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Qwoted alternative · 2026On Qwoted, you pitch the same queue as everyone. Medialyst finds your own.
Qwoted is a source-request marketplace: journalists post queries, and you respond by pitching the same journalists as everyone else who got the same query, competing in a public queue.
FreeMonitor journalist requests from HARO, Connectively, LinkedIn & more with an AI agentFree: let an agent watch journalist requests alongside Qwoted.
Connect one authenticated MCP feed to Claude, ChatGPT, or another compatible agent. It checks six included request channels every hour, uses zero Medialyst credits, and keeps every response behind human review.
- $0
- 0 credits
- Checks every hour
- Human review before anything sends
All six sources included free
Built by an AI engineer and a working publicist.
Medialyst's co-founders bring both halves of the job into the room: Elvis brings the standard he held at Google, and Carly brings the standard her own clients pay for.


Co-founder
Runs Notably, a boutique PR agency serving 25+ clients, and pitches journalists for a living.
The proof is public. Carly grades our real media lists, and we publish every grade, starting with her first: F, 27.9/100 (latest: B, 81.1). As far as we know, Medialyst is the only AI PR tool that publishes a public, recurring quality benchmark.
The honest comparison.
Pulled from public Qwoted documentation, customer reviews, and our own product. We update this page when either side ships something new.
| Capability | Medialyst | Qwoted |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the right journalist | ||
| Find journalists for this story | ✓ Story-specific relevance scoring | ~ n/a — marketplace model: you respond to queries, not discover journalists for a story |
| Understand a journalist's beat | ✓ Reads past articles + recent coverage | ✕ — no per-journalist beat analysis; you read the query, not the reporter |
| Analyze past writing | ✓ Grounded in actual articles | ✕ Not available |
| Per-journalist pitch angles | ✓ Personalized angles + pitch drafts | ✕ — you write a response to a posted query, no per-journalist angles |
| Data freshness | ✓ Live news article search in real time | ~ Real-time journalist queries (~200/day), but no live coverage research |
| Refine a list with natural language | ✓ “Remove anyone inactive in 6 months” | ✕ Not available |
| 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 | ~ Manual — community-sourced contacts, no systematic verification |
| Send from one place | ✓ Built-in sending | ~ In-platform pitch + response tracking (within the marketplace) |
| Pricing & setup | ||
| Time to first pitch | ✓ Minutes | ~ Reactive — wait for a relevant query to be posted |
| Free trial | ✓ First list free | ~ Free tier: 2 pitches/mo, 2-hour delay |
| Contract | ✓ None — cancel anytime | ~ Monthly available; Pro annual is a 12-month commit |
| Price | ✓ from $149/mo | ~ $99/mo (annual) or $149/mo (monthly), Pro |
| Agent-native workflows | ||
| API access | ✓ Public REST API | ✕ Not available |
| 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 | ~ Beta media DB export, no re-enrichment |
Find your journalists now. No demo. No contract. No credit card.
Start in seconds and see live journalist matches for your first pitch.
Why people switch from Qwoted.
You're pitching the same queue as everyone else
On Qwoted, when a journalist posts a query, every matched expert sees it and responds — you're competing in a public queue for the same slot. And the queue isn't level: the free tier enforces a 2-hour delay on opportunities, so paid users see and answer requests first. Reviewers call it “nearly impossible” for free users to compete. Medialyst flips the model: you find your own newsjacking opportunities from live news and pitch any number of journalists you want, with no one else racing you to the same inbox.
Answer Socrates — Qwoted free-tier delay ↗The free tier is built to push you to pay
Qwoted's Basic plan is 2 pitches per month with a mandatory 2-hour delay — enough to see how it works, not enough to actually run outreach. Pro jumps to $99/mo (billed $1,188/yr annually) or $149/mo monthly for 35 pitches. G2 reviewers have repeatedly asked for a ~$39/mo middle tier that doesn't exist. Medialyst's first list is genuinely free — 100 credits, no credit card — and paid plans start at $149/mo with no pitch caps at all.
G2 — Qwoted reviews (mid-tier requests) ↗The contact database is community-sourced and unverified
Qwoted does have a media-sources database, but it's a beta, built from user-submitted contacts with manual, non-systematic verification — its own materials describe it as much smaller than paid tools. That's fine for a marketplace whose real product is the query feed, but it's not a reliable foundation for outbound. Medialyst picks journalists from what they published recently about your story, and every email it delivers was validated within the last 14 days or is re-checked when you build the list.
Qwoted — free media database (beta) ↗Account suspensions, now including AI-content bans
Trustpilot and G2 carry a recurring pattern of accounts disabled without explanation — sometimes after paying for a premium subscription — with support slow to respond. As of 2025–2026, that pattern has expanded to agency accounts pulled with accusations of AI-generated content, without warning or appeal. If you use AI to help draft, that's a real risk on a content-policed marketplace; a research-and-discovery tool like Medialyst has no such gate.
Trustpilot — Qwoted reviews ↗
Where each one wins.
Where Medialyst wins
Run your own outbound, not a shared queue
Instead of waiting for a query and racing other experts to answer it, Medialyst lets you find your own newsjacking opportunities from live news and pitch any number of journalists you choose. You stop competing in a public queue and start running outbound on your own terms — proactive discovery, not reactive matchmaking.
Fit for this story, grounded in real coverage
Medialyst reads hundreds of articles relevant to your specific announcement, scores reporters 0–100 by fit, and tells you why each one would write it — grounded in their actual recent coverage. A marketplace can only show you queries that happen to exist; Medialyst builds the right list for the story you actually have.
Evidence-first research and 14-day email validation
