The HARO era ended and then partly restarted. Connectively—the rebranded HARO under Cision—shut down on December 9, 2024. In 2025, Featured.com acquired the HARO brand and revived it as a free email newsletter, so the name lives on as a Featured product. With that history clear, our top pick among source-request platforms is Featured, with an SR Score of 88, for free, well-moderated requests from real outlets. Qwoted (85) is the best paid marketplace, and MentionMatch (84)—formerly Help a B2B Writer—is the free pick for B2B niches.
The ranking
| Rank | Tool | Best for | Entry price | SR Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Featured (incl. revived HARO) | Free, quality requests | Free; Business ~$100/mo | 88 |
| 2 | Qwoted | Paid B2B/finance marketplace | Free; Pro $99/mo | 85 |
| 3 | MentionMatch (Help a B2B Writer) | Free B2B requests | Free | 84 |
| 4 | Source of Sources (SOS) | Free email digest | Free | 80 |
| 5 | SourceBottle | Free niche/regional queries | Free; pitch service $25 | 78 |
| 6 | Help a B2B Writer (legacy brand) | Curated B2B email | Free | 77 |
| 7 | #journorequest / Bluesky monitoring | Tool-free, real-time | Free | 70 |
Methodology
The Tool Score v2026 rubric weights five criteria summing to 100:
- Request quality & volume (30) — relevance, moderation, and how many real opportunities arrive.
- Outlet authority (25) — the caliber of publications behind the requests.
- Value for money (20) — what you get for the price (most are free, which scores well).
- Workflow & filtering (15) — topic filters, dashboards, pitch limits, ease of response.
- Transparency (10) — clear terms, honest about what’s free vs. paid.
Quality and outlet authority dominate because a flood of low-tier requests is worse than a handful from strong outlets. Because most of these are free, value scores are uniformly high.
Featured (and the revived HARO)
Featured (formerly Terkel) connects experts with writers’ requests and, since acquiring the HARO brand in 2025, also runs the free HARO newsletter. The core service is free. A Business plan around $100/month adds domain-authority filtering so you only see higher-DA requests. Requests are well moderated and span real publications.
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| Request quality & volume | 27/30 |
| Outlet authority | 22/25 |
| Value for money | 20/20 |
| Workflow & filtering | 12/15 |
| Transparency | 9/10 |
Trade-off: DA filtering sits behind the paid tier; free users sort manually.
Qwoted
A polished marketplace pairing expert sources with journalists, strong in B2B, tech, and finance. The free plan caps you at two pitches a month with delayed visibility; Pro is $99/month for full access and faster requests. Higher signal-to-noise than the free email lists.
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| Request quality & volume | 25/30 |
| Outlet authority | 23/25 |
| Value for money | 16/20 |
| Workflow & filtering | 14/15 |
| Transparency | 9/10 |
Trade-off: the free tier is deliberately thin; you pay $99 for the real thing.
MentionMatch (formerly Help a B2B Writer)
Free, email-driven, and curated to B2B topics. Writers submit a limited number of requests per week per publication, tagged by industry so relevant sources are notified. Excellent for SaaS, marketing, and finance experts; off-topic for consumer niches.
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| Request quality & volume | 24/30 |
| Outlet authority | 21/25 |
| Value for money | 20/20 |
| Workflow & filtering | 12/15 |
| Transparency | 9/10 |
Trade-off: B2B-only scope; thin for lifestyle, health, or local topics.
Source of Sources (SOS)
Launched by HARO founder Peter Shankman after Connectively closed, SOS is a free email digest of journalist requests. Simple and free, with a real founder pedigree; volume and filtering are basic compared with dashboard tools.
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| Request quality & volume | 22/30 |
| Outlet authority | 20/25 |
| Value for money | 20/20 |
| Workflow & filtering | 9/15 |
| Transparency | 9/10 |
Trade-off: email-only, minimal filtering—you scan the whole digest.
SourceBottle
A long-running free service strong in Australia, the UK, and niche/regional queries. Free to receive and answer; a $25 paid option will pitch your profile for you. Useful for lifestyle and regional coverage; lighter on big US outlets.
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| Request quality & volume | 20/30 |
| Outlet authority | 18/25 |
| Value for money | 19/20 |
| Workflow & filtering | 10/15 |
| Transparency | 9/10 |
Trade-off: regional skew and lower volume of top-tier US requests.
Help a B2B Writer (legacy brand)
The original Help a B2B Writer brand, now operating as MentionMatch, is sometimes still listed under its old name. Same free, curated B2B email model. We list it separately only because both names appear in the wild; functionally it is MentionMatch.
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| Request quality & volume | 23/30 |
| Outlet authority | 20/25 |
| Value for money | 20/20 |
| Workflow & filtering | 11/15 |
| Transparency | 8/10 |
Trade-off: the brand rename causes confusion; pick MentionMatch and ignore the duplicate listing.
#journorequest / Bluesky monitoring
Not a product—just monitoring the #journorequest hashtag on X and Bluesky, where journalists post real-time calls for sources. Free and immediate; no filtering, no moderation, and you compete in public threads.
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| Request quality & volume | 18/30 |
| Outlet authority | 18/25 |
| Value for money | 20/20 |
| Workflow & filtering | 6/15 |
| Transparency | 8/10 |
Trade-off: noisy and manual; best as a supplement, not your main channel.
Verification
- Featured / HARO — free model, Business tier, and 2025 HARO acquisition verified on featured.com and industry reporting.
- Qwoted — free and Pro $99/month pricing verified on qwoted.com.
- MentionMatch / Help a B2B Writer — free B2B model and rename verified on helpab2bwriter.com.
- Source of Sources — free digest and Shankman launch verified via SOS and PR coverage.
- SourceBottle — free model and $25 pitch service verified on sourcebottle.com.
- Connectively shutdown — December 9, 2024 closure verified via Cision/industry reporting.
Related rankings
- Best Digital PR Tools 2026: 7 Platforms Scored
- Best Backlink Checker Tools 2026: 6 Indexes Scored
- Best Backlink Monitoring Tools 2026: 6 Scored
- Best Broken Link Building Tools 2026: 7 Scored
Frequently asked questions
- Is HARO still around in 2026?
- Sort of. The original HARO became Connectively under Cision and shut down on December 9, 2024. Featured.com acquired the HARO brand in 2025 and relaunched it as a free email newsletter. So 'HARO' exists again, but it is now a Featured product, not the old Cision service.
- What is the best HARO alternative in 2026?
- Featured (which also runs the revived HARO newsletter) tops our scoring as the best free option. Qwoted is the strongest paid marketplace, and MentionMatch (formerly Help a B2B Writer) is the best free pick for B2B topics.
- Should I use more than one platform?
- Yes. Studies of these platforms show low overlap—often under 20%—between the requests each surfaces. Running two or three (for example Featured plus Qwoted plus MentionMatch) materially increases the opportunities you see.
- Do these platforms guarantee links?
- No. They connect you to journalists' requests; a link happens only if your quote is used and the outlet links sources. Treat them as a coverage channel, not a link vending machine, and answer fast with genuinely useful input.