What Happened to Prowly?
Prowly's own home page now says “Prowly is now the Semrush AI PR Toolkit” and “Your trusted PR platform, reimagined as part of Semrush.” It describes four modules: an AI-Cited Media Database, Email Outreach and Analytics, Media Monitoring, and Strategic Intelligence & Benchmarking. It shows no prices itself (Prowly).
Semrush prices the toolkit on its own pricing page: Base at $149 a month, Pro at $279 and Business at $499, all billed annually. The monthly allowance of media-database contacts is 250, 500 and 1,000; Business adds “50,000 media mentions to monitor per month”; additional users are $20 a month (Semrush pricing). Semrush's toolkit page says Media Monitoring is “Available on Business and Pro plans” and Competitive Analysis is “Available on the Business plan” (Semrush). Neither Semrush page names Prowly; the link between them rests on Prowly's own heading. For an older comparison, see Prowly vs Muck Rack.
What Are the Best Alternatives to Prowly?
The five we compared are Prezly, Propel, Agility PR Solutions, BuzzSumo and Muck Rack. They differ most in whether they print a price and whether they include a journalist database.
| Tool | Published price | Journalist database | Monitoring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush AI PR Toolkit (Prowly) | $149 / $279 / $499 a month, billed annually | Yes, “over 1 million journalist profiles”; 250 to 1,000 contacts a month | Pro and Business plans |
| Prezly | 100 / 250 euros a month, billed annually | Not in the plan lists; stores your own contacts (5,000 / 10,000) | Not in the plan lists |
| Propel | Not published | Yes, Media Contact Database | Online and print alerts (10 / 25 / 50); TV and radio on home page |
| Agility PR Solutions | Not published | Yes, “1.1M+ media contact and outlet profiles” | Online, print, broadcast, podcast, radio, social |
| BuzzSumo | $299 a month (PR & Comms), billed yearly | Yes, Media Database (Beta), from PR & Comms | Alerts: 5 on PR & Comms |
| Muck Rack | Not published; “Contact us” | Yes | Online and podcast; print, broadcast and social as add-ons |
What Do Prowly's Alternatives Cost?
Prezly and BuzzSumo print prices; Propel, Agility and Muck Rack do not. Prezly's Essential plan is 100 euros a month billed annually (one user, one site, up to 5,000 contacts) and Standard is 250 euros (two users, white-label sites, localization and sending from your own domain, up to 10,000 contacts); Enterprise is custom (Prezly). BuzzSumo's PR & Comms plan is $299 a month billed yearly, with 5 users and 5 alerts (BuzzSumo).
US dollars per month, billed annually
Source: Semrush, AI PR Toolkit pricing page; BuzzSumo, “Pricing.” Read October 19, 2026.
Both pages show annual-billing prices. BuzzSumo's PR & Comms is its lowest plan with the Media Database. Prezly's prices are in euros (100 and 250 a month, billed annually) and are not charted. Propel, Agility PR Solutions and Muck Rack publish no prices.
The chart shows that BuzzSumo's cheapest plan with a journalist database sits between Semrush's Pro and Business tiers, and that Semrush's Base plan is the lowest dollar price among the tools with a database.
Our recommendation, not a vendor rule: compare a printed annual price with a written quote that names users, contacts a month, monitoring and contract length, and confirm what a trial includes before committing.
Is Prezly a Good Alternative to Prowly?
Prezly is the alternative with a visible price and an immediate trial, but it covers the newsroom and sending side, not journalist discovery. Every plan lists “Unlimited stories & campaigns” and “Full Analytics”; Standard adds white-label sites, localization and auto-translations. The page offers “Try Prezly 14 days free. No credit card required.” Neither a journalist database nor media monitoring appears in its plan lists, so Prezly does not replace those parts of the Semrush toolkit (Prezly). It suits a team that already has media lists and wants a branded press room.
Is Propel a Good Alternative to Prowly?
Propel is the alternative closest to Prowly's AI-first approach, though it prints no price. Its home page says “Propel AI is the first LLM built for PR, serving in-house teams and agencies” and describes a CRM with Gmail and Outlook plug-ins and monitoring that includes “thousands of monitored TV and radio stations” (Propel). “First” is the vendor's claim. Its pricing page lists Essentials (one user), Pro (up to four) and Premium (up to seven), each with unlimited contacts and pitches and 10, 25 or 50 online and print monitoring alerts, plus an AI pitch writer, press release writer and media list builder (Propel pricing). The home page gives two different journalist counts (500K+ and 1M), so we repeat neither as fact. The old propelmypr.com address redirects to propel-ai.com.
Is Agility PR Solutions a Good Alternative to Prowly?
Agility suits teams that want monitoring breadth, including broadcast, plus a large contact database. Its home page claims a “1.1M+ contact database at 99.6% accuracy” (a vendor claim we did not test), monitoring that indexes “2B+ news items a year across online, print, broadcast, podcast, radio, social,” a newswire with a “Flat fee, unlimited words,” and Visibility Intelligence to “See how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini describe your brand” (Agility PR Solutions). Its plans page gives no prices, offers “detailed pricing based on your goals” after a form, and says “Our standard billing cycle is annual” (Agility plans).
Is BuzzSumo a Good Alternative to Prowly?