Journalists are picked from what they published recently about your story, rather than from a community-sourced beta database. Every email we deliver was validated within the last 14 days, or is re-checked when you build the list. You pay 1 credit only when we deliver a verified email, and misses are free.
No pitch limits, no per-seat games, transparent price
Starter is $149/mo, Pro $299, Scale $800 — published, monthly, no per-seat fees, no contract, 14-day money-back guarantee. There are no pitch caps and no paid-user delay. The first list is free with 100 credits and no credit card, so you can see it work before you decide.
Agent-native, and switching is an upload
A public REST API, a hosted remote MCP server, and custom enrichment columns mean you can run Medialyst directly inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor. Already have a media list or contacts somewhere? Upload the CSV and the agent takes it from there — re-verifying and re-scoring every contact against your story.
Where Qwoted wins
Warm, high-intent journalist requests
Qwoted processes roughly 200 journalist queries a day (peaking near 400) and, per a BuzzStream study, holds the highest share of DR 80+ high-authority publication requests among source-request platforms. When a reporter from Forbes, CNBC, or Yahoo Finance is actively asking for a source, responding is far warmer than any cold pitch. For reactive PR and expert-source matching, that pipeline is genuinely valuable.
BuzzStream — journalist request platform study ↗A low-effort, reactive way in
Answering a posted query takes far less work than building and running an outbound campaign — that reactive motion is Qwoted's real draw. Entry is gentle (a free tier to start, Pro at $99/mo annually, on par with Medialyst's own free first list and $97/mo annual), so for a founder or small business that wants occasional earned media without a PR team or a database to learn, Qwoted hits a genuinely accessible sweet spot, with customer service that's consistently praised.
G2 — Qwoted reviews ↗More than quotes, plus real-world networking
Beyond article quotes, Qwoted surfaces podcast, speaking, awards, and partnership opportunities, and runs in-person media mixers that build genuine journalist relationships. Backed by PR firms Vested and Prosek, it brings industry credibility and a community that a pure software tool doesn't replicate.
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 total
Qwotedhours–daysThree places the difference shows up.
01Database quality
It's important to be fair about what Qwoted's database is for.
Qwoted isn't trying to be a media database — it's a source-request marketplace, and its contact-database side is an explicitly beta, community-driven feature built from user-submitted entries. There's no systematic verification: contacts are confirmed manually, the size isn't disclosed (its own materials describe it as much smaller than paid tools), and it lacks the per-journalist insight — recent articles, beat depth — you'd expect from a research tool. That's an entirely reasonable design for a platform whose real product is the query feed, but it means you can't lean on it for accurate, proactive outbound. Medialyst takes the opposite stance. Rather than relying on a crowd-submitted inventory, it works evidence-first.
When you build a list, the agent reads recent articles about your story, picks the journalists who wrote them, and confirms the beat. The email comes from Medialyst's own database when it was validated within the last 14 days, and is re-checked when you build the list otherwise. Coverage works globally across major online news sources and many trade publications. It is strongest where articles and bylines are published online; hyper-local, print-only and some regional trade sources can be thinner. The practical result is far less cross-referencing, because the list is chosen for the pitch you're sending today, not assembled by the crowd for whoever happens to need it.
02Speed
Speed means two different things in these two models.
On Qwoted, “fast” means a journalist posts a query and you respond quickly — and the platform is structured so that the people who pay see and answer first. The free tier enforces a 2-hour delay on opportunities, which reviewers describe as making it nearly impossible for free users to compete; by the time you see a request, paid users may have already pitched it. Your speed is gated by other people's queries and your subscription tier. Medialyst's speed is different: you don't wait for anyone. You paste a press release, a URL, or a topic, and the agent goes to work immediately.
A verified, scored journalist list takes minutes. There's no demo gate and no contract. When a news story breaks and you have a timely angle, you're not refreshing a queue hoping a relevant query appears — you find your own opportunity and pitch the journalists you want, in minutes, while the window is still open. For teams that newsjack or simply move fast, owning that speed instead of renting it from a marketplace is the whole game.
03AI & agent surface
Qwoted is a destination: you log into the marketplace, watch its curated query feed, and respond inside its dashboard.
Medialyst is agent-native: one hosted MCP connection can screen six authorized request sources and run journalist discovery and enrichment inside Claude, ChatGPT, and other MCP clients. Qwoted is deliberately excluded from Medialyst's feed, which is read-only and never submits responses.
Custom enrichment columns can answer plain-language research questions across a whole list, so teams can pair approved request screening with proactive outreach without misrepresenting Qwoted's separate marketplace.
Two pricing philosophies, side by side.
Ours is public and posted. Here's how it sits next to Qwoted's own published pricing page and what named third parties report.
- 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
- Qwoted's pricing is public: a restrictive free tier (2 pitches/month with a 2-hour delay), a Pro plan at $99/mo billed annually ($1,188/yr) or $149/mo monthly for 35 pitches, then custom-quoted Managed Account and Team plans. The former mid-tier “Unlimited” plan was removed, widening the gap from Pro to custom pricing.
- 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.
"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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!"

