HARO (Help a Reporter Out) didn’t disappear. Featured.com bought it in April 2025 and relaunched it as a free email digest, but most of its journalists and sources moved to newer platforms.
These eight platforms are where the journalist traffic went, and where your next editorial backlink is most likely to come from. They include sites like Source of Sources, Featured, Qwoted, MentionMatch, SourceBottle, ResponseSource, the #JournoRequest hashtag on X, and the revived HARO itself.
Quick Summary
- Why HARO’s 2024 shutdown pushed journalists to platforms that haven’t fully recovered their source pools
- What each of the 8 platforms costs in 2026, and what you actually get for it
- Who Source of Sources, Featured, and Qwoted are built for (they’re not interchangeable)
- The budget rubric that identifies your starting pair in under a minute
- Why running two platforms from day one beats committing to one
- When journalist outreach isn’t the right link building tactic for your site
What Happened to HARO (and Why People Search for Alternatives Now)
HARO, as most people knew it, shut down on December 9, 2024, when Cision’s rebranded version, Connectively, closed entirely.
Current Status
Featured.com bought the brand and relaunched it on April 22, 2025, as a free, ad-supported email digest.
That four-month gap is what actually matters here.
Journalists and sources didn’t wait. They moved to platforms like Qwoted, Source of Sources, and Featured, and most of them didn’t come back when HARO returned.
The audience that HARO built over 16 years is now split across the tools that filled the gap.
Pitching only the new HARO means competing for a much smaller journalist pool than before.
Pitching the alternatives allows you to reach the reporters and editors who migrated to other platforms.
For a full walkthrough of the new HARO’s pitch process, see our HARO link building guide.
The 8 Best HARO Alternatives in 2026 at a Glance
The eight HARO alternatives most worth a beginner’s time in 2026 are Source of Sources, Featured, Qwoted, MentionMatch, SourceBottle, ResponseSource, #JournoRequest on X, and the revived HARO.
According to BuzzStream’s 2025 platform study, only 21.9% of journalist requests across the seven major platforms explicitly offer a follow link.
That single figure changes how you pick a platform.
If dofollow rate is your filter, Qwoted is the outlier worth noting: 70.3% of its opportunities sit in the DA (Domain Authority) 70 to 100 band. DA is a 0 to 100 score from Moz that estimates a site’s ranking strength.
This is the range where a single placement moves your link profile.
The table below shows the starting cost, who each one suits best, and whether the links typically pass SEO (search engine optimization) value to your website.
| Platform | Best For | Starting Cost | Free Tier | Link Attribute |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Source of Sources | Free email digest from HARO’s original founder | Free | Always free | Depends on the outlet |
| Featured | Highest active query volume, owns HARO | Free or $39/month | 3 answers/month free | Depends on the outlet |
| Qwoted | High-authority publication targets | Free or $149/month | 2 pitches/month free | Mostly dofollow |
| MentionMatch | B2B, SaaS, and marketing niches | Free | Always free | Depends on the outlet |
| SourceBottle | Lifestyle, AU, and UK queries | Free or $65/month | Free daily emails | Depends on the outlet |
| ResponseSource | UK press outreach with category targeting | £85 per release | No free tier | Depends on the outlet |
| #JournoRequest on X | Real-time social monitoring | Free | Always free | Depends on the outlet |
| HARO (revived) | Returning brand, smaller source pool | Free | Always free | Depends on the outlet |
Note: Pricing tiers come from each platform’s public pricing page.
The link attribute column above says “depends on outlet” for most platforms. Because the platform itself doesn’t control whether the journalist’s publication adds a dofollow or nofollow tag.
8 HARO Alternatives Reviewed (With Honest Pros, Cons, and Who Each One Suits)
Price and format are the obvious ways to sort these tools, but the variable that actually decides your results is query volume versus response competition.
