Prowly starts at 258 USD per month billed annually, about 3,100 USD a year, with a 1,000,000+ contact database (Prezly, 28 August 2026; AuthorityTech, July 2026). Muck Rack has no public price: 5,000 USD for one seat, a 13,000 USD median contract and 250,000+ contacts (Prezly, August 2026; Vendr, February 2026).
Short answer
If your job is to build a list, send releases and publish them on a press room, Prowly is the natural fit and costs roughly a third of a median Muck Rack contract. If your job is to know which reporter covered what, to track pitches against names and to prove coverage to an executive committee, Muck Rack is the stronger platform and the price reflects it. Neither is better in the abstract. The split is research depth on one side, breadth and price transparency on the other.
At a glance
| Criteria | Prowly | Muck Rack |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | 258 USD per month billed annually, about 3,100 USD a yearPrezly (28 August 2026) | 5,000 USD a year for one seatPrezly (August 2026) |
| What buyers pay | 5,000 to 15,000 USD a yearAuthorityTech (23 July 2026) | 13,000 USD median contract, 8,000 to 20,860 USDVendr, 59 deals (February 2026) |
| Claimed database size | 1,000,000+ contactsAuthorityTech (23 July 2026) | 250,000+ contactsAuthorityTech (23 July 2026) |
| Public pricing | No page, the figure circulates through Prezly and Rephonic | No page, quote only, HTTP 403 to automated readers |
| Contract and trial | Monthly or annual, trial offered, length not published | Annual only, no monthly option, no free trialPrezly (August 2026) |
| Plans | Basic annual 258 USD per month, Pro annual 416 USD per monthRephonic (26 August 2026, priced December 2025) | Starter, Standard, Premier; unlimited list exports from StandardRephonic (26 August 2026) |
| Press room and publishing | Included | Not a product |
| Monitoring and reporting | Present, lighter | Core, tied to individual reporters |
| Best for | Small PR teams, agencies, SEO-adjacent comms | Corporate comms and agencies that pitch by name daily |
Prowly is now folded into Semrush's AI PR toolkit, and Prezly notes it is still transitioning its identity under that brand (28 August 2026). Database sizes are the vendors' own claims as reported by AuthorityTech, and neither says how many of those contacts are current.
What the price gap actually is
At the entry point Prowly is roughly 3,100 USD a year against 5,000 USD for a one-user Muck Rack licence, so about 40% less. Compared with what buyers actually sign, the gap widens: AuthorityTech puts Prowly at 5,000 to 15,000 USD and Muck Rack at 10,000 to 25,000 USD, and Vendr's median Muck Rack contract is 13,000 USD across 59 deals. The annualisation of 258 USD per month is our arithmetic, not Prezly's: 258 times 12.
The other difference is what happens before you see a number. Prowly's price is published by third parties and repeated consistently across two Prezly pages and Rephonic. Muck Rack's only becomes visible in a sales cycle, and Vendr's buyers still cut 16.97% off the first quote on average (February 2026), which tells you how far the opening figure sits from the signed one.
Where Prowly wins
- Contacts per euro. Four times Muck Rack's claimed database at roughly a third of the median contract (AuthorityTech, July 2026; Vendr, February 2026).
- You can budget before the demo. 258 USD per month is a number you can put in a plan. Muck Rack's is not.
- Press room included. Prowly publishes releases on a hosted press room with clean metadata. Muck Rack has no equivalent surface.
- Monthly billing exists. Prowly bills monthly or annually. Muck Rack has no month-to-month option at all (Prezly, August 2026).
- Semrush stack. If your PR already sits next to SEO and content work in Semrush, the toolkit is in the same account.
Where Muck Rack wins
- Profiles built from published work. Muck Rack's smaller database is assembled from what reporters actually write, which is the reason teams accept a 250,000-contact list over a million-row one.
- Pitch and coverage tracking by name. The record of who you pitched, what ran and what did not is a first-class feature, not a report you assemble.
- Reporting for executives. Share of voice and coverage analysis are what a comms lead defends a budget with, and Prowly's reporting stack is thinner.
- AI journalist recommendations. From the Standard plan up, Muck Rack suggests reporters and lifts the export cap (Rephonic, 26 August 2026).
- Adoption at enterprise scale. It is the tool a VP Comms is likely to already know, which matters when the budget is approved upward.
Who should pick Prowly
B2B SaaS companies, scale-ups and PR agencies of two to ten people whose main questions are "did the release go out, is the press room live, are journalists opening it". If you need breadth of contacts and a published price more than you need a research archive, Prowly is the shorter path, and at about 3,100 USD a year it leaves budget for something else. It is also the easier tool to hand to a marketing team without engineering work.
Who should pick Muck Rack
Corporate comms teams and large agencies where the success metric is coverage volume, sentiment and share of voice rather than release throughput. If journalist research is the bottleneck, if you pitch hundreds of named reporters a month, or if you have to prove PR impact quarter over quarter to an executive committee, the 13,000 USD median contract buys the thing that actually does that job. Below two hours a week of research, it does not.
