If you are striving to build your short list of PR and communications technology vendors, this long but neatly organized list of companies and resources might prove helpful
My last PR tech sum went up in November of last year – and very little in the way of substantive news has happened in the PR technology community since. So, I thought it’d be a good time to update the list of vendors I’m tracking.
My previous list was something of a mishmash of tools, where this list attempts to categorize vendors in a way that is useful to prospective buyers. To that end, I’ve also made some changes to the list.
1) I’ve modified the list to only cover those software providers that are in my assessment primarily or heavily focused on PR and communications.
2) If I’ve published a briefing, product review or substantive blog posts on any company mentioned here in the past, I list those as well.
3) There is no order of merit to this list. Each category breaks out vendors alphabetically. While I do provide some comments, I’m not grading or recommending any vendor. This is an effort to provide an impartial, but candid opinion, based on my experience on the vendor side and monthly research and writing.
4) Finally, this is a work-in-progress that I will update over time.
All-in-one PR software incumbents
The all-in-one category are those vendors that offer a contact database, email distribution and media monitoring, analytics and reporting. Some offer press release distribution either natively through a service they own or through a partner.
Agility PR Solutions (Canada)
- Newswire service through a partnership with Accesswire.
- Resources: newsroom, company blog, Bulldog Reporter, news search.
- Parent company: Innodata (Nasdaq: INOD).
- Review: The Updated Media Monitoring Module by Agility PR Solutions is a Solid Tool for the Price Point (2020).
- Comment: Formed out of Media Miser and divested pieces of PR Newswire it has become its own tool. The Innodata CEO says the parent company is investing heavily in AI, which could benefit the Agility platform. The company also acquired Bulldog Reporter, which used to be an independent PR trade publication. One of its original editors, Richard Carufel, remains on staff and it’s still run like a publication. It’s brilliant.
- Products: media monitoring & reporting, media outreach, short video demo.
- Resources: newsroom, company blog, news search.
- Comment: One of the oldest independent vendors in the space. I have an affinity because I recall being a young account executive getting envelopes of newspaper clippings in the snail mail from their team in Maine.
- Offers native newswire service through PR Newswire and PRWeb which it owns; it also owns media outreach services Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and ProfNet.
- Resources: company blog, Beyond Bylines, newsroom, news search.
- Parent company: Private equity firm Platinum Equity.
- Blog post: The Making of Cision – A Brief History of 18 M&A Transactions that Consolidated a Sizable Chunk of the PR Tech Market into One Company
- Briefing: How Cision Impact is Bringing Earned Media Attribution and Retargeting to Public Relations (2019)
- Comment: Cision is the quintessential incumbent vendor, but it’s been through a lot of changes. In the last couple of years, it turned over many of its senior executives. This caused the company to make several stutter steps in my view. Many of the acquisitions strike me as a love for deal-making or eliminating the competition than adding value for customers. Even so, because they are Cision, any buyer should have a look.
- Offers press release distribution through GlobeNewswire (which is owned by Notified/Intrado/West).
- Resources: newsroom, investor relations, company blog, news search.
- The company is publicly traded on the Oslo Børs exchange: MWTR.
- Blog: Voice Interface for Public Relations? Meltwater Wants to Build its Own Siri [PR Tech Sum].
- Blog: Meltwater Quietly Goes IPO [PR Tech Sum].
- Q&A: Geek Out with Meltwater on NLP and Sentiment Analysis for PR and Marketing; Off Script No. 48: Dr. Tim Furche.
- Comment: The company has also been on an acquisition spree, which seems to follow a deliberate strategy of expanding its total addressable market beyond PR and comms. Among the acquisitions include an “aqui-hire” of a handful of PhDs focused on artificial intelligence. I found their mobile app impressive. Meltwater has a reputation for an overly aggressive sales team.
- Offers press release distribution through a partnership with Business Wire.
- Resources: in the news, company blog, news search.
- Blog: Muck Rack Lands a Whopping $180 million in Funding [PR Tech Sum].
- Blog: Muck Rack Aims to be an All-in-One PR Tech Platform for Media Contacts, Outreach and Monitoring [PR Tech Briefing].
- Comment: The company’s most recent round of funding catapults it, in my mind, to the incumbent weight class. One of the company’s biggest advantages is that it built on newer technology whereas many of its rivals consisted of a handful of products cobbled together. It’s also taken care to treat journalists like customers and provides them with free tools. Many other vendors see a reporter as just a contact data point.
- Offers native newswire service through GlobeNewswire which it owns.
- Resources: press releases, in the news, company blog, news search.
- Parent company: West Technology Group and Intrado (the company has rebranded several times), which in turn is owned by the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, LLC (NYSE: APO).
