Prezly costs 100 EUR per month billed annually and carries no journalist database (prezly.com, September 2026; AuthorityTech, July 2026). PressPilot replaces the outreach at 60 EUR per 100 journalists (excl. VAT), Prowly adds a database at 258 USD a month, Mynewsdesk starts at 220 EUR a month, and pr.co, Muck Rack and Cision quote.
Key takeaways
- 100 EUR per month billed annually is Prezly Essential, 150 EUR month to month, for 1 site, 1 user and 5,000 contacts. Standard is 250 EUR billed annually.
- No journalist database. That is the single biggest reason teams shop around: AuthorityTech's July 2026 table lists Prezly with none.
- One site per plan. An agency with five client brands needs five subscriptions or an Enterprise quote.
- Nothing here is cheaper than Prezly except PressPilot. Prowly is 258 USD a month, Mynewsdesk 220 EUR, and Muck Rack and Cision have five-figure median contracts (Vendr, February 2026).
- Prezly is still the best public deal for a branded newsroom, with a 14-day trial and no card, where Cision and Muck Rack offer no trial at all.
Why teams look for a Prezly alternative
The list has to come from somewhere. Prezly is a newsroom and a contact CRM, not a media database. AuthorityTech's July 2026 comparison lists it with no database, against 1,000,000+ contacts for Prowly and 1,400,000+ for Cision. Teams that assumed a PR tool comes with journalists still have to build the list, then hit the 5,000-contact ceiling on Essential.
The upgrade is driven by contacts and seats, not by usage. Stories are unlimited at every tier, but the step from Essential to Standard costs 150 EUR a month and mainly buys a second user, 5,000 more contacts and your own sending domain.
One site per plan. An agency running five client newsrooms is looking at five Essential subscriptions, about 6,000 EUR a year, or an Enterprise quote. pr.co builds its whole pitch on multi-brand setups for exactly that reason (June 2026).
At-a-glance comparison table
| Tool | Starting price (source, date) | Journalist database | Contract | Free option | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PressPilot | 60 EUR for 100 credits, or 29 EUR a monthpresspilot.io/pricing, October 2026 | 45,476 journalists (live count) | None, credits never expire | Free account, pay per campaign | Targeted outreach without a subscription |
| Prezly | 100 EUR per month billed annually, 150 EUR monthlyprezly.com (3 September 2026) | NoneAuthorityTech (23 July 2026) | Monthly or annual | 14-day trial, no card | Branded, translated newsrooms |
| Prowly | 258 USD per month billed annuallyPrezly Academy (25 August 2026) | 1,000,000+AuthorityTech (23 July 2026), 600,000 in the Semrush toolkitpr.co (10 June 2026) | Monthly or annualProwly Magazine (3 June 2025) | 7-day trialProwly Magazine (3 June 2025) | Database plus outreach in one tool |
| Mynewsdesk | From 220 EUR per month, Essentialmynewsdesk.com (3 September 2026) | 1,000,000+ journalistspr.co (10 June 2026) | Cancel anytime on Essential | 10-day trial | Nordic and Northern European coverage |
| pr.co | No public price, demo onlypr.co (10 June 2026) | Media contacts included, size not published | Quote | Demo | Multi-brand, multi-market newsrooms |
| Muck Rack | 13,000 USD median contract, 8,000 to 20,860Vendr (February 2026) | 250,000+AuthorityTech (23 July 2026) | Annual only, no trialAuthorityTech (23 July 2026) | No | Journalist research and pitch tracking |
| Cision | About 7,200 USD a year, 12,625 USD median contractVendr (February 2026) | 1,400,000+AuthorityTech (23 July 2026) | Annual only, no trial | No | Enterprise outreach, monitoring and the wire |
Two figures disagree on purpose. AuthorityTech counts 1,000,000+ contacts for Prowly in July 2026, while pr.co describes the Semrush AI PR Toolkit that absorbed Prowly with 600,000 media contacts in June 2026. Neither is verifiable from a Prowly page, because Prowly no longer publishes one.
