RunPR runs the outreach workflow. Medialyst goes deep on the list, and grades it in public.
As far as we know, Medialyst is the only AI PR tool that publishes a public, recurring quality benchmark. A PR practitioner grades our real media lists and we publish every grade, starting with the first: F, 27.9/100.
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.
The honest comparison.
Pulled from public RunPR documentation, customer reviews, and our own product. We update this page when either side ships something new.
| Capability | Medialyst | RunPR |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the right journalist | ||
| Find journalists for this story | ✓ Story-specific relevance scoring | ~ Matched reporters “ranked against your pitch angle by relevance score” |
| Understand a journalist's beat | ✓ Reads past articles + recent coverage | ~ Every match shows why it surfaced: “beat history, recent coverage, and outlet fit” |
| Analyze past writing | ✓ Grounded in actual articles | ~ Pitches grounded in “the reporter's last 10 bylines” |
| Per-journalist pitch angles | ✓ Personalized angles + pitch drafts | ~ AI-written pitches from client context, checked by Pitch Check before review |
| Data freshness | ✓ Live news article search in real time | ~ Monitors on Google News and GDELT; bylines “re-verified on a schedule” |
| 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 | ~ Unlocks count only when it “reveals a verified contact”; method not published |
| Send from one place | ✓ Built-in sending | ~ Sends from your verified domain after approval; SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up for you |
| Pricing & setup | ||
| Time to first pitch | ✓ Minutes | ~ Not published; pitch writing starts once client setup is complete |
| Free trial | ✓ First list free | ~ Free trial (terms shown at checkout); free AI-visibility audit with no signup |
| Contract | ✓ None — cancel anytime | ~ Priced monthly; “Switch plans anytime” |
| Price | ✓ from $149/mo | ~ $149/mo Solo (2 client Accounts) to $1,499/mo Agency (15); unlimited seats |
| Agent-native workflows | ||
| API access | ✓ Public REST API | ~ Not documented |
| Remote MCP support | ✓ Hosted remote MCP server | ~ Not documented |
| Agent-native workflows | ✓ Usable directly inside Claude, ChatGPT & Cursor | ~ Not documented; the workflow runs in RunPR's dashboard |
| CSV import / re-enrichment from competitor exports | ✓ Upload any CSV — the agent re-verifies & re-scores | ~ Not documented; exports unlocked contacts to CSV |
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Why people switch from RunPR.
We publish every grade, starting with the F
As far as we know, Medialyst is the only AI PR tool that publishes a public, recurring quality benchmark. Carly Martinetti, Medialyst's Founding Strategic Advisor and a publicist who has built media lists by hand for fourteen years, builds a list for a real client brief and grades the list Medialyst built against hers. Her first grade, the 20 July 2026 baseline, was an F: 27.9/100. The latest, on 1 October, is a B: 82.0/100. Carly is part of the Medialyst team, so treat it as a disclosed in-house benchmark; it measures how much work a list needs before it matches hers, not accuracy. Every grade, and every week we missed, stays on the page. As of 2026-10-04, RunPR's site publishes no list-quality benchmark.
medialyst.ai/carly-score — every grade since the first F ↗Built by an AI engineer and a working publicist
Elvis Sun, Medialyst's founder, spent 8 years at Google working on AI systems used by millions of people. Carly runs Notably, a boutique PR agency that today serves more than 25 clients. As our About page puts it, she judges what we build against the standard her own clients pay for, and features that don't survive that don't ship. RunPR says it is “built by PR practitioners” too: a former managing editor and the founder of BestTechie and Hype Lab. So test both on the same brief.
medialyst.ai/about — who's behind it ↗A score and a reason on every row, from articles read for your story
Every journalist on a Medialyst list gets a 0–100 fit score and a “why they fit” summary citing their recent articles. On Pro and Scale, deep fit scoring reads each journalist's author page, recent bylines and the opening of their latest articles before it judges fit. RunPR shows its reasoning as well: “Every match shows why it surfaced: beat history, recent coverage, and outlet fit.” Both show their work, so the honest test is to run the same brief through each and compare the lists.
runpr.ai/features — reporter matching with the reason shown ↗Open to the tools you already use
Medialyst has a hosted remote MCP server and a public REST API on every plan, including the 100 free credits, so list research and enrichment run inside Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor. Our PR skills are open source as Newsjack.sh under the MIT licence. As of 2026-10-04, runpr.ai documents exporting unlocked contacts to CSV; an API or MCP server is not documented.
runpr.ai/features — journalist CRM and CSV export ↗Where RunPR wins.
White-labelled client coverage reports
RunPR's coverage reports come with article screenshots, “honest range-based reach, sentiment, syndication grouping”, and a white-label share link your client can open or print to PDF. Reports can be emailed from your agency name on a weekly or monthly schedule. Medialyst does not produce client coverage reports today.
AI visibility across six engines
Every paid RunPR plan includes AI-visibility scans: standard scans cover ChatGPT, Perplexity and Exa, and deep scans add Claude, Gemini and Grok. Each scan reports mention rate, citation rate, the competitors cited against you and every losing query, and outreach to the cited sources lands in the same approval queue. Medialyst does not run AI-visibility scans.
A workspace for every client, with routed approvals
“Each client Account has its own profile, voice, monitors, reporter matches, sent history, and delivery data.” On Studio and Agency, account leads, founders and clients “can approve, reject, or send back with a note before anything goes out,” and every decision is logged to the pitch. Medialyst has projects with their own memory and files, but no client approval routing.
Domain authentication handled for you
“Add your domain in the dashboard and RunPR provisions SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for you.” Sent threads stay linked to the originating story, journalist and approval decision, and delivery and opens are tracked per journalist. Medialyst sends through your own Gmail or Outlook account instead, so there is no sending domain to set up, but no separate domain option either.
