HARO Is Gone: How Founders Get Quoted in the Media in 2026
The original HARO, rebranded Connectively under Cision, was permanently discontinued on December 9, 2024, and the best replacements today are Qwoted, Featured.com, Peter Shankman’s free Source of Sources, the relaunched ad-supported HARO now owned by Featured.com, and journalist requests posted directly on X and LinkedIn. All of them work the same way: a reporter posts a question, dozens of experts answer, and one or two get quoted. Expect to spend several hours a week for weeks before a first quote lands, and treat a quote as a credibility asset rather than a traffic source. If you need a full feature about your company on a specific date, a guaranteed placement is usually the better buy.
Key takeaways
- Cision shut Connectively (the former HARO) down on December 9, 2024; Featured.com bought the HARO brand in April 2025 and relaunched it as a free, ad-supported daily email.
- Qwoted, Featured.com, Source of Sources and MentionMatch (formerly Help a B2B Writer) are the main structured platforms; X and LinkedIn are the unstructured backchannel.
- Source platforms produce short expert quotes inside a journalist’s story, not profiles of your company, so they build authority slowly.
- A usable quote is specific, short, attributable and delivered within an hour or two of the request.
- When the goal is a full feature, a fixed deadline or a specific outlet, a guaranteed editorial placement is more predictable than months of pitching.
What are the best HARO alternatives in 2026?
The best HARO alternatives depend on whether you value free volume or paid speed. Source of Sources and the relaunched HARO are free email digests with high volume. Qwoted and Featured.com are freemium platforms where paying removes delays or unlocks more pitches. MentionMatch is a niche option built around B2B writers. X and LinkedIn cost nothing but require you to monitor them yourself.
Here is the background. Cision states that “as of December 9, 2024, the Connectively (HARO) platform has been permanently discontinued.” Four months later, Featured.com announced on April 16, 2025 that it had acquired Help A Reporter Out from Cision and would return it “to its original format of delivering daily opportunities via email,” free for journalists and sources and supported by newsletter ads. So HARO the brand exists again, but the Cision-era platform many founders remember is gone, and the ecosystem around it has fragmented.
Platform comparison
| Platform | Cost to sources (verified Sept 2026) | Volume and format | Verification and controls | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwoted | Basic free plan: 2 pitches per month with a 2-hour response delay. Pro: $149 per month for 35 pitches with no delay. Teams: custom pricing, per the Qwoted pricing page. | Real-time alerts, a daily opportunities email, and an expert database reporters search directly. | Journalists open the requests and choose whom to contact; paid tiers add pitch intelligence and research tools. | Founders and agencies who want speed and are willing to pay for it. |
| Featured.com | Free plan with a daily allowance of AI credits, Lite at $29 per month billed annually, Pro at $79 per month billed annually, per the Featured pricing page. All plans include every feature; you pay for more daily usage. | Opportunity discovery across journalist requests, podcasts and speaking events, with pitching from inside the platform. | The company reports a community of over 50,000 experts and a network of 2,500 or more media outlets in its HARO acquisition announcement. | Experts who want one dashboard for quotes, podcasts and speaking. |
| HARO (relaunched) | Free, ad-supported. | Daily email of journalist queries. | Journalist profiles are being added for verification, according to the HARO blog. | High-volume browsing at no cost. |
| Source of Sources (SOS) | Free. SOS says the list “doesn’t cost a dime.” | “Up to three times a day, you’ll get an email filled with queries from journalists across top media outlets.” SOS cites 20,000 or more journalists, broadcasters, bloggers and brands using it. | Founder Peter Shankman also created the original HARO. | Founders who want the classic HARO experience without a subscription. |
| MentionMatch (formerly Help a B2B Writer) | Pricing is not stated on the homepage; it promotes that “sources get coverage and backlinks.” | Matches B2B writers with expert sources; the site reports 8,000 or more sources. | Small, B2B-focused community; helpab2bwriter.com now redirects to MentionMatch. | SaaS, marketing and B2B founders who want blog and trade coverage. |
| X and LinkedIn | Free. | Reporters post requests with hashtags such as #JournoRequest or #PRrequest, or simply ask their followers. | None. You verify the reporter yourself by checking their outlet byline. | Fast, informal requests, especially in tech, finance and consumer news. |
Prices and plan limits change often. Check each platform before you budget.
How does expert-quote sourcing actually work?
A journalist on deadline writes a short request: the topic, the kind of expert wanted, the deadline, and sometimes the outlet. The platform sends it to thousands of subscribers. Experts reply with a short answer and a bio. The journalist picks the one or two responses that fit the story, sometimes edits them, and publishes. Most respondents never hear back.
