12+ Digital PR Tools Like HARO to Help Boost Your Backlinks

Time to read: 10 minutes

This post was originally published in 2020 and has been updated to reflect changes to the various tools mentioned. Last updated April 13, 2026.

For many businesses, getting your name out there is so important for building brand awareness and authority, and to do so, you must engage in quality marketing tactics, such as digital PR.

What Was (But Now Again Is) HARO?

HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, was a platform created by journalists to gain knowledge and feedback from relevant outside sources. It was then purchased by Cision and renamed to Connectively, which then shut down in late 2024. But then, in 2025, it was brought back by the team at Featured!

Sites Like HARO to Help with Digital PR and Link Building Efforts

HARO was a great way to form connections, increase your credibility, and establish authority online. But with its recent changes, it shouldn’t be your go-to tool anymore. Here is a list of other sites to consider to help your business become known:

Source of Sources (SOS)

Founded by the original creator of HARO, Peter Shankman, Source of Sources mimics the experience of HARO by sending emails three times a day with new journalist requests. Not to mention, it is completely free!

Types of questions asked pertain to topics such as:

• General
• Business and Finance
• Healthcare and Pharma
• Lifestyle and Entertainment
• Travel
• Technology

Featured (Formerly Terkel)

Newer to the marketing scene is Featured. It’s free to sign up, with paid plans available, and you are able to reply to requests from various niches similar to HARO (business, health, home and garden, real estate, and more). They also include pitches that are local to Arizona, which can be an asset for businesses out west looking for more local link opportunities.

Free accounts can reply to three pitches a month, while premium members get unlimited responses and can learn other important metrics from sources such as their domain ranking (DR) from Ahrefs and whether their pitch is a DoFollow, NoFollow, unlinked, or unknown.

Here are each user pack and its features:

• Free – This is a free account that allows 3 answers per month. With this account, you cannot see if the link you get will be a DoFollow or NoFollow, or their domain ranking.
• Lite – For just $19/month, you get 10 answers/month, personalized query matching, blocklists, and more.
• Pro– With this account for $99/month, you can have unlimited answers and see domain rating and link attributes.
• Team – For $199, you’ll receive the same benefits as the Pro plan, but you can have multiple accounts, which works well for a team of people.

Meltwater

More than 30,000 companies use Meltwater to stay up to date on the latest conversations within a preferred industry. The three features include monitoring to receive daily digests, analyzing media coverage patterns, and distributing your content to the right audience.

With Meltwater, you can:

• Look at all mentions of your brand easily
• Monitor social media websites
• Look at insights on your editorial footprint
• View the latest trends and news insights

Here are the separate plans you can get when you begin using Meltwater:

• Essential – Get the basics you need to monitor your brand and customers.
• Advanced – This plan gives access to various product features such as in-depth insights, analytics, and unlimited search features.
• Suite – With tools for reporting and a comprehensive view of insights, you’ll be able to be able to scale your brand faster.
• Enterprise – This plan gives you access to a 360° look at your customers and market intelligence.

If you want to view the pricing for each plan, you’ll have to fill out a form and speak with someone at Meltwater.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo analyzes a lot of content and makes it accessible to numerous businesses. It will show you the most shared links and industry experts on each topic. Backlinks are shown per connection you make, too!

Here are the different plans, their prices, and the number of users you can have on an account.

• Content Creation
  • $199/ month
  • 1 User
• PR & Comms
  • $299
  • 5 users
• Suite
  • $499
  • 10 users
• Enterprise
  • $999
  • 30 users

SourceBottle

SourceBottle is a free platform that allows journalists and bloggers to find knowledgeable sources. Just like HARO, it gives industry experts publicity and shows off their knowledge. You can either find a source or be a source. The topics found on the platform, which you can tailor to your preference and expertise, include:

Additionally, the paid subscription allows you access to specific giveaways and case studies, as well as the chance for your insight to be used in specific media pitches.

So, if you are looking for a free online service that notifies you when a journalist is looking for detailed information specific to your expertise, SourceBottle might be the HARO alternative for you.

To view different pricing options, you can create an account on the website.

Pitch Rate

Another site that connects experts and journalists is Pitch Rate. For free, you can start building your connections with experts to be the go-to credible source for reporters. The categories of expertise range from business to design/architecture to love and relationships. On Pitch Rate, you are sure to find a query to fit your expertise!

This site is free for both journalists and experts; all you have to do is create an account!