A free platform with 200 daily queries and 5,000 active respondents is a worse deal than a paid platform with 40 queries and 300 respondents.
Position in a thin pool beats access to a crowded one.
These eight platforms break into three groups:
1. Free email digests:
- Source of Source
- MentionMatch
- Revived HARO
- #JournoRequest
2. Paid dashboards with vetted query feeds
- Featured
- Qwoted
3. Region-or category-specific options
- SourceBottle
- ResponseSource
Each review covers what the platform actually does, who gets real traction on it, and whether the cost (in money or time) is worth it.
1. Source of Sources (SoS): Best Free Option, Runs Like the Original HARO
Source of Sources is a free daily email newsletter that works the way HARO did before Connectively broke it.
Peter Shankman, who built HARO in 2008, launched SoS in April 2024, specifically because the replacement product failed the people who use the original.
Three emails a day land in your inbox. Each one carries journalist requests grouped by category (business, lifestyle, tech, health, and so on).
You scroll the list, pick the requests where you have something real to say, and reply by email directly to the journalist who posted the query.
The source pool stayed high-quality after HARO’s collapse because most working journalists moved to SoS first. That matters more than the free price tag. A platform is only as useful as the publications on the other end.
SoS is for anyone starting with a zero budget and no prior outreach experience. It’s strongest for general business, technology, and consumer-lifestyle queries.
There’s no paid tier and no pay-per-pitch option. You sign up with your email on the SoS website, and queries arrive the next morning.
2. Featured: Fastest Turnaround and the Platform That Now Owns HARO
Featured is a paid platform, with a limited free tier, that connects subject-matter experts with journalists writing structured roundup articles.
In April 2025, Featured acquired Help A Reporter Out (HARO) from Cision, the media intelligence company that had owned it since 2014. Under Featured’s ownership, HARO has been revived as a free service that delivers daily journalist query emails and helps experts respond with insights.
The format is different from HARO.
Journalists post specific roundup questions (for example, “What’s the one productivity tool you can’t work without?”).
Experts answer in a structured short-form box, and the journalist publishes the roundup with the best three to five answers as named expert quotes.
Turnaround is faster because the articles are pre-planned roundups, not open-ended interviews.
Featured fits anyone with clear expertise in a defined niche who can write a short, useful answer in four or five sentences. It’s the strongest single platform for first-year founders in e-commerce, productivity, marketing, and any consumer-facing service category.
The free tier lets you submit three answers per month, which is enough to test whether the platform produces for your topic before you commit. Paid plans start at $39 per month for more answers, with $49 Pro and $99 Business tiers above that. The Featured pricing page lists current tiers.
3. Qwoted: Best for High-Authority Placements (If You Can Justify the Price)
Qwoted is a paid, vetted dashboard where editors and publicists hand-screen sources before they are allowed to pitch, which keeps daily query volume lower while raising publication quality above that of any other platform.
The platform’s request mix leans heaviest toward outlets you’d actually want a link from.
According to BuzzStream’s 2025 study cited above, 70.3% of Qwoted opportunities sit in the DA 70 to 100 band, which means most of the publications you can pitch on Qwoted are large, well-established media sites where a single placement is worth more for SEO than ten low-quality directory mentions combined.
Qwoted fits anyone with a real budget for journalist outreach who already knows their pitch produces results on free platforms. It’s wasted money for a beginner who’s still figuring out their angle.
The free tier offers 2 pitches per month, which is barely enough to test the platform. Paid plans start at $149 per month for about 35 pitches, with higher tiers available. For most beginners, the right move is to land three placements free on Source of Sources or Featured before paying for Qwoted.
4. MentionMatch (Formerly Help a B2B Writer): Best Free Option for B2B and SaaS Niches
MentionMatch (formerly Help a B2B Writer) is a free daily email newsletter run by Superpath, the B2B content marketing community, that delivers requests from writers covering marketing, sales, SaaS (software as a service), and B2B technology.
