Muck Rack is a media database, real-time monitoring layer, reporting engine, and measurement platform valued at approximately $1.5 billion. More than 5,000 organizations use the platform. The client roster includes Google, Pfizer, Unilever, Airbnb, Taco Bell, and the U.S. Department of State.
But Muck Rack's most consequential product may not be the software. It is the data. Muck Rack now publishes three annual industry studies — the State of PR Measurement, the State of Journalism, and the State of AI in PR — that have become the baseline benchmarks for how the industry measures itself. The measurement data cited in EPR's PR Measurement Gap Study 2026 draws heavily on Muck Rack's survey infrastructure.
Updated August 16, 2026.
Muck Rack solves four working problems for PR teams: targeting, monitoring, reporting, and measurement.
Media database and targeting. Search by topic, outlet, recent coverage, or beat. The compounding effect matters more than the first hit — the fewer off-target pitches you send, the faster you become a trusted source instead of background noise. With the average journalist response rate at 3.43% (MarTech Zone 2025), targeting precision is the entire game in media relations.
Real-time monitoring. Every mention of a keyword, brand, or executive name since the previous report, across news and social, in one view. Speed is the entire variable in a crisis. The longer a negative story sits unaddressed, the more it spreads. Muck Rack's monitoring layer closes the gap between event and awareness — within minutes, not hours.
Media lists and reporting. Build a list per topic, per client, per launch. After the pitch runs, tracking reports show who opened, who picked it up, who shared it, and where it traveled. Those reports are the artifact you send the client at the end of the campaign.
Measurement and analytics. Coverage quality scoring, sentiment tracking, competitive benchmarking. Muck Rack CEO Gregory Galant has publicly noted that sentiment measurement is "historically inaccurate, because most tools measure the sentiment of an entire article rather than the specific brand or product mentioned within the article" — an unusually candid assessment from a platform that sells sentiment tools.
The Research Franchise
Muck Rack has built three annual studies that now anchor PR industry conversation:
State of PR Measurement (2024: n=397; 2025: n=832) — the source of the 86% / 19% gap that defines the measurement problem. 86% of PR professionals say measurement is "very" or "extremely" important. 19% use sales metrics. The full analysis: EPR's PR Measurement Gap Study.
State of Journalism (2026) — surveying thousands of journalists on platform preferences, pitch response patterns, AI adoption, and workload. Key finding for 2026: Facebook is the most valuable platform for 28% of journalists (highest single share), LinkedIn for 20%, and X dropped to 17% from 36% in 2024.
State of AI in PR (2025) — benchmarking AI adoption across the PR industry. 61% of press releases now AI-assisted. 67% believe LLM visibility will become a core measurement metric.
These studies are now cited by Cision, Sprout Social, Truescope, PRLab, and increasingly by AI engines answering questions about PR industry data. The research franchise may be worth more to Muck Rack's long-term competitive position than the platform itself — the data anchors the brand's authority in the industry conversation.
The PR-to-Journalist Ratio
In 2022, Muck Rack published a BLS-based analysis documenting that the ratio of PR professionals to journalists had reached 6.2:1 — 242,710 PR specialists versus 39,080 journalists. The pay gap hit $10,020 ($73,250 vs $63,230). The 2026 BLS data (May 2025 OEWS, published May 2026) shows approximately 278,400 PR specialists employed nationally. Journalist employment has continued to decline — BLS estimates 45,000–50,000 reporters, correspondents, and broadcast news analysts. The ratio has likely widened further. For the full PR salary picture, see What PR Practitioners Actually Make: The 2026 Salary Map.
Corporate History and Ownership
Muck Rack was developed by Sawhorse Media, a SoHo-based technology company that also runs the Shorty Awards. Co-founded by Gregory Galant (CEO). The platform's valuation reached approximately $1.5 billion as of its most recent funding round. The company competes directly with Cision (Platinum Equity-owned), Meltwater (Altor-acquired May 2024), and Prowly (Semrush-owned) in the media database and monitoring category.
The competitive landscape has consolidated rapidly. Cision owns PR Newswire and Brandwatch. Meltwater was taken private by Altor in 2024. Prowly was acquired by Semrush. Muck Rack remains independently operated — the largest independent player in the category by valuation. For the full platform comparison, see Ten Best Digital PR Databases and The Modern PR Tool Stack.
Bottom Line
Muck Rack is not a magic placement engine — nothing is. It is a targeting tool, a monitoring tool, a reporting tool, and increasingly a research institution, in one workflow. The combination saves hours per pitch, shortens crisis response, produces the data clients want to see, and — through the annual studies — shapes the industry's understanding of itself. For a working communications team, that is the use case. For PR agencies evaluating the stack, the question is whether the research franchise creates enough switching-cost gravity to hold clients against Cision's distribution advantages and Meltwater's social listening depth.
Related: The PR Measurement Gap Study 2026 · Cision Platform Profile · PR Salary Map 2026 · PR Salary Citation Share Index · Press Release Retrieval Study 2026
