Hey Press vs Qwoted in 2026: a journalist search tool folded into JournoFinder vs a live source marketplace
Hey Press no longer operates as an independent product; it merged into JournoFinder and hey.press is now a PR content hub. Qwoted is an active two-sided marketplace with a genuine free tier connecting journalists and expert sources.
Hey Press
Qwoted- Hey Press is no longer an independently operating product. It merged into JournoFinder, and the active journalist search tool now lives under that name, not hey.press.
- Qwoted's free tier includes expert database access, daily opportunity emails, and real-time alerts with no credit card required, though pitches are capped at 2 per month.
- Qwoted is a two-sided marketplace: journalists post source requests and PR teams respond, so media professionals are actively sourcing rather than passively receiving cold pitches.
- Hey Press was originally an outbound search tool: find a journalist by topic, then pitch them yourself. Qwoted is closer to inbound, since it surfaces requests journalists have already posted.
- Qwoted offers a white-label option at the Teams tier for agencies presenting the platform under their own brand, something Hey Press has no equivalent of on its own domain.
- Neither tool offers an API. Qwoted confirms it has none on any tier. Hey Press's API status now depends entirely on JournoFinder, since hey.press itself has no live product to integrate with.
- The PR guides still hosted on hey.press, including Muck Rack and Prowly alternative comparisons, remain genuinely useful reading regardless of which tool you end up using.
Hey Press and Qwoted both started with the same basic promise: help founders and small PR teams find media opportunities without paying for an enterprise database. Only one of them still does that as a live product. Hey Press has merged into JournoFinder, and hey.press today functions as a library of PR guides rather than a working tool with its own pricing or feature set. Qwoted, by contrast, is a two-sided marketplace where journalists and podcasters actively post source requests and PR professionals respond, backed by a free tier that includes real database access and daily opportunity emails. If you are choosing between these two names as they exist right now, you are choosing between reading material and a working piece of software.
The tools at a glance
Hey Press
Journalist discovery tool for startups, now part of JournoFinder
Hey Press launched as a lean journalist search tool for startup founders: type in a topic, get a list of journalists who cover it, and start pitching without paying for a Muck Rack-level subscription. It built real traction on that pitch, reportedly used by over 1,000 PR professionals before the product changed shape.
That shape change was a merger into JournoFinder. The hey.press homepage now describes itself as "now part of JournoFinder," and anyone trying to use the live journalist search functionality is routed to JournoFinder's own site and pricing. What remains natively on hey.press is a set of PR guides and comparison articles covering journalist request platforms, Muck Rack alternatives, and how to pitch startup press coverage.
Evaluating Hey Press as software in 2026 does not really work, because there is no pricing page, feature list, or roadmap published under its own name anymore. Anyone weighing it seriously against Qwoted is, in effect, comparing Qwoted to JournoFinder, a separate company whose current feature set is not documented on the hey.press domain at all.
| Feature | See JournoFinder Via JournoFinder |
|---|---|
| Journalist search | Via JournoFinder |
| Contact database | Via JournoFinder |
| PR guides and resources | Free on hey.press |
Qwoted
Expert source marketplace connecting journalists, podcasters, and PR teams with credible voices across every industry
Qwoted runs a two-sided marketplace model: journalists and podcasters post source requests, and brands, agencies, or individual experts respond with pitches. Because media professionals are already in sourcing mode when they see a response, the dynamic is different from cold outbound pitching, where you are guessing whether a journalist even wants to hear from you right now.
The free tier is what makes Qwoted stand out in this category. It includes expert database access, daily opportunity emails, and real-time alerts (with a 2-hour delay versus paid tiers) at no cost, capped at 2 pitches per month. Pro, at $149/month, removes the pitch cap to 35 per month and the alert delay; Teams adds unlimited pitches, a white-label option, and a team administrative dashboard for agencies running multiple client programs.