The format follows the SoS pattern. One daily email arrives in your inbox with grouped queries at the top.
You reply by email to the writer with your contribution, and the writer chooses two or three answers to include in the published article.
Most of the queries come from B2B blogs, SaaS company content teams, and industry trade publications.
MentionMatch fits anyone whose business sells to other businesses, especially SaaS founders, marketing consultants, sales tools, and B2B service providers. It’s a poor fit for direct-to-consumer e-commerce or local services where the audience doesn’t read B2B publications.
The platform is free. Superpath funds it as a community service for its B2B members. There’s no paid tier and no pay-per-pitch option.
5. SourceBottle: Best for Lifestyle, Australia, and UK Markets
SourceBottle is an Australian-founded daily query newsletter. It focuses on lifestyle, wellness, parenting, food, and product roundups, with strong coverage in UK and Australian publications and a weaker presence in the US.
The mechanic mirrors HARO. Twice-daily emails carry journalist callouts by category; you reply by email, and the journalist picks the answers they use.
The Australian and UK orientation means lower competition on each query than a US-only platform, which can boost your reply-to-placement ratio if you operate in those markets.
SourceBottle fits product-based businesses, lifestyle brands, and any founder targeting Australian or UK media. It’s the wrong tool for a US tech founder because most of the queries come from outlets your US customers will never read.
The free tier covers daily emails and unlimited replies. Paid plans add features like priority callout submissions and start around $65 per month, but the free tier is enough for most users.
6. ResponseSource: Best for UK Press Outreach with Category Targeting
ResponseSource is a UK-focused paid platform that runs in two directions. You can send press releases to specific journalist categories (finance, tech, retail, lifestyle, sustainability), and you can monitor inbound journalist inquiries that match the categories you’ve subscribed to.
The pricing model is unusual. Unlike subscription platforms, ResponseSource sells release credits at £85 per release (covering three relevant categories) and bundles for higher volume (10 releases for £675, 20 for £1,050).
ResponseSource fits established UK businesses and agencies with budget and a steady stream of press-worthy content: new product launches, original data reports, industry surveys. It’s a poor fit for a beginner anywhere because the entry price is too high for a single placement.
For most beginners, ResponseSource is a tool to know about and skip until you are operating at a scale that justifies the per-release cost.
7. #JournoRequest on X (and LinkedIn): Best Free Social Monitoring Play
#JournoRequest is a hashtag used by journalists across X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Bluesky to post real-time requests for expert sources.
Unlike platform-based options, you reply directly in the thread or in a direct message.
Treating the hashtag like a daily five-minute scan works better than treating it like a primary channel.
The query volume is unpredictable: some days yield three useful requests; other days, nothing relevant.
Most US-based queries come from freelance journalists rather than staff writers at large publications.
The #JournoRequest hashtag is for anyone with an active social account in their niche who can carve out 5 minutes a day to scan and reply. It’s a poor primary stack but a strong supplement to a platform-based pair like Source of Sources plus Featured.
The hashtag is free. You can set up a saved search in X or a column in X Pro to monitor it automatically. LinkedIn and Bluesky versions use the same hashtag spelling.
8. HARO Itself in 2026: Worth Using as a Backup, Not as a Foundation
HARO 2.0 returned on April 22, 2025, under Featured.com ownership, running again as a free email digest of journalist requests. But the source pool is rebuilding from a much smaller base than the original ever had.
The new HARO sends three emails a day, grouping queries by category, in the same format that ran from 2008 to 2024.
Featured added a verification layer. It filters out unqualified sources, uses an artificial intelligence (AI) detection step to flag computer-generated answers, and imposes bans on repeat offenders. The platform funds itself through newsletter advertising rather than subscription fees.
HARO 2.0 fits any source that wants to receive HARO-style queries with the legacy brand attached.
It’s a useful supplement to a primary stack, but not the foundation of one, because most of the working journalists who would’ve used it before Connectively are now elsewhere.