- Briefing: Notified by Intrado is a Promising PR Software Tool that Supports 5 Central.
- Comment: The name is newer to the field, but it stems from a PR startup the company acquired and then took its name. The review above is based on the startup’s product and I thought it looked pretty good at the time. I haven’t seen it post-acquisition. The company comes at PR from an investor relations and event management perspective, which I believe is in part because it got its start by acquiring assets from Nasdaq (and Marketwire[d]). You can find the background in this PR Tech Summary under the fourth point.
- Offers press release distribution through a partnership with Business Wire.
- Parent: Private equity firm Symphony Technology Group (STG).
- Resources: newsroom, company blog, news search.
- Blog: PE firm closes on deals for Kantar Reputation Intelligence, PRgloo and Onclusive; will merge all three companies under Onclusive as a single PR tech company.
- Blog: After a Recent Three-Way Tie Up, Onclusive Acquires Critical Mention.
- Briefing: Onclusive Provides PR with Attribution Capabilities and Promises Novel Approach to Distribution [PR Tech Briefing].
- Comment: Onclusive started out as a high-end pure-play media monitoring tool, but the recent mergers put it in the all-in-one category. In my opinion, the company has a lot of work to do in streamlining people and processes following mergers with four other companies. My take is simply “wait and see.”
All-in-one PR software startups
- Products: media database, media monitoring & reporting, email plugins for Gmail and Outlook, pitch analytics.
- Pricing: starts at $6,000 annually.
- Resources: in the press, company blog, news search.
- Blog: Another PR Tech Startup Gets Venture Funding [PR Tech Sum].
- Q&A: PR Agency Owner Started Making Homegrown PR Software; Today it’s a VC-backed Startup; Off Script No. 47: Zach Cutler Co-founder and CEO at Propel.
- Comment: This company looks pretty interesting to me. I haven’t yet had a chance to really dive in deep yet. I’d definitely put them on the shortlist.
International-based all-in-one PR software providers
Prezly (Belgium)
- Resources: company news, news search.
- Pricing: starts at $50 per month ($600 annually).
- Blog: Prezly is CRM for PR that’s Built on an Online Newsroom [PR Tech Briefing].
- Comment: Prezly doesn’t maintain contact data, but rather provides you with the automation to manage contacts.
Prowly (Poland)
- Products: media database, email distribution, media monitoring & reporting, online newsroom.
- Pricing: starts at $189 per month (~ $2,200 annually).
- Parent company: Semrush (NYSE: SEMR).
- Resources: company blog, news search.
- Blog: SEO Software Company Semrush Moves into PR with Prowly Acquisition [PR Tech Sum].
- Comment: I was initially enthusiastic about the acquisition by Semrush, but I haven’t seen a whole lot about it since. The company recently named Bill Wagner to its board. Bill previously served as a successful CEO at LogMeIn. Prior to that, he served as the CMO and COO of Vocus.
Vuelio (United Kingdom)
- Also owns Response Source which is like HARO or ProfNet in Europe.
- Parent: Access Intelligence PLC (AIM: ACC).
- Resources: company blog, news search.
Standalone media monitoring
The following companies focus primarily on media monitoring and reporting. Some use words like media intelligence and reputation management, but these are based on media monitoring.
- Resources: newsroom, company blog, news search.
- Briefing: A Look at the Media Monitoring Tool Truescope is Bringing to the U.S. [PR Tech Briefing].
- Comment: Based in Australia, the company’s aim is to simplify media monitoring – and try to make the product easy to use. It does have the advantage of being built on modern software and negotiating content contracts from scratch. The founder John Croll previously served as the CEO of iSentia, so he knows the space. It recently hired
Meg (Stahlberg) Crumbine to lead US operations. Her name might be familiar to old-school PR people as she once led the broadcast monitoring service VMS.
- Resources: newsroom, company blog, news search.
- Blog: Corporate PR Index: Two Cool New Indices Track Corporate Reputations and Risk Exposure to Misinformation [PR Tech Sum].
- Comment: The company is striving to think bigger about media monitoring. Most use cases are reactive, but Signal AI is making a case – and workflow – to proactively manage reputation and market risk. The company is led by David Benigson, a former lawyer turned tech startup founder. In September, he told me the company has been in business for roughly 9 years, has 220 employees, 750 clients and has raised $100 million in funding.
- Resources: newsroom, company blog.
iSentia (Australia)
- Resources: in the news, company blog, news search.
Standalone broadcast monitoring tools
The following vendors primarily focus on broadcast monitoring. This often includes both video and audio – and can include both news monitoring and advertising performance monitoring.
- Products: broadcast news and ad monitoring.
- Resources: newsroom, company blog, news search.
- Comment: TVEyes is also a white-label partner of other vendors on this list – and powers their broadcast monitoring.
