Medialyst
ROI Calculator

What switching to Medialyst saves your agency

Built for media list builders. Pay per list, not per seat.

Calculating for
Your inputs
Average AM / AE rate$65/hr
Blended account-manager / executive rate. Higher in senior agencies.
Media lists per week5
Hours spent per list3
Time recovered with Medialyst95%
Manual touch-up after initial media list built by AI.
$
e.g. Rox Hill, Cision, Muck Rack
Vendor seats today
What you're licensed for now
4
Seats you'd keep
Dropping the vendor entirely
0
Freeing 4 of 4 seats · $8,700/yr off vendor licences
Plan tier
Your savings
$53,277
saved per year
Hours saved741 hrs
Team time recovered$48,165
Vendor savings$5,112
Per seat vs per list
Rox Hill, Cision, and Muck Rack charge per seat — even for the head of comms who never builds a list. Medialyst charges per list. If they don't build, you don't pay.
AI for PR · ROI & savings

How much can PR agencies save by adopting AI?

AI media-relations tools cut the manual labor of building media lists and replace per-seat database fees with usage-based pricing. Below are typical return-on-investment scenarios for PR agencies, followed by the questions teams ask most when evaluating AI for public relations.

Sample ROI calculations

Boutique agency
$15,997
saved per year
Volume2 lists / week
Hours / list · rate2.5 hrs · $55
PlanStarter · Switch
Hours recovered247 hrs
Team time$13,585
Vendor savings$2,412
Mid-size agency
$53,277
saved per year
Volume5 lists / week
Hours / list · rate3 hrs · $65
PlanPro · Switch
Hours recovered741 hrs
Team time$48,165
Vendor savings$5,112
Large agency
$188,775
saved per year
Volume12 lists / week
Hours / list · rate3.5 hrs · $85
PlanScale · Switch
Hours recovered2,075 hrs
Team time$176,375
Vendor savings$12,400

Frequently asked questions

What is the typical ROI of adopting AI for PR?

Most PR agencies that adopt AI for media relations see a 5–15× return in the first year. The gains come from reclaiming staff hours spent on manual journalist research — often 600 to 2,000 hours a year — and from replacing per-seat media database fees with usage-based pricing. A mid-size agency building five media lists a week typically nets roughly $50,000 in annual savings.

How much can PR agencies save by adopting AI?

Savings scale with list volume and team rate. A boutique agency building two lists a week saves around $16,000 a year; a mid-size agency at five lists a week saves about $53,000; and a large agency producing 12+ lists a week can save $185,000 or more. The total combines recovered account-manager and account-executive time with the gap between per-seat licences and per-list pricing.

How can PR agencies reduce manual labor with AI?

AI automates the most repetitive parts of media relations: finding relevant journalists by beat and recent bylines, verifying and enriching contact details, scoring fit, and keeping lists current as reporters change roles. This compresses two to four hours of manual research per targeted media list into minutes, freeing account teams for strategy, pitching, and client relationships.

Is per-list pricing cheaper than per-seat media databases?

For most agencies, yes. Per-seat tools such as Cision, Muck Rack, and Rox Hill charge for every licensed user, including executives who rarely build a list. Per-list pricing charges only for the lists you actually produce, so costs track output instead of headcount and you stop paying for idle seats.

How long does building a media list take with AI vs manually?

Building a targeted media list by hand typically takes two to four hours of research, cross-referencing outlets and verifying emails. With AI, a scored and verified list of 30 to 50 journalists can be produced in minutes, with contact data validated against multiple providers.

How is AI ROI for PR calculated?

Multiply your media lists per week by 52, then by the hours each list takes and the share of that time AI recovers — that is the staff time saved, valued at your blended hourly rate. Add the difference between your current vendor cost and the AI subscription. The calculator above does this live; adjust the inputs to model your own agency.