The 6 Prezly alternatives
1. PressPilot: the outreach, without a subscription
PressPilot is the tool we make. Pick journalists by beat from a database of 45,476 (live count, September 2026), let the AI draft the release in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese, publish it on your newsroom and watch who opens and replies. One credit is one journalist contacted.
Price: 60 EUR for 100 credits, 195 EUR for 500, 340 EUR for 1,000, 750 EUR for 2,500, or 29 EUR per month for 100 credits, 79 EUR for 300 and 179 EUR for 800, all excl. VAT (presspilot.io/pricing, October 2026). Credits never expire.
Strengths: a journalist database included where Prezly has none; no contract and no contact ceiling to trigger an upgrade; EU hosting under GDPR.
Limitations: one newsroom per account, so no multi-brand agency setup; no localisation engine; no media monitoring and no wire for regulated disclosure.
Best for: teams whose real job is getting a release read, not running a publishing platform.
2. Prowly: the database Prezly does not have
Prowly, part of Semrush and now sold as the Semrush AI PR Toolkit, combines a media database, pitching, a press room and light monitoring. pr.co reports it is no longer sold standalone (June 2026), and its pricing page redirected to the home page on 3 September 2026.
Price: from 258 USD per month billed annually (Prezly, 25 August 2026), the figure Prowly also quoted in June 2025. AuthorityTech puts annual spending at 5,000 to 15,000 USD (July 2026).
Strengths: a large contact database in the same tool as the sending; monthly or annual billing; a 7-day trial.
Limitations: no rate card you can read on a Prowly page; database size reported at 1,000,000+ by one source and 600,000 by another; monitoring lighter than Cision or Meltwater.
Best for: a team that mainly needs contacts. See the Prowly pricing guide.
3. Mynewsdesk: newsroom, database and monitoring in one plan
Mynewsdesk sells distribution, a newsroom and media monitoring together, with a Northern European centre of gravity. pr.co describes a database of more than a million journalists and SEO-oriented newsrooms (June 2026).
Price: Essential from 220 EUR per month, buyable inside a free 10-day trial, covering 4 press releases a year, monitoring on 1 brand, a newsroom on 1 market and basic analytics, cancel anytime. PR Distribution and Media Monitoring are priced on request (mynewsdesk.com, read 3 September 2026).
Strengths: monitoring included at the entry tier; a real database; one plan with a published number.
Limitations: four releases a year on Essential is a hard cap; the two useful plans have no public price; Prowly's June 2025 review reports users finding contracts hard to cancel.
Best for: Nordic and Northern European media targets. See Mynewsdesk vs PressPilot.
4. pr.co: the multi-brand newsroom
pr.co is the closest thing to Prezly in product shape: branded newsrooms, media contacts, pitches, coverage and reporting in one hub, aimed at organisations running several brands or markets. It publishes no price and asks for a demo.
Price: not published. The company's own June 2026 comparison names no figure for itself or for any other tool.
Strengths: built for cross-market and cross-team collaboration; newsroom quality comparable to Prezly; strong reporting.
Limitations: no public price and a sales cycle; by its own description it offers more than a small team needs; you cannot budget without a call.
Best for: large organisations and agencies where Prezly's one-site plans stop working.
5. Muck Rack: journalist research
Muck Rack profiles journalists through what they publish and tracks pitches and coverage. It is a research tool, not a newsroom, so it complements rather than replaces.
Price: no public price. A 13,000 USD median annual contract, from 8,000 to 20,860 USD (Vendr, February 2026). AuthorityTech estimates 10,000 to 25,000 USD a year, 250,000+ contacts, annual only, no trial (July 2026).
Strengths: journalist profiles built from published work; pitch and coverage tracking; the best data on who covers what.
Limitations: ten times the price of Prezly Essential; no branded newsroom; annual contract with no trial.
