PressPitch AI alternative · 2026

PressPitch AI scores your pitch. Medialyst scores the reporter.

Every journalist on your list gets a 0–100 fit score for your story 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 PressPitch AI comparison ↓
Medialyst
Medialyst
AI-native · agent-ready
vs.
PressPitch AI
PressPitch AI
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 PressPitch AI documentation, customer reviews, and our own product. We update this page when either side ships something new.

Capability
MedialystMedialyst
PressPitch AIPressPitch AI
Finding the right journalist
Find journalists for this story
✓
Story-specific relevance scoring
~
Search “by beat, topic, outlet or location”; “up to 500 matched contacts per search”
Understand a journalist's beat
✓
Reads past articles + recent coverage
~
Shows each contact's outlet and beat
Analyze past writing
✓
Grounded in actual articles
~
Not documented as a per-journalist fit score or reason
Per-journalist pitch angles
✓
Personalized angles + pitch drafts
✓
AI pitch writer plus a Pitch Scorer that “scores every line before you send”
Data freshness
✓
Live news article search in real time
~
Built-in journalist database; Media Radar alerts when publications cover your keywords
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
~
Optional: “you can optionally run a fresh double-check before sending”
Send from one place
✓
Built-in sending
✓
Gmail, Outlook or Zoho, with follow-ups that stop on reply; you approve every pitch
Pricing & setup
Time to first pitch
✓
Minutes
✓
“About 5 to 10 minutes per campaign”
Free trial
✓
First list free
~
14-day trial, card required; free preview pitch with no card
Contract
✓
None — cancel anytime
~
Monthly, annual or one-time lifetime; “cancel anytime”
Price
✓
from $149/mo
~
$97/mo, or $41/mo billed annually; $997 lifetime
Agent-native workflows
API access
✓
Public REST API
✓
REST API, including /outreach/send (Premium)
Remote MCP support
✓
Hosted remote MCP server
✓
Hosted MCP server, with a Claude Desktop config published
Agent-native workflows
✓
Usable directly inside Claude, ChatGPT & Cursor
✓
Works in “ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Zapier”
CSV import / re-enrichment from competitor exports
✓
Upload any CSV — the agent re-verifies & re-scores
~
“CSV import for your own media and podcast lists”

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 PressPitch AI.

They score your pitch. We score the reporter.

PressPitch AI's scoring is aimed at the pitch: its Pitch Scorer “scores every line before you send so you fix weak spots.” Its journalist finder searches “by beat, topic, outlet or location” and returns “up to 500 matched contacts per search.” Medialyst puts the score on the person. Every journalist gets a 0–100 fit score for your story and a written reason that cites their recent bylines, and when there isn't enough of their work to judge, it says “not enough evidence” instead of guessing.

presspitchai.com — AI Journalist Finder and Pitch Scorer ↗

The email check is part of every list

PressPitch AI's FAQ says: “Because journalists change jobs and inboxes change, you can optionally run a fresh double-check before sending. It only tests addresses that have not been confirmed recently.” On Medialyst that check isn't a separate step. Every email is validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time, and you're charged only for journalists delivered with one.

presspitchai.com — FAQ: “How many contacts do I get per search, and are the emails verified?” ↗

Journalist requests too, from six platforms, free

PressPitch AI defines itself against request services: “HARO and similar query services let journalists post a request and wait for sources to reply. PressPitch AI does the reverse.” Medialyst does both. Alongside story-specific lists, it 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 requests you can credibly answer.

presspitchai.com — FAQ: “How is PressPitch AI different from HARO or Help a B2B Writer?” ↗

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 ↗
Fair is fair

Where PressPitch AI wins.

Press, podcasts and speaking in one plan

PressPitch AI includes a journalist finder, an AI Podcast Finder and a Stage & Event Finder with Speaking Gig Radar, plus a speaker-proposal generator: “Press, podcasts, and speaking gigs are all included in one plan - no per-module upsell, no separate seat, no add-on fee.” Medialyst is built for journalists only; it doesn't find podcasts or speaking slots today.

A full send loop, from your own inbox

Campaigns send from Gmail, Outlook or Zoho with “automated follow-up sequences that stop the moment someone replies,” in-thread replies, A/B tested subject lines, scheduling and a daily send cap. You approve the campaign, and PressPitch AI's assistant “Never sends without your approval.” On Medialyst a person sends each pitch from Gmail or Outlook, and follow-up sequences aren't available yet.

A lower price and a lifetime option

List prices are $97/mo monthly, $41/mo billed annually, or $997 once for lifetime access, each with unlimited pitch generations and unlimited client profiles “for a limited time.” Until 31 October 2026 a 30% Halloween sale shows $67/mo, $29/mo annually and $697 lifetime. Medialyst starts at $149/mo, or $97/mo billed annually, and has no lifetime plan.

An API that sends, plus MCP

PressPitch AI publishes a REST API and a hosted MCP server that “Works in ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Zapier.” Premium accounts get verified contact emails, full pitch generation and POST /outreach/send to “Send a pitch through your connected email,” at no extra fee on top of an existing plan. If you want an agent to run outreach end to end, it is built for that.

A done-for-you press desk

The Founder Press Desk hands the work to PressPitch AI's team: “We write every pitch in your voice - you approve, we send,” and the team builds the lists and handles follow-up. It is application-only. Medialyst is software only, with no managed service.