- Products: broadcast news and ad monitoring.
- Resources: news, news search.
Standalone media outreach
The following products primarily focus on media outreach, but they all do things a little differently.
- Products: directory of subject matter experts.
- Pricing: $79 verification fee + $350 or more per article (only pay when quoted).
- Parent: ITK Information Services (owns Report Mule, publishes the PR Daily Brief).
- Resources: How it Works.
- Blog: Vetted acquired by ITK Information Services.
- Products: contact management, email distribution, pitch analytics.
- Resources: company blog, news search.
- Comment: The company has pivoted from its original plan of compiling PR pitches into a single email digest for reporters (i.e. “one pitch”) to more of an outreach tool. One interesting feature is a recommendation engine that analyzes pitches and matches the text against contacts in its database. Then it recommends media contacts for you to pitch that have written about related topics.
- Products: pitch opportunities, expert database.
- Resources: company blog, news search.
- Pricing: starts at $299 per month (~$3,500 annually).
- Parent: Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW).
- Resources: in the news, news search, pricing.
- Blog: New Tech Tool Aims to Predict the Probability Your PR Pitch will Resonate with Reporters [PR Tech Sum].
- Comment: This company refers to itself as the “first-ever AI-driven PR pitch platform” that aims to predict how your pitch will land with a reporter. I maintain interest but also a healthy skepticism. The founder, Aaron Kwittken, is also a “founder and chairman” of an agency, which represents PRophet. He has served as President of PRSA New York and will “will continue to serve on the 2023 Board as immediate past president” according to a PRSA NY. In 2021, PRSA NY put out a press release that identified said, in part, “PRSA-NY and PRophet joined forces last week for the first of two no-cost training sessions to introduce and train attendees to use PRophet’s proprietary technology, which public relations agencies and in-house PR teams can use to improve their media relations, issues management, and strategic capabilities.” The latter press release identified Mr. Kwittken as “PRSA-NY president-elect” at the time it was published.
Reletter (UK)
- Find, contact and get featured in newsletters.
- Resources: blog, news search.
Internal communications tools
I currently only know of one company that focuses on internal comms – and employee engagement. Suggestions for other companies to watch are welcome.
FirstUp (formerly SocialChorus)
- Products: internal comms platform, email distribution, email analytics.
- Parent: Private equity firm Sumeru Equity Partners.
- Resources: newsroom, company blog, news search.
- Blog: Internal comms tool SocialChorus acquired by a PE firm for $100 Million.
- Comment: In 2021, Sumeru Equity merged SocialChorus with Dynamic Signal and rebranded as Firstup. I haven’t used the products, but since I too have struggled with internal communications in previous roles, particularly around measuring engagement, I think the product looks incredibly helpful.
Staffbase (Germany)
- Products: employee communications, email, intranet, SharePoint-solutions
- Resources: blog, newsroom, news search.
Investor relations tools
- Products: investor relations management, event management, microsites, engagement analytics, online newsroom.
- Publicly traded on the TSE: QFOR.
- Resources: online newsroom, company blog, news search.
Press release distribution
- Accesswire.
- Business Wire (owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway).
- GlobeNewswire.
- iCrowdNewswire (offers a white-label product too).
- PR Newswire.
- PRWeb (owned by Cision).
I typically use PRWeb, but I’ve also experimented with iCrowdNewswire and GlobeNewswire. iCrowdNewswire is interesting because, for a time, it spent a little money on PPC and social media ads to help promote the release. That ad spend seemed to me designed for users who weren’t familiar with paid promotion. In my experience, Globe offers the best value for European distribution.
Also, see these posts on press releases:
- Blog: Press Release Pricing: How Much Does Press Release Distribution Cost? [and other FAQs]
- Blog: Sorry, Press Releases Do Not Help Your SEO Anymore [Even if Your Press Release Distribution Vendor Says They Do…They Still Don’t]
On the radar
These are tools that seem to be focused on PR on but I haven’t yet examined them in depth.
- Press Page – all-in-one platform based in the Netherlands.
- Valosan – media relations management based in Finland.
- NewsWhip – media monitoring based in the US; blog | in the news | news search
- MyNewsDesk – all-in-one platform based in Sweeden; blog | newsroom | news search
- Poppulo – internal communications based in the US; blog | news search
Tools removed from the list
I’ve stopped following Nexis Newsdesk and Talkwalker as they just don’t seem to focus on PR or communications.
* * *
Who am I missing that I should consider adding to the list?
I publish a monthly piece that summarizes news from the PR technology community that I call the PR Tech Sum. I also write an occasional PR Tech Briefing and Product Review. Stay up to date by subscribing to this blog.
Vendors, please read this before pitching.
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