Best Alternatives to Featured in 2026: 5 Source-Request Services Compared by Price and How Requests Arrive

What Are the Best Alternatives to Featured in 2026?

Five services we could verify on their own pages do the same core job as Featured, connecting experts with journalists’ requests: Qwoted, SourceBottle, Source of Sources, ProfNet and HARO. One of them is not independent: Featured owns HARO, so HARO is a free route into the same company rather than a rival. Everything below comes from each service’s own pages, read October 20, 2026.

Pricing checked October 2026.

What Do Featured and Its Alternatives Cost?

On monthly billing, Featured’s Lite plan ($39) is the cheapest published paid entry point, SourceBottle’s Unlimited plan is $65, and Qwoted’s only published paid price is $149. HARO and Source of Sources cost nothing, and ProfNet does not publish its fee.

Featured’s team plans are Team Lite ($199 a month, or $159 billed annually), Team Pro ($499, or $399) and Team Pro+ ($1,499, or $1,199), each listing “Up to 25 team seats included,” and Enterprise is “Custom pricing.” The page adds: “Usage limits apply. Prices shown don’t include applicable tax” (Featured pricing).

The chart shows paid entry points from $39 to $299 a month, but the plans count different things. Our reading, not a vendor claim: estimate how many requests you will realistically answer each week, then price that volume, because a pitch cap (Qwoted), a usage allowance (Featured) and uncapped pitching by the vendor’s own team (SourceBottle) are not the same product.

What Is Featured, and Where Does It Still Win?

Featured is a free and paid app that gathers source requests and other media opportunities in one place. Its home page tagline is “Your co-pilot for PR,” and it invites users to “search, save, and respond to journalist requests, podcast invites, speaking gigs, and more” (Featured). Its features page says users can “Respond to live source requests from HARO, Connectively, Substack, X, and LinkedIn,” “matched to your expertise, sorted by deadline” (Featured features).

Featured still wins on breadth and entry price. No other service here bundles podcasts, speaking events and awards with source requests, and its Free plan is described as “Free forever” with “A gentle daily allowance to learn the platform” (Featured pricing). It also owns the largest free feed: the features page says Featured “acquired HARO from Cision in April 2025 and returned it to daily editions.”

Its limits, from its own pages: usage is metered by allowance rather than a stated number of pitches, so cost per pitch is harder to predict. The same home page lists “Find Backlinks” among its tools; backlinks bought or traded are not earned coverage, so keep that work separate. Our head-to-head, Qwoted vs Featured, compares the two in detail.

Is Qwoted a Good Featured Alternative?

Qwoted is the closest like-for-like alternative: a request network with a free tier and a single $149-a-month Pro plan. Basic includes an appearance in the reporter-facing expert database, real-time alerts and a daily opportunities email, but only 2 pitches a month with a two-hour delay. Pro adds the events and awards database, pitch intelligence and opportunity research, 35 pitches a month and no delay. Teams adds profile-view alerts, white labeling, weekly activity reports, an administrative dashboard and premium support (Qwoted pricing).

Qwoted’s rules are stricter than Featured’s. Its help center says “Every account goes through an individual vetting and approval process” (Qwoted help), and “Using AI to write your pitches is against Qwoted’s Terms & Conditions”; a pitch that “shows a high likelihood of AI use” can lead to temporary account disablement, and “Continued violations may result in permanent removal from the platform” (Qwoted help).

Fits: PR teams that want a fixed pitch count and a vetted network. Limit: the tightest free tier here and the highest single paid entry price. See Best Alternatives to Qwoted for the view from the other side.

Is HARO Still Free, and Who Runs It Now?

Yes. HARO’s home page says “Subscribe for free daily media queries” and “Powered by Featured, your AI co-pilot for PR” (HARO). Featured announced on April 16, 2025 that it had acquired Help A Reporter Out from Cision and said “HARO will remain free for journalists and sources” (PR Newswire).

Featured also runs Connectively, which the HARO page promotes with “Want HARO queries in a platform? Try Connectively.” Featured’s features page says “Connectively, revived in 2026, passed 100,000 users” (Featured features); that is Featured’s own figure, and we did not verify it. Our guide What Happened to HARO covers the history.

Fits: sources who want free requests by email. Limit: it is a Featured product, so it does not diversify away from Featured, and a free, open digest draws many competing replies.

What Does SourceBottle Offer?

SourceBottle is a source-request service started in 2009 that sells pitching done by its own staff. Its home page says “In 2009, Bec started SourceBottle - now a global publicity platform,” and invites experts to “upgrade and let us help raise your profile with our human-driven, targeted, on-demand media pitching service” (SourceBottle).

