Hey Press vs Prowly in 2026: a discontinued journalist tool vs an AI PR platform now sold through Semrush
Hey Press folded into JournoFinder and hey.press is now a content hub. Prowly became the Semrush AI PR Toolkit, with a 600,000-profile database and an AI-cited media layer starting at $149/month.
Hey Press
Prowly- Prowly no longer sells standalone subscriptions; new sign-ups go through the Semrush AI PR Toolkit starting at $149/month (Base) or $279/month (Pro).
- Hey Press also stopped operating independently, merging into JournoFinder; hey.press today functions mainly as a PR guides and comparison hub.
- Prowly's AI-Cited Media Database filters journalists and outlets by whether large language models actually reference their coverage, a feature Hey Press never had even before the JournoFinder merger.
- Prowly includes a 600,000+ journalist and outlet profile database with AI pitch drafting and email outreach tracking. Hey Press's original database now lives entirely under JournoFinder.
- Prowly's Media Monitoring is Pro-only at $279/month; the Base plan at $149/month leaves out the one feature that shows whether a campaign actually worked.
- Neither tool documents a public API: Prowly has none in its current Semrush offering, and Hey Press's API status now depends entirely on JournoFinder.
Hey Press and Prowly both started as independent PR tools and both no longer exist in the form that built their early reputations, just in very different ways. Prowly was acquired by Semrush and now sells as the AI PR Toolkit, a $149-to-$279-a-month platform with a 600,000-profile journalist database, AI-assisted pitching, and a genuinely useful AI-Cited Media Database that filters outlets by whether large language models actually reference their coverage. Hey Press merged into JournoFinder and stopped selling anything under its own name; hey.press today is mostly PR guides. Comparing the two means comparing a live, feature-dense platform against a brand that redirects elsewhere, which makes this less a feature fight and more a question of whether Prowly's Semrush pricing is worth it for what remains an active product.
The tools at a glance
Hey Press
Journalist discovery tool for startups, now part of JournoFinder
Hey Press launched as a journalist search tool built for startup founders who wanted press contacts without an enterprise media database subscription. Search by topic or beat, get a list of relevant journalists, start pitching. It reached over 1,000 PR professionals on that single feature.
The product merged into JournoFinder, and the hey.press homepage now describes itself as part of that platform. The active search tool and its pricing sit under JournoFinder's own domain; what remains on hey.press is a set of PR guides and comparison articles covering Muck Rack alternatives, Prowly alternatives, and pitching advice.
That last point is a little ironic given this comparison: hey.press has published guides comparing itself to Prowly in the past, and today the honest answer is that Prowly, however expensive it has become under Semrush, is the one still selling an active product.
| Feature | See JournoFinder Via JournoFinder |
|---|---|
| Journalist search | Via JournoFinder |
| Contact database | Via JournoFinder |
| PR guides and resources | Free on hey.press |
Prowly
AI-powered PR platform for media outreach, journalist discovery, and media monitoring, now part of Semrush
Prowly started as an independent PR platform before Semrush acquired it and folded it into the Semrush AI PR Toolkit. The old standalone brand and subscription tiers are gone; buying Prowly today means buying it through Semrush, whether or not you use any other Semrush product.
What survives the transition is a genuinely capable platform: a 600,000+ profile journalist and outlet database, AI-assisted pitch and press release drafting, email outreach with tracking, and a built-in contact CRM. The standout feature is the AI-Cited Media Database, which sorts outlets by whether large language models actually reference their coverage when answering questions, a different and arguably more forward-looking signal than raw traffic or domain authority.
