HARO Alternatives for Earning Press Links in 2026

The main HARO alternatives in 2026 are Source of Sources (free, founded by HARO's creator), Qwoted (free tier of 2 pitches a month, Pro at $149/month), Featured (free plan, paid from $29/month billed annually), SourceBottle (strongest in Australia), ProfNet (paid, owned by Cision) and the #JournoRequest hashtag. HARO itself is also back and free.

Prices and details below were checked on each platform's own site on 2 October 2026. This market changes often, so check again before you pay for anything.

First: do you even need an alternative?

HARO shut down in December 2024 and returned in April 2025 after Featured.com bought the brand from Cision. In a May 2026 post on the HARO blog, the company said HARO will stay "the free, three-times-a-day newsletter," and that it was also reviving Connectively as a separate, platform-based product for people who want filtering and response tracking.

So the original is free and running. Most people who look for alternatives in 2026 want one of three things: less competition per query, a better fit for their niche or country, or tools that make responding faster. Does HARO still work for backlinks? covers the history and realistic hit rates; this page covers the other options.

HARO alternatives compared

Platform	Format	Cost for sources (checked 2 Oct 2026)	Best for
HARO	Email digest, three a day	Free	Broad general coverage
Source of Sources	Email, up to three a day	Free	Anyone who liked the original HARO format
Qwoted	Web platform with alerts	Free: 2 pitches/month. Pro: $149/month for 35 pitches	Finance, tech and B2B experts who pitch often
Featured	Web platform, AI-assisted	Free plan. Lite $29/month and Pro $79/month, billed annually	Experts who also want podcast and speaking leads
Connectively	Web platform (HARO's sister product)	Pricing not stated in the relaunch post	HARO users who want dashboards and tracking
SourceBottle	Email call-outs and expert profiles	Free profile. Paid plans listed from $65/month	Australian media
ProfNet	Query service from Cision	Paid subscription	PR teams with a budget
MentionMatch	Matching for B2B writers	Not published on the homepage	Marketing, SaaS and SEO specialists
#JournoRequest	Hashtag on X and Bluesky	Free	Fast, reactive requests

Each alternative in detail

Source of Sources

Source of Sources was launched by Peter Shankman, who founded the original HARO in 2008. It's free for both sides, and sources get journalist queries by email up to three times a day. The site says off-topic or spammy replies get you removed from the list, with no appeals. That strictness is the point: fewer junk replies means a relevant, well-written answer has a better chance of being read.

Qwoted

Qwoted is a web platform rather than a newsletter. The free Basic plan allows 2 pitches a month and shows opportunities with a 2-hour delay. Pro costs $149 a month for 35 pitches with no delay, and Teams is priced on request. The pitch limit changes how you use it: you choose your best-fit requests carefully instead of answering everything. It's strongest in finance, technology and B2B topics.

Featured

Featured, the company that now owns HARO, runs its own platform that pulls journalist requests, podcast invitations and speaking opportunities into one place. There's a free plan, with Lite at $29 a month and Pro at $79 a month (both billed annually). According to its pricing page, every plan has the same features and the only difference is how much AI usage you get each day.

SourceBottle

SourceBottle connects journalists, bloggers and writers with expert sources, and its featured outlets are mostly Australian. Creating an expert profile is free. Its pricing page lists paid options, including an unlimited-pitches plan at $65 a month. The page doesn't state the currency, so check before you subscribe. If your audience is in Australia, this is usually the first place to look.

ProfNet

ProfNet is Cision's long-running journalist query service, run through PR Newswire. Journalists use it for free and experts subscribe. It suits PR agencies and in-house teams more than individual site owners.

MentionMatch

The old Help a B2B Writer address now redirects to MentionMatch, which matches B2B writers with expert sources in areas such as marketing, SaaS, SEO, analytics and ecommerce. Fewer queries, but each one comes from a writer in a niche where a link is likely to be relevant.

#JournoRequest

Journalists post urgent requests on X and Bluesky with this hashtag. It's free and fast, and there's no filtering at all. Save a search for the hashtag plus your topic and check it a few times a day.

How to choose

Starting out, no budget: HARO plus Source of Sources. Both are free email digests; read them daily and answer only what you're qualified for.
B2B, SaaS or marketing expert: add MentionMatch and Qwoted's free tier.
Pitching several times a week: a paid Qwoted or Featured plan can save time, but only if your answers are already landing.
Based in Australia: SourceBottle.
Agency or PR team: ProfNet and the paid platforms.

Don't sign up for everything. More queries mean more time skimming and less time writing good answers. Two well-chosen sources, read properly, beat six skimmed.

Turning a quote into a link

Being quoted doesn't guarantee a link. Many outlets name you without one, and some add rel="nofollow" (still useful, as dofollow vs nofollow links explains). Three habits improve the odds:

Give them a page worth linking to. An original statistic or a clear guide on your site is easier to cite than your homepage.
Ask politely after publication if the piece names you without a link. It's a normal request.
Never pay for the link itself. Paying for access to queries is fine. Paying a writer or publication for a followed link falls under Google's link spam policies.

Press links are high quality but unpredictable, so they work best on top of a steady baseline. Press coverage without a PR agency covers the proactive side, and Backlinkster handles the baseline: site owners in related niches swap in-content links one-for-one, and a real person checks each swap. The free plan includes five swaps a month.

Frequently asked questions

Is HARO still free in 2026? Yes. HARO's owner, Featured, said in May 2026 that it will remain a free newsletter sent three times a day. Connectively, its revived sister product, is a separate platform.

What is the best free alternative to HARO? Source of Sources is the closest free match: it was started by HARO's founder, uses the same email format and sends queries up to three times a day. Qwoted's free tier is useful too, but it's limited to 2 pitches a month.

Is Qwoted better than HARO? They work differently. HARO sends free email digests to a large list. Qwoted is a platform with pitch limits, which means less competition per request and more effort per answer. Many experts use both.

Do HARO alternatives give dofollow backlinks? Sometimes. The platform doesn't decide; the publication does. Some outlets link with a followed link, some use nofollow and some don't link at all.

How many platforms should I use? Two or three that match your expertise. Reading more digests than you can answer well lowers the quality of every reply.

The bottom line

HARO is back and free, so the best alternative is often HARO plus one more. Choose that second source by fit: Source of Sources for the classic free format, Qwoted or MentionMatch for B2B and finance, SourceBottle for Australia, and ProfNet if you have a PR budget. Whichever you pick, answer only what you know, lead with the specific claim and make sure there's a page on your site worth linking to.