The pricing page lists Free ($0, expert profile, directory listing, free media call-outs by email, up to 10 keywords); No Pitch, No Pay ($25 per pitch, up to 3 pitches a month, up to 20 keywords); Unlimited Pitches ($65 a month or $650 a year, uncapped pitching, priority directory listing, helpdesk); and Agency ($130 a month or $1,300 a year, up to 5 expert profiles) (SourceBottle pricing).

Fits: experts who want someone else to pitch, or to pay only per pitch. Limit for a US buyer: the page shows “$” without naming a currency, and the outlet logos it displays are mostly Australian (the AFR, the Sydney Morning Herald, ABC Australia, SBS). Confirm the currency and which markets its call-outs cover before paying.

What About Source of Sources and ProfNet?

Source of Sources is a free email list; ProfNet is a paid PR Newswire service with an unpublished fee. Peter Shankman introduces himself on the Source of Sources site as “founder of Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and now Source of Sources (SOS).” The site says sources get an email of journalist queries “Up to three times a day,” warns “ONLY REPLY IF YOU ACTUALLY HAVE SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE TO ADD,” and says an off-topic pitch gets a source removed, “No exceptions, no appeals” (Source of Sources).

ProfNet’s experts FAQ says “There is a fee to receive ProfNet queries and submit Expert Alerts,” depending on “the type of institution and the number of subscribers,” and gives no amount (ProfNet FAQ). It suits universities, hospitals and companies that already buy from PR Newswire.

One service we do not count: Help a B2B Writer’s old address now leads to MentionMatch, made by Superpath, whose banner says “We’re launching soon” and which shows no prices (MentionMatch).

Where Is Featured Still the Better Choice?

Featured is still the better choice for a solo expert or small agency that wants volume and variety on a small budget. It has the lowest published paid entry price here ($39 a month), a free plan, published team prices, and one place for journalist requests, podcasts, speaking and awards. Only Qwoted matches it on published team tooling, and Qwoted’s team plan is quote-based.

The alternatives win in narrower cases: Qwoted for a vetted network with a strict ban on AI-written pitches, SourceBottle for pay-per-pitch or done-for-you pitching, Source of Sources for a free list outside Featured’s ownership, and ProfNet for institutions already inside PR Newswire.

Who Should Choose Which?

This is our recommendation, not any vendor’s claim. None of these services can promise that a reporter quotes you, names your company or links to your site; a reply is a pitch, and the reporter decides. How to Get Quoted as an Expert Source covers what makes a reply usable.

Final Verdict: Which Featured Alternative Is Best?

There is no single winner. Qwoted is the closest like-for-like product, with stricter rules and a higher price; SourceBottle is the option for paying per pitch; Source of Sources is the free list outside Featured’s ownership; ProfNet suits institutions already buying from PR Newswire. Featured keeps its edge on breadth and a low entry price, and through HARO it also controls the best-known free feed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources and Methodology

This guide is built from each service’s own pricing, home, help and FAQ pages and Featured’s April 2025 HARO acquisition release, all read October 20, 2026. helpareporter.com rate-limits automated requests and was read in a Chrome browser; the other pages were fetched directly. Prices are as displayed on that date, exclude tax and can change. The “Who Should Choose Which” table and the advice on comparing plans are our recommendations. We did not open accounts, test response rates or measure placement outcomes, and we did not verify Featured’s Connectively user figure.

1. vendor Featured, Pricing. Individual and team prices, usage-limit and tax wording, free plan. Read October 20, 2026.
2. vendor Featured, Home page. Tagline and opportunity types; Find Backlinks tool. Read October 20, 2026.
3. vendor Featured, Features. Request sources; HARO and Connectively ownership; Connectively user claim. Read October 20, 2026.
4. vendor Featured.com via PR Newswire, Featured.com Acquires Help A Reporter Out (HARO) from Cision. Acquisition date and free-for-sources statement. Read October 20, 2026.
5. vendor Help a Reporter Out, Home page. Free daily queries, “Powered by Featured,” Connectively link. Read October 20, 2026 (browser).
6. vendor Qwoted, Pricing. Basic, Pro and Teams prices, pitch limits and features. Read October 20, 2026.
7. platform documentation Qwoted, Can I use AI to craft my pitch?. AI-pitch ban and enforcement. Read October 20, 2026.
8. platform documentation Qwoted, Is Qwoted free to use?. Account vetting statement. Read October 20, 2026.
9. vendor SourceBottle, Home page. Founding year, pitching-service description, outlet logos. Read October 20, 2026.
10. vendor SourceBottle, Pricing. Four plans and prices; no currency named. Read October 20, 2026.
11. vendor Source of Sources, Home page. Operator, frequency, reply rules, cost. Read October 20, 2026.
12. vendor PR Newswire, FAQs for Experts in ProfNet. Fee statement; no published amount. Read October 20, 2026.
13. vendor MentionMatch (Superpath), Home page. “Launching soon” banner; no prices. Read October 20, 2026.