Featured vs Muck Rack in 2026: self-serve AI PR co-pilot vs enterprise media intelligence
Featured is a $0-79/month tool for solo founders responding to inbound journalist requests. Muck Rack is a demo-gated platform built for PR teams who need a searchable journalist database and media monitoring at scale.
Featured
Muck Rack- Featured has transparent self-serve pricing from free to $79 per month. Muck Rack requires a demo call and custom quote with no public pricing and typically annual contracts.
- Muck Rack has a searchable journalist database with AI-powered pitch recommendations. Featured has no journalist database and only surfaces inbound requests that match your profile.
- Featured includes GEO Visibility tracking of AI-generated search appearances on every plan, including free. Muck Rack gates its equivalent, Generative Pulse, as an add-on on Professional and only includes it standard on Enterprise.
- Muck Rack monitors news, social, broadcast, and podcast coverage in one dashboard with sentiment scoring. Featured has no traditional media monitoring; it tracks opportunity feeds, not published coverage.
- Neither tool gives full API access on its entry tier. Featured has no API at all. Muck Rack offers limited API on Professional and full API only on Enterprise.
- Muck Rack scores higher on support (9.0 vs 7.5) with dedicated onboarding. Featured scores higher on value for money (8.5 vs 6.5) given its free and $29 tiers.
Featured and Muck Rack both added AI-driven brand visibility tracking in the last year, but they start from opposite ends of the PR workflow. Featured is built around inbound opportunities: journalist source requests, podcast bookings, and speaking slots surface in an AI chat interface, and pricing is public starting at free. Muck Rack is built around outbound capability: a searchable journalist database with pitch recommendations, full media monitoring across news, social, broadcast, and podcasts, and reporting that ties coverage to business outcomes, sold through a demo call with no published price. Both now track how brands show up inside ChatGPT and Gemini answers, Featured through GEO Visibility and Muck Rack through Generative Pulse, but neither treats that as the core product. The decision comes down to whether you need a lightweight opportunity feed or a full PR operations platform.
The tools at a glance
Featured
AI-powered PR co-pilot for journalist requests, podcast pitching, and media opportunity discovery
Featured runs on an AI chat interface that aggregates inbound media opportunities: journalist source requests pulled from HARO and similar feeds, podcast bookings, bylined article slots, and speaking events. You describe what you are looking for in plain language and the chat surfaces matching opportunities, with automated workflows that keep monitoring in the background and alert you when something fits.
Pricing is the clearest differentiator against Muck Rack. Featured has a real free tier, a Lite tier at $29 per month, and a Pro tier at $79 per month, all annual, with the same feature set across tiers and only the daily AI usage allowance changing. GEO Visibility, which tracks how your brand appears in AI-generated search responses, ships on every tier rather than sitting behind an enterprise gate.
The gaps show up once you want to work outbound. There is no journalist database for building your own pitch lists, no API for piping opportunity data into a CRM, and usage is credit-based, so a busy week of active outreach can hit the daily cap before you are done.
| Feature | Free $0/mo | Lite $29/mo (annual) | Pro $79/mo (annual) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Journalist request matching | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Podcast and speaking discovery | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GEO visibility tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automated workflows | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Daily AI usage | Low | 5x Free | 5x Lite |
| API access | No | No | No |
Muck Rack
AI-powered PR platform for media monitoring, journalist outreach, and generative AI coverage tracking
Muck Rack combines a searchable journalist database, cross-channel media monitoring, and coverage reporting into one platform built for professional PR teams. Each journalist profile carries their beat, recent articles, social following, and contact details, with AI-generated pitch recommendations suggesting the angle most likely to land based on that reporter's history.
Generative Pulse, its AI monitoring module, tracks brand mentions inside ChatGPT and Gemini alongside traditional press coverage, showing which sources AI models cite when discussing your category. It sits next to news, social, broadcast, and podcast monitoring in the same dashboard, with sentiment scoring applied across all of it and executive-ready reporting that attributes coverage to business outcomes.
