HARO (Help a Reporter Out)

From 2008 to Featured

HARO launched in 2008 and passed to Cision through its merger with Vocus in 2014. Cision rebranded it as Connectively in 2024, discontinued it, then announced on 15 April 2025 that it had sold HARO to Featured.com (Cision, April 2025).

Featured revived HARO as an email service in 2025 and brought Connectively back in 2026 as a separate request platform; it says HARO serves "800,000+ sources and 75,000+ journalists" and that Connectively passed 100,000 users in June 2026 (Featured, June 2026). Those are the operator's own figures.

How it works

You sign up as a source and receive requests by email. Answer only the ones where you have real expertise, quickly, in a form the journalist can quote without editing, and never invent credentials. Whether you get a link is the journalist's decision, so judge it on coverage over months, not on links per pitch. Relevance decides most of it: in Muck Rack's 2026 survey, 88% of journalists immediately disregard pitches that miss their beat (Muck Rack).

Alternatives and what they cost

Featured, which runs HARO, has a free plan and paid plans at $29 and $79 a month billed annually (Featured pricing, October 2026). Qwoted's free plan allows two pitches a month with a two-hour delay, and its Pro plan costs $149 a month (Qwoted pricing, October 2026). Agencies that run this work charge too: in BuzzStream's survey, journalist-request services averaged about $400 per link and $4,000 a month, by its category-weighted estimates (BuzzStream). The full landscape is in HARO alternatives in 2026.

Does it still work?

For many SEOs, yes: 21% of the 500 professionals in Reporter Outreach's 2026 survey call HARO and journalist sourcing their best-performing tactic (Reporter Outreach). It works best as part of digital PR, with a real expert behind the answers.