Top media databases and media monitoring tools

A media contact database is simply a structured data source containing information about journalist’s beats/areas of interest, contact details and social media info.

Most media contact database service will combine media monitoring tools along with it so that you can track keywords you care about such as your brand name, product name, your name or a subject matter expert at your company through most news platforms so that analyze the complete PR pitching to conversion process where not only you can pitch journalists but also see whenver they mention you.

We will talk about all the major providers in the business today; drop us a line in the chat box below if you think we are missing out reviewing some useful media contact database out there.

1) Cision

Cision communication cloud is probably number one go to place for any kind of media database, PR pitching etc. for past number of decades. Their product line has made a neat transition from the days of traditional media and PR to the digital era. They haven’t exactly been at the forefront of innovation but they have stayed strong by acquiring promising startups (over 12 at the last count). I am sure lot of you used Help a reporter out (HARO) and were a bit disappointed to see it being bought out by Cision and being bundled into their near endless product catalog. Trendkite was another promising startup that got folded into Cision.

Size of the database: they claim to have global coverage with over 1.4 million media contacts and journalists in their database.

Pricing: Cision does not put pricing details on their website but external websites put it at around $7000/year with contracts running annually.

2) Meltwater

Meltwater is another legacy media database provider that provides end to end products that includes media database, media monitoring, social media monitoring, social media influencer search etc. One problem we have seen with Meltwater is their aggressive sales people who have been less than honest about the product you are buying and than they try to upsell you after you have locked yourself into an annual contract. There were lots of talks in sept 2020 of possible merger of Cision with Meltwater, thankfully, it seems like that has fallen through due to concerns about monopolizing the media database marketplace.

Size of the database: Meltwater has 1 million contacts in their database

Pricing: Their typical contracts start at $4000 with upsells for additional features. Pricing is not mentioned on their website and you will have to request a quote for your specific needs.

3) Muckrack

Muckrack was one of the first startups to toally upend the traditional media database providers. Right from the start, they focused on digital PR and social media monitoring was a big part of their offering. They created journalist and media outlet profile pages containing real time feeds of their twitter posts, latest news etc. These pages are completely editable to the journalist themselves so that they can use it as their portfolio website kinda like how Google Scholar Author profiles have become for academic researchers and professors. This focus on creating value propositions for both the journalists and media database users has propelled Muckrack pages towards the top of Google search results for numerous journalist names.

Size of the database: 300,000-800,000 contacts are present in their database

Pricing: Like the big boys of media contacts database, this one costs about $6000/year too however you have to request pricing for your use case with no specific details on their site.

4) Prowly

Prowly is one of the newer startups that have made the PR pitching more accessible to companies with limited PR budget. Theirs is a self-service SAAS model so you do not have to deal with pushy sales staff or jump hoops just to get pricing info. Their typical plan costs about $3500/year so its little cheaper than the big boys (Muckrack, meltwater, Cision) while getting more or less same number of journalists in the database. One thing we don’t like about Prowly is the necessity to get an additional media monitoring tool to track keyword mentions since Prowly is only a media contacts database.

5) Anewstip

Anewstip is another startup with similar product offering as Prowly. Pricing starts at $2400/year and it includes a basic media monitoring and alerting service so thats a bonus.

6) Justreachout

Justreachout is one of the more affordable media list provider with pricing starting only at $1200/year; one downside is that it includes only a email pitch quota of 100/month that is frankly too small these days for any kind of effective digital PR pitching campaign. But you can upgrade to a plan with higher limits.

7) JournalistFinder.com

JournalistFinder.com is a great database specifically targeting small businesses, startups nonprofits and advocacy groups. It currently only includes information for media outlets and journalists working in English language and the database is skewed more towards US, Canada, UK and Australia with some coverage for India.

Size of the database: it currently contains just about 300,000 media contacts; it may seem smaller than others, however, they update their database every week compared to other providers.

Pricing: We are undergoing a free beta trial with select customers; our typical pricing for full access is $240/year. Contact us to sign up for it.