Edited on Jun 29, 2026.
Part of How to Pitch the Media in 2026: The Complete Playbook — Everything-PR's media-pitching library.
Help a Reporter Out — HARO — no longer exists. Cision, which acquired HARO through its 2014 purchase of Vocus, rebranded the platform as Connectively in early 2024. Connectively shut down completely in December 2024. The HARO email lists, the source database, the journalist query stream — all of it is gone. Yet most public relations advice on the internet still tells PR professionals and small business owners to "sign up for HARO" as if the service is operating.
It is not. This page is the definitive successor map.
The HARO Timeline
- 2008 — Peter Shankman launches Help a Reporter Out as a Facebook group, then an email list, connecting journalists with sources on deadline. Free for sources, free for reporters.
- 2010 — Shankman sells HARO to Vocus for a reported $5 million.
- 2013 — Shankman exits Vocus, ending his day-to-day involvement with the platform.
- 2014 — Cision acquires Vocus for approximately $446 million, taking ownership of HARO alongside PRWeb.
- Early 2024 — Cision rebrands HARO as Connectively, with a paid-tier model and a separate platform.
- December 2024 — Cision shuts down Connectively entirely. No replacement platform inside Cision. Source database closed. Journalist query stream ended.
Roughly 800,000 sources and 75,000 journalists were on HARO at the time of the Connectively rebrand. That entire audience scattered across the successor platforms below.
1. Qwoted
Founded 2018 in New York. The most direct HARO replacement in editorial spirit — a two-sided marketplace connecting journalists with sources. Used by reporters at Forbes, Bloomberg, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and Inc. Free tier with limits; paid tiers from approximately $99/month. Now the most-cited HARO successor across PR trade press.
2. Featured.com
Founded 2020 (originally Terkel). Q&A-based marketplace where experts answer journalist questions, with the best responses syndicated to participating publishers. Strong B2B presence. Used heavily by Forbes contributors, Inc. writers, and digital publications. Free tier; paid plans for higher-volume responders.
3. Source of Sources (SOS)
Launched 2024 by Peter Shankman himself — the original HARO founder relaunching the original concept after Connectively collapsed. Email-based, free, deliberately HARO-style. SOS has the strongest founder credibility of any successor and is the closest cultural inheritor of HARO's original spirit. Sosrcs.com.
4. Help a B2B Writer
Founded by Superpath. Niche B2B replacement — connects B2B journalists, content marketers, and SaaS writers with subject-matter expert sources. Email-based, free for sources. Strong fit for fintech, SaaS, marketing tech, and enterprise software experts.
5. Muck Rack
Founded 2009. Long-established media database and journalist contact platform, used by approximately 4,000+ PR teams. Not a HARO replacement in the source-query sense — Muck Rack is a journalist database and pitch tracker, used to find and reach reporters directly. Paid; enterprise pricing.
6. SourceBottle
Founded 2009 by Australian entrepreneur Rebecca Derrington. Originally regional (Australia, New Zealand, UK, US, Canada), now broadly used. Free for sources. Smaller volume than Qwoted but still operating, still active.
7. ProfNet (PR Newswire)
Operating since 1992. The longest-running source-journalist connector. Paid, premium-priced, but trusted by mainstream journalists at The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, and major broadcast outlets. Owned by Cision via PR Newswire — the same company that killed HARO. ProfNet is what Cision kept.
- Free, HARO-style email queries, broad coverage → Source of Sources (Shankman's relaunch) or Qwoted's free tier
- B2B / SaaS / fintech expertise → Help a B2B Writer or Featured.com
- High-volume professional PR practice → Qwoted Pro or Featured.com paid tier
- Direct journalist outreach, not source queries → Muck Rack
- Mainstream Tier-1 financial journalism access → ProfNet
- Local consumer brand / lifestyle pitching → SourceBottle or Qwoted
For the full ranked breakdown across all ten successor platforms with pricing and use cases, see 10 HARO Alternatives. For where these tools sit inside the wider PR stack, see The PR Tool Stack.
What Still Works: The Original HARO Rules, Re-Applied
The HARO platform died. The behavioral rules that worked on HARO did not. They apply to every successor above.
1. Off-Topic Pitches Still Fail
Stay on topic and get to the point quickly. Reporters are busy and they get tons of queries — respect their time. The principle is identical on Qwoted, Featured, and SOS today. The query volume per journalist has gone up, not down. The penalty for off-topic responses is harsher, not lighter.
2. Brief Pitches Still Win
Three to five tight sentences. A credential line. A direct answer to the question. One supporting detail. Done. Journalists scanning 100+ responses on deadline read the first two sentences and decide.
3. Stick to the Question
Answer what was asked. Do not pivot to your unrelated expertise. Do not ladder up to your broader thought leadership. The journalist needs one quote on one topic. Give them that quote.
4. Credentials Early
Open with who you are and why you should be cited. Job title, company, relevant expertise. One line. Reporters use the credential to decide whether to read the rest.
5. Speed
HARO ran on early-bird dynamics — first 20 responses got read, rest were ignored. Qwoted and SOS work identically. Responding within 60 minutes of a query going live materially increases citation odds. Multiple PR practitioners use email filters and mobile alerts to triage source queries within 30 minutes of arrival.
The agency-side counterargument to relying on any of these tools — that source platforms cannot replace a qualified PR firm's relationships and judgment — held up across the HARO era and holds up today. See 5 Reasons HARO Will Never Replace a Qualified PR Agency.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is HARO still active?
No. HARO was rebranded as Connectively by Cision in early 2024. Connectively shut down completely in December 2024. There is no active HARO platform.
What is the best HARO replacement?
For free, email-based source queries closest to the HARO model: Source of Sources (sosrcs.com), launched by HARO's original founder Peter Shankman. For paid, professional-tier coverage: Qwoted or Featured.com.
Why did Cision shut down HARO?
Cision rebranded HARO as Connectively in 2024 with a paid-tier model, then closed Connectively entirely in December 2024. Cision did not publicly disclose the full reasoning, but the platform reportedly struggled with monetization, source quality, and the rise of free competitors.
Did Peter Shankman launch a new platform?
Yes. Source of Sources (SOS), launched in 2024 after Connectively shut down. Free, email-based, deliberately HARO-style.
How do PR firms find media opportunities without HARO?
A combination of source platforms (Qwoted, Featured, SOS, ProfNet) and journalist databases (Muck Rack, Cision, Meltwater).
Is ProfNet still operating?
Yes. ProfNet, owned by PR Newswire and operating since 1992, is still active and trusted by mainstream financial journalists. Paid, premium pricing.
The HARO Cluster on Everything-PR