Qwoted has been operating since 2017 and was built by people with media backgrounds, which shows in details like how source requests are structured and how pitch intelligence surfaces relevant opportunities. The tradeoff is that it has no API or CRM integrations on any tier, so pitch activity stays inside the platform rather than syncing into a broader outreach or reporting stack.
| Feature | Basic Free | Pro $149/month | Teams Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pitches per month | 2 | 35 | Unlimited |
| Real-time alerts | 2-hour delay | No delay | No delay |
| Expert database access | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pitch intelligence | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| White-label | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Team dashboard | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| API access | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Hey Press | Qwoted |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Not published on hey.press | Yes, genuine free tier |
| Pricing published on own domain | No, redirects to JournoFinder | Yes |
| Journalist/source request monitoring | Yes, original core feature, now via JournoFinder | Yes, two-sided marketplace |
| Expert or contact database access | Via JournoFinder | Yes, on all tiers |
| Real-time alerts | No | Yes (delayed on free tier) |
| Pitch intelligence tooling | No | Yes (Pro and Teams) |
| White-label option | No | Yes (Teams only) |
| Team/agency dashboard | No | Yes (Teams only) |
| API access | Depends on JournoFinder | No |
| Actively developed as a standalone product | No, merged into JournoFinder | Yes |
| Starting price | Via JournoFinder | Free |
Which should you choose?
QwotedQwotedQwotedThis is not really a close comparison, and pretending otherwise would not be useful. Qwoted is a live, well-designed marketplace with a genuine free tier and a decade of media-industry experience behind it. Hey Press, as a standalone tool, effectively ended when it merged into JournoFinder; what is left at hey.press is content, not software you can sign up for. The one place Hey Press still earns its keep is as a reading resource, since its comparison guides on Muck Rack alternatives and pitching startups are well-researched. But reading material is not a substitute for a working product, and Qwoted is the working product here.
Bottom line
Start with Qwoted's free tier if you want real source-request alerts and expert database access at zero cost, then weigh Pro or Teams once two pitches a month stops being enough. Do not evaluate Hey Press as software: read its guides if useful, then go straight to JournoFinder if the original journalist-search pitch is what drew you to the Hey Press name in the first place. Neither tool includes an API, so if programmatic access to media data matters more than marketplace features, both fall short of that requirement.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hey Press still a product I can sign up for in 2026?
No, not as an independent product. Hey Press merged into JournoFinder, and hey.press now functions as a content hub for PR guides while the live journalist search tool operates under the JournoFinder name and pricing.
Does Qwoted have a free plan, and what does it actually include?
Yes, Qwoted's Basic tier is free and includes expert database access, daily opportunity emails, and real-time alerts (with a 2-hour delay), capped at 2 pitches per month, no credit card required.
Is Qwoted better than Hey Press for a startup founder doing their own PR?
Qwoted is the only realistic option of the two right now, since Hey Press does not operate as a standalone product anymore. For a startup founder, Qwoted's free tier gives you database access and daily alerts with no cost, which covers the same founder-focused use case Hey Press originally targeted.
What is the difference between Qwoted and JournoFinder, the platform Hey Press merged into?
Qwoted is a two-sided marketplace where journalists post source requests and PR teams respond. JournoFinder is the journalist discovery platform that absorbed Hey Press, and its current feature set and pricing are not documented on hey.press, so it needs to be evaluated separately on JournoFinder's own site.
Does either Qwoted or Hey Press offer an API for pulling data into a CRM?
No. Qwoted confirms it has no API or third-party integrations on any tier. Hey Press has no live product of its own to offer an API for; any integration question would need to be directed to JournoFinder instead.
Can Qwoted replace a traditional journalist contact database?
Not fully. Qwoted works well when a journalist has already posted a source request, but it is not a searchable contact list for proactive cold outreach the way traditional media databases are, which is closer to what the original Hey Press search tool offered before the JournoFinder merger.