Best for: teams that pitch by name and can defend a five-figure line item.
6. Cision: the enterprise suite
Cision bundles the largest database here with monitoring and, through PR Newswire, a wire accepted for regulated disclosure. Everything in one contract, nothing on a page.
Price: about 7,200 USD a year at entry (Prezly, August 2026) and a 12,625 USD median contract, from 3,150 to 30,368 USD (Vendr, February 2026).
Strengths: 1,400,000+ contacts; monitoring and outreach under one contract; PR Newswire for disclosure.
Limitations: no public price, annual only, no trial; you trade a 1,200 EUR subscription for a five-figure commitment.
Best for: listed companies and teams that need one vendor for everything. See the Cision pricing guide.
PressPilot vs Prezly, head to head
Prezly sells a publishing platform you fill with your own contacts; PressPilot sells access to journalists with a newsroom attached.
| Dimension | PressPilot | Prezly |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | 60 EUR for 100 credits | 100 EUR per month billed annually, 150 EUR monthly (prezly.com, September 2026) |
| Cost of a year of monthly campaigns | 720 EUR on credit packs, 348 EUR on the 29 EUR monthly plan | 1,200 EUR on Essential, 3,000 EUR on Standard |
| Journalist database | 45,476 journalists (live count, September 2026) | None (AuthorityTech, July 2026); CRM capped at 5,000 or 10,000 contacts |
| Contract | None, credits never expire | Monthly, or annual for the 20% discount |
| Hosted newsroom | Included, one per account | The core product: 1 site per plan, white-label from Standard |
| Languages | AI writing in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese | Single language on Essential, localisation and auto-translations on Standard |
| Free option | Free account, pay per campaign | 14-day trial, no card |
| Not for | Multi-brand agencies, media monitoring, SEC disclosure | Teams with no media list, five-brand agencies on entry plans |
The full grid, including the dollar prices and why other pages quote 90 or 120 USD, is in the Prezly pricing guide.
Which one for your team
| Priority | Tool to evaluate |
|---|---|
| You need journalists, not a platform | PressPilot, then Prowly if you want a million contacts to search |
| You send a handful of releases a year | PressPilot: 60 EUR a campaign against 1,200 EUR of fixed annual cost |
| You want monitoring in the same plan | Mynewsdesk Essential, or Cision if you also need the wire |
| You run five or more client brands | pr.co, or Prezly Enterprise |
| You pitch named reporters and research heavily | Muck Rack |
| The branded, translated newsroom is the deliverable | Stay on Prezly Standard |
| You file regulated disclosures | None of these. A wire such as Business Wire or PR Newswire, see Business Wire pricing |
Migration checklist: leaving Prezly
- Check the billing cycle first. Prezly bills annually for the 20% discount and monthly at 150 EUR on Essential. Find your renewal date before you shortlist anything, because the switch is free at renewal and expensive halfway through a year.
- Export contacts and stories. Download your contact lists as CSV with the custom fields, and your published stories as HTML or PDF. Do it while the account is live, not after you cancel.
- Separate the newsroom job from the outreach job. List what you actually used: publishing, translations, the CRM, the sending. If the newsroom carried the value, look at pr.co or stay. If the sending carried it, an outreach tool is cheaper.
- Get a written price for the two shortlisted tools. Prezly, Mynewsdesk Essential and PressPilot publish prices. Prowly, pr.co, Muck Rack and Cision quote. Ask for the number in writing with the seat count and the contract length.
- Clean the list before you import. Drop contacts with no reply in the last 12 months, re-verify addresses, carry over every opt-out and record the lawful basis for each contact you keep.
- Run one real release in parallel. Send the same announcement from the new tool while Prezly is still live, and compare open rate, reply rate and the coverage you can attribute. One release settles most arguments.
- Handle the URLs. If your Prezly site was on a subdomain you are retiring, set 301 redirects from each story URL to its new home so coverage links keep working.
