet. The free tier is a preview with a few recent mentions.
Does HeyJared give you journalists' email addresses?
HeyJared shows “any contact route we found” for each suggestion, and its pricing page says a pitch preparation “doesn't promise an email address or a placement.” Medialyst charges only for journalists delivered with an email validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time. If no email is found, you aren't charged.
Does HeyJared send pitches for me?
No. HeyJared says: “You review each draft, then copy it or open a contact route in Gmail. Plans cover research and preparation, not sending.” Medialyst takes the same stance: a person sends every pitch, from their own Gmail or Outlook, and Medialyst adds open, click and reply tracking with bot opens filtered out.
What is the Carly Score?
It's Medialyst's public quality benchmark. Every two weeks Carly Martinetti, Medialyst's Founding Strategic Advisor and a PR practitioner who has built media lists by hand for fourteen years, builds a list for a real client brief and grades ours against hers. We publish every grade, starting with the first, an F (27.9/100) on 20 July 2026. As far as we know, no other AI PR tool publishes a recurring quality benchmark like it.
Can I use HeyJared and Medialyst together?
Yes, and they fit together well. HeyJared covers listening: who is talking about you across news, podcasts, newsletters and YouTube, share of voice and tone against your peers, and AI visibility. Medialyst covers the list: journalists picked for a specific story, with a fit score, a written reason and, where one is found, a validated email. Neither sends for you.
Does HeyJared have an API or MCP server?
HeyJared's Privacy Notice describes connecting it to “an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT” over OAuth. As of 4 October 2026 its site publishes no API reference or setup guide. Medialyst documents a REST API and a hosted MCP server, both available on every plan including the free credits.
HeyJared vs Medialyst: which should I use?
If you want to track your brand and your peers across news, podcasts, newsletters and YouTube, measure share of voice and tone, or check what AI assistants say about you, HeyJared is built for that. If you need a list of journalists to pitch for a specific story, each with a fit score and a reason from their recent bylines, paying only for the emails delivered, use Medialyst. The first 100 credits are free with no credit card.

Know who's talking. Then build the list of who to pitch.

Start free with 100 credits and no credit card. Paste your story and get a verified, story-specific list of journalists in minutes.

From $97/mo · no contractPay only for verified emailsFirst list free · no credit card