A journalist CRM
“Every journalist you have pitched is tracked with full relationship history: what you sent, when, and whether coverage shipped.” Badges flag reporters who have covered your client before, and you can filter to never pitched, covered your client, or unlocked. Medialyst doesn't have a journalist CRM yet.
A human operator when you want one
Multiply, from Embargo Industries, the team behind Hype Lab, adds operators who help with strategy, pitch review, pitch-writing throughput and approved sends inside the same RunPR workflow. It starts at $2,000 a month with RunPR included. RunPR's co-founders are Matt Pressberg, a former managing editor of the Los Angeles Business Journal, and Jeff Weisbein, who founded BestTechie and Hype Lab. Medialyst offers no done-for-you service.
Where Medialyst pulls ahead.
Lists built from what was published recently
Describe your story and Medialyst's agents read current coverage for each angle. Outlet Sweep picks the outlets that matter most for the story, searches what each published in the last 90 days, and finds the right people there, with paid-contributor programmes filtered out. Every name comes back with the recent articles behind it.
Deep fit scoring on Pro and Scale
Deep fit scoring reads each journalist's author page, recent bylines and the opening of their latest articles before judging fit, so a reporter who changed beats last month is scored on what they wrote last month. Carly's written reasons for rejecting names, such as paid placements, guest essayists and contributor networks, are now rules the scorer applies.
Emails with evidence, and you pay only for delivered ones
Every address is validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time, and you pay only for delivered verified emails. An address needs evidence that it belongs to that journalist at that outlet, not just that it accepts mail, and you see every verified address a journalist has.
You send every pitch, from your own inbox
Pitches go out through your own Gmail or Outlook, with open, click and reply tracking per journalist and per campaign. One toggle separates likely human opens from the scanners and prefetchers that inflate open rates.
Open source, and on every plan
The hosted MCP server exposes 34 tools and the REST API covers list research and enrichment on every plan. Newsjack.sh, our MIT-licensed PR skills, runs inside your own agent. There are no per-seat fees on any plan. Start with 100 free credits and no credit card; paid plans come with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
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 totalRunPRnot publishedThree places the difference shows up.
01Database quality
Both products start from recent coverage rather than a static directory.
” That is a careful, honest stance. Medialyst reads coverage for the specific story you describe, at the moment you build the list. Outlet Sweep picks the outlets that matter for the story and searches their last 90 days, and on Pro and Scale deep fit scoring reads each journalist's author page and latest articles before scoring. Emails are validated within the last 14 days or re-checked at build time, and you pay only for delivered verified emails.
The part we can show you is the grade. Every two weeks Carly Martinetti, our Founding Strategic Advisor and a publicist for fourteen years, builds the same list by hand and grades ours against it. 0/100. As of 2026-10-04, RunPR's site publishes no list-quality benchmark.
02Speed
RunPR is set up per client before it writes.
Pitch writing “only activates once readiness is complete: company profile, voice profile, news monitor, send-from email, approval mode,” and approval mode and the kill window are confirmed once and then enforced on every draft. For an agency running several clients, that setup pays back on every pitch that follows, and it starts from a client website preview with no sales call. Medialyst starts from the story. Paste a press release, a URL or a few lines about the news and the agent begins researching straight away; there is no client setup required before the first list, though a project's memory and files sharpen later ones. 6 minutes.
You see and edit the story angles before credits are spent, and every list has a hard credit budget. The output is a list you review row by row, and each pitch goes out from your own inbox when you choose to send it. If your bottleneck is running outreach across a roster of clients, RunPR is built for that. If it's finding the right reporters for this story, Medialyst is.
03AI & agent surface
RunPR is a dashboard product.
Monitors, matches, drafts, approvals, sends and reports live in one workspace, and its features page documents exporting unlocked contacts to CSV for use elsewhere. ai does not document a public API or an MCP server. Medialyst is built to be called from other tools as well as used in its own app. A hosted remote MCP server exposes 34 tools over OAuth, and a public REST API creates media lists, polls their progress and enriches journalists, on every plan including the free credits.
That means you can build a list from inside Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex, or wire it into your own scripts and internal agents. sh, our open-source PR skill library, is MIT-licensed: plain-Markdown skills for newsworthiness checks, angles, fact-checks and journalist fit checks that run inside your own agent and call Medialyst for live news and verified journalist data. Custom research columns take plain-language questions, such as “Research if they use affiliate links”, and answer them across a whole list. Because every workflow ends in a list you review, Medialyst fits a pipeline where a person signs off before anything is sent.
Two pricing philosophies, side by side.
Ours is public and posted. Here's how it sits next to RunPR'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
- RunPR prices by client Account with unlimited seats: Solo $149/mo (up to 2 client Accounts), Studio $599/mo (up to 7) and Agency $1,499/mo (up to 15). Each plan includes monthly allowances of successful contact unlocks, AI-written pitches, coverage reports and AI-visibility scans, and packs can be added in a busy month. Multiply, the optional managed service, starts at $2,000/mo with RunPR included.
- 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.
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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!"
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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.
Common questions about switching from RunPR.
How much does RunPR cost in 2026?
RunPR vs Medialyst: what's the difference?
Does RunPR show why a reporter was matched?
Does RunPR send pitches automatically?
Who grades Medialyst's lists, and is the Carly Score independent?
Does RunPR have an API or MCP server?
Can I use Medialyst and RunPR together?
Judge the list yourself. Your first one is free.
Start free with 100 credits and no credit card. Paste your story and get a verified, story-specific list of journalists in minutes.