Access is the trade-off. There is no published pricing, no free tier, and no self-serve trial: every account starts with a demo call and typically closes as an annual contract. API access exists but is limited on the Professional tier and only fully available on Enterprise, which also gates white-label reporting and a dedicated account manager.
| Feature | Professional Contact for pricing | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Media monitoring | Yes | Yes |
| Journalist database | Yes | Yes |
| Generative Pulse (AI monitoring) | Add-on | Included |
| API access | Limited | Full |
| White-label reporting | No | Yes |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Featured | Muck Rack |
|---|---|---|
| AI-generated search (GEO) visibility tracking | Yes (all plans, including free) | Yes (Generative Pulse: add-on on Professional, included on Enterprise) |
| Journalist database | No (inbound requests only) | Yes (searchable, with pitch intelligence) |
| AI-assisted pitch drafting | Yes (Featured Chat) | Yes (AI pitch recommendations) |
| Media coverage monitoring (news/social/broadcast) | No | Yes (news, social, broadcast, podcasts) |
| Automated opportunity alerts | Yes (Automated Workflows) | Yes (real-time, by brand/competitor/keyword) |
| Press release distribution | No | Yes |
| API access | No | Limited on Professional, Full on Enterprise |
| White-label reporting | No | Enterprise only |
| Self-serve signup | Yes | No (demo required) |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Starting price | Free (paid from $29/mo) | Custom (sales-led) |
Considering AI Peekaboo alongside Featured and Muck Rack?
Both tools now track brand mentions inside AI-generated answers, but it is a secondary feature in both cases. Featured's GEO Visibility ships free but runs on the same credit cap as everything else in the app, with no API to export the data. Muck Rack's Generative Pulse is an add-on on its Professional tier and only becomes standard once you are paying Enterprise, sales-led pricing. AI Peekaboo tracks AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and other engines as its whole product, with a read and write API on every plan from $50 per month and no demo call required. If AI search visibility is the actual priority rather than a PR platform that happens to include it, it is worth measuring separately from either tool here.
Read the AI Peekaboo review →Which should you choose?
FeaturedMuck RackFeaturedMuck RackFeaturedMuck RackFeaturedFeatured and Muck Rack rarely compete for the same buyer. Featured is priced and built for someone doing PR alongside another job, responding to opportunities as they appear. Muck Rack is priced and built for a team whose job is PR, with the journalist database, monitoring breadth, and reporting depth that a dedicated communications function needs. The AI monitoring features in both are a signal of where the market is heading, not the reason to pick either one today.
Bottom line
Start with Featured's free tier if you are doing earned media alongside a founder or consultant role and do not have budget for a PR platform. Book the Muck Rack demo if you run PR as your full-time function and need the journalist database, cross-channel monitoring, and reporting that come with an annual contract. Neither is a real substitute for the other; the gap between $0 and a five-figure annual contract reflects genuinely different products.
Frequently asked questions
Is Featured a real alternative to Muck Rack for a small PR team?
Featured is a viable alternative for a small team focused on inbound opportunities and thought-leadership placements, not for a team that needs Muck Rack's journalist database and outbound pitch tooling. Featured has no searchable contact database at all, so if your workflow depends on building your own media lists, Muck Rack (or a dedicated database tool) is still necessary.
How does Muck Rack Generative Pulse compare to Featured GEO Visibility?
Both track how a brand appears inside AI-generated answers from platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini, but access differs sharply. Featured includes GEO Visibility on every plan, including the free tier. Muck Rack's Generative Pulse is an add-on on the Professional plan and only comes standard once you are on Enterprise, which requires a custom quote.
Why does Muck Rack not publish its pricing?
Muck Rack sells through a demo call and custom quote rather than public tiers, and contracts are typically annual. This is common for platforms built around dedicated account management and enterprise procurement, but it means you cannot compare cost against Featured's $0-79/month pricing without talking to sales first.
Does Featured have an API for connecting to a CRM?
Featured does not offer a public API as of mid-2026, on any plan. Muck Rack offers API access, though it is limited on the Professional tier and only fully available on Enterprise.
Which tool is better for tracking press coverage after it happens, not just finding opportunities?
Muck Rack is built for this: media monitoring spans news, social, broadcast, and podcasts, with sentiment scoring and reporting that ties coverage to business outcomes. Featured tracks opportunity feeds and competitor visibility watch, not published coverage, so it is not designed to answer "what did we get covered for" the way Muck Rack is.