You sign up for free at the Featured-owned HARO website.
How to Pick the Right HARO Alternative for Your Situation
Pick your starting pair by budget first, then by niche.
The three-tier rubric below points a beginner to exactly two platforms to log in to this week, with no commitment to add a third until those two are producing placements.
| Your situation | Start with these two | Add later |
|---|---|---|
| Zero budget, B2B or SaaS | Source of Sources + MentionMatch | Featured free tier |
| Zero budget, e-commerce, or services | Source of Sources + Featured free tier | MentionMatch (if B2B-adjacent) |
| Zero budget, UK or Australia | Source of Sources + #JournoRequest on X | SourceBottle free tier |
| $50 per month total | Source of Sources free + Featured Lite at $39 | MentionMatch free, B2B only |
| $150+ per month total | Featured Lite + Qwoted Pro | Source of Sources free |
The rubric reflects an Outreach Desk observation: a free-only stack of Source of Sources plus one niche-matched second platform produces first placements within four to eight weeks for most beginners, well before paying for Qwoted would have made sense.
Paying $149 a month for Qwoted before you’ve landed three free placements is wasted money. Free Source of Sources, plus Featured, will teach you whether your pitches work.
Once they do, the math on a $149-per-month tool starts to make sense. Until they do, it doesn’t.
Once the rubric is produced for you, the next layer is broader outreach.
Cold-pitching site owners directly, building topical authority (becoming the website Google trusts most on a specific subject) through guest contributions, and combining multiple link tactics into one program.
Guide on how outreach actually works at scale walks through what the broader program looks like.
Why Running Two or Three Platforms in Parallel Beats Picking One
Running two or three HARO alternatives in parallel solves the three structural failures that eventually break any single-platform stack: query volume gaps, platform-collapse risk, and niche-coverage mismatches.
Volume gaps are a daily reality. One platform might surface a single usable query on Monday and nothing on Tuesday. Two platforms with different editorial calendars roughly halve those dry spells.
You won’t double your placements, since most queries on either platform won’t match your niche. Instead, you get close to a daily pace where at least one query is worth your time.
Platform-failure risk is the lesson from December 9, 2024. When Connectively shut down, sources that were already running two- or three-platform stacks lost almost no placement velocity.
Sources that relied solely on Connectively experienced a six- to eight-week pipeline gap before recovery.
Niche coverage gaps appear because each platform leans heavily toward a different topic category. Featured leans heavily into productivity and marketing. SoS covers general business and lifestyle. MentionMatch is B2B-only, and SourceBottle is lifestyle and product.
Two platforms with different leans give your niche two chances to show up in the daily queue.
The lesson is structural. A single-platform stack is one corporate decision away from zero output. The platforms that beat that risk are the ones you spread across, not the one you pick best.
What HARO Alternatives Can’t Do for You (and When to Skip Them Entirely)
HARO alternatives are not a substitute for the broader link building program your most competitive keywords actually need. For some sites and stages, the time spent pitching journalists is better spent elsewhere.
Expert-quote placements help with topical authority and brand visibility.
They don’t, on their own, rank you for high-volume head keywords (the short, broad search terms like “best running shoes” or “small business loans”) where the top ten results all have hundreds of referring domains (separate websites linking to them).
For that, you need the full strategy stack: editorial guest contributions, link inserts on relevant pages, partnership mentions, and ongoing outreach beyond the journalist channel.
Brand new domains under three months old should put HARO alternatives on the shelf until the site has at least 10 to 15 content pages and 5 to 10 starter backlinks from directories or citations.
A fresh domain that lands one journalist quote on a strong site won’t get much out of it. Because Google hasn’t built enough trust in the rest of the site yet.
Local-only businesses (a single-city law firm, a regional dental practice, a neighborhood restaurant) almost always get more from local SEO and citation building than from national journalist quotes.