Where PressPilot fits
Both tools assume you want a full PR platform. A growing number of teams do not: they want to write a release, get it in front of relevant journalists and publish it. PressPilot is built for that job alone. It costs 60 EUR for 100 journalist credits and 340 EUR for 1,000, with no contract and credits that never expire, and includes AI writing in four languages, a hosted newsroom and open and reply tracking. Twelve campaigns of 100 journalists is 348 EUR a year on the monthly plan.
It is smaller and narrower on purpose: 45,476 journalists (live count, September 2026), no media monitoring, no journalist research archive, no wire and no regulated disclosure. If you are looking at Prowly mainly because Muck Rack quoted too high, PressPilot is the next thing to test before you commit to either. See Prowly vs PressPilot, Muck Rack vs PressPilot and the credit prices.
Decision shortcut
- Need breadth of contacts, a press room and a price you can read before a demo? Prowly, 258 USD per month billed annually.
- Need journalist research, pitch history and share of voice reporting? Muck Rack, 13,000 USD median contract.
- Need only to write, send and publish, with no subscription? PressPilot, 60 EUR per 100 journalists.
- Need regulated disclosure with the SEC or another regulator? None of the three. Use a wire: our Business Wire pricing guide puts a 400-word national release at 760 USD.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the main difference between Prowly and Muck Rack?
- Prowly is a media database with pitching, a hosted press room and light monitoring, sold on a monthly or annual subscription. Muck Rack is a journalist research platform: profiles built from what reporters publish, pitch tracking and coverage monitoring, sold on annual contracts only. Prowly helps you send and publish. Muck Rack helps you find, track and prove.
- Is Prowly cheaper than Muck Rack?
- Yes, at entry. Prowly starts at 258 USD per month billed annually, about 3,100 USD a year (Prezly, 28 August 2026). Muck Rack's basic one-user licence is reported at 5,000 USD a year and its median real contract at 13,000 USD (Prezly, August 2026; Vendr, February 2026). AuthorityTech puts annual spend at 5,000 to 15,000 USD for Prowly against 10,000 to 25,000 USD for Muck Rack (23 July 2026).
- How much does Prowly cost per month?
- 258 USD per month billed annually for the basic plan. Prowly's own pricing page redirected to its home page when we checked on 3 September 2026, so the figure comes from Prezly, which lists it on two pages (17 June and 28 August 2026), and from Rephonic, which reports the same 258 USD basic annual plan plus 416 USD per month for Pro, priced in December 2025 (26 August 2026).
- Which tool has the bigger journalist database?
- Prowly, by four times on the vendors' own claims: 1,000,000+ contacts against 250,000+ for Muck Rack in the same comparison table (AuthorityTech, 23 July 2026). Size is not quality. Muck Rack builds each profile from what the journalist actually published, which is why teams that pitch by name pay more for a smaller list.
- Can Prowly replace Muck Rack for media monitoring?
- Not fully. Prowly has monitoring, but it sits alongside the database and press room rather than being the core product, and its reporting is thinner. Muck Rack tracks pitches and coverage against individual reporters as a first-class feature. Teams that report share of voice upward every month usually keep the deeper tool.
- Do either of them publish a price?
- Neither publishes a readable rate card. prowly.com/pricing redirected to the home page and muckrack.com/pricing returned HTTP 403 to automated readers when we checked on 3 September 2026. Prowly's 258 USD figure circulates through Prezly and Rephonic; Muck Rack's figures come from Prezly, Rephonic and Vendr's contract data.
- Does either tool require an annual contract?
- Muck Rack does: 12 months, no monthly option, no free trial, only a sales demo (Prezly, August 2026; AuthorityTech, 23 July 2026). Prowly bills monthly or annually, and its published figure of 258 USD per month is the annual rate, so the monthly rate is higher. Prowly offers a trial, though neither Prezly nor Prowly states its length.
- Is there a cheaper option than both?
- For sending without a subscription, PressPilot charges 60 EUR for 100 journalist credits and 340 EUR for 1,000 (excl. VAT), with no contract and credits that never expire. Twelve campaigns of 100 journalists cost 348 EUR a year on the 29 EUR monthly plan, or 460 EUR in packs. It has 45,476 journalists (live count, September 2026), no monitoring and no research archive, so it replaces the sending half of either tool, not the whole thing.
Related guides
- Muck Rack pricing 2026: what buyers actually pay
- 7 best Muck Rack alternatives 2026
- Muck Rack vs PressPilot
- Prowly vs PressPilot
- Cision pricing 2026
- Best press release distribution platforms 2026
Want the distribution-first option?
No annual contract, no sales call, no seats. Start with 100 credits at 60 EUR and see whether a lighter stack fits your workflow before you commit to Prowly or Muck Rack. PressPilot does not monitor the press and is not a research archive, and we would rather you knew that first.