"I needed a tool built for speed: finding the journalists who are on a story right now, in the moment, while it's still news. For how fast our world moves, this service is genuinely a big deal."

"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."

"As most of us in the PR business know, media database services can be expensive, cumbersome, and too often imperfect. We pay a premium for access to AI and out-of-the-box features. We still spend significant time verifying whether a journalist is still covering the same beat, whether contact information is current, whether a reporter is truly relevant to a story, and whether outreach is actually reaching the right person. And that is only one part of the problem. Media relations itself has become increasingly fragmented. Research happens in one place, list building in another, monitoring somewhere else, and outreach through email —with PR teams constantly stitching the workflow together manually. This can leave teams overwhelmed and unsure how efficient they are. At Trier and Company, we’re excited to endorse Medialyst because it is tackling that workflow from a different direction - with AI top of mind. It's 'pitch-driven' in real time with bona fide speaking points. It's an entirely new experience. … It’s time for a change — and Medialyst is building in exactly the right direction. We’re pleased to support the team - Elvis Sun and Carly Martinetti. Excited to see where they take it from here. Count us in!"

"This is awesome and I just want to say I LOVE Medialyst! It’s well into my workflow. Landed an AP and WashPo interview today for a newsjack for two different clients. Cut down HOURS of work and enabled me to move so quickly! What a great tool!"

Common questions about switching from Qwoted.
How much does Qwoted cost?
What is the best Qwoted alternative?
Is Qwoted worth it?
Qwoted vs Medialyst — what's the difference?
Does Qwoted let me pitch journalists directly?
Can I move my Qwoted contacts into Medialyst?
Stop pitching the same queue. Build your own list.
Paste a press release, your website URL, or a one-line description of your news. Medialyst finds reporters who actually cover it, scores them by fit, and checks every email before you get it.