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 with a written reason 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.

Pay only for delivered emails

You pay 1 credit per journalist delivered with an email validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time. Misses are free, and every list has a hard maximum credit budget. Starter includes up to 1,000 delivered journalists a month, with no per-seat fees.

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

You send each pitch yourself from your own Gmail or Outlook, 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, with no card needed to start. 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

” A search returns up to 500 matched contacts, and exclusions stop a second list from repeating the first.

Each result shows the contact's outlet and beat. The intelligence then goes into the pitch: drafts built “from the frameworks behind 200+ placements” that “reference the journalist's recent work,” and a Pitch Scorer that scores every line before you send. ” Medialyst puts the judgement on the journalist. It breaks your news into story angles, reads what was published recently for each one, and scores every journalist 0–100 for fit with a written reason that cites their bylines. When it can't find enough of someone's work, it says “not enough evidence” rather than guessing.

Every email is 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 it works. 9/100). If you want a large, filterable contact pool and help writing the pitch, PressPitch AI is built for that. If you want the reporters who fit this story and the reasons why, Medialyst is.

02Speed

” You choose the story, review the contacts and approve the send; then sends drip out under a daily cap (it recommends “about 50 a day”), and follow-ups run until someone replies.

” Medialyst spends its time on the research step. You review the angles it proposes before any credit is spent, the research runs in minutes, and the list comes back ranked by fit, with each journalist's recent articles, a written reason and, where one is found, an email. You can refine it in plain English (“remove anyone inactive in 6 months”), ask for more people like your best fits, or add your own research columns. Every list has a hard maximum credit budget.

Then you send each pitch yourself from Gmail or Outlook and see opens, clicks and replies per journalist, with bot opens filtered out. If you want the most automation after the list, PressPitch AI goes further today. If the slow part for you is knowing who should get the pitch, that is the part Medialyst is built to speed up.

03AI & agent surface

Both products work from AI assistants.

” Its free preview allows up to 25 journalist searches a month with emails hidden; Premium unlocks unlimited searches on your credits, verified emails, full pitch generation, higher rate limits and POST /outreach/send, which sends a pitch through your connected email, at no extra cost on top of a PressPitch AI plan. Zapier, Make and n8n connect through webhooks. Medialyst's hosted MCP server and REST API are available on every plan, including the 100 free credits. From Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or your own code you can build media lists, enrich journalists, search live news, run Radar for a project and read the free journalist-request feed. 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. The skills are free to read, change or fork; data steps such as list research use Medialyst credits. PressPitch AI's API reaches further into sending. Medialyst's goes deeper into research, and keeps sending with a person in their own Gmail or Outlook.

Pricing reality

Two pricing philosophies, side by side.

Ours is public and posted. Here's how it sits next to PressPitch AI'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
PressPitch AI
Published
$41/mo
Typical range: $41–$97/mo, or $997 lifetime
  • PressPitch AI lists Monthly at $97/mo, Annual at $41/mo billed annually, and Lifetime at $997 once, all with the same features. Monthly and Annual start with a 14-day free trial that needs a card. Captured 4 October 2026: a 30% Halloween sale until 31 October shows $67/mo, $29/mo billed annually ($347) and $697 lifetime.
  • 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 PressPitch AI.

How much does PressPitch AI cost in 2026?
PressPitch AI lists three plans with the same features: Monthly at $97/mo, Annual at $41/mo billed annually, and Lifetime at $997 once. Monthly and Annual include a 14-day free trial that needs a card, and a free preview pitch needs no card. As of 4 October 2026, a 30% Halloween sale running until 31 October shows $67/mo, $29/mo billed annually and $697 lifetime.
Does PressPitch AI verify journalist emails?
PressPitch AI says: “Because journalists change jobs and inboxes change, you can optionally run a fresh double-check before sending. It only tests addresses that have not been confirmed recently.” Its Premium API includes “verified contact emails for every journalist.” On Medialyst the check is part of every list: each email is validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time, and you aren't charged when no email is found.
Does PressPitch AI send pitches automatically?
Only after you approve. PressPitch AI says its assistant “Never sends without your approval”: you approve the campaign, and then sends drip out under a daily cap, with follow-ups that stop when someone replies. Follow-up sequences aren't available on Medialyst yet; you send each pitch yourself from Gmail or Outlook, with open, click and reply tracking.
Does PressPitch AI have an API or MCP server?
Yes. PressPitch AI publishes a REST API and a hosted MCP server that work in ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor and Zapier, with a free preview of 25 searches a month and a Premium tier that can also send outreach. Medialyst also offers a REST API and a hosted MCP server, on every plan including the free credits.
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 PressPitch AI find podcasts and speaking gigs?
Yes. PressPitch AI includes an AI Podcast Finder, a Stage & Event Finder and Speaking Gig Radar in every plan. Medialyst is built for journalists and doesn't find podcasts or speaking slots today.
PressPitch AI vs Medialyst: which should I use?
If you want press, podcasts and speaking in one low-priced plan, a full send loop with follow-ups, or a lifetime licence, PressPitch AI is built for that. If you want each journalist scored for your specific story with the reason from their recent bylines, an email check built into every list, and a published quality grade, use Medialyst. The first 100 credits are free with no credit card.

Score the reporter, not just the 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