InsightFuse alternative · 2026

InsightFuse runs the campaign. Medialyst shows you who to pitch and why.

InsightFuse runs your outreach as one campaign, with review mode on by default. Medialyst picks each journalist from their recent bylines, shows you why, and leaves every send to you.

First list free · No credit card
From $97/mo · no contractPay only for verified emailsFirst list free · no credit card
See the full InsightFuse comparison ↓
Medialyst
Medialyst
AI-native · agent-ready
vs.
InsightFuse
InsightFuse
Outreach platform
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 InsightFuse documentation, customer reviews, and our own product. We update this page when either side ships something new.

Capability
MedialystMedialyst
InsightFuseInsightFuse
Finding the right journalist
Find journalists for this story
✓
Story-specific relevance scoring
~
Every candidate “scored against your story and angle”; a per-reporter reason is not documented
Understand a journalist's beat
✓
Reads past articles + recent coverage
~
Agent “scans everyone writing about your space right now”; database beat tags “derived from job title, outlet and industry”
Analyze past writing
✓
Grounded in actual articles
~
Not documented
Per-journalist pitch angles
✓
Personalized angles + pitch drafts
~
Writes each reporter “a pitch that reads hand-written”
Data freshness
✓
Live news article search in real time
~
Database “refreshed on a rolling schedule”; the agent scans current coverage
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
~
289,253 of 799,089 profiles carry a direct email; verification method not documented
Send from one place
✓
Built-in sending
~
Sends from your own mailbox (Gmail, Outlook and more); “Review mode is the default”, autopilot is opt-in; reads replies, up to 2 follow-ups
Pricing & setup
Time to first pitch
✓
Minutes
~
Not documented
Free trial
✓
First list free
~
Free plan: search all 799,000+ profiles, no credit card
Contract
✓
None — cancel anytime
~
Monthly (“Cancel anytime”) or annual
Price
✓
from $149/mo
~
$59/mo, or $49/mo billed annually
Agent-native workflows
API access
✓
Public REST API
~
“There is no API today”
Remote MCP support
✓
Hosted remote MCP server
~
Not documented
Agent-native workflows
✓
Usable directly inside Claude, ChatGPT & Cursor
~
Not documented
CSV import / re-enrichment from competitor exports
✓
Upload any CSV — the agent re-verifies & re-scores
~
CSV export on Pro; import 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 InsightFuse.

Picked from recent bylines, not a job title

InsightFuse's media-list guide says “Job title is the strongest signal available” when you filter a list down to people who write, and its database explains that “Beat tags are derived from job title, outlet and industry.” Its agent goes further: its homepage says it “scans everyone writing about your space right now and pulls the reporters whose beat matches your story.” The same guide advises spending “thirty seconds on the reporter's recent work” before a tier-one send. Medialyst starts from that recent work. Each journalist is picked from their recent bylines for your story, with a 0–100 fit score and a written reason that cites the articles behind it.

insightfuse.com/media-list-building — method guide ↗

A quality grade you can check, starting with an F

As far as we know, Medialyst is the only AI PR tool that publishes a public, recurring benchmark of its own list quality. Carly Martinetti, Medialyst's Founding Strategic Advisor and co-founder of the PR agency Notably, builds her own list from the same client brief, grades ours against it, and we publish every grade. The first, on 20 July 2026, was an F: 27.9 out of 100. The latest, on 1 October, is a B (82.0).

medialyst.ai/carly-score — every published grade ↗

A person sends every pitch

InsightFuse sells a campaign that runs “without you in the loop … nights, weekends, long after you've closed the tab.” Its default is review mode: “Review mode is the default: the agent researches and drafts, then stops until you have read the pitches. Autopilot — where it sends and follows up on its own, including while you are logged out — is a deliberate switch.” In Medialyst, a person sends every pitch from their own Gmail or Outlook, with open, click and reply tracking.

insightfuse.com/pricing — “Can the agent email journalists without me approving it?” ↗

An API and MCP server on every plan

InsightFuse says: “There is no API today — CSV export is the way to move data into another system.” Medialyst ships a public REST API and a hosted MCP server on every plan, including the free credits, so journalist research runs from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or your own scripts. The Medialyst team also builds Newsjack.sh, MIT-licensed open-source PR skills for your own agent.

insightfuse.com/media-contact-database ↗
Fair is fair

Where InsightFuse wins.

One plan, $49–59 a month

InsightFuse Pro is $59 a month, or $49 a month billed annually with three extra months free in the first year. It includes the agent, unlimited campaigns, contact reveals and lists. Its pricing page says “No credit system, no reveal packs, no AI usage metering, no overage billing — your plan price is the whole bill.” Medialyst starts at $149 a month, or $97 billed annually.

Search 799,000+ profiles free, no card

InsightFuse's free plan lets you “Search all 799,000+ journalist profiles,” filter by beat, outlet, job title and country, and save one list, with no credit card. Contact details stay hidden until you upgrade, but you can see who you could reach before you pay anything.

The whole loop, from pitch to follow-up

InsightFuse sends from your own mailbox (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo and others), after you have read the pitches in review mode, its default, or on its own once you switch on autopilot. It monitors replies over IMAP and sends follow-ups, “never more than two each, and never to anyone who already answered.” A duplicate guard “Never pitches the same reporter twice.” Medialyst tracks replies but does not send follow-ups for you. InsightFuse also says “We don't track opens with hidden pixels.”

A candid security page

InsightFuse's security page states its gaps plainly: “SOC 2: not certified, and no audit currently in progress,” “Single sign-on: not available,” and “OAuth is not available yet,” followed by “We would rather tell you now than during a security review.” It also says “We do not archive message bodies on our servers.”

Where Medialyst wins

Where Medialyst pulls ahead.