- Cancel at the renewal date. Send written non-renewal before the notice window closes, archive the exports for your legal retention period and remove the DNS records pointing at the old site.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the best Prezly alternative in 2026?
- It depends on what Prezly was doing for you. For targeted outreach without a subscription, PressPilot at 60 EUR per 100 journalists (29 EUR a month on a plan). For a media database Prezly does not have, Prowly at 258 USD per month billed annually (Prezly, 25 August 2026) or Mynewsdesk from 220 EUR per month (mynewsdesk.com, September 2026). For enterprise newsrooms, pr.co and Cision, both on quote.
- What is the cheapest alternative to Prezly?
- PressPilot. A campaign to 100 journalists costs 60 EUR with AI writing (29 EUR on the monthly plan), a hosted newsroom and reply tracking included, and credits never expire. Prezly Essential is 100 EUR per month billed annually, which is 1,200 EUR a year before you own a single journalist contact (prezly.com, read 3 September 2026). Every other tool on this page starts higher than Prezly, not lower.
- Why do teams leave Prezly?
- Three reasons show up in the sources. No journalist database: AuthorityTech's July 2026 table lists Prezly with none, against 1,000,000+ contacts for Prowly. Contact ceilings: 5,000 on Essential, 10,000 on Standard, and the ceiling is what forces the upgrade. And one site per plan, which turns an agency with five client brands into five subscriptions or an Enterprise quote.
- Is PressPilot a full replacement for Prezly?
- Not for everything. PressPilot covers writing, targeting, sending, a hosted newsroom and open and reply tracking. Prezly stays ahead on newsroom design, localisation with auto-translations, white-label sites and multi-site setups for agencies. If the branded, translated newsroom is the deliverable, keep Prezly. If the job is getting a release read by the right reporters, PressPilot does it for 60 EUR a campaign, or 29 EUR a month on a plan.
- Does Prezly include a journalist database?
- No. AuthorityTech lists Prezly with no media database in its July 2026 comparison, where Prowly shows 1,000,000+ contacts, Cision 1,400,000+ and Muck Rack 250,000+. Prezly gives you a contact CRM capped at 5,000 contacts on Essential and 10,000 on Standard, and you bring the names. PressPilot includes 45,476 journalists (live count, September 2026) you filter by beat.
- How much does Prezly cost compared with Prowly and Mynewsdesk?
- Prezly Essential is 100 EUR per month billed annually, 150 EUR monthly, and Standard 250 EUR billed annually (prezly.com, September 2026). Prowly starts at 258 USD per month billed annually (Prezly, 25 August 2026) and publishes no rate card of its own. Mynewsdesk Essential is 220 EUR per month for 4 press releases a year, with the other two plans on request (mynewsdesk.com, September 2026).
- Can I migrate my Prezly contacts to PressPilot?
- Yes. Export your Prezly contacts to CSV with your custom fields, then import them into PressPilot and map the fields. Drop contacts with no reply in the last 12 months before you import, re-verify the addresses and keep the opt-outs. Export your published stories as well, and set 301 redirects if your Prezly site lived on a subdomain you are retiring.
- Which Prezly alternative works for a PR agency?
- It depends on whether each client needs its own branded site. If yes, pr.co and Prezly Enterprise are built for multi-brand, multi-market setups, both on quote. If the clients share your newsroom and the work is outreach, PressPilot credits are account-wide with no per-seat fee on entry packs, so a quiet month costs nothing on packs and a busy one costs what you send.
Related resources
- Prezly pricing 2026
- Prowly pricing 2026
- Prowly vs PressPilot
- Mynewsdesk vs PressPilot
- Prezly vs Cision
- Best press release distribution platforms 2026
- All PR tool alternatives
Keep the newsroom idea, drop the fixed cost
PressPilot starts at 29 EUR a month for 100 journalist credits (or 60 EUR for a one-off pack), with AI writing in 4 languages, a hosted newsroom and reply tracking included. No contract, no contact ceiling, credits never expire.