The cost is real: Base at $149/month excludes Media Monitoring, which is the feature that tells you whether any of the outreach worked, and Pro at $279/month is where that gets unlocked. The 7-day trial also blocks outbound sending entirely, so you cannot test deliverability before paying.
| Feature | Base $149/mo | Pro $279/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Journalist database | 600,000+ profiles | 600,000+ profiles |
| AI-Cited Media Database | Yes | Yes |
| AI pitch and press release writing | Yes | Yes |
| Media Monitoring | No | Yes |
| Contact CRM | Yes | Yes |
| API access | No | No |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Hey Press | Prowly |
|---|---|---|
| Standalone active product | No, merged into JournoFinder | Yes (via Semrush) |
| Journalist database size | N/A, via JournoFinder | 600,000+ profiles |
| AI-cited media filtering | No | Yes |
| AI pitch/release writing | No | Yes |
| Email outreach and tracking | No | Yes |
| Media monitoring | No | Pro plan only |
| Contact CRM | No | Yes |
| API access | Depends on JournoFinder | No |
| Free trial | No public pricing on hey.press | 7 days (outbound sending blocked) |
| Starting price | Via JournoFinder | $149/month |
Considering AI Peekaboo alongside Hey Press and Prowly?
Prowly's AI-Cited Media Database is a real advantage: it tells you which outlets large language models reference, so you can pitch journalists whose coverage is more likely to feed AI answers. Hey Press has no AI-visibility feature at all, even accounting for JournoFinder. But knowing who to pitch is only half the job; neither tool tracks whether your brand is actually showing up in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity responses once that coverage runs. AI Peekaboo covers that side directly, with a read and write API and white-label reporting on every plan from $50/month, letting agencies pair Prowly's outlet targeting with proof that earned coverage moved AI-answer visibility.
Read the AI Peekaboo review →Which should you choose?
ProwlyProwlyProwlyBoth tools changed ownership and both no longer sell what they originally sold, but only one kept an active, purchasable product on the other side of that change. Prowly, now the Semrush AI PR Toolkit, is a real platform with a database, outreach, and a genuinely distinctive AI-citation feature, priced at a level that only makes full sense if you use more than one piece of it. Hey Press, evaluated as software, is not really a competitor anymore; it is a content hub that happens to be honest about pointing you to JournoFinder for the product it used to be.
Bottom line
Go with the Semrush AI PR Toolkit if you want an active journalist database, AI-assisted pitching, and, on Pro, media monitoring, and you can stomach $149 to $279 a month for it. Do not treat hey.press as a live alternative; use its guides for research and go to JournoFinder directly if you specifically want the tool Hey Press used to be.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hey Press still a working alternative to Prowly in 2026?
Hey Press is not a working alternative to Prowly in 2026 since it no longer operates as standalone software, having merged into JournoFinder, while Prowly remains an active, if now Semrush-owned, platform you can actually subscribe to.
Can I still sign up for Prowly directly without going through Semrush?
Prowly no longer offers direct standalone sign-ups; every new subscription goes through the Semrush AI PR Toolkit, starting at $149/month for the Base plan, so evaluating Prowly today means evaluating it as a Semrush purchase.
What does Prowly's AI-Cited Media Database actually show you?
Prowly's AI-Cited Media Database identifies which media outlets large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity reference when generating answers, letting you prioritize pitching journalists at publications whose coverage is more likely to feed AI-generated responses rather than just rank in Google.
Is Prowly worth $149 a month if I only need a journalist database, not monitoring?
Prowly at $149/month for Base includes the full 600,000-profile database, AI pitch drafting, and email outreach, which covers list-building and sending, but Media Monitoring, the feature that shows whether any of it worked, is locked to the $279/month Pro plan, so the value case gets weaker if tracking results matters to you.
What happened to Hey Press's original journalist search feature?
Hey Press's original journalist search now operates entirely through JournoFinder after the two companies merged, so there is no separate search product left on hey.press, only PR guides and comparison content.
Does Prowly have a free trial I can test before paying $149 or $279 a month?
Prowly offers a 7-day free trial through the Semrush AI PR Toolkit, but outbound email sending is disabled during the trial to protect sender reputation, so you can preview the database and pitch drafting tools without being able to actually test deliverability or response rates before paying.