That last point matters. These platforms are designed for the journalist’s convenience, not yours. Reporters skim, and the first credible, quotable replies usually win. This is why Qwoted charges to remove its two-hour delay and why Featured meters usage in daily credits. Speed and relevance are the scarce resources.
Three realities shape your results:
- Volume is high and relevance is low. On a busy day you may see dozens of requests, of which two or three genuinely fit your expertise.
- Anonymity is common. Many requests hide the outlet name, so you cannot always tell whether you are pitching a national newspaper or a small blog.
- The output is a quote, not a feature. You get one to three sentences with your name and company inside someone else’s article. It is real earned media, but it is not a story about you.
What response rates and time cost should you expect?
No platform publishes verified response rates, so treat any specific percentage you see online with caution. What experienced users consistently report is that most pitches go unanswered, that fit and speed decide who gets used, and that consistency over months beats bursts of activity.
A realistic time budget for a founder doing this alone looks like this:
- Scanning: 15 to 30 minutes per day across two or three sources.
- Writing: 20 to 40 minutes per pitch you decide to send, if you want it to be good.
- Follow-through: time to send a headshot, confirm a title, or answer a follow-up question when a journalist bites.
Add that up and you are at three to five hours per week. Many founders sustain that for a month, land nothing, and stop. The ones who get quoted regularly usually either delegate scanning to a team member or narrow to a few beats where they can answer better than anyone else.
If you want to understand how this fits alongside other options a small team can run, the guide on how small businesses land press coverage without a PR department covers the wider playbook.
How do you write a quote that gets used?
Journalists use quotes that give them something they could not write themselves: a specific number, a first-hand example, a counterintuitive take, or a crisp explanation. They ignore generic advice, sales language and anything that requires editing to be printable.
A pitch structure that works
- Subject line that mirrors the request, so the reporter can match it instantly.
- One sentence on why you are qualified, with a verifiable credential (title, company, years, a specific outcome you can prove).
- Two to four sentences of answer, written in the exact voice you want printed, with one concrete detail.
- A one-line bio with your name, title, company and website, formatted so it can be copied directly.
- An offer of more: a follow-up call, data, or a second angle if the story shifts.
What to avoid
- Answering questions outside your real expertise. Reporters remember bad sources.
- Padding. If your answer needs a paragraph of context before the point, cut the context.
- Attaching decks or asking the reporter to visit your site to learn more.
- Pitching your product. A quote that reads like an ad will be cut or rewritten.
- Missing the deadline by minutes. Requests often close early once enough good replies arrive.
One more habit separates founders who get quoted from those who do not: they keep a running document of their strongest data points, examples and opinions by topic, so a pitch takes 15 minutes instead of 45.
Where do journalist requests on X and LinkedIn fit?
X and LinkedIn are the unstructured layer of expert sourcing. Reporters post a request when they need a source quickly and do not want to wait for a platform digest. On X, requests cluster around hashtags. X’s own help documentation explains that clicking or searching a hashtag surfaces every post using it, and its advanced search lets you filter by words, accounts and dates. Searching #JournoRequest, #PRrequest or the name of your industry plus “looking for” is a workable daily routine.
LinkedIn works differently. Requests appear as ordinary posts from reporters and editors, so the practical approach is to follow the journalists who cover your category, turn on notifications for a handful of them, and reply quickly and publicly when they ask for sources. Because there is no gatekeeper, verify anyone who contacts you by finding their byline on the outlet’s own site before you share anything.
The advantage of both channels is that the reporter can see who you are before choosing you. The disadvantage is that you have to be watching at the right moment.
When is a guaranteed feature the better buy?
A guaranteed feature is the better buy when you need a full article about your company, when timing matters (a launch, a raise, a hire, an event), when you want a specific outlet, or when your team cannot commit several hours a week for an uncertain payoff. Quote sourcing is the better path when you have time, want steady low-cost authority signals across many outlets, and are comfortable with unpredictable results.
Be clear-eyed about what each produces. A quote is earned editorial, and earned media is what AI assistants overwhelmingly cite: Muck Rack’s May 2026 analysis of more than 25 million links found that earned media accounts for 84% of AI citations while paid or advertorial content accounts for 0.3%. A guaranteed feature is a different product: a journalist did not independently choose to cover you, and it should never be presented as if one had. Ask any provider to confirm in writing how the article will be presented, which URL pattern it will use and whether it is indexed. Its value lies elsewhere: a complete narrative you approved, a credible outlet name for sales and investor conversations, an as-seen-in signal, and search presence for your brand name.