The link from a national lifestyle blog matters less than the rankings in your city’s map pack (the box of three local businesses Google shows on the map at the top of local search results).
If your stage is too early for journalist pitching, guest post placements are usually an easier starting point. Pitching independent bloggers directly is another low-barrier alternative for early-stage sites and works well when paired with one of the free journalist platforms above.
Your First Week: Pick a Stack and Send Three Pitches
Open Source of Sources and pick the second platform that matches your niche. If you sell to other businesses, that second platform is MentionMatch. If you sell to consumers or run a service, it’s the Featured free tier.
Send your first three replies this week and decide whether to add a paid tier only after a placement has actually landed.
If you’d rather have journalist outreach handled while you focus on the business, an outreach driven link-building agency handles editorial outreach, end-to-end prospecting, personalization, follow-ups, and placement tracking.
Conclusion
HARO may be gone, but the opportunity behind it still exists. Journalists, publishers, podcasters, and content creators continue to look for expert insights, original data, and credible sources every day.
The best HARO alternatives are the ones that match your goals. Some platforms help you earn media coverage. Others help you secure backlinks, brand mentions, or industry visibility. The right choice depends on where your audience spends time and the type of authority you want to build.
Instead of relying on a single platform, focus on creating expert contributions, building publisher relationships, and consistently putting your expertise in front of relevant opportunities. That approach remains effective regardless of which platform is currently popular.
Looking for a more reliable way to earn links and media mentions?
Get a strategy focused on securing placements from relevant publishers and industry websites.
Is HARO still active in 2026?
Yes. Featured.com bought HARO from Cision on April 15, 2025, and relaunched it on April 22, 2025, as a free, ad-supported daily email digest, in the same format the original ran from 2008 to 2024.
The source pool is smaller than HARO’s peak because most working journalists moved to other platforms during the four months HARO was shut down, but the platform itself works, and queries arrive in inboxes again three times a day.
What is the best free HARO alternative?
Source of Sources is the best free HARO alternative for most beginners. It was created in April 2024 by Peter Shankman, the same person who launched HARO in 2008.
The platform works the same way: three daily emails with grouped journalist requests you reply to directly. For B2B and SaaS niches specifically, MentionMatch (formerly Help a B2B Writer) is the second-strongest free option and complements Source of Sources well.
Are HARO alternative links dofollow?
Most aren’t guaranteed dofollow, because the platform itself doesn’t control how the journalist’s publication tags the link. BuzzStream’s research shows fewer than 1 in 4 journalist requests explicitly guarantee a dofollow link. The rest depend on the outlet that publishes your quote. For the underlying mechanics, see what dofollow really means and how Google treats each attribute.
Is Qwoted worth the price for a small business?
Qwoted is worth the price only after you’ve landed three free placements on Source of Sources or Featured. The $149-per-month minimum is too high to justify for a beginner still figuring out what makes their pitch work. Once your free pitches are producing, Qwoted’s high-authority query mix makes the price defensible for B2B and SaaS founders in particular.If pitching consistently isn’t realistic alongside everything else, an editorial outreach team can run journalist outreach on your behalf across both free and paid platforms.
Who bought HARO?
Featured.com bought HARO from Cision on April 15, 2025. Featured is run by Brett Farmiloe and his team, and it previously operated as Terkel before rebranding to Featured.
The acquisition gave Featured both its own dashboard product and the legacy HARO brand and email digest, which it relaunched a week later on April 22, 2025.
Can I use #JournoRequest on X instead of HARO?
You can use #JournoRequest on X as a supplement, not a replacement. The hashtag delivers real-time journalist requests across X, LinkedIn, and Bluesky, and a daily five-minute scan can catch useful queries. But the daily volume is unpredictable.
The queries skew heavily toward freelance writers rather than staff journalists at large publications, and the absence of a structured query format makes it harder to track which pitches you’ve already sent.