Qwoted

One of the best alternatives to HARO is Qwoted. Marketers, writers, and PR professionals can sign up for free and can even manage accounts for people they represent or just themselves. Under the free plan, you are able to pitch your answer to three “premium” sources, but there are others that are free to respond to. Similar to HARO, you can receive customized emails on queries that are related to your interests.

On Qwoted, you can have access to a free account whether you are:

• Self-representing experts and businesses
• PR/marketing professionals
• Journalists and media creators

However, there are limitations to free accounts, such as a 2-hour delay in responding to pitches. If you wish to upgrade, you will need to contact their sales team to get a custom quote.

OnePitch

OnePitch is a great platform for small businesses, as its goal is to help you build meaningful connections with established journalists. Additionally, OnePitch uses artificial intelligence (AI) to assist you in making more personalized yet effective pitches. They do so by having people fill out pitch templates or upload press releases. From there, the AI analyzes the information and produces a custom media list based on your needs.

No matter the size of your organization, for $70 per month, you’ll have access to:

• Journalists recommendations
• Email reports
• Free for 14 days
• Custom media lists
• And more!

JustReachOut

JustReachOut allows you to be considered an expert in your industry, and similarly find specific journalists, podcast hosts, bloggers, and more.

As stated in the name, JustReachOut allows you to pitch yourself, as well as your work. So, whether you want to pitch yourself as a potential podcast guest or even pitch a blog post you wrote that could replace a broken backlink, you have the ability to communicate directly with journalists who can use you as a source.

This platform also conveniently gives you the ability to view whether the journalist has opened your request or not.

There are three different plans available after a 7-day free trial:

• Starter Outreach – With this plan for $147/month, you’ll be able to send 100 emails per month with 1 team member access.
• Advanced Outreach – For $247/month, you can send up to 300 emails and allow 2 team members to have access to your account.
• Ultimate Outreach – For $497/month, you’ll be able to send 1000 emails per month with the ability to have 5 team members working on the account.

MentionMatch (Previously Help a B2B Writer)

MentionMatch is like HARO but without the hassle of giving and receiving requests that do not align with your expertise. Writers and sources will be able to sign up, submit requests for sources, and even register as a source in some of the following fields:

Once these steps are complete, requests will only get submitted to potential sources that accurately match the request itself. From there, sources will reach out to writers in order to submit their official quotes! Best of all, the platform is completely free.

To create an account, simply register as a source or submit a request as a writer.

X (Formerly Twitter)

With the rise of journalists utilizing social media platforms, some choose to post their requests straight to their feeds, making X a useful platform for this very reason.

Because of its versatility and use, some of the benefits of using X include:

• It is free!
• You can search hashtags specific to your requests, such as #journorequests
• There is less competition to search for specific queries than the HARO-specific platforms

X also allows you to get in contact with journalists in several different ways. If a journalist has their contact information in their bio, you can contact them directly. If not, you can either respond to their tweet with the request or even send a message over DM.

As most people know, X is free to join! It’s a great platform to get connected with people and stay up-to-date with industry news.

How Can My Business Benefit From Digital PR and Link Building?

Some key benefits of building links include:

• Establishing credibility – Since you can provide information that reporters cannot, you will showcase how you are an expert in your niche. This lets any readers know your company’s credibility and status in the industry.
• Increasing company awareness – What better way to get your name out there than to have an article feature you? Readers may search your website to find out more info, leading to you generating more traffic to your website and potential sales.
• Boosting your SEO– If a journalist cites your website in their article, they will also link back to your website. Since many magazines and newspapers have a lot of domain authority, this will, in turn, help boost your own DA and make your site more visible to search engines.

FAQs on Alternatives to HARO

When choosing the right HARO alternative for your business, there are several things to keep in mind while going through the process. Here are some answers to some of the most commonly asked questions.

How do I know I am choosing the right HARO alternative for my business?

If you are unsure of which HARO alternative to choose, we recommend doing thorough research before ultimately making a decision. Though all of them achieve the same goals, different features of each platform may appeal to different individuals. So, make sure you try out a couple of them to find the right fit for you and your business!

How do I increase my chances of being chosen for HARO and likewise?

You can increase your chances of being chosen by staying consistent with your responses to reporters about topics that are related to your industry. It is also important to include detailed contact information for yourself so journalists can easily contact you if they need any additional information. Also, be sure not to use AI to generate responses, or you may get banned!

Which platforms are free?

If you’re looking for a platform that’s free and easy to join, here are some of the platforms mentioned above that have free plans:

• Featured
• SourceBottle
• Pitch Rate
• Qwoted
• MentionMarch
• Source of Sources
• X (Twitter)