Decision guide: quotes versus features
| Your situation | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You have time, a narrow expertise and no deadline | Quote sourcing | Low cost, compounding authority, genuinely earned |
| You need coverage tied to a launch or funding date | Guaranteed feature | Sourcing cannot promise timing or outlet |
| You want a full story about your company, not a sentence | Guaranteed feature | Platforms produce quotes, not profiles |
| You are building toward a Knowledge Panel or entity presence | Both | Quotes add corroboration; a feature adds a complete reference |
| Your budget is near zero | SOS, relaunched HARO, X | All free, but budget the hours |
| You have tried sourcing for three months with no result | Reassess | Either narrow your beats or move budget to placements |
For a sense of how placement costs compare with retainers and sourcing time, see the breakdown of what a PR agency costs on retainer versus pay-per-placement. And if you are weighing patience against budget, the piece on how long PR takes to work sets expectations for both routes.
How do founders combine sourcing with placements?
The most effective founders do not choose one. They use sourcing to accumulate earned quotes across many outlets, and they use one or two guaranteed features per year to anchor the narrative in a recognizable publication. The quotes make the feature more credible; the feature gives journalists a reference point when they check you out before using your quote.
A simple annual rhythm:
- Quarter one: set up two free digests and one paid platform, define three beats, and build your data-point document.
- Quarters one through four: respond to two or three well-fitting requests per week, tracking which beats convert.
- Before a milestone: commission a guaranteed feature in an outlet your buyers recognize, timed to the announcement.
- After the feature: cite it in your bio on every sourcing platform, which improves your pick rate.
For what a guaranteed placement includes and how the process runs, read the guaranteed press placements process and pricing guide, and for realistic timelines by outlet see how to get featured in major publications.
Where a placement service fits
Viral Spike Marketing is a public relations agency for brands, founders and creators that arranges guaranteed editorial placements in outlets such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, USA Today, Newsweek and Yahoo Finance on a pay-per-placement basis with a publish-or-refund guarantee. Every article is approved by the client before it is placed. These placements are guaranteed editorial features: you approve the draft, the publication, article format, timeline and refund terms are named in writing before you pay, the article is published and indexed on Google, and the engagement is refunded in full if it never runs. They are not a substitute for the earned quotes described above; they are the predictable half of a strategy that also includes sourcing. If you have a launch, raise or rebrand on the calendar and cannot leave coverage to chance, contact the team to discuss which outlet fits the goal.
Pick the route that matches your deadline
If you have a narrow expertise and a few hours a week, set up Source of Sources, the relaunched HARO and one paid platform, define your beats, and commit to three months of fast, specific replies. If you need a complete feature in a recognizable outlet tied to a date, sourcing will not deliver that on schedule, and a contracted placement will. Either way, be honest about what each produces and describe it accurately. When you are ready to plan a feature around a launch or milestone, talk to Viral Spike Marketing about which publication fits your audience and what the process involves.
Frequently asked questions
Is HARO still around in 2026?
Yes, in a new form. Cision permanently discontinued the Connectively platform, formerly HARO, on December 9, 2024. Featured.com acquired the HARO brand from Cision in April 2025 and relaunched it as a free, ad-supported daily email of journalist queries. The original Cision-era platform and its archives are gone, but the name and the email format are back.
What is the best free HARO alternative?
Source of Sources, founded by original HARO creator Peter Shankman, is free and sends up to three emails a day with journalist queries. The relaunched HARO from Featured.com is also free and ad-supported. Both give you volume; neither gives you speed advantages, so respond within the first hour whenever a request fits your expertise.
Is Qwoted or Featured better for getting quoted?
Qwoted’s free plan allows two pitches a month with a two-hour delay; Pro at $149 per month allows 35 pitches with no delay. Featured has a free plan plus Lite at $29 and Pro at $79 per month billed annually, metered by daily credits. Qwoted suits people who want reporter access fast; Featured suits experts who also want podcasts and speaking opportunities.
How long does it take to get quoted through source platforms?
There is no verified average, and results vary by industry and effort. Founders who respond to two or three well-matched requests a week commonly report a first quote within one to two months, with results improving as they narrow their beats and build a bank of ready data points. Sporadic pitching rarely produces anything.
Should I pitch journalists or pay for a guaranteed feature?
Pitch when you have time, a clear specialty and no deadline; the result is earned media, which AI assistants cite far more often than paid content. Pay for a guaranteed feature when you need a full story, a specific outlet or a fixed date. Many founders do both and use each to strengthen the other.
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