Built from both sides

Elvis Sun, Medialyst's founder, spent 8 years at Google working on AI systems. Carly Martinetti runs Notably, a boutique PR agency, and is Medialyst's Founding Strategic Advisor. He builds the agents; she judges the lists against real agency work, and her grades are public.

The reason, written down for every journalist

Each journalist is picked from their recent bylines for the story you describe, with a 0–100 fit score and a written reason that cites the articles behind it. On Pro and Scale, deep fit scoring reads each journalist's author page and recent bylines before judging fit.

You send it, and you see what happened

Pitches go out from your own Gmail or Outlook when you send them. Medialyst tracks opens, clicks and replies for each journalist, and one toggle hides opens from scanners and bots.

Pay for delivered emails, not misses

Each email is validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time, and you pay only for delivered verified emails. Misses are free. Starter is $149/mo ($97/mo billed annually), Pro $299/mo and Scale $800/mo, with no per-seat fees, 100 free credits to start, and a 14-day money-back guarantee.

API, MCP and open-source skills

A public REST API and a hosted MCP server come with every plan. Newsjack.sh, MIT-licensed and built by the Medialyst team, adds open-source PR skills like newsworthiness checks, angle generation and daily newsjack monitoring.

Under the hood

Three places the difference shows up.

01Database quality

InsightFuse runs on its own database plus an agent.

” Its own guide is frank about the limits of any database: “Any contact database, ours included, is a snapshot,” so “spend thirty seconds on the reporter's recent work” before a tier-one send. Medialyst does that step for every row. Each journalist is picked from their recent bylines for your story, with a 0–100 fit score and a written reason citing the articles behind it.

On Pro and Scale, the scorer reads their author page, recent bylines and the openings of their latest articles first. Each email is validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time, and you pay only for delivered verified emails. 9) in July 2026.

02Speed

InsightFuse is designed so you brief it once and step away.

You tell it what you're announcing and where you want to be seen, choose a campaign depth of 10, 20 or 40 agent steps, and the agent researches, shortlists and drafts. ” Its site does not publish a time-to-list figure. Medialyst is built for the moment you want a list in front of you. Paste a press release, a URL or a topic, and the agent proposes story angles you can edit before any credit is spent, then researches the journalists for each one.

In minutes you have a ranked, fit-scored list with drafted pitches, and you decide who gets each email. If you want a campaign that keeps working while you're away, InsightFuse is built for that. If you want to spend your time choosing who to pitch, with the reason in front of you, Medialyst is built for that.

03AI & agent surface

InsightFuse runs in its own web app.

” Medialyst is built to be used from wherever you already work. A public REST API and a hosted MCP server come with every plan, including the free 100 credits, so journalist research and enrichment can run inside Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, in your own scripts, or in an internal agent. sh, MIT-licensed open-source PR skills that install into your own agent.

Inside the app, custom columns take plain-English research questions and answer them across a whole list, and you can upload any CSV to re-score it against your story. Sending stays with a person, from their own Gmail or Outlook, with open, click and reply tracking.

Pricing reality

Two pricing philosophies, side by side.

Ours is public and posted. Here's how it sits next to InsightFuse'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
InsightFuse
Published
$49/mo
Typical range: Free; $49–$59/mo
  • InsightFuse publishes a free plan, which searches all 799,000+ profiles with contact details hidden and no credit card, and one paid plan, Pro, at $59 a month or $49 a month billed annually ($588 a year, plus three months free in the first year). Pro includes the agent, unlimited campaigns, contact reveals, lists and CSV export, with no credit system or overage billing.
  • 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 InsightFuse.

How much does InsightFuse cost in 2026?
InsightFuse has a free plan for searching its database, with contact details hidden, and one paid plan: Pro at $59 a month, or $49 a month billed annually ($588 a year, plus three months free in the first year). Medialyst starts at $149/mo, or $97/mo billed annually, with no per-seat fees, 100 free credits and a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Does InsightFuse send pitches without my approval?
Only if you switch that on. Its pricing page says “Review mode is the default: the agent researches and drafts, then stops until you have read the pitches. Autopilot — where it sends and follows up on its own, including while you are logged out — is a deliberate switch.” In Medialyst, a person sends every pitch from their own Gmail or Outlook.
InsightFuse vs Medialyst — what's the difference?
InsightFuse is built to send: an agent finds reporters, drafts pitches, sends from your mailbox (after your review, its default, or on autopilot if you switch it on), reads replies and follows up, on a single $49–59 plan. Medialyst is built to pick who you send to. It picks each journalist from their recent bylines, shows a fit score with a written reason, and leaves every send to a person. Medialyst also publishes the Carly Score, a recurring outside grade of its own lists that started with an F.
What is the Carly Score?
It is Medialyst's public quality benchmark. Carly Martinetti, Medialyst's Founding Strategic Advisor, builds a media list by hand from a real client brief, grades the list Medialyst built against hers, and Medialyst publishes the mark. The first grade, on 20 July 2026, was an F (27.9/100); the latest, on 1 October 2026, is a B (82.0). As far as we know, no other AI PR tool publishes a recurring grade like it.
Does InsightFuse have an API?
Not today, in its own words: “There is no API today — CSV export is the way to move data into another system.” Medialyst ships a public REST API and a hosted MCP server on every plan.
Which should I choose?
If you want the lowest-priced single plan that runs research, pitching, replies and follow-ups from your own mailbox, with review mode on by default and a free database to browse first, InsightFuse is built for that. If you want to choose every recipient yourself, with a reason grounded in their recent bylines, from a tool that publishes its own quality grade and opens up through an API and MCP server, choose Medialyst. Your first list is free.

See why each journalist is on your list. Then send it yourself.

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