BuzzSumo works if journalist lookup and content research matter more than sending pitches. Its PR & Comms plan lists “Media Database & Outreach,” described as “Find and engage with Journalists most relevant to your specific topics,” and the comparison table marks the Media Database and Media Lists as Beta. The pricing page does not describe an email pitching tool (BuzzSumo). For BuzzSumo's own alternatives, see Best Alternatives to BuzzSumo.
Is Muck Rack a Good Alternative to Prowly?
Muck Rack is the fullest alternative here but the least suited to a small budget you need to see in advance. Its pricing page lists Starter (“basic access,” for individuals), Standard and Premier, all “Contact us,” with journalist search, media lists, “Pitching including email integrations and PressPal.ai,” online and podcast monitoring and coverage reports; print and broadcast monitoring, social listening and press release distribution are add-ons (Muck Rack). Its own FAQ says “Solo practitioners often find alternatives better suited to sporadic usage patterns,” while pointing them to Starter. See alternatives to Muck Rack for how it compares with larger suites.
Where Does the Semrush AI PR Toolkit Still Win?
It wins for teams that want a journalist database, outreach and monitoring at a published price, especially teams already using Semrush. It is the only tool here with a dollar price list that includes a database, starting at $149 a month billed annually. Its AI-Cited Media feature, which Semrush says shows “which media outlets are cited most often by language models, along with the journalists who write for them,” is unusual among the alternatives; Muck Rack's AI Visibility Badges and Agility's Visibility Intelligence are the closest (Semrush). Its limit is the monthly contact cap: 250 contacts on Base may be tight for a team that pitches often. For why outlet choice matters for AI answers, see which sources AI assistants cite.
Which Should a Small PR Team Choose?
Our recommendation, not a vendor rule:
- Stay with the Semrush toolkit if a published price and a database matter and you can work within the monthly contact caps.
- Start with Prezly's trial if you mainly publish newsroom content and already have lists.
- Get written quotes from Propel, Agility and Muck Rack if you want broadcast monitoring or a larger database, asking each to name users, contacts, monitoring and contract length.
- Price BuzzSumo's $299 plan if you need journalist lookup and content research more than pitch sending.
Do not let a stated database size drive the decision: vendor accuracy figures are claims, and our guide on building a media list shows how to check any list by hand. No tool secures coverage.
How We Compared the Tools
Four limits apply. First, we read vendor pages on October 19, 2026, and their descriptions are untested vendor claims. Second, Muck Rack's pages block automated readers, so we read them in a browser and quote its pricing FAQ from the Internet Archive's August 11, 2026 copy of the same page. Third, Propel, Agility and Muck Rack publish no prices, so we give none. Fourth, older Prowly prices circulate on third-party sites, and we do not repeat them; the current prices are Semrush's own.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened to Prowly?
Prowly's own site says “Prowly is now the Semrush AI PR Toolkit,” with a journalist database, email outreach, media monitoring and benchmarking.
How much does the Semrush AI PR Toolkit cost?
Semrush lists Base at $149 a month, Pro at $279 and Business at $499, all billed annually, read October 19, 2026. Monitoring is on Pro and Business.
What is the cheapest Prowly alternative with a published price?
Prezly's Essential plan, at 100 euros a month billed annually, with one user and up to 5,000 contacts. It does not list a journalist database.
Which Prowly alternatives have a journalist database?
Propel, Agility PR Solutions, Muck Rack and BuzzSumo (Beta, from $299 a month) each describe one. Prezly's plan lists do not.
Does Prezly offer a free trial?
Yes. Its pricing page says “Try Prezly 14 days free. No credit card required.”
Is Muck Rack a good Prowly alternative for a solo practitioner?
It may cost more than you need. Muck Rack's own pricing FAQ says solo practitioners often find alternatives better suited to sporadic use, though it offers a Starter tier at a quoted price.
Sources and Methodology
This guide is built from vendors' own pages read October 19, 2026. Vendor descriptions are claims, not tested results; house recommendations are labeled as ours. Muck Rack's pages were read in a browser, and its FAQ is quoted from the Internet Archive's August 11, 2026 capture of its pricing page. Pricing checked October 2026. We did not test any tool.
- vendor Prowly, home page. Rebrand wording and four modules. Read October 19, 2026.
- vendor Semrush, AI PR Toolkit pricing. Plans, prices, contact caps, monitored mentions, add-ons. Read October 19, 2026.
- vendor Semrush, AI PR Toolkit. Journalist profiles, plan availability, AI-Cited Media. Read October 19, 2026.
- vendor Prezly, Pricing. Plans, prices, limits, trial. Read October 19, 2026.
- vendor Propel, home page. Features, monitoring, inconsistent counts. Read October 19, 2026.
- vendor Propel, Pricing. Plan names, users, alerts; no prices. Read October 19, 2026.
- vendor Agility PR Solutions, home page. Monitoring, database, newswire, Visibility Intelligence. Read October 19, 2026.
- vendor Agility PR Solutions, Plans. No prices, annual billing, 1.1M+ profiles. Read October 19, 2026.
- vendor BuzzSumo, Pricing. PR & Comms price, Media Database (Beta). Read October 19, 2026.
- vendor Muck Rack, Pricing. Plans, “Contact us,” features, add-ons, FAQ. Read October 19, 2026 (FAQ via Internet Archive capture of August 11, 2026).